Have you tried all the dieting fads out there and still cannot reach your desired weight? Do not feel embarrassed. There are a lot of people who switch from one diet plan to another without ever getting their desired results. One reason for this is that there is no single diet that will be compatible with everybody.
Each person is unique, which means that a person’s overall condition may affect how he or she is going to respond to a new diet plan. For example, people with lactose tolerance cannot and will not respond well to a diet plan with many dairy products. What is flexible dieting? It is nothing but a new diet plan that will allow people to eat what they usually eat while still losing weight.
What is flexible dieting?
Flexible dieting is a diet plan that comes from the awareness that weight loss is more of an understanding of the scientific part of dieting as compared to the type of food that you are going to eat.
With flexible dieting, the number of calories that you ingest per day will dictate whether you will lose or gain weight. With this premise, flexible dieting accounts for the number of calories that each food item in your diet has and manages the amounts so that you can have an adequate number of calories for either weight loss or weight gain requirements.
Understanding the Science of Weight Loss
The number of calories that you need per day is known as your Total Daily Energy Expenditure or TDEE. This amount is the required energy that you need to exist per day, inclusive of normal daily activities such as walking and sleeping. Remember that if you are an active individual and you do a lot of physical activities, your TDEE will be higher. TDEEs are different for each individual, and you can calculate an estimated value of your TDEE by using calculators you can find online.
Losing, gaining, and maintaining weight is a matter of how much calories you are taking in as compared to the amount of calories you are using for energy or TDEE within the day. With this in mind, if you want to lose weight, you need to be in a calorie deficit diet plan. The number of calories that you are eating should be less than your TDEE.
Breaking Down Calories per Macronutrient
Once you have your TDEE value, you can easily set a calorie value than your TDEE if you want to lose weight. Remember that if you stick to your set calorie value, then you will eventually lose weight even without the need for exercise. However, to have a healthy diet plan, it is best to distribute your calorie goal into the macronutrients that your body needs. This ability to distribute calories is where flexible dieting has its advantages.
The advantage of flexible dieting is that you can choose what food to add to your diet just as long as it fits in your scheduled charts for macronutrients and calorie intake limits. The recommended levels for each macronutrient are as follows:
- Carbohydrates. The number of carbohydrates that you eat per day should fall between 45 to 65 per cent of your total daily calorie intake.
- Proteins. Limit your protein intake to 10 to 35 per cent of your total daily calorie intake.
- Fats. Twenty to 35 per cent of your calorie intake should come from fats.
So, what is flexible dieting? It basically allows you to prioritize which of the macronutrient you prefer to maximize then adjust the rest. For example, if you are fond of eating protein, you could maximize protein to 35 per cent and adjust your carbohydrate intake to 45 per cent, with 20 per cent coming from fats.
Flexible dieting allows you to have more freedom in choosing what types of food you can eat as long as you are mindful to keep the amounts within your set schedule of macros.
