AUGUST 2020
PAGE 10
Ask the @Nu_Tristanist Part 1 of the CovidSummer - Body Series Q. I am a Mom of 2 school age children and also work out of the home part time. I am busy balancing homeschooling, my career and also trying to keep everyone healthy. I usually love the gym but with covid, gyms closing, and the heat, I am hardly active! I had luck with the Atkins diet for a few months, my sister swears by keto and I have heard a lot about macro counting. What diet is healthiest for this busy mom who just wants to feel good in her body quickly? - Quarantine Mama A. Don’t worry, Quarantine Mama, you’ve got this! With things like gym closures being the norm at this time in our life, it’s important to commit to fitness and diet programs that can be done regardless of what is going on in our current state. I transitioned all of my online gym clients to at home workouts once stay at home orders were put in place in their respective counties. I also altered menus and offered substitutions in case their market ran out of something. We all must be flexible right now, but it doesn’t mean your health and fitness goals are out of reach. In fact, quite the opposite! By getting out of our comfort zones, we have an opportunity to challenge our bodies in new and smarter ways which will yield better results in the long run.
The fact that you stayed on Atkins before means that you have willpower and the ability to follow through on a program, however nobody can commit to consuming little to no carbohydrates forever (ala Atkins or keto diets), nor should they! Going off those diets is always far harder than going on. Converting your body back to using carbohydrates as its energy source is a monotonous process, but necessary, as you exit out of ketosis and slowly start adding back in both quick and slow digesting carbohydrates. Your body must learn how to function at its new weight without being dependent on rigorous exercise or starvation. When choosing a “diet” to help you lose weight it’s important to choose one you can maintain and that doesn’t have negative health effects that wind up hindering your long-term fitness goals. Both Keto and Atkins are not meant for long-term use for an everyday dieter who is trying to lose some weight. Why? Because we actually NEED carbohydrates to be fit and healthy! Carbohydrates are the only macronutrient to heal our metabolism and deliver macronutrients to the body.
A pandemic is not the time to commit to extreme changes that feel far from your norm, but a great time to learn some new skills that will help you lose weight and MAINTAIN your hard earned body. This brings us to “counting macros”. This is the more science-y cousin of “counting calories” and actually allows you to eat more. Yayyy! Counting macros (fat grams, protein grams, and carbohydrate grams) is an easy skill to learn which will allow you to familiarize yourself with your body and what ratios of nutrients work best for you. Here is a crash course in how to start using macros to lose weight in a healthy and effective way: Download a food tracking app like ‘myfitnesspal’ and IGNORE ALL THE STATS they ask you to put in (like activity level and goal weight). Start by logging what you usually eat for about a week. Be completely honest. You can make good choices but the focus should be on understanding what you take in on a regular basis in your regular life to be at your current weight. After 5-7 days, find your average caloric intake by adding up all the days’ calories and dividing by the amount of days you logged for. To lose weight subtract between 200 - 500 calories depending on how much you are taking in vs how active you are. Use this new number to set as your daily caloric goal. Then set your macronutrient goal in the app of 35% carbs, 35% protein and 30% fat. Spend at least two weeks making your only goal to hit your macro percentages/grams on a daily basis and see how your body reacts. If you want to lose more after this period, change your macro percentages to reflect a bit higher protein and less fat or switch up how many carbohydrates you are getting in. You could alter this in changes of 10-20 grams per macronutrient or 5% increments. Again, hit the new percentages and see how your body reacts before you drop more calories. People are very quick to go sweat their booties off at the gym or go on crash diets but the truth is, with proper control of one’s diet, the work really is done in the kitchen. Even though you won’t “lose 10lbs in 10 days” (or anything incredibly unhealthy like that) the 1-2 lbs. a week you do lose will be sticky, giving your body time to calibrate to its new set point. Relax and trust the process! Got a question for Tristan? Email her at faceoffitness@gmail.com, subject line: Ask the @Nu_Tristanist Tristan LeClair is a mother, title holding bodybuilder, certified trainer and nutritionist who has been transforming people’s lives and bodies in southern California for the past 11 years.
