How to Create Your Perfect Diet Plan (step-by-step guide)

24 Sep How to Create Your Perfect Diet Plan (step-by-step guide)

1. Setting Up Your Daily Calorie Intake For Your Goal.

Setting up your maintenance calories (TDEE – Total Daily Energy Expenditure) can be quite a difficult task for the average male or female who has never looked at a food label in their entire life. A simple approximation would be to multiply your current weight in pounds (weight kilograms multiplied by 2.2 is you approximate weight in pounds) by 12 to 16 depending on your activity level. The more active you are, the higher the multiplier.

 This is all really a matter of trial and error, as you have to adjust your calories based off of your weekly average. Keep in mind that just one day of higher or lower calories than you usually consume, will still have a ripple effect on all the week.

To lose weight you will need to multiply that number of calories you consume in order to maintain your bodyweight; by 0.85, 0.8 or 0.75, depending on how fast you want to lose weight. The leaner you already are, the closer you’ll want to stay to 0.85 for muscle maintenance and health purposes. It is also important to recalculate these numbers if your weight loss stalls and you are sure you are being consistently accountable with your diet.

To gain weight, take your maintenance calories and multiply by 1.1, 1.15 or 1.2 depending on your activity level and how fast you intend to gain weight. If your weight gain stalls, add 200 calories. If you are gaining too fast, drop 200 calories. Adjust accordingly.

What matters most in the long run is that you stick to your diet plan long enough to see results. The Beach Body Lean Muscle Building Program For Men and Bikini Body Toning Program For Women (clickable links throughout the article for your convenience, if you want to join our programs)are both set up with the best calories for the goal you chose in your questionnaire, or otherwise indicated to us. This will include a no-nonsense evidence based approach to splitting up your daily calories into meals using foods you will actually enjoy, and that you can eat at the times you already normally eat. This ensures that you are able stick to your plan and get your dream body, guaranteed!

2. Setting Up Your Daily Macronutrients For Your Goal.

This seems to be a tricky one. But in reality, unless you intend to get a pro-card in bodybuilding or any physique competition; there is no proven macronutrient breakdown that will do anything magical for fat loss, toning up or gaining muscle.

That being said, for muscle retention, fullness factor and maintaining a lean physique; most conventional diets are too low in protein and too high in fats and carbs. However, protein is just a macronutrient, there is no need for a diet excessively high in protein.

When carbs and fats are too low, your mood and hormones will suffer. These are both essential for fat loss, toning up and muscle building. Low carb and excessively low fat diets are not sustainable and should not be considered for long term health.

Some classic ratios would be to consume 40% of your calories from protein, 40% of your calories from carbs and 20% of your calories from fats. These have been used for ages by those with physique goals successfully.

Another recommendation that has also been used is to consume roughly 0.9g of protein per pound of bodyweight or 2g per kilogram of bodyweight in protein, then simply consuming the remainder of the calories when subtracting protein calories (4 calories per gram of protein). Split up the rest of the calories between fats (9 calories per gram, the most dense energy source of the three) and carbs (also 4 calories per gram, but less filling than protein). This can be a 50/50 split, or simply split up according to the individuals preference.

What matters most is the calories, not the macronutrients. That is not to say that they are unimportant. The Beach Body and Bikini Body Programs all come with tasty meals, with an adequate balance of protein, carbs and fats, all in line with the goal you submit in your questionnaire.

We make your macros effortlessly balanced, optimized not only scientifically speaking, but organized in a way to make your meals taste great and keep you satisfied for longer. Numbers mean nothing without the individual in mind. The individual’s macronutrient goals are reached through preserving his or her food preferences, that is what makes the Beach Body and Bikini Body  Programs so unique and effective.

3. Setting Up Your Daily Meals For Your Goal.

The most debated point in all of the commercial fitness websites since forever was the issue of meal frequency. This simply refers to the ideal amount of meals you would have per day. Science has shown time and time again that the quantity of food will determine body composition to the largest extent possible, next comes quality of food (adequate protein, carbs, fats, fiber and macronutrients) then finally the least impactful of all would be the time you actually eat your foods.

Meal timing has little to no effect on whether you lose fat or gain muscle, well, directly. Indirectly, the individual bias will be a great determinant of whether you adhere to your fat loss or muscle building plan. It will also have an effect on the quality of your training, which obviously impacts progress. Finally, there is some actual proven benefit to having pre and post workout meals. Where individual preference comes in is whether you want to skip breakfast and do intermittent fasting, to eat only lunch and dinner. Perhaps you’d like to have breakfast a light lunch, a snack, and a large dinner too. How we split up our daily food will vary from person to person.

So long as a calorie deficit, or surplus is adhered to, there is only one outcome. Successfully achieving the body you are shooting for! If however, meal timing is scientifically perfect on paper, but sticking to the diet is an issue. There will obviously still be no results from the plan, because it is never actually put into action for long enough to have the effect on your body that you are looking for !

The Beach Body and Bikini Body Programs are set up with a flexible structure. There are set rules of what foods to consume, what quantities to consume them and recommendations regarding preparation. However, there are no strict meal times every 3 hours, no forced fasts, no gimmicky windows within which to eat your food. While we do advice having something before you train and right after, we understand that some people train better on an empty stomach, while others like having food for energy. Situations where people need to go eat out and socialize are not ruled out, specific strategies to save up calories for events are also catered for. Remember, what’s the point of having a great body if you live a dull life and never enjoy yourself ?

Catering for each individual’s schedule, hunger, cooking and meal prep constraints as well as working hours is our priority. We crafted these diets to make easy to follow recommendations where foods are grouped into tasty meals that actually make sense and complement each other. Flexibility is key. Both the Beach Body and Bikini Body Programs allow you to keep your amazing body indefinitely, through a simple and effective nutrition protocol, but also through elegant flavor.

4. Setting Up Your Favorite Foods For Your Goal.

A diet is nothing without a set of meals, meals are nothing without the foods, the constituent elements that give us life. While we advise sticking to whole, minimally processed healthy foods for the majority of your intake. We are by no means nutritional nazis. There is no good food, there is no bad food. There is only excess (having too much something) and deficiency (having to little of something). This holds true not only for calories and macros, but also for the specific foods and micronutrients themselves. Just to dish out a couple of examples, having some fructose is fine, having too much fructose is actually dangerous. So why not consume most of the little fructose you are allowed from fruit, reap the benefits of the minerals, vitamins and fiber that come with it, and only enjoy your high fructose processed foods sparingly and occasionally?

When there is no excess or deficiency in a diet, food quality is never anissue. We kept this in mind when we created the Beach Body and Bikini Body Programs. We would never try to get you hooked on the next expensive superfood for no reason. These diet plans allow for convenient food that most people can find and prepare anywhere around the world. While we emphasize high quality nutrition, we believe that lower quality food (junk foods, alcohol and sweets) should form part of anyone’s plan (unless of course he or she does not like them )because in the end, we only get to live once and should make the most of it.

The thing that makes the Beach Body and Bikini Body Program clients rave about most is always the method that allows you to switch from making tasty home cooked meals, to eating out and treating yourself; effortlessly! This is not to say that daily staple meals within the plans don’t taste great, think; burritos, lean burgers, fries, bread, pasta, steak, popcorn, chocolate. . . and its not even cheat day ! You will learn what meals you actually need to keep your body satisfied, how to stay on point, lean and toned year round. That is, and always will be our mission.

5. Setting Up A Plan For Eating Out At Events & Enjoying Life.

Restrictive diets all have one thing in common, they have a place a form of restraint that allows an individual to make progress really fast during the period that the plan is being followed strictly, then everything blows up in their face.

Diets that are flexible diets, have the advantage of having a wider variety of foods or meal scheduling which allows the individual to make progress for a longer period of time.

However, a disadvantage of diets that are too flexible is that having too much of the good stuff too often, can skew with the results. No one is objectively and accurately going to be able track calories during a burger and fries meal at a restaurant, without a food scale, that is. Also, the more frequently we eat highly palatable foods, the more we crave them. This makes a diet that is too flexible in its approach, almost as unsuccessful as a full blown restrictive diet with food types and precise meal times.

 

The Beach Body and Bikini Body Programs are both engineered with the correct balance between enough restraint during times where you want to make weight loss fast and muscle gain effortless, but also allowing for periods of more flexibility. “Higher calorie, less nutritious” meals are included within the diet plans, available for the individual to use at will or when life hits. Enjoying your social life during the weekends, on holiday, or at the beach in summer; is a key priority for us at Camp Fitness.

Just ask any of the successful clients on the programs! Here’s Kyra Bikini Body Story for starters. Check out her transformation and loads of other guy and girls’ success stories; here!

Living in your lean, toned, attractive body should be a positive addition to your life not take away from its simple pleasures. The Beach Body & Bikini Body Programs‘  Eating Out Systems are truly amazing.