Let me start by saying that nutrition is a critical factor with regards to attaining your physique goals. You can never out exercise poor nutrition! I strongly dislike the word diet, for most of the population when they quote unquote go on a diet; it refers to a length of time. It is much more important, and really the only way to achieve long term change, to eat proper nutrition as a lifestyle.

DIETING
The biggest problem with dieting is the effect it has on your body when you go off the diet. History has shown that when we “go off” or return to our normal patterns of eating we gain more weight then when we began our “diet”. Most of which is fat, that returns at an alarming rate. Most of the time, on most diets the body reacts in a negative way and instead of just losing fat, the body will pull from the muscle stores and a good portion of the scale weight lost comes from muscle instead of fat. At that point the metabolic rate drops, and the body starts holding on to fat and water.

WEIGHT
The second challenge that we must remember is that weight is not a bad thing, as long as it is muscle and not fat. What most of America needs to learn how to do is feed our muscle and starve our fat. Then the scale is not really important. If we learn to eat nutrition based on our metabolic rate everyday, then the challenge goes away.

METABOLIC RATE
Your metabolic rate is the number of calories your body will burn based on your activity and rest. We also must take into account your % of body fat as the leaner you are the more calories your body burns. Once you get your metabolic rate figured out it is then much easier to lose fat and maintain muscle through proper nutrition.

EATING CLEAN
The healthiest way to obtain and maintain a lean body is to eat clean meaning that your food is prepared with very little additives. This means no salt, no butter, no cream or cheese sauces. Dressings for salads should be olive oil and vinegar. Basically you should eat things the way they were meant to be, rarely can you find anything healthy in a box.