Calories are required to maintain your existing weight. You need to create a deficit in order to lose substantial body fat. In order to lose fat at about 1-2 pounds per week, you would need to create a caloric deficit of about 3500 to 4000 calories over that span.
By stimulating lean muscle growth with your workouts you are creating a higher RMR and automatically creating an additional calorie deficit thus burning more fat.
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Carbohydrates
You need something to fuel your fat burning body. If eaten in proper amounts Carbs will provide a consistent level of energy throughout the day. Cutting too many carbohydrates with high intensity training will short circuit you chance of fat burning success.
Choose your carbohydrates from the unrefined whole grain, whole-wheat complex carbs.
Whole grain and whole wheat foods contain more fiber. Fiber slows digestion and keeps you feeling fuller longer, and thus you’ll be less tempted to continue to eat when you finished the appropriate sized meal.
Whole grains slow the absorption of sugar into the blood stream, which keeps your insulin levels in check, helping prevent fat storage.
Simple sugars contain empty calories with no nutritional value. As you body craves nutrients you will eat more raising you caloric intake and blocking your fat loss.
Sugars steal nutrients from our bodies to get metabolized, resulting in many loss nutrients.
Protein
Proteins are the building blocks of your body. Building and maintaining your body’s tissue and cells, and help build the new muscle you’ve stimulated in your workouts.
But most people double and triple what they should consume of animal proteins. What the body does not need, it turns into fat. It is wise to opt for lean protein and choosing grass feed sources is better because it has less unhealthy fat.
Splitting your proteins with plant sources is the ideal because you want to focus on micronutrients first. You should try to get half or more of your daily protein from plant sources like beans, legumes, and nuts. Studies show that diets lower in animal proteins tends to encourage slower and more controlled weight gain (source: The China Study). Plant protein excess calories are likely to be burned off as body heat rather than deposited as body fat like animal proteins.
Fats
Too many calories from fat will make you fat. You still need fat to keep your cells functioning properly, to help the absorption of vitamins and minerals, and to help the release of fat burning hormones. You need fat to burn fat.
You should focus on nutrient rich foods in which the fat content is naturally occurring. Avoid processed foods and especially highly processed and refined man-made trans-fats and anything hydrogenated or partially hydrogenated.
Fruits and Vegetables
Fruits and veggies are technically carbohydrates. Vegetables are full of the best micronutrients and fruits are loaded with vitamins, minerals, keep your energy up, have antioxidants and fight off hunger with fiber.
Fruit juice is not fruit. Even 100% fruit juice has no fiber and has too many calories. A little is OK but try to eat fruit instead.
