Within you right now is the power to do things you never dreamed possible. This power becomes available to you just as you can change your beliefs.
No plan survives without first understanding and
knowing the enemy. You must know the
strengths and weaknesses of your enemy before you can learn how to battle it.
(Chillen)
And, when you are battling to lose good fat tissue.
The enemy "can be yourself"
What can calorie tracking and tracking progress in the gym add to ones fitness quest?
Lets just take a rather brief look.
(Well with a little "fluff" the mods "affectionately" call it, I am sure!
I have many reasons I advocate tracking calories--at least until you get to the point, that its such a life style change and you are so in tune with what you eat and what you do in fitness, that this is no longer necessary to continue your progress.
I STILL track my calories. I want it on paper, I want to know where I am at in the energy IN side of the equation--because this is "critical" in lowering body fat. If I am not losing weight (When I was in this mode), I can look back at the data, the running deficits and compare this to my progressive training, and
have data to work from to make educated "PERSONAL" changes in my diet and fitness program with the purpose to spark my dying fat loss quest--when or if it comes.
IMO, there is a "personal science" involved in what a person will tolerate and what they will not tolerate within their lifestyle when it concerns adding in diet and fitness.
I firmly believe in the "personal and individual science" of tracking calories and weight training data and governing this calorie intake and weight training data while watching bodily feedback; and, being able to use the tracking data correctly to manipulate your calorie intake v activity ratio to a personal goal benefit. The science is learning yourself within the data and tweaking this to one's goal advantage.
YOU WILL FEEL THE THUNDER WHEN YOU GET IT RIGHT!
Benefits of a Calorie and Weight Training Journal:
And, when or if problems develop you have the POWER to solve it through:
1. Continued education and appropriate application of this knowledge
2.
Data from: The Diet journal (and inputting goal progress per week, in fat loss)
It will have your running deficits.
It will have your projected MT Line for that day.
It will list your fat loss pwer week.
And, if a plateau develops (fat loss slows or stops), you have data proof of what you have done, and numbers you can change to make imprvements.
3.
Data from: The Fitness Training journal
4. Periodic reviews and educated adjustments.
Watch, look, and listen, to your body:
The
POWER OF PERSONAL DATA:
And one more opinion supporting the view of tracking your personal data:
Very Briefly:
Some say don't track calories, some say do. Some that don't track calories are in the position of knowledge that they don't have to.
Some are in the same position of knowledge want to eliminate the element of memory failure, track calories, and use the POWER it POSSESSES:
One's diet and fitness history is the teacher of the present. And, if the present condition isn't acceptable, then you look at the previous history,
adapt through using the wisdom of the past to bring intelligence to the present.
What ever you decide to do there is NO DOUBT what this information can do for you when its on paper--precisely--what you had been taking in calorie wise.
It is a foundation base that CAN prevent heartache and weight loss plateaus......its underestimated IMO, because allot do not USE IT to their personal GOAL ADVANTAGE--properly, and this is TOO BAD.
Within this journal you would have information without a price tag. IMO.
If one is keeping a training journal, this essential journal can tell you many things: Your progress from one work out to the next (on individual exercises), and whether your progress is occurring good, or slowing down.
In addition,
if one is keeping a diet journal per day along with the training journal, one can look in the diet journal per day and compare results in the training journal and
in effect determine if its something in the diet or training and/or both is slowing progress.
Though its rather brief (as I could list many more benefits), this portion of my post can be the heart and soul of one's success (IMO)
One more important statement:
Use the data from the diet and fitness journals along with appropriate application of knowledge learned to have the tools available to
"work with" to allow you to have a foundation to
"work from" to make improvements,
"when" complications come up during diet and fitness training.
Know how to manipulate calories within your diet.
IMO this is one of "most powerful" tools within ones arsenal;
when applied correctly, and when one is tracking calories and has a general circumference of knowledge of the approximate calories burned during exercise. Lets face some bare facts.
One must be the Quiet-Riot in their Diet, and this begins before going to the grocery store:
Be proactive in thought when going to shop for food:
There is nothing wrong with eating every 3 to 4 hours if your life style allows it:
Try to space out your meals during the day somewhere between 4 to 6 approximately or at a level that fits your lifestyle.
Select a number and divide this by the number of calories you need per day, and this will give you an approximation on how many calories per meal to eat.
When I go to the store, I have this mentality: (A slight variant from the previous post)
1. I look for foods that are bulky and carry the nutritional value that fits within the macronutrient value I seek (all macronutrients).
Staving off hunger perception---KEEP IT IN YOU
2. I look for bulky food items that will "stave off hunger" (for the times I may need it), that a carry a good nutritional value but carry a low calorie impact on my diet. There are so many food items to assist with cravings they are nearly endless, and SHOULD BE implemented into ones war on cravings.
Specific refrigerator items to combat cravings
Reasoning:
Gives you the
TOOLS to work within a system of
RULES
The body is not a dumb, dumb, through its very design intention and precise and refined adaption capability. It adapts and overcomes, and likewise, you will be "required" to adapt and overcome. You remember this and apply knowledge of diet and fitness, and you will be successful.
Proactive involvement in the hunger complications to improve diet success.
In my opinion, one needs to eye ball the "total circumference of the diet" and use it as
"one of" the tools to stave off hunger that is "nearly" unavoidable when one deficit diets to lose quality fat tissue. You will have tools in your food (that you normally consume) and in your fridge (stave off hunger items) to help you.
A lot of the hunger tolerance can vary per individual, but has to be appropriately dealt with.
With this said, I tend to avoid (but use it limited) most liquid protein and opt for protein that has the potential of occupying a large portion of my stomach's physical capacity and take longer to digest. Liquid protein doesn't do this for me. Though I will use whey protein powder once in a while. I'm just more consistent in eating protein in hard bulky food. If you decided to use Whey protein this is fine, and if you use it with milk, this is fine too; however, be mindful that the feeling of fullness from drinking milk lasts only a few minutes--normally, and isn't a good craving kicker in the--long term.
I take the same approach with carb/fiber "rich" foods. I dont add in good fat rich foods because they tend to carry a lower physical density but a higher caloric value; therefore, I will "usually" mix fats within my protein and carb "based" food intake.
I pay attention to "good solid foods" that require some water to make or have water in them naturally.
A couple of examples:
Lets use two carb/fiber based foods for an example: You ever put far "too much" water in
old fashioned oatmeal, and say "damn!", only to let it sit for several minutes and the water was absorbed and the oatmeal thickened up? Now take this and think what it does within the fluids of the stomach.
The same type condition happens with quick
Long Grain Brown Rice. I drink water immediately after consuming LGBR or Oatmeal for this reason. It swells the food and will give a feeling of fullness and it can last to the next meal.
Now, if you were to add a somewhat bulky protein item to the LGBR (of your choice) this will add to the bulky business of staving off hunger. Lets use chicken. I buy fresh and frozen chicken breast that have been cut to portion sizes of about 120c per serving. I will add three portions and cut them into chunks into two servings of LGBR along with a small amount of garlic and parmesan. After consuming I make sure I drink at least two full glasses of water. Calories are about 620c, carries a good carb and protein intake and a bulk ingredient to stave off hunger.
Now, if I get hungry in-between meals, and my life has made me space my meals out more than I like, and I am near my limit, but not over it, I have the purchases I have made from the grocery store in my refrigerator (and can take to work), that are specifically designed to combat the cravings, and I am not acting on a whim, but rather being proactive in dealing with it.
This is one example among many I do (I'm trying to prevent this from being too long, LOL):
1. EAT Lettuce (A whole head can carry "about" 20c
per head . Its bulky, can take some time for the body digest, and can fill one fast. Add in a quality low calorie dressing of personal choice (In addition to flax oil in my case).
If I happen to be at my limit, I have various "liquid" items in the fridge to deal with this that are water based, to thwart off the bland taste of water once in a while.
I know that some of this will not be applicable to you. However, even living in a dorm,
you can redesign your mental approach to food and have it assist you to help yourself--you just have to apply some in depth thought.
I also use my fitness equipment sometimes when I feel hungry to my advantage--which is another post, lol.
FOOD CAN BE USED to COMBAT CRAVINGS, BABY! Redesign your thoughts!---and so can implanting "appropriate" timing of minor fitness activities
=========================================================
After educating myself on the basic requirements of tissue loss and tissue gain, I quickly learned there were many opinions and opinions on these opinions, and one could easily get confused on where to start and which basic circumference of information to use for ones goal.
But there tended to be some dust that settled on simple basics.
I sat myself down, and wrote down every possible dietary weakness and strengths I possessed.
I literally tore myself apart being honest. I developed a
“On Limits Food List” and an
“Off Limits Food List”.
I evaluated my living environment and work environment, its associated effects and causes, and what would applicably have negative and positive effects on my goal, (and set reaction in place)
I developed a list of bad food items that could be made to be more healthy that I liked (for example: Oatmeal cookies, and Peanut Butter Cookies, and replaced the ingredients in these to the more healthy alternative—like Splenda for the replacement of white refined sugar, and whole wheat flour instead of white bleached flour, and so on and so forth).
I developed a CLEAR strategy in dealing with my weaknesses and deficit diet cravings (and changing ingredients in sweet items-like the aforementioned- is one example as it assisted with the
“I want something sweet—DAMN IT!” type of situation).
There was NOTHING I wasn’t prepared for, mentally, if my body began to resist or crave certain things as I progressed forward.
Feel the thunder of using your terrific mind!
A lot of what I wrote are not exhaustive but very brief examples and explanations.
Take a look at what I wrote, read
"between the lines", and spin off ideas that can work for you.
Best wishes to you,
Chillen
