Game Plan - Baseline
Unlike previous challenges there are no scheduled day-to-day changes in your nutrition plan and for at least the first 2 weeks there are no scheduled cheats. All adjustments will be made on an individual basis and will only make changes when needed.
Our goal is to have you lose body fat at the highest amount of calories possible. Too many nutrition plans help you succeed by slashing calories way too fast, which eventually your body adapts to and once it does becomes harder and harder to keep losing. You either have to eat less or do more activity, or in many cases both.
The first phase of your 12-week plan is what I call baseline. We are essentially trying to figure out your baseline macros. For 90% of you your macros will help you lose 1-3 pounds a week and little adjustments will be needed and for some of you we may need to either reduce or increase your caloric intake based on how your body responds.
During the first 2 weeks we need you to be extremely diligent with your nutrition and hit your macros we also need you to consistently workout at least 3-4x per week.
Unlike previous challenges for the first 2 weeks there is no scheduled cheat meals. Being that you will be eating more food than your used to, you are eating a balanced diet your energy levels should be very high and the urge to eat “off limit” foods should be very minimal and your need for a reefed meal/cheat meal to keep your metabolism elevated is not needed.
The longer you diet and the more restrictive your nutrition is the more essential having cheat meals and re-feeds are required for keeping your metabolism working optimally.
I am going to address this or else people will ask and I want to stop the restrict and binge mentality many of us “dieters” have.
If you do eat “off limits” foods which hopefully you don’t because you want to get the best results possible what you will do is count everything (all the protein, fats, carbs) and subtract it from your macros for the day and adjust your food the rest of the day accordingly.
If you eat a cookie and its 4g of protein, 20g of carbs, and 10g of fat then you will need to take all of it from your macros and move forward.
If you hit your macros you will be successful, what can’t happen is you eat something your not supposed to have and then you keep eating the crap and go on a binge and go way over your calories for the day!!
If you eat something bad count it and move forward, do not beat yourself up, but don’t let it blow your diet! NO ALL OR NOTHING MENTALITY.
With today’s technology, there is no excuse not to know what is going in your mouth no matter the scenario.
For the first 2 weeks plan on buckling down, plan ahead, and prepare yourself for success!
Fat Loss Diet
I would also like to take the time to reiterate this is a fat loss program and not just a weight loss program. Our goal is for you is to maintain if not gain lean muscle tissue while at the same time losing body fat.
If you want sustainable fat loss then you need to at a minimum preserve your muscle tissue. By preserving muscle tissue you are theoretically preserving your metabolism. Muscle in simple terms is your metabolic engine, the more muscle you have the more calories you will burn. The less muscle you have the less calories you will burn. Most research shows that 60-70% of your resting metabolic rate is directly correlated to the amount of muscle you have. Most nutrition plans that only focus on weight loss and not fat loss don’t care where the weight loss is coming from, as long as the scale goes down you are successful. The problem is if your diet doesn’t at a minimum support maintaining lean muscle tissues as you lose muscle your metabolism will slow down and you will burn less and less every single day.
Our goal is to FEED THE MUSCLE and BURN FAT. Could we make you lose weight faster? Yes, but keeping the end goal in mind and focusing on fat loss this is not optimal, since more than likely a % of this would be lean tissue loss.
1-3 pounds a week should be considered a win, any more than this on a regular basis you have to start worry about muscle wasting which “nobody’s got time for that”.
I want you to focus on the inches you are losing, how much better your clothes are fitting, how much better you feel, and how much better you look in your progress pictures and stop obsessing over the scale. You are no longer a slave to the scale. Your day should not be lost or made based on what a number on a scale tells you.
Lets crush the first 2 weeks!