When it comes to losing weight the key here is a lower amount of calories going in than the amount of calories you burn.
Sounds simple right? Chances are you’ve attempted this and it’s still not working? The reason? You’ve probably overestimated how much you’re moving and underestimated how much you’re eating. “But I really don’t eat that much!”. Unfortunately you don’t have too. “Eating clean” Monday-Friday is the classic category a lot of people fall into and then the weekend happens.
Truth is, your efforts of eating better in the week can EASILY be undone by a weekend of eating even if the volume isn’t huge. Those treats on the weekend are a lot more calorie dense which means you don’t need to eat a lot to consume more calories than you usually would with those clean meals and snacks! Tipping the balance is easier than you think!
Here are 3 things you can do to make sure you’re no longer guessing or assuming you’re not over-eating.
- Use a TDEE calculator to do some quick math to work out how many calories your body burns per day. For fat loss just subtract 10-15% from this number. No more and no less! (We’ll talk more about why another time!).
- Use MyFitnessPal or similar food tracking app to log your meals and snacks. This will give you a much better idea of how many calories you’re getting through on a daily/weekly basis.
Decide what calories suit your lifestyle.
- Next let’s look at the examples used above and see how different people can use the same amount of calories in different ways to achieve their fat loss targets...Remember, each persons WEEKLY total is 12,600 so let’s see how this works...
First up is Betty! So Betty has a very consistent routine that allows her to eat the same amount of calories (1800 per day). She’s not a big drinker but even when she does reach for a glass of wine, she can comfortably fit that into her daily allowance of calories. Some of her friends call her boring & maybe she is but Betty is smart and consistently drops body fat unlike some of her more “fun” friends.
Louise is also on the same amount of weekly calories (12,600). However, to help keep her on track, Louise prefers to have a few higher calorie days (2,100) throughout the week where she can fit in some treats at the cinema or share a takeaway with friends on “Ladies Night Wednesdays”. To balance that out, she’s reduced her remaining days down to 1,575 to still hit her weekly fat loss calories of 12,600. Louise is smart AF.
Last but not least, meet Jess. Unlike Betty, Jess LOVES a party so saves her high calorie days for the weekend. She allows herself 2,800 calories for Saturday & the same amount for Sunday because she’s usually hungover as shit and needs that greasy burger to save her life. Thing is though, Jess recognises she’s eaten (and drank) a lot on the weekend but is intelligent enough to know she simply reduces her calories down to 1,400 per day Monday-Friday. Yep, your calculations are right, that’s still 12,600 calories for the week. Jess gets drunk and STILL loses weight without any need for dumb ass juice diets and bullshit fat burners endorsed from someone off a crap reality TV show.
Whether you’re like Betty, Louise or Jess, the most important thing to do is pick an approach that best suits YOU. Need any extra help along the way to keep you accountable? I’d love to help you out.
Drop us an email; info@transformationfitness.co.uk & let’s get you started!
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