diet while preparing for bootcamp

[rocky112]

Originally Posted by jzhaun

If you're eating 10,000 calories a day and not training like an Olympic athlete then yeah, you should probably cut back a bit but going under 2000 calories isn't going to help you in the long run because a) if you go too far under your body goes into starvation mode and b) unless you keep eating that way forever, you'll gain the weight back once you stop.

Diet is by far the most important aspect to losing weight. As far as getting in shape you will need exercise, but working out and not adjusting your calorie intake will make for a long road to weight loss. I started working out in December and didn't start losing weight until April because I didn't adjust my diet enough.

You need to figure out how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight. There's a lot of fancy equations, but this site should help you figure out how many calories your body needs to maintain your current weight.

Since a pound of fat is roughly 3,600 calories, and if you're looking to lose a pound a week, you're going to have to cut over 500 calories off your maintenance calories every day. Then you can add to that how many calories you burn from exercise. For most people, that number will be below 2,000 calories.

Most physical activities, even if strenuous, burn surprisingly few calories. For example, a healthy adult male only burns 124 calories running a mile. What is frustrating about exercise is that the more you do it, the more efficient your body becomes, and you wind up burning fewer calories.

If your maintenance calories are around 2,200 and you eat 2,000 and think you should lose weight running a mile everyday, it could take you two weeks to lose a single pound.

From personal experience, if you're trying to lose weight and you don't adjust your diet you're setting yourself up for failure. Since June I've lost 30 pounds by combining my P90X workouts with a 1,800 calorie diet. Have I felt hungry? You bet, but being a little hungry is better than getting tossed out of your DEP pool for being overweight.