How I Made Myself a Meal Plan to Successfully Lose Fat
HOW MANY CALORIES?
First thing first. You need to determine how much calories you consume per day.
That’s easy to find.
It can depend on many factors, for example how active you are. Do you walk 30 minutes each day to go to the bus, do you have an evening walk, perhaps you have an active job, or do you sit almost all day. If you have a certain body type that consumes more energy or how you digest food can also be factor that influence your daily caloric consumption.
But none of these matters. Because you need to determine your caloric needs empirically. It is the most precise way. And we need precision because even 200 calories can put you in a slow but steady deficit.
To do that the best way is to have a meal plan.
Let’s say that you try to do a meal plan in which you have put almost the usual stuff that you eat and it says it gives you 2500 calories per day (and some random macros).
HOW TO SUSTAIN IT?
The next thing that you want to do is to stick to this plan for a week and check your average weight this week to see if you have lost or maintained weight.
If you have lost let’s say at least 0.5 kg it means that you are in a deficit. If you didn’t you can readjust yourself and lower your calories by 200 more. And usually, you want to remove them from carbohydrates sources.
So, that is pretty much the basics.
What I have personally found is that the days after a lot of physical effort (meaning I was in a deficit), I saw a sharp drop of weight. So, you will usually feel when you are in a deficit. But sometimes when the diet is too aggressive you will find that you feel dizzy. This is not very good because we want steady progress.
The diet needs to be sustainable because its takes between 1 and 6 months usually. We don’t want to be too long in a deficit because the body needs a break.
YOU NEED TO CHANGE HOW YOU ATE BEFORE
The next thing you will find is that you cannot really eat like you ate before.
You need a good proportion of macronutrients and enough micronutrients.
Because you are in a deficit, your body is weak, so you need to eat enough micronutrients to be healthy and not too weak.
So, you need to eat a good amount of vegetables and fruits.
This will also help not to feel hungry because the volume of these are big and it will make your stomach full.
You will also need to have enough fats because they are essential to your body by autoregulating the hormones for example.
You will need around 1 g per kg of bodyweight per day. So, if you are 75kg, you need 75g per day. And, from healthy sources preferably, like nuts and avocado.
Next thing are the proteins, you will need around 1 to 2g per kg of bodyweight depending on how fat you are or how muscular for example (you can look recommendations elsewhere).
Proteins are also good in a diet because they keep you full.
For the rest of your calories, you can use them in carbohydrates sources.
And, when you want to lower your calories, you will want to cut the carbohydrates first usually.
Remember to also have healthy carbohydrates and protein sources, so your body will be stronger and work better.
Chicken and rice usually works very well because it keeps you full.
Experiment to find which foods makes you feel as full as possible but usually it’s the same things like greek yogurt, eggs, potatoes. Lean fish usually is not good to make you full.
FINAL THOUGHTS
So, to summarize: -Have a meal plan -Determine your caloric needs -Experiment to feel full -Readjust to lose weight
If you need help with your diet you can try out AutoMealPlanner that generates a customized meal plan according to macros needs in seconds to save you time.