This week we look at Part II of Dieting for body composition, where we delve into a little more detail, taking in subjects such as micro-nutrition, supplementation & tracking progress.... 

• Get the basis right first: Choose a plan you can stick to. If you cannot see yourself following the current diet you are on in 6 months time then you should re-evaluate what you are doing.

• Once you have found a style of dieting that fits with your lifestyle, focus on energy balance. This will mean tracking calories for a period of time.

• After that it is time to ensure you are getting the right amount of the 3 macronutrients (Protein, Carbohydrate and Fat - oh, and don't neglect your fibre intake). Understand that getting your protein intake right is the most important.

• Meal timing can be important - especially the meals that sandwich your workout.

• Don't overly-rely on supplements - use them to plug holes in any deficiencies you may have.

• Always priorities whole foods. Minimise processed foods. 

• Ensure you are tracking progress along the way. Use a range of measurement tools & always be consistent.

Welcome to the Physique Wise Guide to Dieting for body composition.

Who is this for?

• Beginners to training looking to improve their results
• Novices who have been training for a while and have dieted unsuccessfully or hit a plateau
• Advanced trainees looking for the extra 10%

Hope you enjoy!

"Success in weight management is challenging. Even after successful weight loss, weight regain is very common" (Karhunen et al, 2012)

Welcome to Part II of this series on Living a 'lean lifestyle'. Part I took a look at the activity-side of things. Part II looks to tackle dietary and lifestyle factors.

Enjoy!

Getting lean and maintaining it is the product of thousands of small decisions and actions carried out over a number of months and years. There is no magic formula. There isn't a magical training program or superfood that will transform your body. Only the consistent application of habits that manifest over a long period of time. Below are a distillation of some of the most important and noteworthy decisions/habits/rituals that I personally (or clients of mine) have adopted to ensure continual progress. Taken separately, none of these will have a massive impact on your waistline. However, when combined and pursued over a long period of time, they will exert a powerful impact on your body....

Having a 6-pack/abs/washboard stomach/chiselled abs is still the holy-grail for many people sweating it out in gyms across the world. So how does one obtain a 6-pack? And how does one keep it for more than a few fleeting days during the summer?!

For guys, visible abs tend to appear at around 12% body fat. For females, approximately 18% body fat (these are very rough guides and can vary from person to person). Knowing your current body fat percentage will give you a good indication of where you are in relation to these figures. This should provide you with a better idea of how long it might take you to achieve a 6 pack.

The muscles that make up the '6-pack' are known as the 'Rectus Abdominis'. These paired muscles are separated by band of connective tissue known as the line alba.
 

So you want to achieve a lean mid-section replete with abs? The read on and stick to the rules!

Building muscle mass is one of the primary goals of many clients I deal with. Gyms across the world are awash with lifters looking to increase their 'gains'. So when looking to add muscle mass, what are some of the key considerations? Well, fortunately, I have some answers from the very best minds in the industry, courtesy of Alan Aragon's monthly research review: -

Vilfredo Pareto is the father of the '80/20 principle'. Pareto noticed that across time and space 80% of a given nation’s wealth would be owned by 20% of the population. Pareto’s principle can also be applied to business, where it can be found that 80% of a businesses income is derived from only 20% of it’s clients.

So let’s expand Pareto’s principle to nutrition and training. “If you can identify the 20% - the crucial 20% necessary to maximise your results - and apply yourself fully to that particular 20%, you free up 80% of your effort cache for other important things” (Zielonka).

Let's first have a look at the Nutrition Pyramid & find out where to focus the critical 20%: -.

In order to structure a sustainable diet that provides an energy deficit, it is important to select foods with a low energy density, but a high volume of food, such that there are few calories per bite

We cannot eliminate stress from our lives. We can, however, improve our ability to manage our stress levels. Being able to effectively manage stress is one of the greatest tools we can possess in today’s age. Not only that, but the effectiveness of any training or nutritional protocol you are following will be predicated on your ability to effectively cope when life gets difficult, because invariably it will! Often the point at which external stressors build up is the time people fail and give up on their training or nutrition plan. After a couple of weeks you find yourself back at square one. This is why any diet or training regimen you undertake needs to be SUSTAINABLE for the long-term. Try to always think with the longer-term in mind, not merely the next 4-6 weeks. Like the saying goes, Rome wasn’t built in a day.

Supplement: "A thing added to something else in order to compete or enhance it" (Oxford English Dictionary)

Supplements should be used to to complete and enhance our current diet. It should not be used as a replacement for whole foods. Wherever possible, try to obtain all of your nutrition from whole foods. However, there are certain vitamins and minerals that we are often deficient in that we are better off try to obtain from supplementation. 
 

Nutrient timing relates to the timing of our meals, with specific reference to the nutrients consumed around the workout (‘peri-workout’ nutrition). Firstly, it is important to understand where nutrient timing sits within the overall hierarchy of factors that contribute to dieting for body composition results.

So far we have discussed energy balance (calories in vs calories out) and Macronutrients (Ratios of Protein, Carbs and Fats) as the main two considerations for anyone dieting, whether to lose body fat or gain muscle mass. These 2 factors are far and away the most important to consider, and must be addressed first before considering the other factors, one of which we will discuss today.

Micronutrients: What are we talking about?

Carbohydrates have been somewhat demonised of late due to some mis-leading claims surrounding the effect of carbohydrates on the hormone insulin. I have already written an article debunking the insulin-hypothesis & so I won’t go into this subject in any detail here. The point I want to make here is that when it come to losing body fat the two most important factors to consider are: -

1. Total Calorie intake
2. Adherence

Part I of this series looked at the first dieting priority which is Energy Balance and Adherence. If you missed this then take a look here http://physiquewise.com.au/blog/2017/3/21/physique-wise-dieting-priorities-part-i-adherence-energy-balance before reading on.

In the coming weeks we tackle the second priority when it comes to dieting, and that is the macronutrients and more specifically, what amounts should be ingesting for optimal results?

This week, we are looking specifically at the importance of protein
 

Over the coming weeks I will be taking you through each step of the pyramid so that you have a fundamental understanding of what is required to change your body composition (increase muscle, drop body fat etc.). 

So this week our attention turns to the very fundamentals that form the cornerstone of any attempt to alter body composition…. Adherence and energy balance.