Oh my goodness, it has been SO long!! 6 months to be in fact, was my last blog / newsletter that I wrote! How time flies.
I’ve always said to people, it’s not that you don’t have time, it’s just not your priority. The same applies to me right now. The second half of the year, I competed twice (one at World’s Strongest Woman in Norway & also The Strongman Games in Ohio), I took a month off from work to travel Europe and balancing running my business was hard!
So newsletters / blog posts became a back burner – it just was not a priority.
However, thankfully a lovely lady called Irene, spoke to me in the gym last week and asked me – “When are you going to start writing your newsletters again? I found them really helpful!” which pushed me to get back into writing these, for all of those other ladies who found them helpful – I’m back!
If there are any topics, you specifically would like me to cover then make sure to let me know! I‘m going to go back to writing these weekly, so it would be great to hear from any of you!
So the first newsletter of 2019. Here we go!
With the new year, it is always a good time for reflection. Whether that be in your personal life, in terms of relationships with others, your relationship with foods or even the relationship you have with yourself.
Being the beginning of the year, naturally we get a lot of people mainly thinking about the relationship they have with themselves and wanting to ‘become a better version of themselves!’ Normally, this comes in the shape of wanting to feel better about themselves both in mentally and physically – which also come hand in hand. When you’re moving more and eating well, naturally people tend to feel better about themselves, as their skin clarity improves, you’re mind is less foggy, your mood improves, you feel more energetic and become leaner.
For some, this process can be quite natural. There is normally a ‘switch’ for most, when they decide enough is enough and they want to be better, do better, feel better. And that’s it. They turn a new page in their book and switch things up.
But, what if you feel as though you’ve consistently been doing the same thing over & over again, but your results aren’t showing for the amount of effort you feel you’re putting in?
Unfortunately, a lot of women I meet for the first time are substantially under eating. For years, their calories have been lower than even their basal metabolic rate (what your body needs on a daily basis to run all of it’s basic bodily functions!).
I always try to use the old school analogy of fuelling a fire, because this tends to hit home for most the easiest. The more consistently you put fuel on a fire, the longer and easier it burns – right?
It’s quite typical, I find, with some of the women I am able to work with – unfortunately for years they have been completely under eating and normally eating the wrong sorts of foods as well. Over the years, this contributes to a lot of stubborn fat loss, sometimes, primarily stubborn abdominal fat loss.
So, what can you be doing in order to help with your fat loss goals for the year?
Firstly, start tracking how many calories you’re eating daily. Find your base. The aim is to increase your calories as much as possible, before you start putting weight or body fat on.
For example, you may find that you’re only eating 1000kcal per day. Unless you’re a child or severely inactive, then this will be far too low for your needs.
The individual’s target calories at the end of the process is completely dependent on your daily energy expenditure, sex of the person, age and lean body tissue – but something, if you have the patience for, can be worked out by yourself.
An example of how to change this is: a week at a time, increase your calories by 100 to begin with. If for years, you’ve under eating, you may even want to increase this every 2-3 weeks. You don’t want to increase your calories too quickly, as naturally you will put on body fat and body weight – which is not your goal. You want your body to stay the same and then start to lose.
If you’ve got to a place with your calories, where you are now starting to put weight on then you’ve gone too far with your calories. Bring them back down to the previous increment and stay here for 2-3 weeks. Allow your metabolism to adjust with this amount of calories.
If your calories are high enough then, this is when you can come down into a deficit, in order to achieve your fat loss goals. What you’re looking for is, consistency in your nutrition, hitting similar macro nutrients (carb/fats and protein ratio) on a day to day basis and generally hitting enough protein on a day to day basis. This is going to be your most important macronutrient with your fat loss journey.
There is plenty of conflicting evidence on ‘how much protein is enough’ dependent on the individual and their activity level. For someone who is inactive generally 0.8g per kg of body weight every day is the minimum guidelines in order to be within the safety limit.
The general safety guidelines for athletes has been recommended to have up to 1.7g per kg of body weight every day by the American and Canadian Dietetic Association.
So, if you are 70kg and inactive your minimum requirements would be 56g of protein per day. For an athlete the guidelines from the American and Canadian Dietetic Associations would recommend no more than 119g of protein per day. A vast difference. But helps you to gain a base of where you should be.
MyFitnessPal is an App, which is a great place to start tracking your calories and you’re able to enter your daily macronutrients you need to hit to start your journey!
If you feel like you may need help with your nutrition, then of course message me back and I can help get you started in the right direction!
I hope you have found the first newsletter of 2019 helpful & I look forward to sending you another next week Farah!
Have a wonderful & positive week,
Farah xo
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