Nutrition- Should You Care?
I haven’t written about nutrition lately but we are nearing the end of the year which means people are thinking about that New Year’s resolution which means people will be searching for the latest and greatest diet.
I always hope there will be a time when we are no longer doing this but I have been doing this for over 20 years and here we are, still talking about it. The worst part is as a society we are worse off than 20-30 years ago. Do you find that as mind blowing as me that with all the new research and innovations on health, we are in worse shape than ever? It blows my mind.
Here is a simple truth that no one wants to hear, if you are overweight you move too little and eat too much, period. We can talk about fancy workouts, macros, supplements, etc. but until you deal with that fact nothing will change. If you have gained weight over the last few years it didn’t happen by eating too little so, please stop.
I will say that nutrition for health or fat loss are very different but simple. When you clear away all the BS eating for health means eating real food, cutting out processed garbage, and not overeating for your activity level.
For fat loss, all of the above applies but I focus on 2 main things:
- Protein
- Total calories
There is more to it than that but if you can get the above 2 points dialed in the rest is easy to fill in. Yes, we focus on fats and carbs as well but if you don’t get total calories and protein right it is just that much harder to hit your fat loss goal.
Is everyone different? Absolutely and I account for that for anyone who I work with on fat loss. But why protein? Simple, muscle. You should be trying to put on as much muscle as possible because that is your fat burning machinery and the more of it you have the more fat you burn. And when I say put on muscle and someone says I don’t want to get big like a bodybuilder they need to understand that that is an absolute insult to the bodybuilder because it took them years of dedication to get there and you would most likely not even put on a quarter of the muscle they carry.
What would happen if you put on 5 pounds of muscle and lost 5 pounds of fat? Would you be muscle bound and bulky? Of course not, you would be the same weight you started at but look 10 times better and smaller. Why? Because fat takes up way more space than muscle. That is enough of my rant on muscle but if you are afraid of getting strong and putting on lean muscle you are doomed to being fat and weak.The bottom line is if you want to lose fat, find out where your calories should be and make sure you are eating enough protein. Don’t overcomplicate it and the rest will take care of it
