5 Steps To A More Effective Diet

In my previous post, I highlighted why ‘calories in vs. calories out’ is not an effective way to approach dieting. But that’s not enough, is it? Many of you might still be thinking - “who cares, as long as I still lose the weight, whats the difference?”

The difference is an end result of ‘skinny fat’ versus ‘skinny fit’.

Thanks to the lovely Nella, I notice that I’ve picked up a lot of new female followers, so for the purpose of this example, I’ll structure my content to suit typical aim of many of my female friends - weight loss.

Everyone knows the idea behind dieting in a MEANINGFUL way is to lose weight.

Incorrect!

We need to define the word ’weight’. Specifically, healthy dieting involves maximising the loss of body-fat (unhealthy tissue) and minimising, if not building, muscle loss (healthy tissue). A lot of girls hear the word ‘muscle’ and sirens start to sound - “but I don’t want to look manly”, they say. Fear not, your hormones (specifically estrogen), among other things, won’t ever permit you to naturally accrue enough muscle to look manly. In fact, one great reason to start lifting weights today is that muscle burns fat. The more muscle you have the higher your resting metabolic rate will be (the more calories you’ll burn just sitting on your bum).

When structuring a new diet plan, you need to consider how you’re going to eat and exercise in a way that will burn the most fat while minimising muscle loss. By avoiding weights and just chasing numbers on a scale, you’re only putting yourself at a disadvantage with regard to the true amount of progress you can make with your body. I’ll be covering the specifics in later posts because they’re too lengthy to do justice in a single post. But, in the mean time, here’s 5 Simple Steps to Optimizing Your Diet For Better Body Composition -

1. Flip the Food Pyramid (fewer carbs, more healthy fats).
2. Stay hydrated (2.2L for women & 3L for men is a starting point).
3. Start Squatting (weight training will help you keep your hard earned muscle).
4. Eat more meat (aim for 0.8 - 1.5g of protein per pound of body-weight).
5. Eat clean whole foods not processed ones (all calories aren’t created equal).