There are some key factors that need to be understood before embarking on any fitness goal. Whether that goal is to feel strong, confident, and live a healthier lifestyle or to set state records in powerlifting and bodybuilding, the same governing principles apply. The great thing about all of this is that the concepts are simple. The most challenging is consistency. If you commit to living by these principles for the long haul, you will be on your way to achieving your fitness goals.
The categories I find most important to go over are nutrition & supplementation, mobility & injury prevention, strength training, and cardiovascular training. Throughout this guide you will get examples of how to work these principles into your lifestyle and insure your fitness success.
Today lets go over nutrition, if you like this article make sure you like this page to get more great fitness related content.
Nutrition
It seems like every day you hear some new thing about nutrition and why what you are eating is either bad for you or making you fat. This report is not here to treat any disease or address any food allergy, but it is here to help you understand the steps you need to take to reach your fat loss or muscle gain goals. It all starts with calories.
You may hear that carbs are bad or maybe you can only eat them during certain times of the day. You may still hear people say that fats are bad and you have to restrict the amount of fat you have in your diet. Paleo is pretty popular right now as well which is in essence a just food choice restrictive diet. Whether it is low carb, low fat, ketogenic, or Atkins, the common factor in all of these diets is that you are restricting the types of foods you can eat so you are also restricting the amount calories you are eating. The first thing you have to do is get a handle on your calorie consumption and figure out how much you are eating. If you want to gain weight, eat more, if you want to lose weight, eat less. Start there and get more specific over time. Gaining control of you calorie consumption is more than 60{885586236f5820200058e61f9e2fcec1023d525f8b1a6e4e5a4fd7f3c0d65acb} of the battle; the rest is icing on the cake. Many of my clients will use the myfitnesspal app to track calories.
Restricting the types of food you eat is not fun and quite frankly not sustainable. Are you really never going to eat bread again? Never going to drink a beer? When you track your calories you can eat what you want as long as you stay within your calorie budget. This is the beauty of tracking your intake.
To understand this concept a little better here is a video to help you out.
General rules to follow:
● Calorie budget (If you are not losing weight cut calories or add exercise)
● High protein (women .8g per pound of body weight, men 1g per pound)
● High fiber -15g of fiber per 1000 calories consumed
● Carbohydrates vary depending on activity level (more active, more carbs)
● Fats will make up 20{885586236f5820200058e61f9e2fcec1023d525f8b1a6e4e5a4fd7f3c0d65acb}-40{885586236f5820200058e61f9e2fcec1023d525f8b1a6e4e5a4fd7f3c0d65acb} of your calories depending on gender and activity level (women and less active people in the high end, men and more active people on the low end)
