meeting the caloric goals set by mfp

I have read many posts about both men and women whom have trouble eating the number of calories set forth by mfp for them, and it should not be a shocker that many of us do not eat enough to optimize fat burning. We all understand to shed fat we need to eat better, make better choices, and workout, that is no great mystery. So I wanted to share how I do this, mind you I do not have any problems eating cals lol, I came from a background of eating very large portions which put my in an overweight body and I have managed to get it well under control and am steadily losing. At this point I have surpassed my original goal and am going to see just how far I can push it with my main goal now to be a 6 pack abs.

I have to say that at first it is going to require some discipline to get to that goal for some, not listening to the body has gotten you to your current state and getting to a better one at first will require you to not listen yet again as your body has adapted to what you are doing to it. That may mean being hungry, or eating more than what you currently are, that will depend on what you have been doing. So Here is the plan:

1) Plan ahead!!!! On workout days spread the calories out into the 5 or 6 meals that you eat a day, so that post workout there is not a huge number to eat back. Yep I advocate eating back the cals, why you may ask? Well simple recovery, to build some muscle and shed fat effectively the body needs to be able to recover, and on a low caloric intake that is hard, eating back those cals from workouts help with it. You are not going to be at your best unless you are feeding for success.

2) Take 1 day a week 5 or 6 hours and make a weeks worth of meals or at least some of them, prep meats, veggies, etc. I love my slow cooker and I make regular meals like soups, stews, chili, etc and the bag them in ziplocs and freeze them for the week. It makes them convenient, cheap and ready to go just like microwave meals, plus I know they are healthy and exactly what is going into my body.

3) Protein, I can not stress this enough mfp numbers are low, way low for those whom do a lot of cardio and weight train, make sure you are getting enough in as it helps greatly with muscle recovery, metabolic rate and muscle retention/building. Women do not bulk up, it takes very very close attention to diet to bulk up like a man, you simply do not have the testosterone to build bulk muscle so lifting heavy is not a problem for you. Guys you are not going to look like a body builder by lifting heavy if you are on a caloric deficit, you will gain some muscle yes but not a lot, the numbers are not there for that to happen. The body needs extra calories to make muscle effectively.

4) Fad diets, they do not work end of story, there is no magic fat loss pill, but there are fat loss equations that work for you so listen to your body if you feel like crap there is a reason, find it. High protein diets (more than 1 g/lb of body weight) does not work for everyone, nor does low fat, or high carb. We all have different metabolic types, and that will attribute to your success, find out what that is. (link for metabolic type: http://www.naturalhealthyellowpages.com/metabolic/self_test.html)