Patriot Health Digest
If you have body fat that you need to lose, you will need to take in less calories than you need or use more calories than you are taking in.
The higher the deficit the faster the fat loss. However, this comes with an increased chance of strength and muscle loss. A moderate deficit will have a slower rate of fat loss but you are less likely to have strength and muscle loss.
It’s nearly impossible to keep from losing some strength when you are dieting, but that does not mean you have to just take it. You should try to increase or maintain what you are lifting even while dieting. With that said when the weight starts feeling a bit heavier, just know that it is okay.
There are ways to keep your strength while dieting. But here is the main thing to keep in mind: do not let temporary weakness mess up your fat-loss plan. And don’t think you need a “refeed” so you can feel stronger the next day. Remind yourself of the end goal. Refocus and keep grinding.
2 Your Food Awareness Sucks
Tracking your food intake using an app can be a pain. However, it is a ton better than the old way of adding it up by hand while having to look everything up in a nutrient directory. Keeping track of the foods you eat will not only ensure you are hitting your targets daily, but it will also increase your food awareness. Those people who track while dieting seem to do better, even when they stop tracking.
Those who have experienced tracking food also have a better knowledge of what’s in their food nutrient-wise. When they decide to stop tracking, they will be better at determining the appropriate serving sizes.
You need to start tracking. If you want to get truly ripped it requires more accuracy than just staying lean.
If you are eating the same thing every day, then you don’t really need to track. But if you are not, you need to stop being lazy. Take the extra second to type your meal into your phone.
3 You Want It All
If you train for everything it leads to a lot of nothing. While it may be on-trend to say you are a “hybrid athlete,” pounding the pavement and weights every day is not a great approach to getting shredded and jacked over the next couple months. Trying to mimic your favorite CrossFit athlete is not the way either.
A cannonball delt, 2.5X body weight deadlift, a sub-6-minute mile, shredded abs… If you have a long list of goals and you are training for them all at the same time, you are not going to hit any of them. It is like taking a pistol to a job where you are required to have a sniper rifle.
If you want to get shredded, focus all your mental and physical efforts on achieving that goal. Decide on the best cardio, dieting, and strength training approach for that particular goal only. Once you have hit that target, move on to the next one.
Author: Blake Ambrose
