DIETING DECISION
HOW LONG IS TOO LONG?
I
F YOUR TRYING TO GET
ripped for the summer then
this is a must read. The amount
of time you give yourself to do
your diet could be the difference
between being shredded or hav-
ing to keep your top on while on
the beach.
To get leaner, we need to rid
the body of as much body fat
(stored calories) as possible,
while maintaining our hard-earned
muscle mass.
A calorie is just a
measurement of energy.
And stored body fat is a lot of
stored calories.
Every successful diet involves
some sort of calorie deficit.
Whether it is controlling what
goes in your mouth or burning more
stored energy through exercise,
the approach you take should be
one that suits your preference.
This will help you decide and pick
the tool for the job, but I will give
you some recommendations at the
end of this article as to the best
approach to take.
I pride myself on practising what
I preach & I have tried every
approach out there. I will share
with you what I use myself and
what I use with my competitive
physique athletes to achieve the
best possible results.
So how long do we need
to get lean?
We often hear about the magical
12-week plan. But is 12-weeks the
right amount of time you need to get
lean? Or are you going to be looking
in the mirror thinking you need
BY STEPHEN BOX PHOTOTGRAPHS BY SIMON HOWARD
another 12-weeks, by which time it
may be too late to look good for
your goal.
Everyone is an individual, every-
one has differing amounts of body
fat to lose & everyone needs
differing calorie amounts to get
leaner. Some people are also able to
handle dieting better than others,
which is why you need an individual
plan and time frame to suit you and
your life.
Think of how much body fat you
have like miles you need to drive to
get to a destination and the weeks
of the diet as the time you have
available to drive there.
Give yourself too many miles in not
enough time & you won’t make it.
Especially if you don’t allow for stop
offs along the way.
Basically, 1 lb of stored body fat is
roughly 3500 kcal. If you need to
lose 25 lbs or 11kg (the minimum
amount I see most of my athletes
lose before they hit the stage – you
always have more fat to lose than
you think!) then somehow you need
to burn approximately 87,500
calories to get to your desired goal.
You can either create this calorie
deficit by reducing your calorie
intake from food over the week and/
or by increasing how much training
you are doing.
Let’s run a couple of examples
using the same amount of weight
to lose:
Guy A - let’s call him Phil, gave
himself 12 weeks, he needs to
create a calorie deficit every week
of 7300 calories that’s 1040 calories
a day. If Phil is maintaining his weight
on 3000 calories a day, Phil would
need to eat no more than 1960
calories every day.
Guy B - let’s call him Ben, gave
himself 24 weeks, as he’s given
himself a little longer he only needs
to create a deficit every week of
3645 calories, which is 520 a day.
If Ben is maintaining his weight on
3000 calories a day, Ben would
need to eat no more than 2480
every day.
I know which one I would prefer.
Now, it’s not just as simple as that.
Those numbers are based in a
perfect world with everything going
right and never making a mistake.
Life rarely happens like that.
There are a few things to keep in
mind when setting the length of your
diet. As you lose weight and eat
less, a couple of things happen:
1. You don’t train as hard and burn
less calories from your daily activity,
you become lazy without even
noticing it as your body attempts
to preserve energy.
2. Because you weigh less the
number of calories your body needs
every day also reduces.
Throw in that day you ate some-
thing you shouldn’t have, forgot to
track something you ate, had a
cheat meal, got sick, missed a
training session, picked up an injury,
had that wedding to attend, had a
couple of drinks too many & these
all add to the deficit being reduced.
There’s also the inaccuracies of
food labels and your ability to weigh
food and track it accurately. Even
the most experienced pros make
mistakes, we are all human at the
end of the day.
Picking apart these examples,
3000 calories is more food than
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