1. All about calories intake
Calories intake is the most challenging part. its like a sea-saw we should perfectly balance. the goal is eating enough calories to support the body and its activities, but not too much to get stored as fat. maintain the level of calories intake is the most difficult phase faced by fitness freaks.
Calories surplus
Our over all calories intake is determines our goals. we should watch our calories in and calories out at the end of the day. many people will perfectly balance their daily calories intake, nutrition and training during week days but they don't care about weekends. they surplus too much calories on Saturday and Sunday. in fitness it termed as "cheat day" or "refeed days". actually its good to get cheat meals during weekends but you should watch your calories intake. let me show you with an example.
Example:-
Here iam taking a persons ideal calories per day is 3,000 calories/day,
and iam gonna deficit 1,000 calories per day, so now his total calories intake is shifted to 2,000 calories/day
1kg of fats =7,000 calories
So I have deficit 1,000 calories to loss 1kg of fat per week
now his goal is to consume 28 days* 2,000 actual calories = 56,000 calories/month to reduce 4kg of fat in a month
If he is cheating on every weekends i.e. 2days on every week and 8 days per month
His cheating calories would be somewhere around 4,000 calories/day, his maintenance calories is 2,000 and he is surplus 2,000 calories extra on every weekends, for 2 days it would be 4,000 calories and there will be 8 weekends in a month, now he is totally surplus 16000 calories extra per month.
His maintenance calories is 3,000 calories per day for 28 days it would be 81,000calories. in order maintain his weight. but his goal is to loss fat.
So he should consume 56,000 calories/month, but he is cheating on every weekends, his cheating calories would be 16,000 calories, now total calories is 72,000 calories, this calories is nearly equal to his maintenance calories
he can able to lose only 1.2kgs of fat per month
This is the truth behind your results, each calories matters lot. iam not defending the cheat meals but it has a protocol. yes you are not supposed to exceed your prescribed calories even on your cheat days. if your goal is to hit 2000 calories per day, I recommend you to take in 50/50 ratio. i.e. on cheat days, 50% of calories should come from your favorite junk foods and rest will be in healthy foods as prescribed by the nutritionist. this how you should take your meals on cheat days.
Calories deficit
Some people will relay on crash diets. consuming only below 1000 calories on daily. many thinks it will reduce fat quick, even fasting on entire meals and so more, if you do so for quick results sometimes it do it quite opposite. yes if you don't eat enough pair with your body burns this pushing the body into state of " chronic energy deficiency" is wont favor you and, it wont lead for further weight loss. if your body is in chronic calories deficiency this contributes to slow down your metabolism. and it wont turn your food as fuel for your body.
Our body don't like to being in deprived fuel, so it starts preserve everything in his hands, including body fat, a moderate deficit is acceptable but a drastic deficiency not. as long as you on chronic calories your body hangs every bit of fat and it acts as extra fuel. it can be intimidating to eat more foods at first, we are live in society tell us to eat less and work more, but it can be quite against to the status quo (which mean current statement) to eat more and work less. make a small increase in food volume, it will helps to repair your metabolism. making a small increase over a time helps to process mentally to okay with eating more foods, after a time instead of gaining weight you starting losing your stubborn fat in your body.
2. Dehydration
Many people thinks that hydration matters only for athletes or marathon runners or unless until you are working out under the heat. however you don't think about being thirsty until you thirsty. do you know at that point your body already get dehydrated. our body is made up of 50-75% of water. water serves many functions for both inside and outside cells of the body.
In inside it act as a medium for chemical reactions, used for diffusion, breakdown, and osmosis of cell membranes inside the body. on outside it helps for, digestion, creation of saliva, transportation of nutrients, and so on. without right balance of water our body cannot operate at optimal level. this leads to some serious consequences like, slowdown the metabolism, reducing immunity etc.
Make sure you are getting enough water in a day before you going to the sleep, I recommend you take 1 liters of water per 20kg of your body weight. i.e. if you are 60kg you should consume 3 liters of water per day. and having one glass of water in empty stomach after waking up will gives extra bonus to the body. drinking enough water keeps hunger at bay, which may help you to eat fewer calories and support healthy weight management.
3. Choosing fat-free foods
It is more important to make sure that you getting enough fats along with the proteins and fibers. many people thinks that fats make us fat. but its completely a myth. going fat free doesn't mean you don't get fat. fat is the important macronutrients helps to absorb vitamins and to protect heart and brain. here iam meaning fats only has healthy fats, like polyunsaturated fats and monounsaturated fats. these two fats considered as healthy because they are beneficial for heart health and cholesterol.
The good source of monounsaturated fats are olive, peanut butter, nuts. and the good source of polyunsaturated fats like omega-3 is commonly found in fish, flaxseeds and walnuts. omega 3 fats are key family of polyunsaturated fats.
The unhealthy fats are trans fat. this fat raised LDL cholesterol and lower HDL cholesterol, primary source of trans fat is processed foods and baked desserts, fired foods etc. anything have hydrogenated oil or partially hydrogenated oil has trans fat. make sure it has trans fat free before consuming foods.
The best way to adding fats in diet is
Having avocado toast at morning
Eating nuts for snacks
Replacing cheat meals with home made desserts
4. Going gluten free
This issue is similar to "fat free" issue, everybody has doubt weather the gluten foods are harmful or not? my answer is yes, only for the people who have celiac disease or gluten intolerance. its not necessarily true for everyone. yes gluten is not inherently bad. its mostly found in three type of grains such as, wheat, barely, rye. gluten often serves as a binding protein to hold foods together like, bread pasta, etc.
If you have celiac disease or gluten intolerance, doesn't mean you should eliminate gluten from the diet. you should keep eye on your body, if having gluten foods contributes some side effects then you should eliminate gluten foods from the diet. if not its probably not an issues to have gluten foods in diet.
if you don't experience negative side effects. then there is nothing wrong in consuming gluten in healthy amount.
Conclusion
Everybody looking for an magic pill that gives everything what they want in their life. but when it comes for nutrition there is no magic pills or shortcuts to achieve your dream physique or to sustain in healthy choice of living. there is no quick fixes or tricks of the newest fad diets. you may get into the trouble if you are seriously looking for these stuffs.
There were plenty of diet plans avail on internet, the problem with the people is not stick with one diet. they keep shifting to newest and latest if they don't get any results within the time, what they fixed. this issues with is that your body need some time to recover from year of nutritional damage and neglect. a 30 day cleanse eating cant undo the years of unhealthy lifestyle choices.
Good nutrition is the key for healthy life style changes. a well rounded and balanced nutrition approach defines your goal success. make sure you aren't making any type of mistakes I have discussed above. if done not an issue nothing is too late.