Nutrition For Transformations

Is there a difference between nutrition for weight loss and a body transformation?

Yes there is a difference. Dieting for weight loss is basically starvation, the focus is on a large calorie deficit to lose weight. The principle follows the law of thermogenesis, calories in (eating) being less than the calories out (exercise), so if you are in a deficit you will burn fat for fuel. The major problem with this approach is that the body doesn’t just use fat for fuel when on a severe calorie restricting diet as I will explain below. 

Some of our amazing transformations.

Your metabolism is the millions of chemical reactions your body carries out each day. Everything from growing bones, nails and hair to replacing dead cells in your heart, skin and other organs. Your metabolism is what keeps your body functioning at an optimal level, it is the millions of daily functions to ward off disease and give you energy, it isn’t just about food.

What you shove down your cake hole has a large bearing on your health. Nutrition programs your metabolism, you can either program it for success or failure. We all have choices and it’s learning how to make the right choices consistently, willpower won’t do it, it’s a finite resource.

Nutrition for a transformation focuses on food that is nutrient dense as well as calorie sparse. Nutrition that improves health by providing essential nutrients, vitamins and minerals. Nutrition that provides energy to get through the busy days with the family and work, energy to be able to play with the kids, energy to increase your productivity. Nutrition for a transformation helps build muscle, not destroy it whilst losing fat.

Just some of the amazing meals our crew make.

The last point is probably the key point, muscle isn’t just there to make you look good and help you move. Muscle has been identified as a endocrine system in it’s own right meaning it produces vital hormones, it helps drive your immune system, it is vital for good health and function, not just looks.

Diets that focus solely on calorie restriction promote a lot of muscle wastage, the very stuff that is the only tissue in your body that burns both fat and carbohydrates. This is why people yoyo diet, the weight comes back with interest because they have lost the very muscle that helps keep them lean.

This vital muscle tissue requires a lot of energy to maintain so when you are in a major calorie deficit the body destroys muscle to dispose of this high fuel resource. The minimal calories you are consuming are required to keep you alive, keep your heart beating, your lungs expanding not maintain muscle.

The body goes into starvation mode saving those precious calories to keep you alive. This is why when you are dieting you have no energy, the body is forcing you to slow down to conserve those few vital calories you are getting from the lettuce leaves.