The Muscle Preservation Mind Set

By Dan Marriot

Can I be brutally honest with you?

Dieting is tough.

When the sole focus of your diet is to reduce scale weight, which it is for a lot of people, dieting becomes even more challenging from a mental perspective.

Today I want to offer a different focus.

Let’s talk protein. Everyone knows it’s important and it’s a buzzword at the moment in the food industry. We need protein to help preserve (and repair) muscle mass.

When we want to lose weight we need to be in a calorie deficit. This means eating less calories than we need to maintain our bodyweight.

And… when we are in a calorie deficit, the body needs to find the energy from elsewhere as its not getting the calories it requires, so it so it turns to protein and/or stored fats and breaks them down.

Our muscle is like a giant store of protein, just ready to be broken down.

If we’re interested in looking toned and athletic we want to insure we use more stored fat as our “reserve” and maintain our muscle as much as possible.

It takes the body approximately 3-5 hours to turn over any protein we’ve eaten, after the 3-5 hour period, we can start breaking down muscle, which of course isn’t ideal when we want to prioritise the breakdown of fat.

So what can we do to ensure this doesn’t happen?

In the eternal quest of body fat reduction, a shift of focus to muscle preservation and energy balance, instead of fat loss, is a great way to place more positive rules around eating.

Eating regular nutritious meals or snacks that are high in protein and fit within your total calorie goal is a great place to start.

In addition to this, making conscious decisions to improve habits, until they become subconscious will not only help you understand the reasons behind certain habits, but will also aid in creating new, more positive ones and improve relationships and behaviours regarding food.

Start off by making small changes, as we all know from our own experience the bigger the habit change the harder it is to adhere too.

Think back to a time you completely changed every aspect of your diet, cut out all the foods you enjoy, stopped seeing your friends, yet stuck to it religiously and got amazing results that lasted.

Doesn’t sound familiar? Sound a bit far fetched?

I truly believe if we change our habits and behaviours around food, then we will never have to ‘diet’ again, sound too good to be true? Start implementing this now and let me know how you get on.

Dan

If you’d like to work with me then get in touch below and I can help you make the change, for GOOD