APRIL 28, 2018
Go to the gym regularly, but don’t see results and are ready to give up everything? Do you want to lose weight without starving? Do you like physical activity and are ready to work hard on yourself? So, it's time to take a closer look at the fitness diet for burning fat! Features of the diet, its results and subtleties are in our article.
Diversify your diet
With regular physical activity, a balanced and varied diet is important. Make sure that the menu includes six main groups of natural products:
- vegetables (including legumes);
- fruits;
- nuts, seeds and natural oils;
- unprocessed meat, fish and seafood;
- whole grains;
- natural dairy products.
It is better to switch to proper nutrition gradually. This way you will avoid stress due to giving up not the most healthy, but familiar food.
Myths about sports supplements
Despite the fact that sports fat burners for women are very popular and can be easily purchased in any specialized store, there are still many myths surrounding them. Girls refuse to take protein shakes or amino acids, as they consider them very harmful.
The main myths are as follows:
- This is chemistry. Many people confuse steroids and regular protein, putting them on the same level. Quality products from sports stores are no more chemical than dairy products. Natural ingredients are used for its production. Of course, you can find mixtures with a poor composition, but there will be no more chemistry there than in a chocolate bar from the supermarket.
- Only for men. Women believe that they should not use sports nutrition, because it will make them pump up and look like bodybuilders. Unfortunately for many gym goers, nutritional supplements do not provide this effect. Even men with good genetics find it difficult to achieve significant muscle gain and great physical shape. Women should not be afraid of sports nutrition. Moreover, muscles do not grow from taking supplements, but from doing physical activity.
- Sports drugs are a waste of money. As stated above, you can actually do without them, but they are not useless. With the right approach, you can benefit from protein shakes, BCAA or vitamins in the form of good health, the absence of a constant state of hunger with a lack of calories, healthy skin, nails, hair and the functioning of the whole body. It will only be a waste of money if you thoughtlessly pick up cans from the store and wait for the result without additional effort for your transformation and continue to eat incorrectly.
- Only for professional athletes. Yes, some offers on the market are really useless, especially if the woman does not exercise at all. It is important to immediately understand what and why you are taking. You need to start from the goals and needs of the body during physical activity, without which it is difficult to start lipolysis (the metabolic process of breaking down fats into their constituent fatty acids to use them as an energy source).
Don't go on a hunger strike
Sports nutrition does not require severe fasting. The body should not suffer from lack of nutrients before, during and after training. Calculate the number of calories you need per day and stick to the 25–50–25 rule. That is, 25% of the calories consumed per day should come from breakfast and dinner, and 50% of calories from lunch.
Iya Zorina
Fitness expert Lifehacker
The Mifflin-Geor formula is considered the most accurate for calculating calories.
For men: 5 + (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) − (5 × age); for women: (10 × weight in kg) + (6.25 × height in cm) − (5 × age) − 161.
With its help you will calculate your basic exchange. Next, you need to multiply it by the coefficient of physical activity: 1.2 - passive lifestyle, 1.375 - light activity 1-3 times a week, 1.55 - exercise 3-5 times a week, 1.725 - heavy training 6-7 times a week , 1.9 - professional sports or hard physical labor.
If you want to lose weight or gain muscle mass, at first count not only calories, but also the amount of proteins, fats and carbohydrates. This will give you a rough idea of how much you need to eat to maintain, gain, or lose weight.
In addition, you will learn how to choose the right products. For example, you'll realize that you can eat a large bowl of vegetables, feel full, and still consume the same number of calories as a small portion of French fries.
Today, tracking your diet and counting calories is much easier than ever before. There are many mobile applications that will help with this. You don’t even have to Google the nutritional value of the product - just enter its name, and the program displays the calorie content and the amount of protein, fat and carbohydrates.
What foods should be excluded from the menu?
Should be completely excluded from the menu:
- Desserts, sweets, confectionery, baked goods;
- Any fast food;
- Smoked food;
- Fatty and fried;
- Semi-finished products;
- Pasta, semolina, white rice;
- Sausages.
Since the fitness diet does not contain strict restrictions and completely excludes fasting, accordingly, it only brings benefits to the body, you can stick to it for an indefinite period of time. In other words, as much as will be necessary to achieve the result. To preserve it, you should not indulge in fats and sweets.
This diet is contraindicated for older people, people with problems with the gastrointestinal tract, and hypertension.
Compliance with all nutritional rules, as well as physical activity, allows you to lose up to 6-7 kilograms per month. At the same time, proper nutrition will give you the energy you need for training, speed up the recovery process, reduce the risk of injury, improve concentration, and make the ratio of fat and muscle tissue harmonious.
Time your meals
Make a rough meal schedule based on your daily routine. Supplement the standard breakfast-lunch-dinner trio with a second breakfast and (or) afternoon snack, depending on what half of the day you train. But only if you really want to eat at this time, there is no need to force yourself.
Iya Zorina
Fitness expert Lifehacker
Food timing is a controversial thing. It happens that people who are used to eating breakfast stop eating in the morning and lose weight. There are also cases of weight loss through intermittent fasting - this is one or two meals per day. You can get rid of extra pounds with split meals (6-8 times a day) or on diets without carbohydrates and fats. There is no exact answer to what is right for you. You need to try, experiment and find your own routine.
However, intense training on an empty stomach is unlikely to benefit the body. Fainting or loss of strength has never made anyone healthier or more beautiful. To feel good, try eating a high-protein meal about 2-3 hours before going to the gym. Or have a light snack 30–40 minutes before class.
And in the first 20 minutes after training, the so-called post-workout (anabolic) window is open in the body for the consumption of proteins and carbohydrates (but not fats). Everything that is eaten during this period will be used to restore muscles and increase muscle mass, but not to fat deposits.
Differences between sports nutrition for women and men
Separately, for women, sports stores offer only vitamin and mineral complexes, and supplements such as protein or BCAA are the same for everyone. Even vitamin-mineral complexes have minimal differences in their composition and concentration of certain substances. For example, the daily dose of iron for women is twice as high as for men.
When choosing sports nutrition for burning fat for use during training, girls should only look at the quality. The needs of the male and female bodies are identical, and there is no need to select anything special for the weaker sex. The only difference will be in the amount women will consume protein or, for example, BCAA.
Don't eliminate fats from your diet
According to WHO recommendations, 30% of the total energy consumed per day should come from fats. Of these, no more than 10% are saturated fats and no more than 2% are trans fats. The remaining 18% should be unsaturated fats. They are found in fish, avocado and nuts, as well as sunflower, soybean, canola and olive oil.
Iya Zorina
Fitness expert Lifehacker
If your daily intake is 2,500 kcal, 750 should be consumed from fat. That's about 83 grams of fat, with no more than 27 grams of saturated fat, which is found in animal products. For example, in butter, lard or fatty meat.
For those who want to lose weight, the expert advises reducing the amount of fat or carbohydrates (depending on the chosen diet). There is no consensus on which diet works best: both low-fat and low-carb options provide good results.
However, you should not completely eliminate fats from your diet. Especially if athletic performance and muscle gain are important to you. Fats are necessary for the production of testosterone, a male sex hormone that promotes muscle growth, reduction of body fat, and increased strength and endurance.
Menu for weight loss during training for girls
It is necessary to draw up an approximate diet in advance during active training and strictly adhere to it. Weekly menu for weight loss for a girl for 5 days:
1 day:
- breakfast - oatmeal with low-fat yogurt, green tea;
- lunch – bran bread, dried fruit compote;
- lunch – baked chicken breast, steamed broccoli, grapefruit juice;
- dinner - 2 eggs, tomato and cucumber salad, tea with honey and lemon.
Day 2:
- breakfast – 1 grapefruit, zucchini pancakes, coffee with milk;
- lunch – cottage cheese casserole, kefir;
- lunch – boiled fish, brown rice, berry juice;
- dinner - egg salad with vegetables, chicken in olive oil, compote.
Day 3:
- breakfast – five-grain porridge, orange juice;
- lunch – 50 g of nuts, drinking yogurt;
- lunch - boiled rabbit meat, cauliflower, fried in breadcrumbs, tea with lemon;
- dinner – vinaigrette, lean pork steak, fruit drink.
Day 4:
- breakfast – buckwheat porridge with apple, hibiscus;
- lunch – cottage cheese with dried apricots and raisins, green tea;
- lunch – onion soup, grapefruit juice;
- dinner - beef cutlets, Greek salad, cherry compote.
Day 5:
- breakfast - oat bran, drinking yogurt;
- lunch – hibiscus, cottage cheese casserole;
- lunch – vegetable stew, steamed fish, apple juice;
- dinner - salad of savoy cabbage, onions, bell peppers, scrambled eggs, tea with honey and lemon.
Eat protein and carbohydrate foods before and after training
It is best to include foods rich in complex carbohydrates in your pre-workout diet. For example, legumes, sprouts, tomatoes, zucchini, eggplant, whole grain cereals, bread, brown rice. As well as foods high in protein - lean red and white meat, fish and seafood, legumes, nuts, eggs, cheese, milk and cottage cheese. It's best to eat a couple of hours before going to the gym so that the food has time to digest.
After classes, you are also allowed to eat carbohydrate foods that do not contain fat: bread, potatoes, rice, pasta, fruits, vegetables. In addition, you can supplement your meals with proteins.
Iya Zorina
Fitness expert Lifehacker
An adult needs about 1.6–1.8 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight per day, strength athletes and those who want to gain muscle mass need 2–2.2 grams per kilogram.
Natural dairy products are one of the most important elements of a sports diet and sources of valuable protein. For example, crumbly cottage cheese “Savushkin” contains 18.3 grams of protein per 100-gram serving of the product. At the same time, it has a wide range of fat content (0.1% to 9%), so that everyone can choose the optimal product for themselves to maintain great shape and excellent well-being.
Choose healthy cottage cheese
What should a girl eat to gain weight?
A healthy diet is a combination of slow and fast carbohydrates, protein and fats, both plant and animal origin. You should also distribute them rationally throughout the day.
It is better to consume fast proteins after training and waking up, that is, at moments when there is a shortage of protein foods in the body. Slow-acting proteins should be evenly distributed across all meals and taken regularly. The slowest ones include casein and cottage cheese.
The amount of fast carbohydrates in the diet should be minimal; they provoke the release of insulin and can be consumed exclusively in the first half of the day. Slow carbohydrates should be the basis of the menu.
Don't forget about fats, which are responsible for transporting nutrients and energy. Just don’t use them before bed, when the body should be resting.
Don't forget to drink during your workout
Our muscles are 75% water. During exercise, fluid is lost through breathing, sweat and tears (just kidding). The loss of even 2% of moisture in the body reduces the effectiveness of the exercise by a quarter. Dehydration leads to rapid fatigue and loss of coordination. So don't ignore the feeling of thirst.
To feel good and not harm your body, drink half a liter of water a couple of hours before training. Then drink a glass every 15 minutes throughout the session. And after training, weigh yourself, see how many grams you lost, and drink the same amount of water. For example, if you lost 500 grams, you drank half a liter of water. It's awkward to carry a bottle with you on runs, so drink before and after your workout.
Why does a girl need muscle mass?
First of all, it's beautiful. It's nice to look at yourself in the mirror when your figure is slim and toned. Secondly, muscles improve the functioning of the body as a whole. To maintain them, the body requires more energy compared to fat. Therefore, if a girl has muscles, then she burns more calories.
Why do you need a diet?
A diet is needed for effective weight loss. It enhances the effect of training by speeding up metabolism and helping to break down fat. Sports nutrition has been developed for women who regularly expose their bodies to physical activity. Such nutrition replenishes lost energy, fills the body with vitamins and nutrients . The feeling of hunger disappears, the fat layer is actively broken down.
A sports diet is based on the consumption of certain foods that help women avoid exhaustion, maintain excellent health, and achieve their desired weight.
Protein sports diet for cutting
This diet is prescribed to bodybuilders, athletes and athletes during training.
Its main goal is to remove fat cells from the body, creating conditions for increasing muscle mass and giving it a beautiful relief.
- Food should be predominantly protein. It is allowed to be consumed in unlimited quantities. These are products such as chicken and turkey meat, lean fish, seafood, egg whites, low-fat cottage cheese and kefir.
- The amount of carbohydrates, on the contrary, is reduced to a critical level. And these should be foods with a low glycemic index. They are slowly absorbed and do not store fat in the body. It is very easy to find out the glycemic index of a product; there are special tables on the Internet with all the necessary information.
Here is a list of recommended carbohydrates:
- rye pasta;
- buckwheat grain;
- cabbage;
- tomatoes;
- cucumbers;
- all types of greens.
Drying is not suitable for everyone, but only for healthy and physically fit people. But even a healthy person is better off enlisting the help of a doctor and only then proceeding with it.
It is absolutely contraindicated for people with diabetes, cardiovascular diseases, kidney pathologies, and disorders of the stomach and intestines. A low amount of carbohydrates can lead to apathy, weakness, drowsiness, and inhibition of action. If such signs appear or a taste of acetone appears in the mouth, you should stop immediately.
Drying is always accompanied by regular exercise to keep the skin and muscles toned. A suitable set of aerobic and strength exercises is selected individually by the instructor.
