How To Lose Fat Effectively

But if you're on an extended cutting phase, let's say more than three months, then it can be a good idea to actually have a diet break implemented in your dieting plan. Because if not, then in many cases you will have a trainee who then diets for a prolonged period and then because it's very taxing to be in a deficit for so long. So you then end up going into a binge and then you're like, ah, eff it. I quit. This is the My Vegan Personal Trainer Podcast with Remy Episode Number eight welcome.

To the Myvegan Personal Trainer Podcast where it's all about living a fit plant based lifestyle so you can thrive in life while caring for the planet and animals. And now your host medical doctor, CrossFit athlete and online personal trainer Ramey.

Hey it's Remy. And welcome to episode number eight of the MyVegan Personal Trainer Podcast. Today we'll be covering how to lose fat effectively or in other words, how to cut. Because I'm striving to make this episode independent of episode number 007 and because there are some overlapping topics between this current episode and the previous one, therefore there will be something that will be repeated from last episode. You can use the chapter markers to skip to the chapters specific to today's topic, but I will actually prefer you go through the whole thing because when I do go through those overlapping topics, they often lean towards what we are talking today, which is cutting so that there is some uniqueness to those repeating topics. Today you will learn how to decide whether to go on a cut a bulk or to do a body recomposition phase, meaning you will be focusing on building muscle and losing fat. At the same time you will learn how to set up your calories and macronutrients such that you will lose fat efficiently efficiently without losing too much muscle mass or suffering from excessive hunger. We will go through the specifics of a so called diet break such that you will be able to stick to the diet in the long run and achieve your end goal. The important factors to include in your training to best support the dieting phase will be presented as well. You'll learn how to track your progress and make necessary adjustments when you're not progressing as planned. Lastly, we'll go through tips and strategies that you can use to hit your daily vitamins and minerals. One thing is the challenge of hitting all your micronutrients when you are on a fully plant based diet. Another is when you combine the plant based diet with being in a cut. This increases the risk of under ingesting certain vitamins and minerals. App and ebook resources will be given to help you eat a more balanced, varied and micronutrient rich vegan diet under a cut phase. Subscribe if you're not a member of the tribe already. And now just a boring disclaimer. The information provided in this podcast is for informational purposes only and is not meant to take the place a professional, medical, dietetic or fitness advice. Consult with a relevant professional for your specific situation. And now, without any further ado, let's get into the meat of the episode. So should we cut or should we bulk or should we do a body recomposition? Basically focusing on both building muscle and losing fat at the same time? As I already talked about in the last episode and also in episode 004 actually, especially 004 where I went in detail with body recomposition and the demographics that would be most likely able to get a successful body recomposition. But basically, if you are a beginner and you're obese or skinny fat, that's where a good way to go about it is. The first six to 12 months, not focus too much on nutrition, just focus on getting good quality training, learning the exercises, learning the techniques, focus on getting stronger, have a basic eating structure established as an obese trainee and eat around maintenance or a skinny fat trainee. After this period of 6 to 12 month, then you can then reassess and see what's the next step to take now that you're in the later phase of the novice stage. When you pass this early novice stage, then it basically just comes down to cutting or bulking. And here it primarily just comes down to your body composition using simple logic and just going off to what you prefer typically gets you to the right answer whether you should be cutting or bulking. But just like I described in the previous episode, you would use this guiding sandbox that I talked about. The sandbox basically being the body fat percentage range of 10 to 20%. Typically you would not be going below 10%. That's more if you are bodybuilding focused, I want to get on stage at some point. This is not what I'm focusing on in this episode when you'll be above 20% of body fat percentage. In majority of cases it would just make sense for you to be going on a cut. You can still, you can obviously go on a gaining phase. You will gain strength, you will be able to build muscle, but you also be accumulating extra fat on top of all the fat you already have on your body. Once You've gotten into the sandbox of 10 to 20%, then you also want to stay in it. So this means if you above 15% of body fat up to 20%, then it generally is a good idea to focus on going on a cut. If you're between 10 and 15%, that's a good place to then go on a gaining phase. These are just rule of thumb and it's not black and white. You can definitely bulk at higher percentage ranges. And you can also cut if you are, let's say around 14, 13% in body fat. If you would like to go below. This is just what typically would make most sense. Now, you don't need to be cutting to a super lean state before considering a bulk, especially if you're not naturally of a lean body type, then if you go to very lean fat percentages, you will have raised hunger levels and your body will be more primed for fat storage such that the subsequent bulking phase won't be as good as it could have been if you just started bulking from a higher body fat percentage. And when I'm talking about this super lean state, then I mean a body fat percentage of about 8 to 10% or lower for men. For females, that will be equivalent to just adding 8% on top of those numbers just given for men. But a good guideline in terms of how lean should we get before we consider bulking is that we get so lean that we'll be having at least a four month period of bulking before an eventual cut needs to be considered. And this typically corresponds to getting down to 15% of body fat percentage or less before you go into a bulking phase. And as also mentioned in the previous episode, if if you're not so sure whether I should I cut, should I bulk? I'm not sure that some could be somewhere in between where I should go. Just pick one, go with it and then at one point when you see you have too much fat mass on, or you now feel you all lean enough, then you can switch back to the other phase or maintain if that's where you want to be at. Now as we also mentioned in the previous episode, then the currently available ways of measuring your body fat percentage are not very accurate and therefore it's better to use a visual assessment guide and I'll have that linked in the show notes such that you'll be able to assess where you are more or less with your body fat percentage based on photos of bodies at different body fat percentages for males and females. Next, we'll be talking about how we are going to be estimating our caloric maintenance. So basically the amount of calories we need on a daily basis to maintain our current body weight. There are two methods. The first one is the Morax accurate one and the second one is much less accurate but still reasonable to use if you don't have time to apply the first method. The first method will require you to get a digital foot scale, a digital body weight scale and a nutrition tracking app like MyFitnessPal. For example, you'll be tracking your body weight on a daily basis for 14 days where you every morning upon waking up and after having been to the toilet, then in a faster state, you will be stepping on the scale, on the same scale, wearing the same things, maybe make it and then you'll be noting down that weight. You'll be doing this for 14 days for the first seven days. So the first week there you will be making an average of those seven numbers and of the next week you will do the same of those seven measurements and you'll get another weekly average. When it comes to your food, you'll be tracking your food into the MyFitnessPal app. Into this nutrition tracking app. You can also use others if you prefer other ones. You'll be tracking your food for 14 days, logging in all your meals and then based on all the 14 caloric numbers you have, you'll be then finding the daily average amount of calories you are having in this two week period, the measuring of your body weight and logging your food. If you're not able to do it every day in this 14 day period, then you can also just have three to four days where you get those measured. Most important thing is that those three to four days then are representative of how your whole week normally is. When you log in your nutrition, it's important that you don't adjust as you go. Just eat what you normally have. Just track your current habits. You will get a lot of feedback as you are logging, but resist the urge to start changing things up. Once you have the two weekly averages of your body weight, you will then be comparing them to each other. If they are the same, that means that the daily average caloric intake you've been having is your daily maintenance calories. If not, that is if you gained or lost some weight in from week one to week two, then we will have to do a little calculation before we get to our maintenance calories. For us to be able to do that type of calculation then we need to be aware of the 3500 kilocalorie rule, which basically states that 1 pound of adipose tissue, 1 pound of fat on your body, holds 3500 calories. So a simple example. Let's say you gained 1 pound from week one to week two. That means in total you had 3500 calories as surplus in this time period. To then figure out what the average daily calorie surplus was, you just need to divide this number of calories to 3500, just divided by 7 and you get the daily calorie surplus that you were in to create this weight change from week one to week two, this daily calorie surplus you then were in, you would then subtract it from the average daily calories you had. So to put it in a way of a formula, then the difference in the body weight you had from week one to week two in pounds, you would multiplies this by 3,500 calories, whatever that number is, you would then divide it by seven so that you get the average daily caloric surplus or deficit you were in this number. You then add or subtract from the daily caloric intake average that you have gotten to by finding the average of those 14 days of logging food. And as mentioned in the previous episode, this first method where you use this calculation can only be applied if no big change has been made in your diet. You're relatively weight stable. You're not an absolute complete new beginner in the gym or coming from a training layoff or on steroids. As long as that's not the case, then you can use this current first method because or else your body will be able to make bigger changes in a shorter time period. By calculating these weekly body weight averages, we are leaning towards canceling out the fluctuations that happen due to water. And therefore most of the weight change can be attributed to being fat, which is why this 3500 calorie rule applies. The next method is the less accurate version. This is especially for someone who doesn't have the time to go through this 14 day of logging and tracking and just wants to get some numbers to go by right here, right now. For you to get to this estimated number, you would basically just have to go on Google type macro calculator and type in all your data and it will spit out a number for you to go by. Or you could do the same thing just via one of the nutrition tracking apps that are available, type in your data again and it will spit out what your daily maintenance calories are and it will even Give you how many calories you need to go by if you are striving for a certain rate of weight gain or loss. You can always adjust this number if it shows that it's way off or it's not on course in terms of what our desired rate of weight loss or weight rate gain is. But more about adjustment later in this episode. Now that we've established how to figure out your maintenance calories, now we'll talk about the desired rate of weight loss. When it comes to weight loss, its rate is faster than that of weight gain. The rate at which we would like to gain per month is more or less the rate at which we would like to lose per week. When we are going on a weight loss phase. For an effective weight loss phase, where it's sustainable and where we minimize loss of muscle mass and strength, is a good idea to aim for 0.5 to 1% of body weight loss per week. And as you're getting leaner, it can make sense to go slower, so be more lean towards 0.5% of body weight per week. Now that you know the desired rate of weight loss, we are now able to calculate the daily average deficit we need to be in with the use of the 3500 calorie rule. So I previously mentioned that 1 pound of adipose tissue, 1 pound of fat, corresponds to 3500 calories. So in order to calculate our daily deficit, we ought to do the following. The target amount of weight in pounds that we would like to lose in a week, week is to be multiplied with 3,500 calories. And in this way we will figure out what the total deficit should be at in one week. Now, to calculate the daily deficit, you just divide by seven and we got the daily deficit. That will help us lose weight at the desired rate. Now, you don't have to have this same deficit every single day. The most important thing is when you look at the week as a whole, that you are having this deficit daily on average. So you can definitely have days, especially days where you're working out, having more carbs, having more calories there, and then on your off days, then you are in a bigger of a deficit. So variation is definitely fine. So now we figured out how to manage our daily calories so that we are hitting a target rate of weight loss. But you might be thinking, what about, what about cardio? Well, cardio can definitely be used as part of creating a deficit, but it should not be our main contributor to a deficit because there is an interference effect with resistance Training when we are having cardio. So cardio can rather be used as assistance to creating a deficit with our nutrition. And in this way we don't need to be cutting down on as much food as we would need to if we were solely relying on nutrition. You will need the following numbers to be able to calculate calories being burned when you're doing cardio. So when you're doing light cardio, which corresponds to the type of cardio weights, easy to have a conversation going, then you are burning 0.2 calories per 10 minutes per pound of body weight when you're doing moderate intensity cardio, corresponding to where talking is possible. But it's pretty difficult. You're. You're pretty challenged when it comes to having a conversation going, so your sentences will be interrupted by you taking big breath. For this type of cardio, you are burning 0.45 calories per 10 minutes per pound of body weight when you doing high intensity cardio, where talking is almost not possible. If possible, then you would be burning 0.7 calories per 10 minutes per pound of body weight. Now, it should be noted that especially moderate intensity cardio is a form of cardio having the highest amount of interference with our resistance training. When it comes to low intensity cardio, especially with low impact cardiovascular activities like cycling or swimming, compared to running, there's typically no issue when it comes to interference. But the thing is here, you will need to spend a lot of time doing it for you to burn a substantial amount of calories. High intensity cardio, which is typically performed in intervals, and you might very likely know it as hiit. So high intensity interval training there because high intensity reminds of that of resistance training, therefore the interference effect seems to be reduced doing this type of cardio. However, there is a larger risk of injury often when you perform this type of cardio. And it's also more taxing compared to low intensity cardio, which mean there will be a greater demand for recovery. So, having presented the landscape of cardio and its effect at different intensities due to the interference effect, it's therefore best to have diet being the main contributor to a caloric deficit. As already mentioned, as a trainee who is focused on building muscle, losing fat on the bodybuilding strength building side of training and not being an endurance athlete, it's important to remember that our training training is the part that actually hold onto the muscle mass while we are in a deficit, while it should be the nutrition that's creating this deficit, all while supporting our training to the best extent possible. But Cardio can definitely be added. There is obviously the health component to having cardio in our training, and also it does alleviate the amount of restriction we need to have on our nutrition. But in order to minimize the interference effect, then it's important that we follow this following rule of thumb to be given. So firstly, the type of cardio you're choosing should be something that's low impact, like being on the elliptical trainer, cycling, swimming, opposed to high impact versions like running for example, and something that's easy on the muscles so that you don't end up becoming sore for your resistance training. And the max time of doing cardio should be half the time that you are using. When doing resistance training, we want to minimize the use of moderate intensity cardio, as this, as mentioned, has the highest intensity interference effect. The time used doing this type of cardio should be max one hour per week. The amount of hit sessions. So high intensity cardio sessions to be doing per week should be one to two sessions per week, 30 minutes or less per session. And the rest of the time available for doing cardio can then be contributed to low intensity cardio. In terms of timing of when you're doing your cardio, it can be a good idea to do it on a separate day if possible, or have some time between your residence training session and your cardio session on the same day. If you are to do cardio and resistance training together in the same session, then first do the resistance training, after which you then can finalize your training with the cardiovascular activity. So that was the section about rate of weight loss and the inclusion of cardio. Now a little note regarding tracking calories, tracking your food, logging it for whatever reason, maybe you, you want, you don't even want to mess around with that. Maybe you're super busy, you don't have time to be logging all your food in an app, weighing it, putting into the app, or there's some sort of unhealthy relationship with doing that. That does not mean that you are now screwed because you're not doing it. You can basically just skip it. Although I would recommend someone to have it done for a period, for some weeks, for some months, to gain some background experience. In terms of how much food am I normally getting, how many calories is a normal in my plate, and also how much protein am I getting along with, how much much carbs and fats am I having? As especially when you're going in a deficit, then it's important to have a minimum amount of carbs and fats that we are Aware of that. We are getting more about that in a bit. But if you really don't want to be using the food scale and logging it, then you can also just rely on your internal cues of hunger and satiety. So basically eating to a certain level of fullness and then seeing how that manifests in your rate of weight loss, and if there is a need for adjustment, then you just eat till you are less full, for example. Okay, so next up we will be talking about macronutrients. So basically protein, carbohydrates and fats, which are all the food components that contribute to the calories we are getting on a daily basis. We have the fourth macronutrient, alcohol, but obviously we want to limit that as a source of calories for us. So we'll start with our rockstar macronutrient. Just like we did in the previous episode when we're cutting our protein needs are slightly higher than usual. And this because as glycogen and fat stores in the body decrease, the body then relies more on protein as well as a source of energy. So it's generally advised to aim for higher protein levels to be able to minimize the loss of muscle mass when we are on a cut. So a good number to go for is 2.4 grams per kilo body weight or higher as long as we respect the minimum daily requirements of carbohydrates and fats, which I will get to in a bit. But if you're able to to get 2.4 2.6 grams per kilo body weight, then that's pretty good. And the most important thing is you want to get the highest level of protein you can have at a sustainable level. If you're overweight or obese, then you won't base this number on your current body weight, but rather on the body weight you will be having if you were within the higher range of the normal BMI range. Or else you'll be overshooting your amount of protein and you won't have much space left for carbohydrates and fats when on a plant based diet for you to be able to hitting those higher levels of protein is important that you don't just think whole foods plant based sources, but it can also help if you have food sources where the amount of protein is spiked up. So using protein powders, foods like tofu, tempeh, TVPs, text, vegetable protein, soy milks, just to mention a handful. So sources where protein is spiked compared to the other two macronutrients and for us to get the optimal amino acid profile when we are eating protein. Amino acids are basically the building blocks of protein where we have two main groups. We have the essential amino acids and you have non essential amino acids, the non essential amino acids or amounts that the body can produce if needed and essential amino acids or amino acids. That is important that we on a regular basis, on a daily basis, we provide from external sources. So for us to have the best, most optimal amino acid profile that is supportive of muscle building. A good rule of thumb when it comes to your food choices is to make sure that roughly 50% of your protein sources are legume based and the other 50% being grain based. When it comes to our next macronutrient fat, when you're on a cut, you would set it between 15 to 25% of your total daily caloric intake. But it's important that you are getting a minimum of 0.25 grams per pound or 0.5 grams per kilo of your body weight. It's important that we don't go lower than that or else it will be a not very healthy weight loss phase. You're to going going in. Now that we've set the protein and the fats, the remaining of our calories will then be attributed to carbohydrates. And also carbohydrates compared to protein and fats is not an essential macronutrient. So we can definitely go low carb. But the problem here is that then this will make our training suffer and I'll also get to in a bit when it comes to training. Training is the most important thing when it comes to to preserving our muscle mass. When we are going on a weight loss phase and if we don't have enough carbs, this is basically what's fueling your workouts. You'll be having poor performance, you lose a lot more muscle mass than you otherwise would have and therefore the end quality of your weight loss phase is not as great as it could have been. So it's important to have a minimum of 0.5 grams per pound of body weight that come from carbs. Now a little note back on fat. As also mentioned in the previous episode, when it comes to fat, there are some people, some individuals, not everybody. There are some though that can benefit from higher levels of fat up to as high as 40%. And you would be going higher fat than what has been prescribed in the episode currently. Especially if you have experience with going high fat and you just feel that you function better on on being on a higher fat diet. These macronutrient recommendations are what's going to work for most, but not everybody. They are, they, they are, are some where having the macronutrients set differently will be more optimal. But, but again as mentioned, this is what will work for most is a good starting point. Start from there and then you can always tweak it. But always respect the minimum daily requirements for the carbs and the fats and keep protein high. So now we've gone through the calories and the macronutrients that will be contributing to our weight loss. And now in this next section of the episode we'll be talking about a diet break. And yeah, you heard me correctly, I just said diet break. It might sound counterintuitive that we are now talking about a break from dieting now that the goal is to diet and to lose fat and get to where we need to get to. But if you are on an extended cutting phase, let's say more than three months, then it can be a good idea to actually have a diet break implemented in your dieting plan. Because if not, then in many cases you will have a trainee who then diets for a prolonged period. And then because it's very taxing to be in a deficit for so long. So you then end up going into a binge and then you're like ah, effort, I quit. And that's that. So we want to avoid that scenario. And by implementing a diet break, we'll be having a period where we are dieting, then we'll be having a short period of a break in the diet while we are eating around maintenance before we then continue again down to where we need to go get to. And if we are having extended periods of dieting and we could definitely have more than one diet break included. So it's for psychological and physiological reasons that we are having this. Primarily psychological. The physiological reason behind a diet break is that it helps your hormones get back to normal levels. However, this physiological effect is short lived. And also why that's not the primary reason why we are doing it. It's mainly to give us a break. Just like we are going on a holiday on a weekend trip before we then get to the work. So as mentioned, you ought to include a diet break if you are dieting for more than three months. And a way of doing a diet break is to actually just keep your usual times of having meals eat at those times. You then eat until you are satisfied, but without worrying about calories, macros, no counting, nothing. You just eat until you are satisfied. And that's that and it's very important that you maintain your training protocol. By going through such a diet break, you will gain a little bit of weight, but minimum of it will be fat. It will mostly be because you're just eating more. So there will be increased gut content. You're having more carbs, more sodium, so you will having more water retention. Once you go back to the deficit, you will lose it all again. It's definitely nerve wracking for some to to be doing this where you might feel that you're getting anxious having to do it, especially for the first time. But it is a fear worth facing. The duration of a diet break should be two weeks. And the frequency of having those diet breaks should be roughly about three months. Every three months if you have more body fat on your body, so more than 15% for males and 23% for females, and if you are leaner than that, then every two to three months is a good idea to have the diet break. It can be highly recommended to actually be planning out when you are to have the diet breaks. So that we're not constantly thinking should we have the diet break now or later. Perhaps schedule out so that you know exactly when you're having it. So you can also just go fully committed on the dieting period. So for example, you know you there is vacation coming up and then you could time it such that you have the diet break when you're on vacation. So then you can enjoy foods that you might be craving when you are on a diet and enjoy your holidays more. Again, the focus, the main focus here on on being in a diet break is a psychological relief you get from being on on this. But now let's say that even though you have already pre planned when you'll be having your coming diet breaks, let's say in the dieting phase you start to be getting a lot of cravings, being in a bad mood, not recovering pretty well. Then it can make sense in those situations to just reschedule the diet break and having it in those periods where you might be having such sense symptoms. That was diet breaks. Next we'll talk a little bit about training. What factors that's important to include in your training such that you are getting the most optimal training while you're cutting and this way also maximizing your possibility of muscle retention. So obviously most important thing is you need to make sure that the technique is proper. You want to have 10 to 20 sets per muscle group of movement pattern per week. If you're more advanced, you would be in the high End of this range range. If you are an intermediate trainee, you would be in the middle. And if you're a novice trainee, which is what most will be listening to this podcast, that's when you are able to progress your strength on a week to week basis, then you would be in the lower end of this range. So 10 to 12 sets per muscle group or movement pattern per week, you want to make sure that you are at least training two times per muscle group or movement pattern per week. You want your sets to be near failure sets. So making sure they're challenging enough for your body to have a reason to adapt the rest between sets should be enough such that the performance from set to set is similar. You don't want to have to go from a set like I mentioned, like I mentioned in the previous episode, going from a set of being about 10 reps and then the next set, you're only able to do three or four because you just rested too little. You want to have a full range of motion to the extent that your mobility and your technique allows and that you're comfortable with. And a good tempo to go for is to be explosive when you are lifting, lifting the weights against gravity. So in this concentric phase where the muscle is contracting and you want to in the other phase, so the eccentric phase where you basically putting the weight back, so there's a muscle lengthening phase there, you want to, in a controlled fashion, just put it back from where you left from where you started. And again, not overly slow, just in a steady controlled fashion before you then go back to the explosive phase. And lastly, you want to strive to be beating the log. So every time you're showing in the gym, look at what you did last time in that same workout and strive to beat that number that you have on on your logbook. So those are the essential factors to include in your training. Next we will be going into tracking your progress. So how do we track our progress and make adjustments as we move forward? So we're now going to talk about how to track your progress and make necessary adjustments when necessary. Are we going through four ways of tracking a progress and they are your body weight, body circumference measurements, visual assessments via body photos, and gym performance. I'll be starting with the most useful ones. So the first one is body weight, just like mentioned under the section of estimating your maintenance calories, you will look to standardize your way of measuring your body weight. So it will be first thing in the morning after having been to the toilet during a faster state where you gotta get on the same scale wearing the same things all naked. If possible do do it daily. But if you do miss out on some days and at least read four weigh ins that represent the entirety of the week at the end of each week you will then be having a collection of body weigh ins and you will be making a weekly average. That will be your first data point. You will then be doing this every week and it will be based on the trend that you see from each data point. Will be based on that that you will be doing adjustments. You don't need to worry about if today the weight has gone up or today it's gone down. Fluctuations will happen. It's totally norma normal and it's not fat, it's water. Most of it where it just goes up and down on a day to day basis. So there's no need to get stressed. If suddenly you go from one day to the next, you gain over a pound again. Remember the 3500 calorie rule, it takes a lot of calories for you to gain one pound of fat. So important to remember that. Don't stress about the day to day weigh ins. Fluctuations are just part of the game. It's normal. When you see the number on the way weight scale, just note it down and forget about it. It's based on the trend that we'll be adjusting. If this is your first week on a cut, then you will have a big drop in weight before a certain trend starts to develop. And that's because you are suddenly eating less than normal. So you'll be having less gut content, you're having less glycogen in the body, less water is being hold onto. So the first week's data we can pretty much just ignore. The value it does have is to ensure that we actually are in the right direction. If you, if you think you went on a cut, you're now starting a cut, but you actually gained weight after that one week then it's a good sign that the numbers you calculated were all wrong. And this type of wrong calculation would be happening in the method two of estimating your maintenance. So where you basically having a formula, so using a macro calculator online or a nutrition tracking app where the numbers were way off. And then it typically comes down to having type 2 in the wrong activity level that you thought you had. So after this first week where we ignoring this data point then we'll be collecting three data points. So we'll be having three weeks weekly averages and from there we'll typically be able to see a trend from which we assess whether we are on the target rate of weight loss. If as a woman you experience bigger deviations in the body weight due to the menstrual cycle, then it can be making sense to have four data points instead of just three to assess the trend. So if you're now hitting your desired rate of weight loss, great, we just keep going. But if you are deviating, if you are going slower or faster than you would like to, then we'll be using the 3500 calorie rule, as we've done previously in this episode, to calculate the number of calories we need to adjust. By then you'll be going into your carbs and or fats and adjust those numbers so that you are getting back to the desired rate of weight loss. And here when you are adjusting the carbs and fats, just be mindful of the minimum daily requirements as previously mentioned, and easier routes. If, for example, you were on the desired rate of weight loss and then you start hitting some sort of plateau, then instead of doing this 3500 calorie rule calculation, then you could also just adjust by 100250 calories that you then would be subtracting from carbs and or fats. If your progress is taking a stall, another way rather than nutritional correction could be adding cardio. As we already went through, just important to make sure that we adhere to the criteria that's previously been mentioned and not be doing too much of it. So that was the body weight parameter, the next way of tracking progress and can be highly recommended to actually use together with the body weight to pair it up with is the body circumference measurements. When we are on a cut in a caloric deficit, then systemically around your whole body you'll be losing fat. So what you will typically see is a reduction in the body circumference measurements at all places. But if you see that the body circumference measurement at your stomach level is going down while the ones at your arms, your legs, your chest are fairly well maintained, then it's a good sign that you are losing fat, obviously, but you also building or at least doing a good job at retaining your muscle mass in the process. The great thing about having this body circumference measurement parameter included is apart from just having the body weight showing us that we are going in the right direction, you also have other pieces of evidence that things are going in the right direction. And they also can serve to enhance your motivation to keep pushing forward. You'll be taking body circumference measurements once a week. Or you can also have more distance between those measurements. But it can definitely be a good idea to have it on a weekly basis so that you have it paired up with your weekly body weight average. It's important that we accurate here, so strive to be accurate to the nearest 0.1 centimeter. You would do it just like with body weight measurement. Upon waking up after having been to the toilet in a fastest state and then noting those numbers down. The following nine places can be recommended to include your right arm, your left arm, your right leg, left leg, your chest, your navel, three fingers above your navel line and three fingers below navel line. And when I say three fingers, I mean three fingers width. And finally your hips. At its widest point, it can be recommended that you do it yourself because let's say you rely on someone. It's not always that it will be available to help you and therefore is self tightening tape can actually be recommended so that you also get a more consistent pressure applied around body parts when taking it. For the legs, you'll be measuring at the thighs where it's widest while you are tensing it and standing up. For the arms you'll be measuring at the biceps flexed at the widest point. The three measurements on stomach will be done while you're tensing. For the chest you will be taking a deep breath in and hold while measuring and don't flex. You'll be measuring at the lower chest area so the nipple line for men and for women you can do it right below the breast. Next tracking parameter is going to be the visual assessment by using progress photos, which basically gives us a more qualitative assessment of our progress rather than the two previously mentioned parameters. When taking the photos, you want to make sure that the light source is in front of you and that the camera is positioned between you and the light source. And again you want to standardize this. View this as a scientific experiment. You want to do it in the same place, in the same light, same positions that we have something that reliable and comparable. I can recommend you do this on a monthly basis. One from the front, one from the side and one from the back. And it should be noted that the more fat mass you have on your body, the less obvious the changes will be. Initially as you're leaning down, as you're getting down to lower body fat percentages, then it's takes less fat loss before you're able to see more dramatic changes. So do have that in mind. Don't get discouraged because from one to one to two and you just started and you're overweight and you don't see any changes, it's just because we have more to lose still. And in that situation then it's better to rely more on the body weight and body circumference measurements to assess progress. Fourth and final tracking parameter will be your gym performance. So when we are going on a cut, especially in the later stages of being in a car, when we are getting more and more lean, we will get to a point where it's hard to keep up with getting stronger every week. As a novice in the gym, as mentioned last episode, when we are in the gaining phase, then that's what we should be expecting of just keep on getting stronger on a week to week basis when we are in the novice stage. And if that was not happening, then it typically was something to do with training if we were recovering properly. But what you can expect when you are going on a cut in the beginning, when you have more fat mass on your body, then you will still be able to progress and get stronger on a week to week basis. But at one point it will get harder, it gets slower in terms of getting stronger. At one point you might just be working on maintaining your strength levels. So just something to bear in mind and when you're going through this cutting period, not the most useful of a tracking parameter, but still something that's worth paying attention to because we want to fight for retaining as much muscle mass as we can in this phase. So it's important that we still strive to beat the log to the extent possible. So that's basically how we track our progress and make adjustments. Next up we'll talk about micronutrients. So basically vitamins, minerals. In the name of health, it's important that we strive to have variation in what we are eating and that our meals are generally balanced, making sure that on our plate for the main meals we have a substantial protein rich source, complex carbohydrates, unsaturated fats and fruits and veggies to aid you on your mission towards a more varied and balanced diet. Then a free resource, a free app called the D dozen app by Dr. Greger from nutrition facts.org can help you with a checklist where you basically on a daily basis can check off different food items such that you can track your current habits and also make sure that you are getting a more healthy diet on a day to day basis. When you're on a plant based diet, there are some micronutrients which are a bit more challenging to get compared to having an omnivorous diet. Some are rather a must to actually be supplementing Supplementing with on top of being vegan if you're also in a caloric deficit, the risk of missing out on essential micronutrients get higher. In the show notes, you'll be finding our ebook which basically breaks down which micronutrients can be recommended to supplement with or at least be more aware of that you're getting via food sources. I can recommend you go grab a copy of yours to assess your current intake of your daily vitamins and minerals. It's totally free to get. You just have to provide your email. Get into our newsletter and it will will be sent over in your inbox. And if afterwards you just want out, you can always unsubscribe. We don't spam. It's only when there's something relevant that you will be getting an email from us. And that's it folks. That's how you lose fat in an efficient fashion. Mentioned resources will be linked in the show notes. Thanks for listening and make sure to hit that subscribe button for more episodes helping you live a fit plant based lifestyle. Change your mindset, Change your life.

Thanks for listening to the MyVegan Personal Trainer podcast with Ramey at www.myveganpersonaltrainer.com.