Diet Planning For The New Year
The dawn of a new year is upon us, and for millions around the globe that means it’s time to shed the winter “coat” (i.e. accumulated body fat) and embark on a quest to improve their health, fitness, and physique through a mixture of physical activity (“exercise)” and diet planning for the new year.
And the last point is where many people get hung up even before they’ve left the starting gate -- what’s the “best” diet to lose fat?
You see, diet culture is a cesspool.
The sheer number of gurus, “experts” and charlatans touting their own personal riff on the best way to eat to lose fat is mind-boggling, but the truth is that to lose fat isn’t all the hard. Any one of a number of different diets (IIFYM, carnivore, keto, paleo, etc.) have been used by individuals to successfully lose weight.
The real challenge is keeping the weight off and maintaining your results once they’ve been achieved. You see, most individuals that try to lose weight actually can lose weight, but inevitably they end up gaining it back (and quite often a few pounds more).
This all has to do with improper diet planning (for the new year and any other time of year!).
In order to accomplish that seemingly impossible feat of long-term weight loss maintenance (which is no small task), you need to make sure your diet is one that is sustainable. As we just said, any number of dietary practices can work for losing weight, but what happens after the diet is complete?
If you’re like most people that have tried dieting at the outset of the new year, you undertook some extreme form of restriction (i.e. a fad diet) that resulted in weight loss (usually a mixture of water weight, muscle, and fat loss), but those results didn’t last.
So, what’s the “secret sauce” to weight loss over the long haul?
Finding a nutrition plan (“diet’) that you can stick to while you’re actively losing weight as well as trying to maintain your body weight.
In practical terms, that means crafting a diet composed of a collection of foods you can eat regularly and enjoy. That could be low-carb, no-carb, high-carb or an undulating pattern of carb intake throughout the week (e.g. cyclical keto).
The main thing to keep in mind when trying to lose weight/fat is that you need to create a calorie deficit such that you consume less energy than you burn. Over time, this forces the body to turn to its stored energy reserves (body fat) to make up for the lack of calories it’s getting from the diet.
The most efficient way to create this calorie deficit is through a mixture of physical activity (cardio, resistance training, 10-minute walks throughout the day, etc.) and decreasing calorie intake.
Something else to keep in mind, at least if you’re looking to preserve as much lean mass as possible while dieting and avoid the dreaded skinny fat look, is to consume enough protein, which for the average individual is somewhere in the neighborhood of 1-1.2 grams per pound of bodyweight.
Consuming enough dietary protein helps ward off muscle loss during dieting phases and it also helps keep you feeling fuller for longer due to the highly-satiating properties of protein.
As for supplements, they can’t fix a crappy diet or poor training routine. What they can do is enhance your results and make things a bit more streamlined if you’ve got your diet, exercise, and sleep under control.
OxyMax is our top-rated thermogenic weight loss support aid that is specifically created to help increase energy and focus (giving you the boost you need to get those awful morning cardio session in) as well as a complementary blend of nutrients to help encourage fat burning, reduce appetite, and curb cravings.
Leave a comment