Hey there,
I hope you had an amazing start to 2017!
I want to share with you something you may find very helpful for your fitness goals this year…
Clients often ask me-
“What is the quickest and easiest way to lose weight?”
The answer is simple.
Although it requires a little bit of work it’s so easy to do… get this right and you’ll easily drop 1-2 kilos per week – and that’s each week!
Thousands of my clients have followed this same simple approach and achieved dramatic results…no catch here just great results (click here to view some of my clients testimonials).
Now, even though it’s so simple to do… people often overlook the basics in search for a ‘magic pill’ or ‘special shake’, or some kind of short cut that requires no effort.
Ok, so here it is…
Calories are fuel.Too many calories and you’ll gain weight, too few calories and your body will go into starvation mode and slow down your metabolism which will cause…yes, you guessed it, weight gain.
Slow metabolism is disastrous for weight loss.
Unfortunately, you’ll read a lot of nonsense on the internet that you need to eat XYZ calories to lose weight, this cookie cutter approach to weight loss doesn’t work.
Everyone is different, why would a women weighing 50-kilos eat the same amount of calories as a 90-kilo women?
It doesn’t make sense, right?
Others suggest you calculate your daily calorie intake according to your BMI (Basal metabolic Index).
Ugh, not again…
Your BMI is a measure of body fat based on your weight in relation to your height.
Forget BMI, it’s a waste of time, it doesn’t account for bone density or lean muscle mass.
For nearly all my adult life my BMI has been at obesity levels yet my bodyfat percentage has always been in single digits, why?
Because I’ve always done a lot of strength training so I have always carried a lot of muscle.
BMI doesn’t factor in how much lean muscle you carry, it just calculates your height in relation to your weight.
Yep, a complete waste of time!
So you might be asking…
“How Many Calories Per Day Should I Eat To Lose Weight?”
Great question!
Ultimately it depends on two things;
- How much exercise you’re doing.
- What your current bodyweight is.
The truth is, weight loss really isn’t rocket science and I get very frustrated when people over-complicate things…Ah, c’mon-it’s so simple!!
Calories in / calories out = weight loss or weight gain.
The amount of calories you burn each day must be higher than the calories you consume… that’s it!
This is what we call a calorie deficit.
Where your body burns more calories than you’re consuming, thus burning stored body fat.
We do this two ways;
- Diet
- Exercise
You need to eat the right foods-foods that are higher in protein and lower in sugar.
Try and cut out as much sugar from your diet as possible, especially those found in processed foods, alcohol and, of course, sugary drinks.
Substitute the above with protein at each meal, this is important because, if we cut calories, we do not want to lose lean muscle.
Muscle is the only tissue that is metabolically expensive, which basically means the more muscle you have – the more calories you’ll burn.
So you want to eat plenty of protein whilst performing strength training to maintain or increase your lean muscle mass when you begin to cut your calories.
I know I know, what you’re thinking right now…”But Dan it will be so difficult to quit eating and drinking things that make me feel so good…” Let me get this one straight—Your food is for fuel not for enjoyment!
You can certainly treat yourself with anything you want BUT only once a week. Nope, not a cheat day just ONE cheat meal a week…;)
Back to ‘cutting calories’.
You need to cut your daily calorie intake by 20%.
Which will involve you counting your calories for the first couple of weeks, but don’t get put off by this – it’s much easier than people think and you only need to do it for the first couple of weeks until you learn portion sizes.
You can upload your calories into a free app like myfitnesspal, once you have all your favorite foods loaded in there it’s easy.
Be warned though, it comes with a default setting of 1300 calories per day!
Do not use this default calorie range – you need to calculate the exact amount of calories your body needs.
If you click the link below you can use my calorie tool.
https://clients.dangerouslyfit.com.au/nutrition/calorie-range-tool/
My calorie tool will calculate exactly how many calories your body needs if you want to lose weight (assuming you’re exercising 3-4 times per week).
The second step to raising your metabolism is with exercise.
The higher your metabolism, the more calories your body will burn each day.
The goal is to train smarter— not harder.
With the right type of exercise, you will be burning calories 24 hours a day with what is known as EPOC.
Excess post-exercise oxygen consumption is what happens after you train and also the number of calories you burn at rest.
This is also known as afterburn.
You really don’t need to be spending hours doing long slow cardio.
Slow steady state cardio does very little to elevate your metabolism or burn calories.
You need to create EPOC through high-intensity training.
High-intensity training can be done with interval training, stairs, hills and other types of high-intensity activities.
My favorite is metabolic conditioning, AKA Metcon.
The main reason I like Metcon is because it can work both energy systems simultaneously…
… and we can do it with resistance training.
Which brings me to my third point… building lean muscle through resistance training.
Now, ladies don’t worry – you won’t get bulky.
The type of resistance training we do won’t make you gain bulky muscle.
Instead, it will tone your body and build lean athletic looking muscles.
Like I said earlier, muscle is the only tissue that burns calories…
So by adding lean muscle, you will be burning more calories all day long!
So today’s takeaways are…
To lose weight you must create a calorie deficit.
Ultimately you do this by reducing your daily calorie intake and ramping up your metabolism with high-intensity training.
And, if you want a proven body transformation program that has got thousands of people into incredible shape, check out my body transformation programs.
Wishing you the best of health,
Dan Clay
Dangerously Fit
www.dangerouslyfit.com.au
