I have had countless people ask, “What’s a good workout to get abs,” but when I tell them they can get a six pack by going to the gym once a week and changing their lifestyle, suddenly they lose interest.\u00a0 Why is that?\u00a0 Convenience.\u00a0 Nobody wants to count calories, but everyone should be counting–\u00a0 And here’s the important thing to note:\u00a0 Not only do you need to count calories if you want to lose fat. . .\u00a0 You need to count calories if you want to gain muscle, and also if you want to just maintain.<\/p>\n
What!?\u00a0 Why is that!?\u00a0 Counting calories is annoying!?\u00a0 First, let’s look at it in terms of fat loss:\u00a0 How do we lose weight?\u00a0 We figure out our Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE, or “Maintenance”) and eat less calories than we that.\u00a0 If you’re not counting, how do you know how many calories below maintenance you’re eating?\u00a0 Are you eating below maintenance at all?<\/p>\n
Of course, then comes: “Can’t I just do more cardio!?”\u00a0 No.\u00a0 Look above:\u00a0 “You can’t out train a bad diet.<\/strong>”\u00a0 If your TDEE is 2000 calories, and you eat 3000 a day, that means that you would have to train long enough to burn 1000 calories.\u00a0 The more you train, the more you consume, unless you have unbelievable self control, in which case, why aren’t you just counting calories?\u00a0 Let’s take it a step further, though.\u00a0 If you’re consistently eating far below your maintenance (Whether intentionally or otherwise), or if you do “Chronic Cardio,” you’re eventually going to run into metabolic problems.\u00a0 First, your body is going to start feeding on your muscle mass because it takes more energy to maintain than body fat–\u00a0 In times of “starvation” (Which your body thinks you’re in), this is an efficient way for your body to lower your energy requirements to help you “survive.”\u00a0 You will slowly become skinny fat, losing strength and definition, and it won’t stop there.\u00a0 Next, you will run into hypothyroidism and decreased leptin levels, which will stop fat loss from occurring, and will even inhibit weight loss all together.\u00a0 So at this point, you hit a plateau, and conventional logic says to workout harder if you want to lose more weight.\u00a0 But that just further damages the little muscle mass you have left, and further damages your metabolism.\u00a0 It’s a vicious cycle.\u00a0 In that case, the proper thing to do is eat at maintenance and do no activity to repair your metabolism;\u00a0 Of course, you would never run into that if you count your calories and diet responsibly.<\/p>\n Side note:<\/em><\/strong>\u00a0 Want to do something frightening and eye opening?\u00a0 Estimate how many calories are in foods you know nothing about, and then look up the calorie count–\u00a0 Everyone grossly underestimates energy content in food.\u00a0 Worse than that, the amount of calories in alcoholic beverages, and caloric drinks in general is even crazier!\u00a0 This is the chink in the armor of most people’s diets–\u00a0 They rely on their own estimates for calories.\u00a0 (Fun fact:\u00a0 Popular drinks like Long Island Iced Teas, Margaritas and Pina Coladas typically have more than 700 calories per drink.\u00a0 We won’t go into what happens when you consume alcohol–\u00a0 We already wrote about that<\/a>.)<\/p>\n
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