I will be attempting to write a course about the simplest way to get fit or at least the optimal way without sacrificing too much sanity.
The way I see it, there are four main components to getting fit:
- N.E.A.T - The amount of energy that you burn from your daily life. This expenditure can be best increased by increasing your steps.
- Resistance Training- Resistance training means to apply some form of load to your muscles and to increase a variable of load or volume over time to create a hypertrophic response in the muscles.
- Sleep - sleep is one of the most important aspects to both muscle building and weight loss. Without sleep, it’s difficult to go to the gym and perform well enough to build muscle - it’s also hard for your muscles to recover without sleep. Your body is more resistant to weight loss when it has not had enough sleep and most fat loss occurs during sleep. Sleep contributes to a large amount of calorie expenditure. It is ideal for most adults to get between 7-8 hours of sleep.
- Dieting - Dieting is required to transform the body. It is the main driving force and should be the top priority with sleep over the other two components.
By manipulating the above three components, body transformations can occur depending on what the goal is. My experience and research has been mainly for bodybuilding, as such it will be to that end that this writing is oriented. Bodybuilding has the goal of developing skeletal muscular tissue and for achieving great “aesthetics”.
Dieting
There are many ways to go about dieting and there is a lot of misinformation out there - there is also still much discourse on the best methods for weight loss and weight gain. One thing that is agreed on is that weight loss is the result of having the daily caloric expenditure (how much you burn) be less than the caloric intake (how much you eat). The best way to achieve this can depend on the individual’s preferences. But, I recommend to start that everyone should try counting their calories using a calorie tracker apps.
We are very bad at estimating calories. This is because two similar sized servings of food, even ones that are considered healthy, can be vastly different in their calories. I think that tracking calories, even for a week can be enlightening in seeing how many calories are in one’s typical eating habits. There are many calorie trackers to choose from, here are some I recommend:
- Myfitnesspal - this is the most recommended calorie tracker and it’s a good option especially if someone’s only planning on tracking for a short period. The app’s free tier is enough for most people. The app allows you to scan the barcode of foods to quickly add them.
- Macrofactor - this is the app that I use. It was designed by exercise and nutritionist scientists. I like this app over Myfitnesspal because of the data it gives you. It has weight trend graphs and can automatically adjust calories for you depending on your goal and weight change.
- Macro - This is an android completely free alternative to Myfitnesspal. It’s really simple but is feature rich.
When tracking calories, it’s important to weigh your foods. There is no point in tracking the calories if your estimating your serving size. It is integral to the process for accuracy. I mistakenly didn’t measure food for years and all my calorie tracking was essentially an estimate. It wasn’t effective at all. I couldn’t understand why I wasn’t seeing the weight loss I wanted and that was the reason.
I think the best way to get your goals is to track calories. This will guarantee success. Even if you only track 5 days a week, this will be a big change. I only track 5 days a week and then try to eat healthy on the weekend but I still go out to restaurants and bars.
Eating healthy without tracking calories
If you don’t want to track calories, which not everyone does, another option is to eat healthy and have portion control. To eat healthy, it’s best to stick to foods that don’t have any ingredients - they are ingredients. For example, vegetables and meat don’t contain ingredients, they are the ingredients. When selecting a meal when eating healthy, a good rule of thumb is to follow this formula:
- include some form of protein.[^2]
- Some form of vegetables of your choice (ideally including some with of greens or reds).
- If more calories are needed, a carb source of your choice (i.e rice, potatos, pasta).
Season the meat for variety or use a low calorie sauce. Eating in this way will still require some control on portion size. If can increase or reduce depending on your goal; so, just be aware of how much you’re eating and it can be adjusted.
Weight loss tracking
In order to lose weight, the calorie intake needs to be less than the caloric expenditure. Roughly 7,000 calories is equivalent to 1kg of weight. When losing weight, some of it will inevitably be muscle and some if it will be fat.
Muscle loss should be reduced as much as possible. This is because losing muscle decreases how many calories are burned each day. It also reduces aesthetics. Someone can look like they have a lot of fat at a low body weight if they don’t have a lot of muscle. To reduce muscle loss during a fat loss process, one should include resistance training and should ensure that the calorie deficit is not too great. The greater a calorie deficit the more likely the ratio of muscle loss to fat loss will increase.
To know how much calories to eat under, a daily caloric expenditure calculator should be used.1 This will be used as an estimate in the beginning. You should aim to eat ~200 calories under your current maintenance calories. Protein should always be at least 1.2 times your body weight or your height in centimeters - whichever is lower.
The calories should be adjusted depending on your weight change. Weight measuring should be done each week, ideally more than once a week to obtain an average, and it should be done in the morning without any clothes on after using the bathroom. If there is no weight change over two weeks, then calories should be reduced by another 150. Calories should never be reduced below 1800 calories.
A weight loss phase should not last longer than 14 weeks. This is because the body becomes more and more acclimatized to the lack of calories and starts to retain. There is also negative side effects from going longer than this, fatigue for example. Once the 14 weeks are up and if you still want to lose more weight, then have a re-feed week. This means eating at your maintenance calories for a month to allow your body to fix itself. Then start dropping them again 150 at a time.
Weight gain for muscle
While some muscle can be gained during a caloric deficit, it is limited. There is only so much muscle the body is willing to put on when it isn’t being fed enough.
Sleep
Sleep is where the most muscle growth happens and is also where many calories are burned. To get a good amount of sleep it’s best to have a sleep schedule. Try to go to bed at the same time each night and have a bedtime routine. A good practice is to do an activity that is away from screens at least an hour before bed. I like to read before bed and go to bed at 9pm each night.
Resistance training
Resistance training is typically done in commercial gyms. In order to resistance train successfully, these need to be in place:
- Training to or close to failure - studies show that muscle growth occurs best when one trains close to failure.
- Progressive overload - to gain muscle, the muscle needs to be continuously challenged. The muscle adapts to stimulus and
- Consistency - this is by far the most important factor in muscle growth training. There is no point in going to the gym once every two weeks. It’s best to set a gym attendance goal that is attainable whether that is 3 days or 6 days a week. 6 days is ideal but isn’t attainable for everyone’s lifestyle.
Training to failure or close to
Training close to failure means being within 1-2 reps of failure. Training to failure means that there is no possible way you could do another set. This principle is one of the most important
N.E.A.T
N.E.A.T stands for Non-exercise activity thermogenesis and it is essentially the energy expended for everything that is not sleeping and not exercise. This will vary between people depending on their daily activity. Some people will have a higher NEAT if they’ve got a more active lifestyle or job. To increase NEAT, the best way is to introduce steady state cardio. Steady state cardio is cardio which doesn’t leave you breathless (i.e walking or slow jog). For those looking for weight loss, this is a very important factor to include. I recommend setting a step goal and going from there. It’s better to set a step goal that is achievable and that can be increased as it becomes a habit. I recommend starting at 7,000 steps a day or 10,000 depending on what you average already.
Footnotes
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There are many online. There are different formulas to calculate but at the end of the day, it doesn’t matter how accurate it is because it’ll only be used as an estimate in the beginning. ↩