Most of new clients hire a personal trainer wanting to lose weight.
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But ☝️ we usually have to enter into a different kind of diet before we can actually “diet”.⁣
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Here’s why this process is important:
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Most people come from a place of chronic dieting with only short periods of over eating…when they get sick of this yo yo approach to “dieting”⁣
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It’s not unheard of for new clients to have been attempting a calorie deficit (and typically over-exercising) for 90% of their “fitness journey” 👉 meaning that their bodies are already in a stressed out, down-regulated state.⁣ (This was me up until May 2020. )

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Instead of exacerbating this stress with MORE exercise and LOWER calories…⁣
⁣Our first goal is an optimal psychological and physiological baseline.⁣

⁣This is where you “earn the right” to diet; think of it like your buy in.

This could mean building/finding a sustainable maintenance calorie intake and amount of exercise.⁣
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For others it might mean even pushing past this and eating in a small surplus to create an environment that’s extra supportive of muscle building for a period of time.⁣
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*USUALLY* this looks like a progressive, structured increase in calories and revamping workout programming to be more focused on strength training instead of mostly cardio-based 🏃‍♀️⁣

So where to start? Use the chart below to get an idea of daily calorie amounts, 1800-2100 calories per day, 25-30% coming from Protein. Focus on eating enough food, tracking your biofeedback (Sleep, Hunger, Recovery, Energy, Digestion, Stress) and see how all that improves.
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Chronic dieting and over exercising often comes with the need for mindset shifts FIRST.⁣

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Jumping into more dieting when you have already been dieting frequently, or if you’ve even just dieted too recently, can quickly lead to you spinning your wheels:⁣
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🚫more metabolic adaptations (not good)⁣
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🚫muscle loss (really not good)⁣
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🚫no progress being made, even perhaps when taking things to extremes.⁣
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The “diet before the diet” is just as important than the diet itself when it comes to mind & body changes over time.⁣
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Please spend just as much, if not more, time optimizing your metabolism, building muscle, and living your life, so that when the time does come to diet down, things will be easier & allow for HEALTHY progress 💞⁣

Thank you Coach Kasey Jo for original post and inspiring this content.

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