Regardless of your goal 一lose weight, build muscle, have more energy, get stronger一 nutrition is a key component to your ability to reach it. Unfortunately, most people have a huge disconnect between what they are doing vs. what they are trying to accomplish. They focus too much on the small, minute details, and too little on the things that matter most.
We use this nutrition hierarchy with our clients to clearly outline the order of operations. You have to master the basics first, which is where most people go wrong. Everywhere you turn there are articles titled "10 Best Foods for Shredded Abs!" or "Eat These 5 Foods to Build Muscle Faster" The industry presents ideas that are easy to turn into small sound bites that are "package-able" and sellable. The problem is that these claims do not have context, which causes people to run into trouble. They try to flip the pyramid upside down, start "majoring in the minors" and end up not making any progress.
The reason why so many people fail, get stuck in the trap of yo-yo dieting, and spend valuable years of their life frustrated, is because they never fully adopt good nutrition as part of their lifestyle. They only integrate the habits for the length of whatever diet they are trying at the time. As soon as that diet ends, so do those good habits. Nutrition doesn't have an end date to it. It's forever.
Long term, none of the other stuff matters unless you have a solid base to build on. For some, this can arguably be the toughest component to master. Cultivating new healthy behaviors and eliminating unhealthy behaviors is not easy, but it is always worth it.
We believe that nutrition coaching needs to be dynamic an flexible. There isn’t one superior method or approach to nutrition. The best approach is the one that works for you based on your knowledge, experience, and goals. Regardless of what walk of life you’re in, you and your coach work together to develop an appropriate strategy that you can confidently execute. Our Nutrition team is led by our Registered Dietitian, Kerianne Los, with support from our Sports Nutritionist and owner, Samson Jagoras. Our goal is not to keep you as a client forever. Our goal is to provide you with the education, support, and resources that you need to develop the skills to be successful on your own for years to come.
Many people think that exercise is the most important part of individual fitness success when, in fact, nutrition and a balanced diet are the two most critical elements of any fitness program.
What you ingest controls everything from muscle gain to fat loss, and at Pursuit, we utilize what we refer to as flexible eating (sometimes called flexible dieting), which is built on the foundation of macronutrients (proteins, carbs, fats), nutritional balance, and your overall caloric load (how many calories you eat).With the abundance of misleading information about dieting and nutrition that is thrown at us on a daily basis, it is our goal to help you gain a true, comprehensive understanding of your metabolism, fat loss, and how muscle plays a crucial role towards your success. Our fitness trainer team will also teach you why carbs are important and how flexible eating makes obtaining and maintaining a healthy lifestyle easy.For flexible eating (IIFYM) to be effective, you must first understand that the most basic element of nutrition is a calorie. A calorie is a unit of heat that the body uses to burn as energy. The total number of calories you ingest controls your ability to gain muscle or store as fat, depending on what and how you are eating. The number of calories you should consume and burn depends on your age, gender, and a variety of other factors. If you are looking to build a lean muscle mass, you must consume more calories than your body burns, but you have to be careful because too many calories from the wrong foods will lead you to begin to gain weight. On the other hand, if you are looking to lose weight, you must take in fewer calories in comparison to what you burn. Alright, take a deep breath; nutrition is not as complicated as many like to make it. By taking the time to understand our local gym’s three principles of flexible eating, you will learn how your body works and how to reach your goals.
THE 1ST PRINCIPLE OF FLEXIBLE EATING
Essentially, you can eat anything you want as long as the food fits in your set macro-nutrients. At the end of the day, building muscle or losing fat is a math equation that is built on Calories in versus calories utilized. Therefore, as long as you measure/track everything that you eat, everything is fair game. This means that if you would like to eat a piece of candy etc, you able to do so as long as you adjust your macros for the rest of the day to compensate and stay within your macros. The purpose of this is not to tell you to eat crap food or lead you to believe that you’ll achieve your fitness and athletic performance goals by doing so; but to say that food, life, birthdays celebrations and breaking bread with friends doesn’t have to throw you into a downward spiral.
You shouldn’t feel horrible for eating a cheeseburger. Enjoy the meal, keep it in your macros, don’t do it every day and get back on your regular eating schedule the next day. Obviously, certain foods are less “filling” or satisfying and whole foods will always be the best choice; but the problem with nutrition, fat gain, dieting and general health is that we bastardize foods as if they are the cause of the problem. When that actual cause of the problem is actually just a MATH equation.
This tends to lead people to ask the following questions: Why is it that people who eat a lot of junk food tend to get fat and perform poorly etc.?And the answer is because people tend to eat more calories than they are burn. Junk foods, although extremely calorie dense, tend to be very unsatisfying and un-filling. As a result of their un-filling and unsatisfying nature we tend to eat more and increase our caloric load well above what we are utilize. It only takes a 3500 calorie caloric surplus to gain weight. And when you are not very active or training properly the number one place for your body to store excess energy in your body is in the form of FAT.
Let’s do Math! What has more calories? 500 calories of rice or 500 Calories of Potato Chips. The answer is obvious. They are exactly the same. Now which is going to be more Filling? The rice obviously. Which of those foods is going to have more calories from Carbohydrates? The Rice. Which of those foods is going to have more calories from fats? The potato Chips
*And therein lies the problem. 9 out 10 people cannot tell you how many calories they eat on a daily basis, let alone how many of those calories are coming from protein, carbs and fats.
The Second Principle Of Flexible Eating
While the first principle of flexible eating deals with the math, the second is a little trickier.Macros are not only about calories. For true success, flexible eating also takes into consideration your baseline metabolic rate, current caloric intake, weight, percentage of body fat, activity level, goals, workouts/training, gender, and insulin sensitivity. You must pay attention to how your body responds to what you eat and tweak certain conditions and activities as your fitness level begins to improve. This principle of flexible eating is all about building your metabolism and creating an effective, flexible plan. That’s why you have our fitness gym team as your coach – so we can provide guidance.
The Third Principle Of Flexible Eating
The third principle of flexible eating is the most complex of the three, which is why it is the most common problem that we see in society: under-eating and metabolic adaptation (the slowing down of your metabolism).
Those who are at risk of these problems are those who yo-yo between working out and a variety of diets. By following strict programs, they begin to see results, stop, and then go back to their old habits, gaining all their weight back. Just try again, right? Wrong! When these people try to lose the weight they put back on, they can’t, often chalking the problem up to genetics, age, or some other rationalization that simply is just not true. So what’s the answer?
Your body is designed to survive and by going back and forth with diets, you are messing with your natural metabolic process, increasing the time it takes to burn energy, which makes your body store calories as fat. Both under-eating and overeating can lead to this problem, leaving many frustrated and at a loss.
At Pursuit, we want to help you build your metabolism back and guide you on a path towards success. Check out our classes and schedule a free consultation with us today!
