Learn how to build your own diet program.
Diet Programs
You've tried different fad diet plans and you've ultimately failed to achieve the true fat loss or muscle gain that you want. It's a common story that many people face every day. All of this failure and inconsistency has lead to a massive confusion that has been placed upon the general public by the fitness corporations that keep promoting these ineffective plans. But worry not, in this article I will attempt to help clear the confusion and give you a very good base from which to start. So before I begin, all that I ask of you is to keep an open mind and trust that the advice I'm about to give is sound and accurate. I'm not an employee of a fitness magazine, or any other fitness company that is pushing me to keep writing article after article to produce new content and new fad diets, so you don't have to worry about any misleading information as you commonly would find in most every major fitness magazine publication.
Why is there Diet Confusion?
The confusion that the majority of Americans experience is exactly where the fitness corporations want them. Keeping the public in the dark means more money for them. This is because there will always be that hope in the "not so fit" person to become that ideal shape and size, which leads them to keep buying magazine subscriptions, fitness equipment, supplements and pills. And when whatever it is that they're doing fails, they will eventually buy something else in hopes of it working. It's a never ending cycle that the masterminds behind these corporations have created. Who are these companies? To name a few, JennyCraig, Weight Watchers, Slimfast, and even internet based companies like eDiets.com.
The many canned diet programs that are force fed to the public are designed inevitably to fail. This includes the two latest diet plans, Atkins and South Beach Diet. It's an unfortunate reality that exists to make the pocket books of CEO's bigger and bigger. If you're skeptical about this, simply analyze the data for yourself. Never before has America had higher rates of obesity fitness failure. Statistics show that the majority of obese people have tried more than one diet program, and chances are the diet programs they've tried are the major ones that are advertised on TV and magazines. So if they're so effective, why haven't obesity percentages dropped?
It's a vicious cycle of diet after diet, failure after failure. The key is to avoid any diet program which is canned. Because any canned diet program is designed for failure. They all neglect a simple law referred to as the law of individual differences. Following some plan which tells you what to eat, how to eat, and when to eat without even addressing your specific needs and goals will result in failure. It's like a clothing tailor providing only one size to all his clients. It might fit for some, but they will eventually grow out of it. The same concept applies to diet programs.
What makes a successful diet program?
There are a few things that makes or breaks a diet program. One of the most important aspects would be customization. If you're following a diet that doesn't cater to the many variables that are dependant on whether or not it will work for you, then the outcome will always be failure. Here are a few fundamentals of a successful diet program:
- Diet Customization
A good diet will be one which is customized for your individual preferences and needs. This rule simply means stay away from canned / fad diet programs.
- Pays attention to Nutritional Values
It's all about calories, and macronutrients (carbohydrates, protein, and fat). As much as many people hate to hear of this and hate the idea of having to count and watch their calories, it's a necessity and there is really no getting around it at first. When you begin to embark on any new diet program or exercise program for that matter, you have to take the time out to analyze exactly what you need to do. And in the realm of dieting, this means figuring out where you are currently as far as what you eat nutritionally, and what you SHOULD eat nutritionally.
- Taste Preferences
A diet program is something that will only work if you stick with it. Longevity is the issue here. You can only force yourself to eat the same types of foods for so long, if you don't like them.
- The more meals, the better...
Surprised to read this? It's true, the more meals you consume throughout the day, the more calories your body will burn. But I should also be sure to note that these meals need to be smaller portioned. The minimum number of meals you should consume throughout the day is five. You burn more calories on a more frequent based meal plan because the more you force your digestive processes to work, the more calories your body will burn.
- No shortcuts, and No imbalances
So many fad diet programs seem appealing because they promise results with a plan that seems too good to be true by offering shortcuts. When I say "No imbalances", I mean some diet programs will either emphasize one food group, or neglect another (like Carbohydrates and Atkins, bad stuff!).
Calories
Right here is where it's all about customization. This is where all fad diets go terribly wrong. It's impossible to lose fat if you consume more calories than your body burns. And on the opposite end of the spectrum, if your goal is to put on weight (building muscle mass), you won't be able to do it if you're consuming less calories than your body burns. In order to understand this, you have to familiarize yourself with some terminology.
BMR (Basal Metabolic Rate) : This is how many calories your body burns through its own functions throughout a 24 hour period. Your BMR accounts for the very large majority of calories that you burn throughout the day, assuming you aren't an exercise maniac and burn a thousand plus calories.
There are a couple of methods you can use to determine your BMR. In our exercise programs article, I use a more elaborate method, in this article I will use a more simple method. To determine your BMR, Take your weight in KiloGrams (Kg.), and multiply it by 24. So if you weigh 200 lbs, your body probably burns somewhere around 2,175 calories a day. (1 lb = 0.453 Kg.)
Then you have to add on the additional calories that the physical activity you impose on your body burns. And there's another brief equation for doing that as well. If you're sedentary with little to no activity, multiply your BMR by 1.1. Then there are 4 more levels of activity, 1 being sedentary which is 1.1, and 5 being very active throughout the majority of the day (an athlete in other words), in which you multiply your BMR by 1.5 or more. So if you're lightly active (BMR x 1.2), then your total daily caloric intake would be around 2,610 calories (assuming you weigh 200 lbs.).
So with this information in mind, let's look at how a properly structured diet program would look like for fat loss and muscle gain.
Building Muscle, Fat Loss and Calories
With our previous example in mind, let's assume you want fat loss is your goal. Your body in total burns 2,610 calories a day. You would aim to consume approximately 300 to 500 calories less than that amount in order to lose fat! That way, you would be creating a caloric deficit of let's say 400 calories, which means since your body wasn't able to get enough calories from the food you ate throughout the day (400 to be exact), it would have to take those calories from the body (in particular, fat stores for those who are overweight).
Now how about those who want to put on weight by building muscle mass? Our example for this is a little bit flawed, because not many people start out at 200 lbs wanting to build muscle. Usually it's the skinnier guys, so let's say you're 130 lbs and you're lightly active, that means you burn around 1,700 calories a day. In order to build size you would need to consume 300 to 500 calories in excess. Let's say 400 calories, that's 2,100 calories you would want to consume throughout the day. Your diet program would need to be structured so that you're hitting at least that amount on a daily basis.
If you simply want to maintain, all you would do is consume the equivalent of how many calories your body burns per day. Simple!
Macronutrients
Macronutrients are carbohydrates, protein, fat and alcohol. All of the calories you consume per day come a combination of these 4 (well, with exception to alcohol if you don't drink). There are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate and protein, while there are 7 calories per gram of alcohol, and 9 calories per gram of fat! That's why foods that high in fat, tend to be high in caloric value. We'll only be focusing on protein, carbs and fat; drinking alcohol has absolutely no good nutritional value.
Carbohydrates: The body's preferred source of energy. That's why it is absolutely mind boggling to me that the creator of the Atkins diet program would ever consider eliminating and/or drastically reducing carbohydrates. Your body needs carbohydrates to provide you with energy throughout the day, especially before exercising or any other physically intensive activity. There are two different types of carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates (the type you want to consume more of, found in most fruits and veges) and simple carbohydrates (the bad type, usually found in processed junk foods). The calories you consume should come approximately 45% to 60% from carbohydrates.
Protein: The building blocks of muscle. If you're looking to put on weight and muscle, you need to be sure to get enough protein. For the average individual, protein should make up approximately 20% of your daily caloric intake. Others might want to consume more around 35%.
Fat: Against popular opinion, you need fat and you shouldn't try to eliminate it. There are a lot of brain functions that rely on fat to operate correctly. There are two primary different types of fats. Saturated (the bad type of fat that you should try to stay away from), and Unsaturated fat which is the good type of fat. You should aim to consume roughly 10% to 15% of fat per day.
Getting Started...
I take it that you're interested by now in building your own diet program. If so, that's great! This article just serves as a rough explanation of what a good diet program is, but not exactly how to construct your own. Here at FitPractical we teach our members online how to create their own fully customized fitness program. This includes not only how to build a good diet program, but also a strong exercise program. Our members also have access to 60 bonus articles, a community where they can communicate with each other and ask questions, plus a dynamic fitness journal where they can track all aspects of their fitness goals, all for a low one time fee. If you're interested in learning more, take the tour and browse around on our site!
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