We’re not going to pretend this will replace working with a coach, with a diet designed around your needs and a training schedule to match, with supporting supplement.  However it is a start!

If you want the best coaching, go to www.team-wild.com/oc and let us help you get into the best shape of your life!

With this plan we’re gonna assume you are lifting weights and ready to do some cardio.  Not hideous amounts of either, but enough to gain the muscle or shed the fat you wish to lose.

So without further adieu, lets move onto making the diet.

Step 1 – Set Calories

Cutting
As a very basic rule of thumb, we use the figure 15 x bodyweight (in pounds) is a good estimate for the number of calories required to maintain body weight.

If you’ve been dieting a while this could be as low as 10-12x your bodyweight in pounds as your metabolism slows it self to retain energy.  Its normal that this happens, and can’t be avoided (beyond going crazy on calories and dropping them severely from the word go – not wise!).

We like to start at the top end of the calorie scale where possible (again unless you’ve been dieting for a while) so we can keep eating as much as possible whilst shedding a pound or two a week.  Not only does it keep the metabolism happy, it stops one feeling like they are starving themselves.  We’d suggest starting at 14x your bodyweight and slowly dropping from there.

One thing to bear in  mind is that if you are very overweight, people you go even lower  – about 8-9 x bodyweight – as body fat is protective of the metabolic hormones due to the fact that leptin etc is still very high and won’t be effected as much as someone somewhat leaner.

To give you a basic example, 140-pound woman can set her calories from 1400 to 1680 calories.

Don’t start at 1400 calories however – it gives you very little room for adjustment if weight loss plateaus – we don’t want you eating too little, especially at  the start of the diet.

Bare in mind to get stage lean sometimes one needs to go beyond these suggested levels.

Bulking
Bulking is very similar indeed to how one cuts.  However we simply go the other way in terms of calories consumed.  Unlike cutting, we don’t drop calorie figure in terms of body weight, we increase it.

If you find you gain fat very easily, we suggest you slowly increase the calorie intake – instead of 15x your bodyweight in pounds, increase to 16x your bodyweight in pounds.   If you find it hard to put on weight and are slim naturally, we suggest perhaps 18x your bodyweight in pounds.

Then, each time muscle gain stops, we increase by 1x body weight until muscle gain starts again.  If you find your start to add an unacceptable level of fat, drop the increase to 0.5x bodyweight and find your sweet spot.

We are looking as a natural trainer to put on around 0.5 pounds a week, 1 pound absolute maximum.  Any faster and unless extremely genetically gifted, you’ll find you’ll start putting on an unacceptable level of body fat relatively quickly.

Step 2 – Set Protein Levels

Cutting
Set protein intake at about 1.0 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight.  If you are very overweight, one can perhaps set a little lower than this and aim for around 0.8 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight.  This is because we do not need to support adipose/fat tissue in our protein/muscle calculations – at 300lb and 33% body fat, you have 200lb of lean mass you need to hold, not 300lb (as an example).

Bulking
Again, with bulking there is no need to go crazy with protein.  Set protein intake at about 1.0 to 1.5 grams per pound of body weight.  If you are overweight, you should not be attempting to add mass, you will not.  You’ll simply be adding more body fat so there is not a calculation to suggest here for lean mass.

Step 3 – Omega 3’s
We recommend around 6g of Omega 3 per day, regardless of bulking or cutting.  This supports your bodies needs, and helps with the inflammatory effects of cutting and bulking and generally is very good for the body.

Step 4 – Add In Your Carbs & Fats (Make Your Meals!)
Once you’ve done all the above, we can now create the plan.  One can now make the rest of the diet out of carbs and fats.

Try to have a good even spread of carbs and fats from nutritious sources – sure the odd treat is fine, but we all know what is healthy fats (nuts, avocado’s, various oils etc) and we all know the fats that won’t help much (fried processed foods) and vary them daily.

A Note When Cutting
Some people when dieting think carbs are bad.  This is not true.  In fact, it is better that you maintain a reasonable amount of them in your diet as they will help maintain thyroid function and fuel higher intensity training.

We only suggest removing carbs if you find that after several weeks/months of dieting you find that despite lowered calories you’re body fat is not dropping – this may imply your insulin sensitivity isn’t as good as it could be and 3-4 weeks on a low carb diet may help reset this.

Other than that, there is no reason to cut out any food groups other than through personal preference.

 

Step 5.  Begin!

We always get our clients to give us baseline figures of weight, and essential measurements of waist, hips, legs etc and a front and back photo.

We suggest you do the same.   Then, the same time each week (we suggest on waking having emptied ones bowels/bladder) taking measurements, weight and photos.

This will allow you to accurately measure progress – there is little point measuring daily as fluctuations are very very very normal and seeing one’s weight rising weight when cutting, or stall or fall when bulking can often put a dampener on the day, and indeed in some lead to a binge on ‘bad’ foods when nothing is actually wrong!

Step 6: Monitor and Adjust

At the beginning, the calorie estimates used were simply estimates!  It is therefore required weekly that we fine tune the plan weekly to monitor and adjust.

After a couple of  weeks, repeat your starting weight, photos and measurements and make an assessment of how you are doing.

If you’ve been sticking to your plan exactly and not seeing any or very little progress one can then adjust a little in the diet and monitor again two weeks later until you’re able to start making progress.  This applies to cutting and bulking.  Both need time, and can’t be rushed.

Don’t Change The Plan WITHOUT Compliance!
The MAIN THING HOWEVER, is nutritional compliance and/or training.  If its not been good, you likely will not see any progress at this point.  The body doesn’t simply drop fat or grow because you want it to!

As the saying goes “Don’t complain about the progress you didn’t make from the work you didn’t do!”

At no point should you change a plan that you have not been following.  Its not the diet – it’s you!  Compliance comes first, and then changes follow.  Sadly, it does not come the other way around.

REMEMBER THIS!
It is important to remember that progress is rarely ever going to come as quickly as you want it to come, but if you’re moving forward then you don’t adjust.   Stick to the plan and be patient.  Results will come, and you’ll look and feel better for it, and less tired and hungry than if you change the diet without reason!