You’re reading this article because you want to see some serious changes and you’re fed up with your failures. You’re training hard every day but not able to see any changes.
Change comes when your nutrition supports your goals. Nutrition holds a huge command on your body composition no matter what your goals are. Your diet intake will decide whether you will gain muscle or lose fat.
So let’s get into the points:
1. Basics
A calorie is the unit measurement of energy. Calories come from foods and beverages. All foods and beverages (except water) have calories. There are no free calorie foods. Period.
Alcohol also provides us with energy.
Macronutrient basics:
1g of protein= 4kcal
1g of carbs= 4kcal
1g of fats= 9kcal
1g of alcohol= 7kcal
Your total intake comes from above macronutrients (except alcohol as it has no health benefits) and the total calorie intake decides your body composition.
The most important macronutrient is protein has it helps us to build, maintain, preserve muscle and has other several amazing benefits. Once your intake is fixed from protein (1g/lb of bodyweight) then you can choose your rest of calories from carbs and fats.
Now, how much you should eat fats? I would suggest 15-25% from total calories. Remaining calories from carbs.
2. Food Variety
As always I say, there are no good or bad foods. There are no magical foods.
“A carb from ice cream is the same as a carb from rice”.
Above statement clearly states that you can eat anything and get a good physique. Yes, you got me right. Eat a burger and get shredded. But how much flexible should you be?
Well, your body needs micronutrients too, which falls after energy balance and macronutrients. You can eat junk food but not in every meal if done then you will face issues like constipation, vitamin deficiencies, etc.
80% of foods should come from nutrient-dense sources aka #cleanfood like grains, lean meats, eggs, etc, remaining 20% can be from your cookies, burgers, etc. This also gives you some room to enjoy food outside your family, friends, etc.
Going ‘too flexible’ can also harm you. Binge eating can come up with your favourite food. So it’s better to restrict and have some control.
3. Measure food uncooked
To measure food you just need a kitchen scale. Must be wondering, why you need to measure your food? Well to know the approx nutrition facts of any food (macros, fibre, calories) you need to measure. Nutrition facts of food remain the same after cooking.
Do you need to measure your food forever to look good?
Also Read: How To Make Your Diet Chart Like An Expert?
Well no. But if you’re a beginner and starting your journey, then you should learn, by practice, you will be able to easily judge your intake without measuring in future.
4. Look For Nutrition label
Almost all packed foods have a nutrition label. It helps you to calculate its calories and gives you an idea regarding its consumption.
5. Download a calorie counter app
Tracking your calories and macros through an app can be helpful. This will give you an idea of how many calories and macros are there in each meal. Macros and calories of food products in an app can be misleading so I suggest you put in your foods manually and track.
With great effort, results come.
Yashovardhan Singh is a fitness coach with GetSetGo Fitness and a former national football player. He likes to keep a no-nonsense approach to fitness by applying scientific literature to provide results to his clients. Reach him at yashovardhan@getsetgo.fitness for coaching and follow him on Instagram and Facebook.