And by “definitive guide”, in reality I mean it’s more like the “it depends guide.”
I apologize to anyone who came here looking for a specific and exact fat loss plan for women.
Anyone who tells you there’s a plan for all shapes and sizes that will work regardless of who you are is straight up blowing smoke.
In fitness and nutrition, everything is based on context and variables that are constantly changing.
That’s why when I say “it depends”, I honestly mean it.
I apologize to anyone who came here looking for a specific and exact fat loss plan for women.
Anyone who tells you there’s a plan for all shapes and sizes that will work regardless of who you are is straight up blowing smoke.
In fitness and nutrition, everything is based on context and variables that are constantly changing.
That’s why when I say “it depends”, I honestly mean it.
So let’s get into the details of what it actually takes for women to set up a practical and effective nutrition plan to breakthrough from average to attaining a true cover model physique.
You’ve all seen this.
Even if you don’t follow fitness profiles on Instagram, once in a while a picture of a girl with a goddess-like body will make its way into your news feed.
You curiously click on it and see a caption with something like “looking extra lean on my booty day while still eating 250 grams of carbs!”
This chick isn’t the only one either. Your feed eventually becomes inundated with pictures and captions just like this one.
You see all these great looking girls eating amounts of food you could only imagine.
All the while you’re following a 1200 calorie diet you saw in Cosmo or Women’s Health magazines and you feel like you’re starving yourself and whittling away.
After a while you can’t help but notice the whole world is touting the mantra of “eat more and do squats” and “don’t worry about the scale, just eat and lift.”
You’ve all seen this.
Even if you don’t follow fitness profiles on Instagram, once in a while a picture of a girl with a goddess-like body will make its way into your news feed.
You curiously click on it and see a caption with something like “looking extra lean on my booty day while still eating 250 grams of carbs!”
This chick isn’t the only one either. Your feed eventually becomes inundated with pictures and captions just like this one.
You see all these great looking girls eating amounts of food you could only imagine.
All the while you’re following a 1200 calorie diet you saw in Cosmo or Women’s Health magazines and you feel like you’re starving yourself and whittling away.
After a while you can’t help but notice the whole world is touting the mantra of “eat more and do squats” and “don’t worry about the scale, just eat and lift.”
This advice might be fine if you’re looking to increase lean muscle mass (along with amounts of body fat), but for girls looking to get leaner, more toned, or whatever the latest aesthetic term used is, this isn’t the advice they need to be following.
This advice is good hearted and well intended, but its misappropriated.
If your maintenance calories are around 1800-1900 calories a day (which is about right for most average women who just want to look better), you are definitely not starving on a 1200 calorie diet.
This advice is good hearted and well intended, but its misappropriated.
If your maintenance calories are around 1800-1900 calories a day (which is about right for most average women who just want to look better), you are definitely not starving on a 1200 calorie diet.
Before I continue, heres a list of women we ARE NOT talking about.
So if you’re one of those gals who’s dieted down to 11% bodyfat for her 8th figure competition on 300 calories a day and looking to hate on this, chill out. I’m not talking about you.
- Women relatively advanced in training
- Women in caloric maintenance, recomposition, or strictly making muscle gain a priority
- Collegiate or Professional level competitors or athletes
- Gentically gifted women who are predisposed to elite levels of lean body mass
So if you’re one of those gals who’s dieted down to 11% bodyfat for her 8th figure competition on 300 calories a day and looking to hate on this, chill out. I’m not talking about you.
Who we Are talking about:
- Relatively sedentary women
- Women looking to lose a few pounds of body fat to look and feel better
- You lead a busy life and don’t care to spend countless hours at the gym
- You don’t have much experience with weight training and free weights
I know you.
I know you quite well because I coach girls like you.
I’ve coached dozens like you.
And if I haven’t coached you, I’m getting dozens of emails and texts from girls like you with goals like yours every. Single. Day.
You’re not a former college athlete. You’re not an experienced gym rat. You don’t work a physically intensive or physical job.
You just want to lean out and tone up a bit.
You want to look great and still enjoy your life.
You are THE MAJORITY.
I know you quite well because I coach girls like you.
I’ve coached dozens like you.
And if I haven’t coached you, I’m getting dozens of emails and texts from girls like you with goals like yours every. Single. Day.
You’re not a former college athlete. You’re not an experienced gym rat. You don’t work a physically intensive or physical job.
You just want to lean out and tone up a bit.
You want to look great and still enjoy your life.
You are THE MAJORITY.
The Main Problem: A HUGE misunderstanding of caloric maintenance.
I’ll try to make this as simple and straight forward as possible.
A diet based on 1200 calories cannot be labeled as good or bad without context. And this context is solely based on the indviduals caloric maintenance calories.
If you don’t know what caloric maintenance is, it’s the number of calories you must eat in a day to MAINTAIN your current weight and body composition.
I’d hate to over complicate this part, but strategically trying to calculate maintenance calories isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
I’ll try to make this as simple and straight forward as possible.
A diet based on 1200 calories cannot be labeled as good or bad without context. And this context is solely based on the indviduals caloric maintenance calories.
If you don’t know what caloric maintenance is, it’s the number of calories you must eat in a day to MAINTAIN your current weight and body composition.
I’d hate to over complicate this part, but strategically trying to calculate maintenance calories isn’t exactly a walk in the park.
For those interested, here’s a quick example for someone who weighs 150 pounds at roughly 34% body fat.
A multiplier (1.3) r is used with the BMR based on the daily activity level of the individual. This multiplier ranges from 1.3 (for more sedentary) to 1.7 (very active). So use this accordingly.
So for a women whos maintenance is 1745 calories, eating 2000 calories just like her favorite Instagram star is going to lead her to build muscle and increase the weight on the scale.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not what you want if you’re looking to lose body fat.
Small cuts in calories, slow progress, and the dreaded bathroom scale
- (1-.34) x 150 = 99 pounds Lean Body Mass
- 370 + (9.82 x 99) = 1342 BMR
- 1342 x 1.3 = 1745 calories
A multiplier (1.3) r is used with the BMR based on the daily activity level of the individual. This multiplier ranges from 1.3 (for more sedentary) to 1.7 (very active). So use this accordingly.
So for a women whos maintenance is 1745 calories, eating 2000 calories just like her favorite Instagram star is going to lead her to build muscle and increase the weight on the scale.
This isn’t a bad thing, but it’s not what you want if you’re looking to lose body fat.
Small cuts in calories, slow progress, and the dreaded bathroom scale
So you’re thinking, “if I did all the calculations correctly and my maintenance is 1800 calories. If I eat 1500 calories, I’ll lose weight, yes?”
Yes! Yes you will. At an estimated 300 calorie/day deficit, this is roughly a half pound of fat loss per week.
But beware, there are a few things to be cautious of.
Firstly, small deficits like 300 calories are risky because it assumes you are accurately tracking and measuring your food with exact precision. If you dip one too many times into the peanut butter jar, you can overconsume calories and ruin your deficit and wipe out the fat loss for the day completely.
This becomes unrealistic to manage and extremely frustrating.
Here’s the really frustrating and mind fuck part of this.
You lose 7.5 pounds over 7 weeks. But the bathroom scale says otherwise.
You only see a shift of 3 pounds.
Why’s this?
Things like water, carbs, alcohol, salt, hormones, time of day, going to the restroom, and time of the month all cause the bathroom scale to fluctuate insanely.
Is this something you think you can handle.
Personally, I can’t. I’ve tried.
In my personal and professional experience, small deficits like this are un realistic and impossible to manage. You end up micromanaging your entire food life and that’s not a good idea. Eating disorder anyone?
Back to the Instagram Chick
Yes! Yes you will. At an estimated 300 calorie/day deficit, this is roughly a half pound of fat loss per week.
But beware, there are a few things to be cautious of.
Firstly, small deficits like 300 calories are risky because it assumes you are accurately tracking and measuring your food with exact precision. If you dip one too many times into the peanut butter jar, you can overconsume calories and ruin your deficit and wipe out the fat loss for the day completely.
This becomes unrealistic to manage and extremely frustrating.
Here’s the really frustrating and mind fuck part of this.
You lose 7.5 pounds over 7 weeks. But the bathroom scale says otherwise.
You only see a shift of 3 pounds.
Why’s this?
Things like water, carbs, alcohol, salt, hormones, time of day, going to the restroom, and time of the month all cause the bathroom scale to fluctuate insanely.
Is this something you think you can handle.
Personally, I can’t. I’ve tried.
In my personal and professional experience, small deficits like this are un realistic and impossible to manage. You end up micromanaging your entire food life and that’s not a good idea. Eating disorder anyone?
Back to the Instagram Chick
You want to look like her.
You follow everything she posts daily to look like her.
Eat like her. Train like her. Supplement like her.
But after a while you wonder, “how does she get away with eating 2700 calories a day but I cant?”
You’d like to know why?
Here’s why.
The tremendous difference in nutritional demands of a women with a high amount of lean muscle mass maintaining a physique and a slightly overweight women looking to lose bodyfat.
It’s that simple.
Same applies to men.
And unfortunately, the IG girl you love and admire so much is just out to make a quick buck. I get that we all have to make a living, but shamelessly promoting quest bars or some cheap supplements or affiliate sponsors to monetize her genetically superior ass at the expense of girls looking for a real role model isn’t cool.
And to promise very impressionable young women that they can have the body you have while eating large quantities of carbs and calories isn’t very copacetic either.
Immoral might be the word.
Is the popular 1200 calorie diet right for you??
I don’t know.
It depends,
But specific caloric intake can’t be glamorized or vilified without proper context and variables.
Are you a women who’s recently built a solid foundation of lean muscle mass who wants to lose body fat?
Or are you a former collegiate level gymnast training to dominate the cross fit games?
If you find yourself resembling someone like the first case, stick to advice in this article.
And most importantly, learn to track and count your macros.
It isn’t complicated and it’s a life skill that is worth having.
Trust me.
It pays off in the long run and it’s an invaluable skill that will last a lifetime.
Knowledge is power.
It’s also sexy.
If you’re at a restaurant with a guy and you mention to him that a slice of bread has 28 grams of carbs just from looking at it, it’ll blow his mind.
And if finds that knowledgable quality of yours unattractive, then he’s a guy you don’t need to be wasting your time on to begin with.
So count your macros.
Train with weights.
Limit the cardio.
Drink water.
Sleep well.
Track progress.
Ignore the haters.
Be realistic.
Ignore the people who just suck.
And then slowly rebuild your calories back up to maintenance after you’ve achieved your fat loss goals on a 1200 calorie diet, because 1200 calories forever sucks, and nobody wants to do that forever.
Live your life ladies, and embrace the fitness journey with nutrition. A little bit of knowledge will take you places you’ve never imagined.
You follow everything she posts daily to look like her.
Eat like her. Train like her. Supplement like her.
But after a while you wonder, “how does she get away with eating 2700 calories a day but I cant?”
You’d like to know why?
Here’s why.
The tremendous difference in nutritional demands of a women with a high amount of lean muscle mass maintaining a physique and a slightly overweight women looking to lose bodyfat.
It’s that simple.
Same applies to men.
And unfortunately, the IG girl you love and admire so much is just out to make a quick buck. I get that we all have to make a living, but shamelessly promoting quest bars or some cheap supplements or affiliate sponsors to monetize her genetically superior ass at the expense of girls looking for a real role model isn’t cool.
And to promise very impressionable young women that they can have the body you have while eating large quantities of carbs and calories isn’t very copacetic either.
Immoral might be the word.
Is the popular 1200 calorie diet right for you??
I don’t know.
It depends,
But specific caloric intake can’t be glamorized or vilified without proper context and variables.
Are you a women who’s recently built a solid foundation of lean muscle mass who wants to lose body fat?
Or are you a former collegiate level gymnast training to dominate the cross fit games?
If you find yourself resembling someone like the first case, stick to advice in this article.
And most importantly, learn to track and count your macros.
It isn’t complicated and it’s a life skill that is worth having.
Trust me.
It pays off in the long run and it’s an invaluable skill that will last a lifetime.
Knowledge is power.
It’s also sexy.
If you’re at a restaurant with a guy and you mention to him that a slice of bread has 28 grams of carbs just from looking at it, it’ll blow his mind.
And if finds that knowledgable quality of yours unattractive, then he’s a guy you don’t need to be wasting your time on to begin with.
So count your macros.
Train with weights.
Limit the cardio.
Drink water.
Sleep well.
Track progress.
Ignore the haters.
Be realistic.
Ignore the people who just suck.
And then slowly rebuild your calories back up to maintenance after you’ve achieved your fat loss goals on a 1200 calorie diet, because 1200 calories forever sucks, and nobody wants to do that forever.
Live your life ladies, and embrace the fitness journey with nutrition. A little bit of knowledge will take you places you’ve never imagined.
