Self-Sabotage That Happens When Dieting
Losing body fat tends to a challenge for a majority of people, which is why some resort to drastic measures to get results. Besides strict caloric restriction, excessive calorie expenditure is a method used to get muscles to look defined and show off the hard work from exercising.
The body always becomes adapted to different levels of caloric intakes, regardless of what diet the individual attempts to find more effective (see Why Changing Your Diet Style Is Irrelevant for Fat Loss).
Eventually calories need to reduced to see changes in weight, however when people see this no longer works there’s a tendency to change the workload that was responsible for the muscle mass acquired.
The amount of weight is often lightened and the repetitions start to get ridiculously high, as if the fast tempo of moving lighter weights will magically “tone” the body.
This can be a grave mistake as the muscle that has been built should be stimulated with the same force that developed them.
What Should Be Your Strength Goals On a Diet
When you’re consuming excess calories on your diet, it’s easy to see lots of progress in the gym with power and strength. It’s possible to see maintain your strength on a caloric deficit or slow cut if the right precautions are met beforehand.
The goal of getting lean or shredded is to keep as much of your muscle as possible while burning body fat at the same time.
To prevent muscle breakdown when trying to get lean, it’s important to lift the same weights that you progressed with. You can add more repetitions to your sets for more caloric expenditure or even superset the exercises to burn more fat during your workouts.
Strength goals while dieting for fat loss should be to maintain the same levels, although it is possible to increase strength and power with optimal diet, rest and recovery.
The second way to slow down muscle breakdown is maintain high levels of protein in your diet so most of your muscle isn’t being broken down for energy. I recommend an amount of 1-1.2g per lb of body weight, with levels as high as 1.2 for those with very high metabolisms.
The last thing you need to remember is that if you’re trying to get lean, you should be using the time between sets to your advantage. You can drop the time between sets to 60 seconds or less to keep your heart rate high to stimulate fat loss.
Reps under 60 seconds increase your VO2 max and causes your heart rate to go up faster for more calories to be burned.
The Wrap Up
The diet and workouts that you need to maintain size during a diet needs to be in perfect balance of each other in order to work the right way. You need to make sure you’re consuming the appropriate amounts of protein to prevent muscle loss as you lower the calories you’re intaking. You also have to make sure you don’t make the mistake of 99% of people, and that’s lifting weights that are way lighter than you normally lift to build muscle.
What else do you want to know?
Can Creatine Make You Stronger?
How to Diet To Put On Muscle
How & When to Use Steady State Cardio
How Can You Get Stronger Over Time?
Why Changing Your Dieting Style is Irrelevant for Fat Loss