Geschatte leestijd: 5 minutenMany people see rapid weight loss or achieving their ideal body through muscle building as a VIP party, where you need to know the right password to get in. Somewhere, this is true, because only those who understand what they need to do to burn fat or achieve muscle growth reach their goals.
Fat burning is a physiological process that closely follows the rules of physiology. Physiology refers to the biological science that studies the life processes of organisms, including metabolism. So, if you’ve set yourself the goal of losing weight, it’s good to know that you can only achieve this by creating a negative energy balance. Often, you can create this calorie deficit simply by consuming fewer calories or by exercising more through cardio or strength training.
Setting Goals in Your Nutrition Plan
Before you start losing weight or building muscle, you need to set clear and concrete goals for yourself. These should be goals that you can also measure for yourself. A good example of a specific measurable goal could be:
I want to lose 10 kilograms in 6 months.
A less good goal is:
I want to make my abdominal muscles visible.
In the first example, you can measure for yourself whether you are on the right track to achieve the goal. If you are not losing weight as quickly (note, we are talking about weight, not necessarily fat), you can increase your exercise or consume fewer calories.
In the second example, you see that the goal is not clearly defined. After all, you measure the visibility of your abdominal muscles by looking in a mirror, and that is not very accurate. To show your abdominal muscles, you need to reduce your body fat percentage. After all: everyone has abdominal muscles, only the degree of development of these muscles AND the layer of fat covering them determines how visible the six-pack is or not. So a better goal for showing your six-pack could be worded in correlation with your body fat percentage, for example:
I want to reduce my body fat percentage from 15 to 10 percent in 3 months. Where you measure your progress with a body fat percentage meter.
This makes your goal concrete, measurable, and allows you to plan the path from your starting point to the finish line, in the time you set.
Measuring Progress
When it comes to assessing your progress with weight loss, it’s a different way than when you assess muscle growth progress. Muscle growth is a very slow process, while weight loss can happen very quickly. When losing weight, you need to consider that the weight you lose does not necessarily only consist of fat mass. After all, a kilogram of body weight consists of fluid, bone mass, muscle mass, fat mass. Everyone knows the ads promising that you can lose 10 kilograms in a few weeks. It is possible to lose a lot of weight in a very short time, but we don’t focus on that.
Losing weight in a very short time can also lead to muscle breakdown. For example, if you follow a crash diet, you starve your body and it will not only burn fat mass but also break down muscle mass to generate energy. In addition, muscle breakdown can slow down your metabolism and you can end up with a less attractive body. Because often you cannot sustain a crash diet for long and you will return to your old eating habits, increasing the chance of the same physique or even a less attractive physique.
So what is a responsible pace of weight loss? A good diet or weight management should aim to lose 0.5 – 1 kilogram per week. The rate at which you lose weight will result in losing fat and not too much muscle. And the pace will also ensure that your metabolism does not suffer.
Basic Rules of a Nutrition Plan
In addition to setting your goals and measuring your progress, it is important that you adhere to some general knowledge rules for your nutrition plan. These basic rules can help you get a better understanding of why you need to eat specific foods and nutrients. So see this as the basics of your nutrition plan:
- The food you consume daily consists of micronutrients and macronutrients. The macronutrients are carbohydrates, proteins, and fats. The micronutrients include vitamins and minerals. Your body needs these, and that is why it is so important to eat a varied diet.
- Fruits and vegetables are essential for getting micronutrients and macronutrients, but also for getting enough fiber. Therefore, the advice is to include sufficient amounts of these in your nutrition plan.
- To provide your body with enough fluids, you need to drink enough water. The water in your body helps you remove waste products and helps maintain your fluid balance.
- Know how many calories you need daily and how much you actually eat. You can never calculate this to 3 decimal places, but it is important that you handle this consciously. After all, the number of calories you consume together with the number of calories you burn daily determines whether your body weight increases or decreases.
- Eat enough unsaturated fats. The bad reputation of fats is slowly being replaced by carbohydrates. Not entirely fair, since carbohydrates offer enormous benefits for athletes. But unsaturated fats are important because they play a crucial role in testosterone production. The advice is therefore to eat 1.5 to 2.5 grams of unsaturated fats per day, per body weight.
- Consume enough proteins. Proteins provide a feeling of satiety, more than carbohydrates. In addition, your proteins help promote muscle growth and prevent muscle breakdown. These are a few, of the many, benefits that eating protein can offer. Guideline: 2 grams of protein per body weight per day
- Before going to sleep, it can be good to take a casein protein, such as skimmed quark. This source of protein is absorbed more slowly by the body and helps prevent muscle breakdown during your sleep.
Example Nutrition Plan for Muscle Growth
To give you an idea of what a nutrition plan might look like, we’ve put together a muscle-building nutrition plan below. With this schedule, you can get an idea of when to eat how much of what. Of course, a nutrition plan is very personal, so you should keep in mind that this may not be the best nutrition plan for everyone. It is intended as an example, so apply it accordingly:
07:30 – When you wake up, you can take a protein shake right away before you start the day. Since you haven’t received any nutrients during the night, your body has a great need for protein and fluids.
08:00 – After your morning protein shake, you can have 250 grams of skimmed quark with a little oatmeal for breakfast. You can supplement this with fruits such as blueberries, banana, and kiwi to provide vitamins and minerals.
10:00 – Between breakfast and lunch is quite a bit of time, so around 10 o’clock, you can already have a protein shake with a banana. You can easily make the protein shake with water.
12:00 – Lunch can vary endlessly. In this example, we assume pasta with 125 grams of chicken fillet and some salad.
15:30 – A particularly important meal is the meal between lunch and dinner. Often, you don’t eat much more after lunch, so your stomach can start to rumble around 4 p.m. The biggest pitfall for many people is giving in to a snack here, which often consists of sugars. Therefore, have a sandwich with chicken fillet or have a banana with a protein source here.
18:00 – Dinner can vary by at least including vegetables and meat. So start with 250 grams of vegetables, such as broccoli, and supplement that with 200 grams of meat, chicken, or fish. In addition, you can supplement this with 125 grams of carbohydrates, especially if you plan to train in the evening.
20:00 – Training
21:30 – After your workout, have a protein shake and a banana.
23:00 – Before going to sleep, you can eat half a bowl of quark, 250 grams. Or you can have a casein shake before going to sleep.
