The Concept: ‘Calories in vs Calories out’ - Eat less food (energy) than you burn each day and your body will use body-fat for energy (a.k.a. Calorie Deficit)
The Problem: Most people interpret this as an invitation to train as much as they can and eat as little as possible, with the idea this will lead to faster results
The Reality: The see initial results before their body adapts and metabolism slows down. Their results plataue and they end up gaining weight back faster than they lost it
Sound familiar?
Undereating & Overtraining are the two biggest fat-loss mistakes you can make in our opinion at Physique Performance Specialists. And are exactly what we stand against in the fitness industry.
Why?
Because the results are unsustainable and can lead to long term damage to your metabolism, health & well-being. While also helping to develop an unhealthy relationship with food and other eating disorders such as binge eating.
If your results have plataued in the gym and you feel like you couldn’t possible eat less or train more..
Here’s why this happened:
Reduced Metabolic Rate
Your metabolism regulates how many calories you need to survive and function. This pretty much governs how much food you can (or can’t eat) without gaining weight and how much you should eat to see results.
To lose-body fat we start to eat less than what’s required to function to convince our body to use fat stores for energy. A calorie deficit is required for fat-loss so this process is unavoidable.
However if we get deseperate and eat TOO little - usually in an effort to hasten the process, our body will slow down it’s metabolic rate to try and conserve energy.
Because you are so desperate to see fast results, you’ll then start to train even more and eat even less to create a new deficit - your body will adapt and this cycle will repeat until you can’t even think of a donought without gaining weight.
Look after your metabolism by eating in a slight deficit of -500 calories and aim for a consverative rate of fat-loss each week of 250 - 500g max for sustainable results.
Reduced Performance
You need energy from food to operate at your peak each day.
Similiar to any vehicle, if you aren’t fuelled correctly you run the risk of the fuel light coming on, before you find yourself on the side of the road needing some help.
You will constantly feel lethargic and fatigued throughout the day as your body struggles to find the energy to perform on an empty stomach.
To lose body-fat and keep it off, you need to retain as much muscle as possible during this process. Muscle is retained from a strength/performance focus in the gym.
There’s no possible way you can hit PB’s in the gym and perform at your peak when you are constantly turning up with an empty tank. Slowly but surely your lifts will decrease and so will your muscle-mass, before you stop seeing any results.
When losing body-fat, focus on improving your performance and getting stronger in the gym for the most effective results.
Starving yourself in an effort to get leaner will only have the opposite effect in the long-term. Once your metabolism slows and your muscle-mass reduces, your body-fat will start to increase as your relationshop with food detoriates. Leaving you in a much worse situation than you started.
For more help with your nutrition & body composition, click the button below to learn more about our sustainable approach to body transformations: