The ideal caloric content of your diet depends on your individual fitness goals. You will eat differently to build muscle, lose weight or maintain your current size. Nutrition is an important part of any physical regimen, and it will determine your results to a large degree. By remembering a few facts about the relationship between food and exercise, you can streamline you efforts and secure your success.
Weight Loss
In order to lose weight, you will have to burn more calories than you ingest. A calorie is a single unit of energy. Each item of food contains a certain number of these units, which are consumed according to your body's needs. Calories that are eaten but not used are then stored as fat. A pound of fat is an accumulation of approximately 3,500 excess calories. Therefore, you must exert 3,500 more units of energy than you have taken in to lose one pound of fat in a given period.
Calorie Reduction
To do this, it's important that you first determine your maintenance level. Your maintenance level describes the amount of calories you normally take in to sustain your current weight. Once you discover how many calories you can eat without gaining or losing, you can then deduct a reasonable daily amount to lose weight. A safe standard calorie reduction for weight loss is between 500 and 1,000 calories a day. Taking away 500 calories from your diet daily will result in a net loss of one pound per week. A person can generally lose two to three pounds weekly without any negative consequences to his health. However, it is advised that women consume no less that 1,200 calories per day, and men no less than 1,800.
Building Muscle
Building muscle, on the other hand, requires that you consume more calories than you expend. A common mistake is to increase weightlifting efforts while making no changes to diet. New muscle must come from somewhere, and the body can only build it from whatever materials it is provided. No matter how much strength training you do, you will never experience any gains until implementing a nutritional strategy that supports the building of muscle.
Calorie Increase
First, however, you must determine your muscle gaining goals. A standard formula to calculate caloric intake for muscle gain requires you to multiply your current weight by any number between seventeen and twenty. The number will vary according to your desired gains, and activity level. An athlete who intends to gain muscle will have to supply himself with many more calories than the average individual.
Maintenance
The average maintenance level for women lies between 2,000 to 2,100 calories per day. For men, the number ranges between 2,700 and 3,000. These, of course, are merely round figures, and you should always adjust your diet in accordance with individual needs. An easy way to figure your maintenance level is through trial and error. Simply pay attention to how your body reacts to different foods during your normal daily expenditure. You could also count calories, documenting how many you take in and use up, then figuring a number from there.
Member Comments