Helping athletes achieve their best performances and helping clients achieve their fitness goals such as fat loss and weight loss is my duty as a sports performance coach and personal trainer.
It is pretty obvious that what you eat is critical to your health and your performance.
In fact there was a study done on a group of people who were put on an excellent exercise program which consisted of 3 days per week of strength training, and 2 days a week of cardiovascular training. This went on for 12 weeks. This is certainly a long period of time, and that is a large amount of exercise, and certainly more than most other people do!).
The results: A total amount of fat loss of… 0.5-1kg!!
Pathetic!
What should be expected, for those who do all the right stuff, they should regularly lose 8-10kg of fat in 3 months. And perhaps even more if their starting weight is very far from their target.
The reason that the university study shows such disappointing results?… These people were told that they could eat whatever they pleased.
Conclusion: Nutrition is critical to achieve your fitness goals.
However there is another side to the story.
There are diets that exist which give the promise of huge and impressive weight loss or fat loss in a short period of time.
I myself have tried all kinds of diets including very low calorie liquid diets. It was a liquid only diet but the liquids were high quality protein powders. It also includes healthy fats like fish oils and flax seeds, as well as some supplements to prevent muscle loss.
These diets WORK. You will lose fat, you will look lean, and you will defeat psychological cravings for bad food (this is probably the best effect)
BUT….
Don’t forget, these are DIETS. They are not NUTRITION. There are some “side effects” that make diets short term projects, rather than life long plans.
Here are some of the problems…
Metabolic slowdown – Reduced calorie diets cannot be done long term because then your body thinks it is in a starvation state.
Stress hormones will go up – low calories is a condition that is stressful to your body!
Fat storage will go up – to stay alive
Non essential systems will slow down (reproductive, immune system, digestive system etc)
Digestive system will weaken (no need to work hard if we are eating all liquids/too little food)
Muscle Loss – this is bad! Makes you look and feel weak
The body is designed to have whole, natural foods as it’s nutrition. Different people do best on different ratios of fat, carbohydrates, and protein. However the items of food consumed should be the same. Eggs, Meats, Veggies, Fruits, Nuts as well as drinks that contain no calories such as tea and water should be the basis of good nutrition no matter who you are and what your goals are.
So unless you have a specific weight class, competition or special event to “diet” for, forget about diets the majority of the time and focus on good nutrition.
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