Hi. I’ve seen quite some posts about fitness lately, success stories, how to lose weight, etc. And I noticed there’s a lot of people who want to make a “transformation”, and that’s what this blog is a about. I took a little bit of my time to share my experience and knowledge with you.
I won’t tell you how important it is to be healthy, I’m not your daddy, so if you’re not interested don’t even bother to read, since this is quite long (although I tried my best to cover only the most important points).
This is just information for those who want to improve their physique and live a healthier life overall.
First of all. It requires patience and dedication. This is not something that’s not going to happen overnight. Your desired results might be years away, but don’t give up. Think like if you had made the decision to change 2 years ago, and how happy you would be now. And although results take time, you will seen changes in a matter of weeks, which I hope it will motivate you to keep going.
Let’s get started:
Calories
As you might have heard out there, 80% diet and 20% gym. Although making
percentages is pretty useless and inaccurate. Nutrition is very important. It’s important
to track and understand calories. A calorie is just a unit of energy (just like joules). The food
we eat contains calories (energy). Our body needs energy to function, to brush your teeth,
take a walk, etc. Each of us have certain energy requirements, which is how many calories
your body needs each day. If you eat more, you gain weight, if you eat less, you lose weight.
Nutrition
TDEE
Now what you need to do is to discover how much calories your body needs,
your maintenance calories (TDEE – total daily energy expenditure).There’s 2 ways
to do it, calculate it yourself (http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=121703981)
or find it thought a calculator (way easier) – http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm
This is not 100% accurate, but it doesn’t need to be. I’ll explain it later.
Fill out the form, age, gender, weight (your weight will determine most of your
TDEE, so if you are not sure how much you weight, weight yourself now or do this
test only for experimental purposes), height and exercise level. On the exercise
level put the number of days you work out per week (do not choose “intense unless
you are a competitive powerlifter or something). On the advanced options, if you know
your body fat, choose the katch mccardle formula, but I guess most of you don’t, so c
hoose the last one, the harris-benedict. Click calculate.Now you have your maintenance
calories (ignore the fat loss and extreme
fat loss). This is your starting point.
Goals
Now you have to think about your body. Are you fat or are you skinny? If you’re fat,you want to lose weight (body fat), which is called a cut. If you a skinny, you want to gain weight (muscle mass), which is called a bulk. Now, if you’re skinny-fat (like I was), which is a skinny body overall but with a lot of fat on the belly, you can go either way. Biologically, the best is to bulk, build your foundation first. But in terms of motivation, a cut is better, since you will get rid of that belly and see your six pack abs. That will drive you crazy, trust me lol. So it’s really up to you.
Cut
The basics
So, you want to cut, lose weight, lose body fat. To achieve it, what you need to do is consume less calories than your body consumes in a day. Consume less than your TDEE that we talked earlier. When you consume less than your body needs, your body is lacking of energy, and it must get it from somewhere. That somewhere is fat. That’s what fat is, stored energy. It’s a survival mechanism, your body is not stupid, if you consume more than you need, your body saves it, for the times that you have less than you need. By consuming less than your maintenance calories, your body will literally burn fat to make your fat stores to make energy for your daily life. You should aim for a 10% to 20% percent decrease on your daily caloric consumption.
Quantity
Quantity is very important:
If you don’t eat less than your TDEE – you don’t lose weight.
If you eat way too less than your TDEE – you will lose weight, but it will be fat and muscle (which is VERY BAD, you always want to preserve or add muscle mass).
If you eat very less – you won’t lose weight, you body will go in survival mode, your metabolism will slow down dramatically and store everything it becomes in fat. This happens where you work with numbers around your BMR (basal metabolic rate), which is the amount of calories you need to consume to maintain your body if you were comatose (in coma, unconscious).
The ideal is to lose about 0.5-1.5kg per week. If you are losing more than that, increase your calories, if you are losing less than that, cut on your calories.
Frequency and timming
Meal frequency and timming don’t matter. As long as you get everything you need into your body, you are good to go.
Macros
Now you have the amount of calories that you need. If you eat that amount every day, you will lose weight. Now we have to go into macros. “Macro” is short for “macro nutrient” and in bodybuilding it means one of three nutritional pigeonholes: protein, carbohydrate and fat. Fiber is technically considered a macro nutrient, but this is something we should focus on getting enough of each day, rather than meticulously tracking it.
In the old days it was calculated by percentages of your caloric intake. But we are going to calculate by your weight.
Calculating your protein needs: 1g per lb of body weight (1kg=2.2lbs)
Calculating fat: 0.25 per lb of body weight
Calculating carbs: Carbs are a little bit more tricky, but it’s still simple. For the carbs we want to fill up the rest of your calories. So first we need to know how much calories we have already, from protein and fat. 1g of protein is 4 cal, so multiple the protein by 4. 1g of fat is 9 cal, so multiple the fat by 9. Add both and you’ll have the calories you’re getting your protein and fat. Now all you need to do is subtract that number to the original caloric intake you have for your fat loss. And there you have it, now you know how much calories your have to eat per day, how many grams of protein, carbs and fat.
How to count cal’s and macros
It’s pretty easy. Just see the nutritional label of what your eating and see how much your eating.
Then it’s simple math. If you’re eating something that doesn’t have a nutritional label (like vegetables), just search on google.
Food type
Now, I’m sure you’ll all ask what foods you should eat. It really doesn’t matter. Just don’t eat processed foods, cut sugar and salt, hit your caloric and macros needs, and you have everything to have the results you want. For protein you can eat meat, fish, eggs, beans etc. For carbs you can eat potatoes (sweet potatoes are preferable), rice (brown rice is preferable) etc. And for fats: fish, nuts, etc. Also make sure to eat a lot of vegetables to get your vitamins and minerals in check.
Cardio
Cardiovascular exercise is simply exercise that elevates your heartrate for an extended period of time. It must elevates your heart rate to 50%-85% of your maximum and keep it there for at about 20 minutes (to calculate your maximum just subtract 200 – your age).
Cardio is very beneficial to health, it improves heart health, increases metabolism, improves your hormonal function etc. But cardio is not necessary to lose weight. Like I already explained, if you are in a caloric deficit, you will lose weight. What cardio does is burns calories, it puts you in a even further deficit.
Gym
Get into a gym.
“I can’t afford it”. Yes, you can afford it. It’s all about priorities. The good thing of world crisis is that everything is cheaper. Contact some gyms in your area and ask for the packages. Always try to get a good deal, most gyms actually negotiate with customers, so try your best for a good price.
“I’m insecure.” Don’t worry about it. This is rude, but it’s true: no one gives a shit about you, no one will be looking at you, every one is doing it’s thing.
“I don’t know what to do.” Internet is your friend, plus, gyms have trainers, you can ask them for advice and how to get started.
Weight-lifting
This is where most newbies will screw up. Don’t over-think it. Just fucking do something. Just don’t free style at the gym (doing random stuff). Choose a program that is it’s known to work. Don’t choose a random program that you saw on a ad or something like that (“SUPER EXTREME FATLOSS MUSCLE BUILIDING 69 – GET RIPPED IN 2 WEEKS”). I garantee you it’s bullshit, there’s no magic, it takes hard work and patience. Choose something simple and effective. Compound movements is a MUST, the most common mistake is to make isolation exercises (bicep curls, tricep push downs, leg press etc), intend, work with compound movements: squats, bench press, deadlift, barbell rows, overhead press, pulls ups, etc. A good beginner program is 5×5. It’s free and simple. It’s 3 days a week and it’s very low volume so you won’t be spending too much time at the gym. To download it go to stronglifts.com
Supplements
Supplements are useful for experienced guys. Don’t waste your money. If you want to buy something, buy a multivitamin, and if you don’t have a lot of fish in your diet, buy some fish oils. You can also drink a cup of coffee before each workout. If you are having trouble getting your daily protein needs, you can also buy a protein powder (buy the cheapest one). Ignore everything else.
IMPORTANT NOTES:
– When you are new to training you can do what is called body composition, you will basically lose fat and gain muscle at the same time. But this only happens during a few months and I still recommend choosing a main path (bulk/cut).
– If you are under 16, don’t cut UNLESS you are obese. It can mess up your hormones (permanently) and prevent you to reach your full potential in height. Like I said, obese people are an exception, since those “side effects” are still better then dying at 40 with a fucking heart attack.
– Get enough sleep, at least 7h per day.
Few tips:
– Get a workout partner – Personally, I never had one, all my friends are lazy as fuck, but it’s a huge help, it will motivate you and make sure you stick with it.
– Drink shitloads of water – Water cleans up your system and keeps you hydrated (captain obvious here). Drink from about 2L to 5L, depending on your weight and how much exercise your doing. Don’t drink too much tho, as it clears the bad toxins in your body, if you drink too much it can flush the minerals and vitamins.
– Track your progress, weight yourself everyday (after waking up, after going to the bathroom and before eating anything)
– Take photos of yourself so you can compare it in the future
Depending on the feedback of this blog, I might make another one for bulking (it’s not that much different tho)
Thanks for reading.
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