The Importance Of Tracking Calories For Weight Loss And Building Muscle (For Men & Women).

Whether you want to lose fat or build muscle this blog post is for you!  Tracking calories has played a huge part in my journey so far and is literally a staple in building a body you are proud of.  I have been tracking calories for about a year now and yes there are sometimes days and weeks I forget to track calories and guess what happens?  I almost always gain fat, the reason being is even if I think I am eating the same amount of food as I do when tracking calories I always end up over eating.

Tracking calories also works as a way to motivate you to eat foods that have a good balance between calories and macros.  The reason being is that you won't want to be eating a high calorie food with low macros because every single calorie counts and either helps you or works against you.

I can say that while tracking calories I have learned the do's and don'ts of cutting calories from a start.  Lets say that you are currently eating 3000 calories and to lose fat you need to be eating 2200 calories per day.  I have had the experience of literally cutting 1000 calories overnight and I can tell you from experience that is not the way to go.  It ends up messing with your metabolism and backfires on you.

Instead you would want to take 8 weeks to cut out the 800 calories.  It is going to be a long process but it will be worth it.  On the first week you will cut down to 2900, the second will be 2800 and so on.  I know this doesn't seem like it would work but what I have found is that it actually is a more permanent fix rather than the quick fix of cutting 800 calories from day one.

First off it will make your body adapt, and secondly it will be easier for you to eat just under the amount of calories you are used to eating.

By doing it this way it will also feel more obtainable. think about it, if you are walking 10,000 steps per day is 300 more steps going to be a big deal?  Probably not.  But now think if you had to do 2400 more steps, I bet that would be a little harder because its almost 25% more than you are used to doing.  Now if this week you walk 10,300 steps that isn't much harder, then next week you walk 10,600 steps the same rule applies.

Eating for weight loss is the same way!  Make things easy on yourself by taking steps to achieve your goal, rather than taking a big jump off the cliff and hurting yourself.

Closing Thoughts.

I really hope reading this helped you achieve the goals you have for your body.  This concept is very hard to grasp because we all want a quick fix and think if we eat a great deal less that it will help, don't worry I did that to and learned the hard way so you don't have to!