So the first thing to know here is that 80% of losing fat or building muscle happens in the kitchen. You need to be discipline and go into this part of the program committed to putting healthy foods into your body so that the body can use every nutrient to your benefit! Lets talk about caloric intake real quick, a pound of fat is equal to 3500 calories, and in order to lose body fat you must burn more calories than you consume. If you were to burn 2500 calories per day and consume 2000 calories of food each day you could expect to lose about a pound of body fat per week. It is within a healthy limit for you to burn 1000 calories more then you eat a day to be able to lose about 2 pounds per week at a healthy rate. Now you may lose more weight according to the scale, but you’ll be losing water weight as well. There are few more factors that go into how we set up our meal plan and we’ll go into that in just a moment, but we start with calories because the only way to lose anything is with calorie deficit. Take a look at this photo, this is a comparison of what 5 pounds of fat looks like compared to 5 pounds of muscle.
The reason it is so important for me to show you this photo is that in your first month you may not see a huge difference in weight when standing on a scale, the reason being you will be creating more muscle, so the scale may actually show that you weight a couple of pounds more then you did, but please DO NOT get discouraged, in that same amount of time you should notice your close are fitting better and you’re will absolutely be feeling healthier. It will take the body a little bit of time to adjust to your new healthy lifestyle, so give it the time it deserves. I often times tell my clients not to step on a scale for the first 30 days, this is to avoid any discouragement , our society has become completely obsessed with what the scale says, and I’m telling you now that the scale does not matter for the 1st six weeks. Also remember this when thinking nutrition; what we’re trying to do is speed up our metabolism, and nothing does that better than muscle, and muscle uses fat for it’s energy source, so that more muscle we build, that faster our metabolism works, in turn helping us burn more calories. Muscle is the name of the game! So lets talk about Protein, Carbohydrates and Fat. All three play a very important role in having a balanced diet and all play a role in either helping to burn body fat, or build muscle. Have you ever tried or know someone who has tried a low carb diet, lost a lot of weight and then within a very short amount of time gained twice as much weight back? The reason is, the body is very smart and it needs carbohydrates for proper brain function as well as for some organs to work properly. So what happens is, you starve your body of carbs , you lose a lot of weight, but when you’re done with that diet and start to eat carbs again the body says; “I don’t know if you’re ever going to give me carbs again, so I’m taking these, I’m turning them into FAT and storing them on your sides where you don’t want them and where you will never be able to get them again haha” Seriously, this is the body doing what’s best for the survival of the body , it has gone into survival mode stored all those carbs and now you or the person you know has gained back twice as much weight. I tell you this so you understand why it’s important to have balance in the diet. Fat is the same thing, just because something says fat free doesn’t mean it’s good for you, or that’s it’s not going to affect your health. The body needs good fats for proper function of organs, but also by eating good fats, you’re ensuring the body knows how to process and metabolize good fats, when the body has digested all of the fats you’ve consumed it is still in the mode of looking for fat to process and it starts to use body fat that has been stored as it’s source for energy when you’re in a low intensity cardio state. Now that you know how many calories you consume has a direct effect on you hitting your target goals and that fat, carbs and proteins must be consumed within a balanced plan, let’s talk about how much of each. If your goal is to lose body fat you will want to have a deficit of 500 to 1000 calories per day, if you’re trying to gain weight you will want to consume 500 to 1500 more calories per then you burn. The average person will burn 2000 calories per day, just living life, so let’s use that as our baseline. You burn 2000 calories plus whatever you burn in the gym, call it another 500 for this example; so you’re assuming 2500 calories being burned per day. From there you will determine how many calories you need to consume to hit your goal.
You were able to see from the BMI chart above what your target weight should be, so using that number and the below equation, lets see what your ratios should be for losing weight or gaining muscle. What is your current body weight? __________ What is your Target body weight? __________ How many calories do you burn per day? __________ To lose weight how many calories will you eat a day? __________ How fast you want to lose body fat is up to you, so if you want to lose 2 pounds per week, you will need to consume 1000 less calories per day then you burn. We will NEVER want to go less than 1200 calories per day, the body needs at least 1200 to ensure that the metabolism is going at 100% all day long. So next let’s figure how much protein, carbs and fat. TO LOSE BODY FAT (Rule of Thumb, but can be adjusted) – 1 Gram of Carbohydrates Per Body Pound ( So a 130 pound person will have 130 grams) – 1.25 Grams of Protein Per Body Pound – .25 Grams of Fat Per Body Pound TO GAIN MUSCLE – 1.5 Grams of Carbs Per Body Pound – 1.5 to 2.0 Grams of Protein Per Body Pound – .25 Grams of Fat Per Body Pound These are the basic fundamentals you’ll need to keep yourself on track to get to your desired goal. . Everyone is different and everyone likes to eat different things, so instead of giving you a meal plan to follow, I’ve giving you the guidelines of how to set up your meal plan, and I’ve listed several very healthy foods that you can incorporate in your plan. I’ve also included a sample plan for losing body fat so that you can see how they may be set up. I’ve also included one Meal Replacement Protein Shake on each of the plans and you’ll notice my recommended choice is Shaklee 180, which has the perfect ration of carbs, protein and fat and is also packed with Leucine which is an amino acid which signals the body to burn body fat, but not muscle which is exactly what we’re trying to do. The other reason I always recommend Shaklee product is because I can trust what they’re putting in their product which is no artificial flavors, colors, sweeteners or anything that could be harmful to the body. By getting the Embrace Change Guide you’ve been added to my newsletter email list in which you’ll be receiving very helpful information about how to read labels, what foods to look out for as well as information on what supplements are right for you.
