Carbs aren`t necessarily the enemy... I aim for about 300g of carbs per day and I am at 10% BF, so clearly carbs don`t just make you fat.
Understanding the different types of carbs (glycemic index - slow digesting (complex) vs. fast digesting (simple) carbs) and when to eat them can make a big difference.
As for dieting, the concept should be simple... the first step is understanding how many calories your body actually needs. Use an online tool to calculate your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE) to help give you a ballpark for your maintenance caloric intake. If you want to gain weight, you need to eat in surplus of your maintenance level. If you want to lose weight, you need to eat in a deficit relative to your maintenance level. That is the basics of dieting... you can eat 5,000 calories of lettuce and still gain weight.
Since the birth of my son I have sort of fallen out of my fitness habits, but I followed a "flexible dieting" mentality where no foods were off limits. I simply set my caloric goals and broke my calorie intake into macro nutrient goals (proteins, fats, and carbs). As long as I stayed within my macro goals and continued to train, I could
technically eat whatever I wanted to. I`m no physical fitness model lol, but I always felt like I was in good shape.
Bottom line is this... do some research and find a fitness program and nutrition program that seems doable for you. If it sounds crazy, and seems like something you would never want to do, then the odds of you sticking to it are pretty low. Whether you`re trying to gain mass or lose body fat, you have to find a program that you won`t get burned out on in 6 weeks. Fitness can be an incredible amount of fun! I need to get back into it myself
Bookmarks