This is many times a shocking revelation for a person.
They go to a health coach for weight loss advice and the unexpected response was “you need to eat more food”.
While the disbelief starts to overcome them, that’s usually when we tell them how much more food they need to eat.
That’s about the time their jaw hits the floor.
The shock isn’t as much the amount of food we prescribe, it’s just that many of our clients or people we talk to say that they are already eating a ton of food.
…and that’s probably what it feels like.
So I don’t know if it’s good news or bad news, but your body may need MORE fuel to lose the body fat you’re looking to lose.
Start by Tracking Your Food
Eat the way you would normally eat in a day. But now, track how much food you’re actually taking in.
How many carbs are getting each day?
How much protein?
How much fat?
Non-starchy vegetables?
Find out the variance between how much you’re currently eating and where your coach wants to get to.
This will be helpful because we want to establish a baseline. The baseline will help us find out which category we need to focus on first.
We have found in the past that it’s not helpful to try and adjust all of the macros at the same time. It just gets too overwhelming so we just focus on the largest variance first.
Add One Extra Serving a Day
Once we found the category which needs the most help, we just add one more serving per day and that’s it.
…for the entire week.
…and probably for the following week as well.
Adding just one more serving of any of these categories will be disruptive enough for your routine to notice a change in your body and your day.
I’ll use protein as an example since that’s usually the lagging macronutrient.
If I want to add one more serving of protein. I can do this by adding in a protein shake after my workout. I have now created a whole new procedure and routine.
Or maybe I just added in two to three more eggs to breakfast. This too would will result in different feelings and levels of fullness which will impact your other meals.
I promise you, this small disruption will take around a week or two just to get used to. Hopefully, after a week or two, you start to notice that this new addition is a habit and not something you think about as much.
That’s the goal. To make this single new addition a habit.
The other reason we start with one single addition is that too much food will cause a lot of gut discomfort. Your body won’t know what’s going on and it’ll let you know it pretty quickly.
...and with gut discomfort, many other people will know it too.
Start small and get used to the new habit.
Adjust Your Portions as Needed
After the first addition becomes a habit, then we need to move on to the next addition. It could be an addition within the same category or you could find benefit with moving to a different category.
The deciding factor in this decision should be what’s easier or what do you feel more confident you could sustain.
Although we would love to see you tackle the largest deficit again, we also realize you need to love your meals. If we continually add one single nutrient, then it may negatively impact how much you enjoy your dinners. Even though we can add one macronutrient and over a week or so our body may become more used to it. It doesn’t mean our tastebuds also become used to the different flavor profiles.
So review the other aspects of your plate and select another nutrient you would like to add to your plate and over the next week see how consistent you can be with the additional amount of food.
Keep doing this, one by one until you get even closer to your recommended food intake.
Hopefully the additional food, also corresponds to other signs of progress.
Things like:
Increased levels of energy
Increased strength
More pleasant moods
Increased muscle tone
…and many more.
Adding more food may sound contradictory to the goals you have, but sometimes it’s the exact action that will lead to the long-term success you’re looking for.
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