Have you been dieting for months on end and haven’t been able to see the results that you’ve hoped for. You know you’re not expecting the world of yourself, but after dieting for 10-12 months and seeing zero results you’d begin to question why the hell nothing is changing the way that you wanted it to.
Do you want the truth to that answer and a more informed understanding as to WHY those changes haven’t happened even after a long period of dieting?
The truth is that you have not been dieting for the period of time that you’ve assumed.
Dieting for long periods of time tends to leave people with a false sense of understanding with what they are doing with their calories. I meet many people that complain about not getting the results that they wanted, and the truth is, when we delve deeper in getting exact facts and numbers of calories, they haven’t been in a calorie deficit for the months that they have assumed they have been. That’s why they haven’t lost any weight/fat!
I was reading an article by Mark Caroll and it gave me a lot of inspiration to put this article together for you all to read because he hits the nail on the head when he says that many people go through a bad cycle of ‘diet, binge, diet, binge’. It’s very unhealthy and can leave you feeling like absolute crap.
Most people start out their diets by being very restrictive and very low in calories as a means to lose weight and they do. After doing this for a couple of weeks, they realise how hard it is, give up, binge eat, eat a high amount of calories, put themselves in a calorie surplus, and then put all the weight back on.
I see it all the time and I just want to grab these people and shake the silly thinking out of them. I’ve tried that and it didn’t go to well for me…
I’ve been a Personal Trainer for many years. I’ve worked with many people for many years and what I’ve found to work is this:
1. Don’t live in a calorie deficit – people who do this end up either giving up, like mentioned before, or find that their fat loss comes to a plateau.
2. Spend short periods of time in a calorie deficit - examples include, four, six, eight, ten or twelve week periods. The amount of time spent in a deficit is dependent on the amount of body fat the individual has. The leaner they are the more frequently they need to come out of a calorie deficit.
3. Track everything you drink and eat! – many times people don’t track coffee or random snacks in their day. These ADD calories to your total daily calorie consumption so be aware of everything that you’re consuming in your day.
You want to spend time in a calorie deficit to ensure that you lose the weight/fat that you want. Once we have been in a calorie deficit for the amount of time we have planned, we get out of that deficit and go to a maintenance amount of calories (otherwise known as baseline calories) for anywhere between 3-10 days. This also depends on the body fat % of the individual.
We then go back into a calorie deficit and continue to lose more weight/fat. This is how simple it needs to be (and it works!). My younger brother, Alex Kassis, is a men’s physique athlete and followed the same principles. Why? Because it works!
One thing I want to stress is that whilst you’re at a maintenance amount of calories, you’re doing exactly that, MAINTAINING. You are NOT required to go into a calorie surplus. That will destroy the fat loss goal you've just achieved through your previous calorie deficit.
I hope you’ve enjoyed the read.
Yours in health,
Coach Anthony Kassis