The Faux-pas are in full swing now, with the first two being fairly easily avoided. As we work our way through all 10 you will find that each one of them is controlled by YOU, it’s up to you to be vigilant and avoid the problems that have claimed many a fat loss goal.
Fat Loss Faux-pas #3 – Not Eating Enough
This might seem counterintuitive, but losing body fat requires you to keep eating otherwise you will find your metabolism slowing, along with your fat loss progress.
When people start on new ‘diets’ they will cut out a lot of foods from their normal eating regime, while they will certainly get a quick drop in weight, they will also get a sharp drop in metabolism too. If you think that starving yourself if the best way to lose weight then I’m afraid I have some bad news for you; it isn’t.
Reducing caloric intake to 1000 calories or under can lead to muscle atrophy (muscle wastage), while some might revel at the idea as they don’t want to be ‘too bulky’ – it infuriates me when people say that – the result will be that their body is more likely to store fat despite their best efforts to shift it.
For a rough guide to how many calories you need to eat per day multiply your weight in lbs by 11-13, this will give you a good range to be in to help you lose fat. You will also need you required protein and fat intakes which can be found by multiplying your weight in lbs by 0.8 for your required protein in grams, and 0.4 for your required fat in grams.
Once you have your protein and fat requirements multiply your protein dreams by 4 and your fat grams by 9 to get the calories required for both, add those together and subtract their combined total from your required daily calories, this will leave you with your calories needed from carbs. With that number divide it by 4 and you will have your required grams of carbohydrates per day (around 10-15% of that number will need to be fibre).
E.G
175Lb x11 = 1925calories
175.x0.8 = 140g x4 =560calories
175 x0.4 =70g x9 =630calories
1925 – 560 – 630 = 735calories /4 = 184g Carbs (27g fibre)
In short you want to amen sure you’re feeling your body, starving yourself will only lead to problems.
Enjoy
Ross
RossFit P.T 