Did you know that you're not supposed to stay in a calorie cut for any longer than 16 weeks MAX? So many people don't know this and end up negatively impacting their metabolism and overall health, not to mention preventing weight loss! So let's go through a better way to approach weight loss. I'm a huge advocate of macro-based tracking and this is what I use with my clients.
There are 4 “phases” in the macro-tracking cycle: Maintenance, a calorie deficit, a reverse diet, and a calorie surplus.
Let's start with MAINTENANCE.
Maintenance is the number of calories required to maintain our current weight and this is where we should be spending most of our time. In this phase, we are eating roughly the same amount of calories that we're expending per day. So if you're burning roughly 2000 calories, you're eating roughly 2000 calories.
This phase is one of the most important because it's here where our metabolism THRIVES! And when our metabolism thrives, we feel energised, we sleep better, we feel stronger in our workouts, we more easily build lean muscle, our hormones & thyroid can regulate and our body isn't under constant stress….
This is the phase where we see body recomposition changes!!
Next, we have the CALORIE DEFICIT.
A calorie deficit is a short, planned period of time (ranging from 4-16 weeks MAX), where we slightly restrict overall calories to reduce body fat and expose the muscle we’re working hard to build underneath. As the saying goes, the workouts build the body, the diet reveals it.
But too often, women live in this phase - and this is the biggest misconception I see with the dieting world - we think that we need to live permanently in a calorie deficit to lose all of the weight in one go and what will actually happen if you stay in a calorie deficit for too long, is the metabolism will adapt and your weight will plateau and you will have to go lower and lower and lower on the calories just to lose a small bit of weight. Then we end up below our BMR and we negatively impact our hormones, our thyroid and our general health. And we do not want to do this when we’re going through the menopausal transition!!
Instead, we need to work with our bodies not against them. You want to get out of the cut before that negative cascade happens. And the sciences says no longer than 16 weeks at at time. Now, that doesn’t mean that you don’t keep up the lifestyle - you still do your walks, your workouts and your macro-balanced meals, but as you come out of the deficit, your calorie goal is slightly higher, that’s all.
This is followed by a REVERSE DIET. (4-10 weeks)
A reverse diet is the phase that comes after a period of calorie restriction where we gradually increase calories, almost imperceptibly, while working our way back to maintenance. This is a science-backed method of gradually increasing calories (by 50-150 daily calories per week) on a consistent basis to keep fat at bay while eating a little bit MORE to fuel muscle development…we're essentially out-smarting our metabolism here!
And last, is the CALORIE SURPLUS.
This phase isn't intentionally entered by most of us, it’s mainly people who are really looking to quickly build muscle (e.g. body builders) and need extra calories to do that. In this phase, we will eat in a slight caloric surplus (more calories than they burn in a given day) to facilitate the development of muscle. We do accidentally enter this phase of course, so when we think of where we were before we began our calorie cut, rather than that being maintenance, it's more likely that it was a surplus. So going back to maintenance shouldn't be so scary then, we're not going back to the surplus, just the right calorie intake to function optimally and build muscle.
When you understand how all of this works and you apply it to your life, you can achieve food freedom. Because at no point is any food or drink off the table. We never eliminate any food group. All foods fit on a macro based diet and that’s what makes it sustainable.
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