An eating plan is nothing else but as the name suggests a plan to eat in the fashion that would allow you to meet your fitness goals. But do not confuse this with a diet chart. All diets have following characteristics in common:
An eating plan differs from diet in all of the areas above. An eating plan is about managing your calories count and key nutrient groups (carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugar and fiber) in such a way that you meet your weight and/or fitness goals. For instance, if your want to lose weight, the key focus area would be a limiting calories and ensuring a balance across carbs, proteins and fats. However, if your goal is to build muscle, then we eat more protein and limit carbohydrates in the diet while eating back your exercise calories.
Now you are wondering, how much reduction in calories do I need? and what the hell is this "eating back" of exercise calories. And by the way, how does one measure calories?
First and foremost, you need to determine what is the daily calorie intake that you need to maintain your weight. This is called BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. There are many sites online that allow you to calculate that. Just Google and determine your BMR. All it requires is basic information like gender, age, weight and height.
Next step is determining how many calories do you currently eat in a day. There are many apps for same - I use myfitnesspal. It has the largest food database and you simply log in what you ate throughout the day and you would know your calories consumption and the breakup cross nutrient groups.
If you want to lose weight, your calorie consumption should be lesser than BMR and vice versa. If you want to maintain weight, the two numbers should be same...simple, isn't it? It gets a bit complex when your goals are not just about weight. However, for now lets just stick to weight loss as the goal.
Now you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight and how many are you actually eating. And if you are not losing weight its obvious that latter is more than former. Next step is fixing this equation - and that's where you decide the fix. If you are eating 1800 calories a day and your BMR is 1400 to stay at my current weight then you need to first bring 1800 down to 1400. How to do that? Simple...look at your food log/diary and see the items that you can easily cut...for instance, you can reduce chapatti count or instead of having both dal (lentils) and vegetables - have only one of the items or replace the sugar in your tea or coffee with sweetener.
This approach to calorie reduction has two benefits - one, it's not a generalized solution (aka diet) that doesn't take into account your tastes and needs. Two, you have the freedom to play with the solution - you can add something back next week because you sorely miss it and drop something else instead. All you need to do is stay at 1400 calories (in this example). As long as you do that, you will lose weight!
This approach also allows a little more play room as against a diet - if you overate one day, make up for it by eating lesser next 2 days...average at 1400 calories a day across the week. Do settle accounts on a weekly basis!!! I even use this in reverse, I build up the calorie deficit by eating a little lesser during the week and come weekend, I have enough deficit to party and have fun.
Sometimes I use the above principle during the day also, if I know I have to eat out in evening, I eat lesser during the day and keep the surplus for the evening dinner. However, I usually refrain from consuming too many calories in the night because if done often it can cause weight gain even if you are under your limit. This is because you don’t need that much energy while sleeping and calories consumed at night will end up getting stored even though you didn’t eat too much during the day. Also if you regularly eat less during the day, when you actually need energy, you can permanently reduce your metabolic rate. So use this technique rarely.
Now that we have brought calorie intake down to BMR, next step is create a deficit, because intake equal to BMR means maintaining weight. To lose weight, we need a deficit. It can be done in two ways. You can increase your calorie expenditure by exercising and/or you can further reduce the intake. If you have a lot of weight to lose, my suggestion is to do both, i.e., bring down the calorie intake below BMR and also do some exercise. The caveat being that don't bring your calorie intake below 1200, as after that your metabolic rate starts to slow down and that's not good for your weight and your fitness in the long run.
In summary, to lose weight create a calorie deficit by eating lesser than your BMR and/or working out but don't eat lesser than 1200 calories a day!
- There is a long list of foods that you can not eat
- There is a limited list of foods that you can eat
- They are monotonous - breakfast looks same every day, so do lunches and dinners
In nutshell, diets are designed to fail because the moment we are told not to eat something, we want only that. Plus monotony is the biggest reason anything fails and diet is equally susceptible to failure due to monotony.
An eating plan differs from diet in all of the areas above. An eating plan is about managing your calories count and key nutrient groups (carbohydrates, protein, fat, sugar and fiber) in such a way that you meet your weight and/or fitness goals. For instance, if your want to lose weight, the key focus area would be a limiting calories and ensuring a balance across carbs, proteins and fats. However, if your goal is to build muscle, then we eat more protein and limit carbohydrates in the diet while eating back your exercise calories.
Now you are wondering, how much reduction in calories do I need? and what the hell is this "eating back" of exercise calories. And by the way, how does one measure calories?
First and foremost, you need to determine what is the daily calorie intake that you need to maintain your weight. This is called BMR or Basal Metabolic Rate. There are many sites online that allow you to calculate that. Just Google and determine your BMR. All it requires is basic information like gender, age, weight and height.
Next step is determining how many calories do you currently eat in a day. There are many apps for same - I use myfitnesspal. It has the largest food database and you simply log in what you ate throughout the day and you would know your calories consumption and the breakup cross nutrient groups.
If you want to lose weight, your calorie consumption should be lesser than BMR and vice versa. If you want to maintain weight, the two numbers should be same...simple, isn't it? It gets a bit complex when your goals are not just about weight. However, for now lets just stick to weight loss as the goal.
Now you know how many calories you need to maintain your weight and how many are you actually eating. And if you are not losing weight its obvious that latter is more than former. Next step is fixing this equation - and that's where you decide the fix. If you are eating 1800 calories a day and your BMR is 1400 to stay at my current weight then you need to first bring 1800 down to 1400. How to do that? Simple...look at your food log/diary and see the items that you can easily cut...for instance, you can reduce chapatti count or instead of having both dal (lentils) and vegetables - have only one of the items or replace the sugar in your tea or coffee with sweetener.
This approach to calorie reduction has two benefits - one, it's not a generalized solution (aka diet) that doesn't take into account your tastes and needs. Two, you have the freedom to play with the solution - you can add something back next week because you sorely miss it and drop something else instead. All you need to do is stay at 1400 calories (in this example). As long as you do that, you will lose weight!
This approach also allows a little more play room as against a diet - if you overate one day, make up for it by eating lesser next 2 days...average at 1400 calories a day across the week. Do settle accounts on a weekly basis!!! I even use this in reverse, I build up the calorie deficit by eating a little lesser during the week and come weekend, I have enough deficit to party and have fun.
Sometimes I use the above principle during the day also, if I know I have to eat out in evening, I eat lesser during the day and keep the surplus for the evening dinner. However, I usually refrain from consuming too many calories in the night because if done often it can cause weight gain even if you are under your limit. This is because you don’t need that much energy while sleeping and calories consumed at night will end up getting stored even though you didn’t eat too much during the day. Also if you regularly eat less during the day, when you actually need energy, you can permanently reduce your metabolic rate. So use this technique rarely.
Now that we have brought calorie intake down to BMR, next step is create a deficit, because intake equal to BMR means maintaining weight. To lose weight, we need a deficit. It can be done in two ways. You can increase your calorie expenditure by exercising and/or you can further reduce the intake. If you have a lot of weight to lose, my suggestion is to do both, i.e., bring down the calorie intake below BMR and also do some exercise. The caveat being that don't bring your calorie intake below 1200, as after that your metabolic rate starts to slow down and that's not good for your weight and your fitness in the long run.
In summary, to lose weight create a calorie deficit by eating lesser than your BMR and/or working out but don't eat lesser than 1200 calories a day!
