Stop Working Harder and Eat Smarter: A Sustainable Approach to Improving Body Composition

You can’t outtrain a bad diet. Here’s how you know: have you ever spent 30-60 minutes on the bike or treadmill and only burned 100 calories? Let’s make that cardio time generous and say you were very productive and burned 500 calories. Do you know how many calories are in a McDonald’s quarter pounder with cheese? 520. Having one of those burgers a day wasted all of that work you did. That excludes the fries and drink that can come with it! Replace the burger with a McDonald’s salad and you’ll find you can have approximately 2 salads with grilled chicken for the caloric price of one burger. Significantly better! However, we’re getting away from the point I’m trying to make, which is it’s so much easier to NOT put something in your mouth than it is to spend an hour working out. The solution is not to do more work but to make better choices.

So how and what do you choose? After all there’s almost an infinite number of diets to choose from. I tell my clients to pick something they can stick to forever. In general, this results in a “if it fits your macros” (IIFYM) approach. However, any diet that you can do for the rest of your life is the one you should choose.

The following will outline how you follow a IIFYM plan.

  1. Figure out your current calories by not changing your anything but only recording everything consumed. Any food diary where you can see protein, carbohydrates, fat and total claories will work. Myfitnesspal is my go to. Record everything! Even if you know it’s not healthy it has to be recorded. Do this for 1-2 weeks. There should be no change in bodyweight.
  2. Measure. Weigh yourself at the same time on the same day weekly. Do the same by taking a waist circumference measurement. The tape should be at the height of your belly button.
  3. Start eating healthy. Foods that are healthy are not processed. They had eyes or grew in the ground. Minimally processed meats like steak, pork chops, roasts, chicken breasts etc. fit this requirement. Sausages etc. do not. These foods can be seasoned to taste and mixed together.
  4. Find your macros. Macro Calculator Since you’re lifting weights, protein=1g/lb of BW, carbs=1g/lb of BW (2g/lb of BW if you’re gaining muscle), and fat=.25-.5g/lb of BW. Macros should set your caloric budget. 4 calories per gram of protein and carbs. 9 calories for every gram of fat. The only time you wouldn’t let macros set your budget would be if you start gaining weight after using macros to set your calories.
  5. Follow correctly and consistently. There aren’t many people who can be this strict 100% of the time. However, if you’re following this 80+% of the time, you should find yourself losing about 1lb of bodyweight each week.

IIFYM might not work for you. Find something that you can follow consistently forever. That’s the most important to improving your body composition.