You’re not losing weight. Does this sound familiar?
You are 100% invested. On track during the week, sticking to the meal plan religiously and smashing your workouts.
Then the weekend begins and you feel as though you deserve to let your hair down a little and indulge because you have been strict all week. One small bite of bad food can turn into a complete binge. Then you have to spend the whole of next week burning off the food you had.
You repeat this week after week and have no idea why you aren’t seeing progress and reaching your goals. Many people who diet this way live in this cycle of eating “clean” most of the week and then letting loose for 1 or 2 days and undoing all of their hard work.
“I am eating in a calorie deficit but can’t lose weight”. One thing is certain if you aren’t losing weight you are not in a deficit. One major reason is underreporting food intake or consuming more calories than you think. This may be due to a lack of education and knowledge about calories, what is in foods in combination with not weighing foods accurately. Or the most common one is eating in a deficit Monday-Friday and then over the weekend eating way over your maintenance calories.
For example (see graph above) your maintenance calories are 2500. Your daily target in the deficit is 2000 calories which you consistently have Mon-Fri. Then on Saturday and Sunday you have an extra 1750 calories on both days through food, beer, etc. This will take your weekly average calorie intake to 2500 or your “maintenance calories”. Hence why your weight stays the same.
The benefits of monitoring your body composition
The Evolt 360 provides users with calorie recommendations based on their basal metabolic rate and total energy expenditure. The macronutrient profile also considers the users goal, activity level and activity type. If the user wants to “lose weight” they should select fat loss, this will put them in a calorie deficit. Choosing “sustainable fat loss” provides a modest calorie deficit that is easily attainable over a longer period of time. This is very much a lifestyle approach to introduce and maintain long-term healthy eating habits. This approach is recommended for individuals who are new to counting calories, weighing their food and starting their weight loss journey. The longer it takes to lose the weight the longer they will keep it off.
It is extremely important to not rapidly reduce calories (rapid fat loss), especially for beginners. Firstly rapidly reducing calories and increasing their energy expenditure will increase their risk of losing a large portion of their weight loss from skeletal muscle. This slows down their metabolism( BMR) and increases the risk of rebound weight gain. Secondly, it will be a lot harder for an individual to adhere to an extreme caloric deficit especially if they are used to eating in a surplus/high calories, (overweight people).
Focusing on hitting your calorie target is a much better way to look at nutrition than the constant battle between good foods vs bad foods.
To learn more about your body and for personalized macronutrient and supplement recommendations Download the Evolt Active app
For more information about purchasing an Evolt 360 for your business visit www.evolt360.com/contact or request an information pack below.