Hey guys, Sean Nalewanyj here of BodyTransformationTruth.com, and today I want to answer a very common question
that I receive, which is how to structure your diet on workout days vs. non workout
days, and more specifically, whether you should consume more calories on training days and
less calories on non training days.
So the basic idea behind this does seem to make sense on the surface.
Your body requires a greater amount of energy on workout days in order to fuel your training
sessions as well as to recover from them, and it requires less energy on non-workout
days since you’ll be less active overall.
So, cycling your daily calories is typically done under the assumption that it will increase
workout quality, improve recovery, and decrease excess fat gains in the long term.
The problem with this approach is that it is a very short-sighted view of muscle building
and fat burning nutrition.
Whether your goal is to bulk up and put on muscle or to lean down and lose body fat,
you need to keep in mind that these are both very slow and gradual processes that are determined
by the actions that you take over the long term.
Your total net results in either direction are not going to be measurably affected by
a few hundred calories more or a few hundred calories less within small blocks of 24 hours.
People tend to categorize things in terms of individual days (for example, a “good”
day of eating or a “bad” day of eating) simply because that is the primary way that
we organize our time.
However, within the context of an overall muscle building or fat burning program, 24
hours is really quite an insignificant period of time.
In addition, muscle growth and fat loss are not on/off switches.
It’s not as if you’re “building muscle” one day and then “maintaining muscle”
the next day, or as if you're “burning fat” one day and then just “maintaining” the
next day.
Instead, your body is in a constant state of both muscle growth and muscle breakdown,
as well as a constant state of both fat burning and fat storage.
And it’s the total sum of all of these processes over the long term that is going to determine
your bottom line body composition.
And for those reasons, worrying about cycling your diet by eating more calories on your
workout days and less calories on your rest days is really just a waste of effort and
it's really going to do nothing more than overcomplicate your diet without improving
your results.
Not only is expending your energy on unnecessary dietary strategies like this a bad thing in
and of itself, but it may also negatively affect you over the long term for the simple
reason that it's going to make your diet plan harder to follow.
Constantly raising and lowering your calories from day to day is obviously more difficult
and more tedious to track than simply maintaining a steady intake from day to day, and the simple
fact is that the more complex your nutritional approach is, the less likely you’ll be to
stick to it over the long haul.
Your goal when structuring your muscle building or your fat burning diet should be to only
make it as complicated as it absolutely needs to be, and to eliminate all of the inessentials.
That way you can place all of your focus on the things that truly matter, and get the
maximum benefits while utilizing your time and energy in the most efficient way.
Now, that doesn’t mean that there’s anything wrong with eating less calories on rest days
vs. workout days, and if you truly do prefer that method because it fits into your natural
hunger patterns or your schedule in a more streamlined way, then that’s totally fine.
The take-home point here is simply that it isn’t going to make a noticeable difference
either way, and if maintaining a consistent calorie intake from day to day is the easiest
method for you to follow, then that is definitely the route that I would recommend you go.
So thanks for watching this video lesson, I hope you found the information useful here
today.
If you want to get a ton of other highly effective, science-based muscle building and fat burning
nutrition tips as well as concrete step by step meal plans, workout routines, supplement
info and more, make sure to head over to BodyTransformationTruth.com and grab my complete “Body Transformation
Blueprint” System by clicking the icon at the top of the video or using the link in
the description box below.
If you did enjoy the video, as always, please make sure to hit the LIKE button, leave a
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And make sure to check out my official blog over at SeanNal.com for all of my latest articles,
tips and other updates.
Talk to you again soon.