Hello,
My name is Nikolina. Writing is my passion and what is a better way to write than to start a blog.
Also I have been going to the gym and I want to educate others and help them through their journey.
In this article we will talk about calories, what they are, how to count them and how to make better decisions. I will try to explan as simple as possible and to make many diagrams to help you understand better.
What are calories?
Calories can be defined as the amount of energy in an item of food or drink. While eating we are puting energy into our bodies, which is used by everyday activities. Our bodies need that energy to help us function properly and to keep us alive.
When we consistently eat and drink more calories than we use up, our bodies store the excess as body fat. If this continues, over time we may put on weight. If we take in too little energy, we will lose weight, fat, and eventually muscle mass.
To maintain a stable weight, the energy we put into our bodies must be the same as the energy we use through physical activity. More known as calories in, calories out
If you eat too many calories on one day do not worry. As I said, it takes constantly eating bad to gain weight.
Calories in food
Certain foods consist more calories then others and some foods have more nutrition value than others. On every food there is a label that says how many calories there are.
You can use the calorie information to assess how a particular food fits into your daily calorie intake.
Carbs have 4 calories per gram. Protein has also 4 calories per gram. Fat has 9 calories per gram.
There is no bad food, just because something has a lot of calories, doesn’t mean you can eat it. Everything in moderation.
Liquid calories
Most of the drinks contain calories, except for water, coffee and tea. Alcohol has 7 calories per gram.
Big misconception is that you can not drink calories, which is obviesly false information.
Side by side liquid calories for weight loss
Drinks that woulde be best to avoid consuming everyday are:
Alcohol
Soda
Fruit juice
Anything with sugar in it
Milkshakes
Sport drinks
Counting calories
Counting calories, at least for me, is the best method for gaining, losing or maintaining weight. If you do it correctly you will know exactly how many calories are you consuming. Plus you will know your macros, what to eat less and what to eat more.
A great calorie counting app that I use is My Fitness Pal.
Now on to calculating how many calories you should be consuming every day.
As a guide, an average man needs around 2,500kcal (10,500kJ) a day to maintain a healthy body weight.
For an average woman, that figure is around 2,000kcal (8,400kJ) a day.
These values can vary depending on age, size and levels of physical activity, among other factors.
Men: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (y) + 5
Women: 10 x weight (kg) + 6.25 x height (cm) – 5 x age (y) – 161
●Sedentary lifestyle: If you do very little or no exercise at all, your daily calorie requirement is BMR x 1.2.
●Slightly active lifestyle: If you do light exercise between one and three times a week, your daily calorie requirement is BMR x 1.375.
●Moderately active lifestyle: If you do moderate exercise three to five times a week, your daily calorie requirement is BMR x 1.55.
●Active lifestyle: If you do intensive exercise six to seven times per week, your daily calorie requirement is BMR x 1.725.
●Very active lifestyle: If you do very intense exercise twice a day, with extra heavy workouts, your daily calorie requirement is BMR x 1.9.
Here you have an example how to calculate your calories. Hope this helps
Having a well structured workout plan is of great importance for your fitness journey. While being consistent is a must, planing your workouts plays a big role in achieving your dreams.
You can go to gym everyday, but if you constantly keep switcing up your workouts there is no place for progress in each excercise. Having a track of your workouts has many benefits like keeping you on track, pushing yourself to do more, seeing progress etc.
Having a fitness coach is good, but not everyone can afford one. No need to worry, you can easily make your own workout plan and I have made it easier for you. By following these main factors you will end up with a great free program.
Available days
To build a workout program the first thing you need to know is how many days a week you have available to excercise. It can range from zero to seven, depending on you.
Making time to workout is definitely hard if you have a job, school or any activity. You can make excuses, but like that you won’t get where you want to be. I know people that work two jobs, have kids and still manage to excercise. Half an hour is half an hour, any time you have available choose to excercise rather than watching tv or playing games.
The best would be if you have 3 to 7 days available, and I will share many workout splits later in the article so keep reading.
Goals
Depending on your fitness goals you program will vary. You can train for aesthetic, strength, endurance or flexibility. To get results you want it’s important to train acording to the best way to achieve them.
For strength you lift heavy weight 5 to 8 reps, for aesthetic or hypertrophy 8 to 15 reps and for endurance it’s best to go for higher reps.
To mention, you can also combine all these forms on each days. There is no one type fits all, everyone’s body is different. Not everyone will be able to lift the same weights and muscle grows at different rate. There are many studies proving this.
Excercises
Now, when you have decided your workout days it is time to write down excercises that you plan on doing. There are countless excercises that are great.
Before doing any excercises, it’s important to prep your body for activities. This is very important to prevent injuries. Warmig up can take anywhere between 5 to 15 minutes, do not overdo it so you can save strength for excercise. Doing dynamic streches, bodyweight or banded work or simply walking and riding bicycle.
Here are some excercises for every body part:
Excercise for each body part
REMEMBER:
Pay attention on form
Do not ego lift
Do not rush through reps
Warm up first
Strech after
Workout splits
You know all the excercises, available days and goals. Now it’s time to actually write down your program.
There are many great splits, like PPL, body part split, focused split, upper/lower etc.
Three day split variations
All these are three day splits that you can do either at home or at gym, as a beginner or as an advanced lifter. Make sure to implement some rest days in between.
Splits
And here are other splits for more days. You can do them or either upper/lower or PPL for as many days as you would like.
Activie Rest Days
To lead a more healthy lifestyle, make sure that you move more. The point of these days is simple, you want to keep moving, improve your range-of-motion, repair your muscles, and maintain a habit of activity. Even better if you are trying to lose weight, this with eating right will put you in a caloric deficit
Active rest day can be achieved by:
Yoga. Yoga is great for flexibility and for your mind.
Hiking and going for walks. This is a great and fun way to rest while still doing some activity. Bring a friend along and burn some calories!
Swimming, lighter weight lifting, doing house chores etc.
Progressive Overload
Progressive overload is when you gradually increase the weight, frequency, or number of repetitions in your strength training routine. This challenges your body and allows your musculoskeletal system to get stronger.
Progressive overload can be achieved by:
More reps, same weight
More weight
Better form with the same weight
More sets
The point is to improve and get stronger every day. This will make muscles grow constantly by challenging them. Adding 1 kg every week is often overlook because it seems like insignificant weight. But adding little by little will lead you to being abke to lift way more in otger words progressive overload.
Rest days
Rest days are days when you take the day off. The reason many recommend rest days is to allow the body’s muscles to recover from any damage they’ve sustained during workouts, and to allow them to grow. And numerous scientific studies show that rest days do indeed play an important role in helping us maintain good health and fitness.
By not taking any rest days we risk overworking our muscles which will lead to fatigue and possibly injuries.
Make sure to take some rest days, if you are beginner more often cca. every two days.
Sleep
Sleeping for 7-9 hours per night is crucial, especially if you are looking to change body composition, increase muscle mass or if you want to be ready for your personal training session the next day. Sleep enhances muscle recovery through protein synthesis and human growth hormone release.
Low quality sleep has been linked with health conditions like cardiovascular disease, obesity, and mental illness. While poor sleep is common among those with cardiovascular disease, some research indicates that poor sleep can be a contributing cause. Short sleep duration of less than seven hours is correlated with coronary heart disease and increased risk of death from coronary heart disease. Sleep duration greater than nine hours is also correlated with coronary heart disease, as well as stroke and cardiovascular events. So as you see, sleep is crucial part of muscle building, but too much sleep can actually bring you harm. Keep everything in moderation.
Nutrition
Nutrition is a critical part of health and development. Better nutrition is related to improved infant, child and maternal health, stronger immune systems, safer pregnancy and childbirth, lower risk of non-communicable diseases (such as diabetes and cardiovascular disease), and longevity.
In humans, poor nutrition can cause deficiency related diseases such as blindness, anemia, scurvy, preterm birth, stillbirth and cretinism, or nutrient excess health-threatening conditions such as obesity and metabolic syndrome and such common chronic systemic diseases as cardiovascular disease, diabetes, and osteoporosis.
By following these rules you can make a program in about half an hour. Sit down, make sure you have read everything and start writing.
COMPOUND EXCERCISES SHOULD BE DONE FIRST. Reason for that is you can lift more weights on them and they are working multiple muscle groups.
Thank you for reading make sure to support this blog if you like it. Rate us if you have free time.
All the information is from the trusted sources. I recommend to be careful and listen to your body, we are not doctors.
Starting is the hardest part, but once it’s done we can do anything.
Every beginning is hard. It is the most important part of the work. Remind yourself, everyone was the beginner once, no one was born with their dream physice.
If you are ready to start and really commit, this blog post is for you.
I have divided main things to focus on in the beginning:
Set a goal and commit to it
Do what you enjoy
Start small
Stay consistent
Set a goal and commit to it
Once you have decided it’s time to focus on becoming better you, it’s important to choose what your main goals are. This means if you want to become stronger, more aestheticaly pleasing, flexibile or train for endurance.
Think of how many day a week you have available to excercise, either in a gym or at home. Reccomended ammount for beginners is three to five days a week, but listen what your body tells you and go by it.
If you want you can hire a trainer, but also it is possible can learn by yourself. When you don’t hire a trainer, important thing to pay attention to is FORM. Record yourself or ask a friend if it’s correct. Having incorrect form can lead to many issues and injuries that can be avoided. First practice with bodyweight excercises, then move on to adding a little bit of weight.
Do what you enjoy
Something to note here, fitness is not just about looks. It’s about how you feel. Go by logic, if you find ex. running boring, what are the chances that you will go run everyday. If you don’t like squats, just don’t do them. There are so many great excercises you can do instead of squats.
Your fitness journey should be enjoyable not punisment. There are so many forms of activities and you deserve to do what you like. It is proven if you do what you like you will:
Feel more fulfilled
Be more productive
Inspire others
Succeed
Doing what you love gives you that extra motivation to get up everyday and do the work needed. It also means you will definitely become successful and achieve your goals.
Start small
I advise you to start with bodyweight excercises or shorter distance, then when you get stronger add some weight, add more reps or miles.
„It doesnt get easier, we get stronger“
Quote above says that we as humans are made to adapt. We get stronger day by day. When I started going to the gym, I could barely do 20 kg on deadlifts. But as the time passed and as I got stronger, this weight seems light when I lift it. Profressive overload is the key. You might wonder, why starting small. Well the reason is:
You will overwork your body and start feeling fatigued, which will result in quiting
You will have to force yourself too much to do it and you will most likely stop it at some time.
Stay consistent
Motivation means finding drive and activity that keeps you engaged and putting effort into it. Some days it is easy to feel motivated, while others it’s a whole other story. Even on days when you don’t feel like getting up, get up. This is the best advice you can get, get up and make yourself do great things. Because motivation sure can help you, but with consistency we grow.
Staying consistent is probably the most important thing in the whole fitness journey. It’s not possible to achieve wanted results if you don’t work for them often and hard. You have to eat right, train and sleep, it is that simple.
As a beginner it’s fairly easier to put on muscle, but as you get more advanced you hit a plateau. This is the time most people get frustrated and quit. Quitting should not be an option at all.
You have to tell yourself that no matter what emotions come up, what hard times might come – you will succeed. Basically it’s about balance, and you have to be 100% committed to finding your balance .
Nobody can go back and start a new beginning, but anyone can start today and make a new ending. If you start tomorrow, there is one more day you have to wait for your results.
If you liked this article make sure to support us and rate us.
Physical fitness can be defined as a general state of health and, more specifically, the ability to perform aspects of sport, occupations and daily activities. It is generally achieved through exercise, activity, nutrition and rest. More known as four pillars of health.
Fitness is by far the largest and most favorite form of activity people use in their free time.
Maingoals of fitness are:
Lowering the risk of disease,
Helping with the quality of life
Daily exercise and physical activity, such as running, weightlifting, swimming, promotes strong muscles and bones. As we get older we start losing muscle, in the picture below you can see difference between younger and older people.
Difference between muscles of younger and older people.
The benefits of fitness are countless and they can be divided in three main groups. Mental, physical and social benefits. By physical benefits we are talking about our health and body. For example strengthening heart and muscles, improving posture and physical appearance, improving sleep and appetite. Now for mental benefits it is a bit different. You can’t start loving yourself just by working out, you need to work on that. That does not mean you shouldn’t exercise. Examples of mental benefits are ability to cope with stress better, control emotions and to enjoy yourself. And lastly, social benefits. Going to the gym, yoga classes or running you have endless opportunities of meeting new people, that means you get new workout partner or lifelong friends.
„Physical fitness has always been an important part of life. It is theorized that when people left a hunter-gatherer lifestyle and formed fixed communities based around agriculture that physical fitness levels declined. This is not to say that levels of physical labor decreased but that the type of work undertaken was not necessarily as conducive to a general level of fitness. As such, regimented fitness regimes were either invented or became more common. This was especially the case in classical civilizations such as Ancient Greece and Rome. In Greece, physical fitness was considered to be an essential component of a healthy life and it was the norm for men to frequent a gymnasium. Physical fitness regimes were also considered to be of paramount importance in a nation’s ability to train soldiers for an effective military force. Partly for these reasons, organized fitness regimes have been in existence throughout known history and evidence of them can be found in many countries.
The industrial revolution had led to a more sedentary lifestyle for many people and there was an increased awareness that this had the potential to be harmful to health. This was a key motivating factor for the forming of a physical culture movement, especially in Europe and the USA. This movement advocated increased levels of physical fitness for men, women, and children and sought to do so through various forms of indoor and outdoor activity, and education. In many ways, it set the foundations for modern fitness culture.“
Fitness industry is growing day by day. By organised and safe approach to physical activity, the risk of disease can be lowered and quality of life can be improved. Important thing remember is do the research or hire someone professional so the injuries are minimized or, even better, off the list.
⭐
Rating: 0.5 out of 5.
If you found article this helpful, please, follow us on other social media and support us. Thank you for reading!
Iron Pump 