Weight Lifting Goals
Question: How important is tracking your caloric intake when it comes to making progress towards you weight lifting goals? Eating healthy and working out hard, but finding the progress the past two years is not where it should be.
Answer: Using running a business as a non-fitness example. When you run a business, your success or lack thereof will be found in the details. That is where the term “the devil is in the detail” comes from-meaning that your success or failure will depend on the components of the endeavor before you. When running a business, you are constantly looking for ways to increase efficiency and cut costs. Sometimes cutting costs by only 5 percent, while it may not seem like much, can allow you to invest in another area that may produce muscle growth. Well, your efforts in the gym are no different. Day after day, we grind out brutal workouts in hopes of building the body of our dreams. If you are not tracking your nutritional intake, how can you know if you are under-eating, overeating, consuming too much protein, too little fat,using muscle building supplements etc.?
Understanding What to Eat
A few years ago before taking the time to get educated, following typical bro science myths passed on from other big guys at the gym. Consuming way too much protein and had zero understanding of necessary fat and carb intake. Once learning to track macros, found consuming nearly 400 grams of protein, yet less than 70 grams of fat. Reducing protein intake to one gram per pound of body weight and more than double fat intake. Almost immediately, noticing a significant decrease stomach bloating and say both performance in the gym and overall libido for life increase significantly.
Fat maybe the most important of all macronutrients. If you consume too little fat, you can kiss your sex drive goodbye, experience decreased stamina during workouts, delayed recovery and you may have sore joints-the list goes on and on.
Know Your Math
If your goal is to gain 15 pounds of muscle of the next 12 months, then you must know your current BMR and caloric output during workouts. While ensuring you are eating to surplus each day in order to stay on track to achieve your weight gaining goals. Not doing this would be like trying to find a destination you have never seen without directions, a map or GPS. You can eat frivolously and hope for the best, but you can also drive a car with your feet-it doesn’t mean it is a good idea.