Taking the lead from yesterday’s post, today I will further drill down the concepts of calorie surplus and calorie deficit in reaching your desired goal of muscle gain, maintenance or fat loss.
1. There is a common misconception that fat loss simply requires going into calorie deficit by eating less without considering by ‘HOW MUCH less’. This misconception leads people to believing that the less they eat the faster they will drop fat. This is totally INCORRECT.
Why is this wrong?
When you eat too little your body will be driven into what is known as ‘starvation’ mode. In this scenario, rather than burning food for energy, your body will transfer that food to your fat stores so as to compensate for ‘starvation’.
This could well be the reason why your fat loss plateaus/stalls even though you keep decreasing your calories. To add insult to injury, as soon as you return back to normal calorie consumption following a period of ‘starvation’ or the so-called ‘crash diet’, there is a high risk that your body weight will shoot back up to where it was when you originally started.
2. On the other end of the spectrum we have to similarly apply a limit to the extent of a calorie surplus. Eating too much will result in fat increases, as the body stores any food above what you really require in terms of energy, as body fat.
So how can you determine your required daily calorie consumption?
The formulas on the graphic above are a general guideline of what you should be consuming on a daily basis when aiming for gaining muscle on a calorie surplus, maintaining your current shape on maintenance calories or losing fat on a calorie deficit.
As in everything, the devil is in the detail and here is where our services come in handy as we accurately lay out your individual calorie split between protein, carbs and fats in different meals depending on your specific goals and weekly routine.
If this detail appeals to you you can find further info by clicking here.
To fitness with love,
Andrew
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