Diet…Yeah. Everyone hates this word.

What we usually hear are stories about someone who went on a diet, managed to hold on (probably losing most sanity along the way) for 1, 2 or maybe even 3 months without falling into temptation a ruining their results.

Well, we are here to tell you how to diet in such a way that it can be the factor that most contributes to the quality of your life, instead of, like in most cases, it being the most nerve wracking part of improving your body composition.

SEE ALSO: IS THE PUMP A GOOD WAY TO MEASURE WORKOUT EFFECTIVENESS?

Reasons why your diet plans fall short:

1 – Excessive restriction

Ok. If you want to lose weight, you always need SOME restriction. But that cannot mean all you think about is food, and the only thing similar to food you get to eat is lettuce! By this we mean it can’t mean sacrifice. We normally see people following these hyper restricted, birdlike diets, where they are forced to eat food that they don’t like, following a very inflexible menu. After a week they are ready to shoot their brother if they have to eat another leaf of arugula. Sometimes we can see people following a diet for an extended period of time, which they saw some Fit Dude or Dudette following, just to get in shape for a competition or photo shoot.

We think that, if you can’t see yourself following a diet plan for a whole year, without any trouble whatsoever, then you might as well quit while you’re ahead. Why? Because sooner or later you will be extremely frustrated, and on the verge of finishing Burguer King’s stock.

2 – Being too extreme

Another really common mistake is someone who wants to lose a few pounds going from eating whatever he wants to only eating salads, and very low calories overall. This is probably the mistake that most compromises the diet, let us explain why:

When you significantly reduce the calorie intake that your body is used to, your body get’s frightened. This activates a trigger which makes your whole body stay “on the lookout”. Yes, you will lose fat and weight, but you will also lose muscle. In addition, your body will start to burn less and less calorie to maintain it’s weight, so soon you will hit a plateau. Your calories are already as low as they can be without you starving. What happens? You don’t lose anymore weight. Besides, once you star eating normally again, your body will absorb everything so to recover the lost weight (this usually translates into fat gains)!

On the other hand, there are people who want to put on some muscle and start to eat everything they can get their hands on. In these cases, their appearance becomes worse than it was before they started. As expected, they become frustrated and unsatisfied with the results.

The process of losing fat or gaining muscle is slow. Be patient, take baby steps.

3 – Starting a diet that doesn’t make sense for you

Sometimes people diet for a long time, mostly maintaining very low calories, and end up damaging their metabolism. This makes them hit a plateau and not lose weight. This tends to crate a lot of frustration, making people go on and off the diet. Therefore, people rarely reach their goals. What can also happen is the opposite, where someone doesn’t seem to be able to put on weight, tries to eat everything he can, but ends up with excessive body fat and not a lot of muscle.

The solution in these cases is to adjust the diet to your specific case, whether it be manipulating macronutrient quantities, optimizing your metabolism, increasing exercise volume… This way, all the weight you gain or lose when initiating a transformation will be quality weight, muscle if you gain, fat if you lose.

SEE ALSO: DANILO MATOS’S 8 WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Our solution:

Hang on, don’t get scared yet, BUT… our solution is based on counting calories and following a flexible diet. This process used to be really complicated back in the day, but nowadays any person (we have an example of a 60 year old lady) can easily do it. Besides only taking about 2 minutes of your day, this process gives you excellent control over the quality of your gains. Also, it transforms a sacrifice into a hobby! Many of the people who we have helped tend to make a game out of it!

If you need someone to teach you about flexible dieting, and all of this calorie counting business, feel free to contact us. We will be happy to help!