THERE IS ONE RULE I STRONGLY SUGGEST YOU FOLLOW : DO NOT LOWER YOUR FAT INTAKE UNDER 20 PERCENT OF YOUR DAILY CALORIES .
YOU CAN ’ T OUT-TRAIN A BAD DIET
Cardiovascular training is a smart thing to do regardless of your status with gaining size or cutting fat . It ’ s helpful for aerobic capacity , work capacity , heart health , and overall health . The mistakes made with cardio could fill a book , but we will focus on one particular aspect of it here . Cardio is not a panacea for cutting weight . You cannot expect to use cardio to compensate for excessive calorie intake . Unless you ’ re training for a marathon , you ’ ll be using a lot less energy than you think .
What cardio can do is continue to assist in utilizing energy , allowing your heart to keep working efficiently — thereby , allowing you to burn fat . I have seen , firsthand , numerous people cut fat without cardio . They used caloric deficits , hard and focused training , and time to burn the fat off . Cardio helps it along , but it will not be your magic bullet . The magic is in the application of diet first and foremost . Training is second . Cardio is third .
For your longevity and heart health , do it . For your aerobic capacity and recovery , do it . For a a significant assist with fat loss , do it . Just remember , it is merely “ a ” tool , it is not “ the ” definitive tool . You can pretend you can train harder than a bad eating plan , but the reality of it for 99 percent of us is that you cannot run from poor food choices , poor distribution of macronutrients , and excessive calorie intake . You are not the special one . Eat less than you use and you will experience fat loss .
This is a process and it requires just as much patience to lose fat as it does to gain muscle . Embrace it all , learn what works for you , keep notes on your calorie intake and macro distribution , and you will see progress . You may never want to be contest-level shredded , but you can learn a lot about yourself by bulking and cutting properly .
BY THE NUMBERS
To start leaning out , you ’ ll have to get into a slight daily calorie deficit . To create a deficit , you have to know how many calories your body uses on a daily basis . There are several online calculators you can use to help determine your daily caloric needs , known as your resting metabolic rate ( RMR ). The following equation is one easy way to estimate your number and is typically accurate to within about 10 percent . ( You will have to do some self-experimentation to dial in that last few percentage points .)
Men : 10 x weight in kg + 6.25 x height in cm - 5 x age + 5 = RMR
Women : 10 x weight in kg + 6.25 x height in cm - 5 x age - 161 = RMR
From there , multiply your RMR number by where your activity falls on a scale of 1.1 to 1.9 . The first number reflects an almost completely sedentary lifestyle while 1.9 represents an incredibly intense and high-volume workout regimen . Most people are somewhere in between .
If we use an example of a 198-pound man who is 5 ’ 11 ” and 30 years old , his RMR would be 1,880 calories . If we give him a moderate level of activity and multiply his total by 1.3 , his daily caloric usage is 2,444 calories . That is the number from where he can figure out his proportion of macronutrients and start creating his daily deficit .
58 JUNE 2017 | ironmanmagazine . com