Nutrition Plan Lifecycle
Chose where to start according to your goals and never guess or wonder what to do again.
I was the first member of my family to go to college. I attended Ithaca College where I earned a BFA in Acting. A highly competitive performing arts school, the pressure was intense and constant: classmates of mine would regularly be participating in the Master Cleanse. This “diet” (and those are big air quotes) consisted of drinking a gallon of flavored water, daily. No food. Just water, lemon, cayenne pepper and maple syrup. It was believed to be the best way to rid yourself of toxins (hi – that’s why you have a liver). Most classmates did it for 1 day. Some for 7. Most for 3. What always happened was the inevitable “this sucks! I’m starving and I’m done!” followed by a spending spree in the cafeteria.
“It’s not only about losing weight: it’s about making informed and confident decisions.”
This massive swing of extreme restriction to over indulging is common. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Once you learn how the phases of a nutrition plan fit together, you can “choose your own adventure” when it’s right for you. It’s not only about losing weight: it’s about making informed and confident decisions. Whether you want to lose weight, gain muscle or even repair your relationship with food.
DECIDING WHERE TO START
It all begins with understanding what your options are: the three main phases in the lifecycle of a nutrition plan are the ones we have previously discussed here and here. A quick review:
Calorie Surplus – “bulking”, “building” or “gaining”
The process of gaining weight via the intake of excess calories and a positive energy balance.
Calorie Deficit – “cutting”
The process of expending more calories than being consumed resulting in a negative energy balance.
Maintenance - “autopilot”
The ultimate goal! The phase where you feel strong, balanced and happy with your results: a holding pattern until you create a new goal or inspire a new nutrition cycle.
FLEXIBILITY IS KEY
The most important thing to understand about the lifecycle: it is 100% flexible to your goals, whenever and however you want them. You have full control over where you go and how fast you get there. There are two phases in the lifecycle that help enhance flexibility, which increases your chance of success: the diet break and the reverse diet. Read on.
Understanding the Diet Break
An incredibly useful tool that breaks up a long calorie deficit into smaller windows of time by loosening restrictions partially or completely every 8-12 weeks of your diet program for 7-14 days before entering back into the deficit again. Utilizing a diet break can be helpful by breaking the monotony of a diet and ultimately makes sticking to the plan easier for the long term. When you’re trying to lose a lot of weight, or are already at low body fat and trying to refine, it can be very difficult to stay motivated for months on end to achieve your goal. That can sometimes end up looking like this:
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