Please read my blog: The End Product Of Disciplined Eating so this blog entry will make more sense:)
If you have worked with me you have heard me say “you will be my science project.” Every person is different. Their body responds differently to dietary and workout adjustments. I design the most educated plan I can with the metabolic test and current dietary and exercise habits. Still, everyone is different and their plan needs tweaking based on their own unique responses to diet and exercise. That is why I have all of my clients check in with me 2x per week so I can monitor their body’s response to the program.
As you may have read in my earlier blogs, my own metabolism has been damaged by years of severe dieting for fitness shows. I used to have a very healthy metabolism (based on the amount I know I ate and the size I was growing up). After prolonged periods of 1000 calorie diets over the course of 4 years competing in fitness shows; my body reset it’s metabolism between to match what I was providing it with. I have had the RMR (resting metabolic rate test) done a total of 5 times in the last 4 years. Each time the test was within 960-1080 calories per day. This is a depressing place to be. I LOVE cocktails on the weekend, going out to eat, healthy baking, and in general not obsessing over every morsel I eat. On 1400 calories there is not too much fun a girl can have! A fews days of relaxing around the holidays would lead me to rapid and significant weight gain. It is so hard to get that weight back off that I found it not worth ever loosening up. So I would teeter totter back and forth between getting sick and tried of my strict diet and enjoy myself to gain weight and then strict dieting to reel myself back in. The traditional method of increasing metabolism as i have been coached through is to slow increase macronutrients by 3-5 grams carbs and 1 gram fat every week as long as weight remains stable. Some weeks the body not respond favorably and there is no macro increase. This is an extremely slow and painful process starting out at 85grams carbs, 155 grams protein, and 25 grams fat post fitness show.
Recently, I threw my old macros out the door and tried an experiment of infusing my body with more food to see if I could “push” my metabolism higher through another tactic. I tried this method for 6 weeks at the beginning of the year. I was happy to see that my weight was at the same point it was when I was on significantly less food before the new year. Next test; the RMR results.
Yesterday I conducted the RMR test on myself again after this experiment. I now currently burn 1580 calories at rest versus 1080 calories at rest just 11 weeks ago! My weight is the exact same as when I did the test before so that is not a variable. This is extremely significant! I can increase my daily intake almost 50% without gaining weight or unwanted body fat.
More importantly, I do not have to starve myself now as I embark on my wedding prep diet. My fiance’ Brandon did the test also so we could be guinea pigs together as I blog about our 30 day diet clean up journey. My goals for this 30 day trial is to lose 5-7lbs and 4% bodyfat. Brandon’s goal is to not lose more than 3lbs while losing 2-4% bodyfat. His RMR results are 1874calories per day but he is much leaner, his workouts are much more rigorous everyday, and his goal is to maintain his weight, so his daily intake is 3x the amount of his RMR.
I have included pictures of our plan I designed on a website Fitclick below in the second blog section on this front page. We will follow these typical days 5 days per week to the T. The other two days we will follow through dinner and exchange our typical dinner for a healthy option out to eat. One time per week I have allowed two drinks for each of us. I calculated all of this as part of our total macronutrient intake so that our results should not be thrown off. I will be posting progress updates weekly for one month. This also comes at a great time to be in our tip top shape for the open:)
