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A full day of eating to get lean!

Fitness model with dumbbells

Let us assume that you’ve reached a point where you’re content with how much muscle you’ve packed. Far fetched thought, we know. But if you ever do reach that point, what then? Well, in that case, you can shift your attention to getting those muscles out in the open – getting leaner.

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It doesn’t really matter what you call it – lean, shredded, or ripped. The principle behind it is pretty much the same. If you want your muscles to become more visible you gotta lose some body fat. Mark me, this can be challenging.

Sexy muscular male in white ripped shirt in gym
If you want to the ripped you have to get your fat percentage low…

It is pretty hard to lose fat and not lose some weight at the same time. When you’re losing fat you’re gonna inevitably lose some muscle mass in the process. That’s the way our bodies work. However, that doesn’t mean your look will be compromised. On the contrary, many people look “bigger” once they lose some weight because they’ve also lost some fat and those muscles start poking out all of a sudden.

If you want to get there yourself you will need a solid nutritional plan. To get you rolling, we wanted to give you an idea of what a day of eating can look like for you. If you end up liking the plan we’ve made you can repeat it every single day if you want. As long as it doesn’t bore you out.

So, let’s see what we’ve got in store.

Caloric deficit

If you wish to lose some of that annoying fat on your body you need to stay in a caloric deficit. Or in other words, you need to have fewer calories coming in than what your body needs for the day. Sounds scary, but it really isn’t.

Once the body realizes that there aren’t enough calories coming in from the outside sources, aka food, it will start chipping off what it has in store – the fat we mentioned earlier. The tricky part is making your body go for the fats and not something else, say your muscles. How do we do that? We make sure we have all the right macro and micronutrients coming in from your diet.

It’s time you start checking those pesky labels!

If you wish to avoid losing muscle during a calorie-restricted diet then you need to keep your protein intake as high as you can while still being in a caloric deficit. Luckily, this isn’t that big of a problem since protein has fewer calories per gram than let’s say fats (1g of protein=3kcal vs 1g of fat=9kcal, approximately). The trouble comes with fats and carbs.

As you’ve already figured it out, there will be less of these two in the mix if you wanna get ripped. Therefore, you might want to keep track of the amount of food you eat in your meals.

Just the right amount

Finding the right amount of calories that your body needs will ask for some time. The variables are plentiful. Your gender, age, fitness, weight, stress, lifestyle… all of these affect your daily caloric needs.

If you want a precise test you can always visit a doctor or nutritionist for a consult. However, there is also a website you can check out that will hopefully give you a rough estimate of what the number will be. The link is right here: https://www.fatcalc.com/rwl

Once you know your number you can proceed to make a plan. Here are some of our ideas for you.

Breakfast

Small notice: As it usually goes, your nutritional plan will depend on your daily schedule. Things to keep in mind are work, training, and sleep. Your job will dictate when you’ll have time to eat, your workout will show when you should eat more and when you should eat less, and lastly, sleep will tell when you should stop and simply rest. So, if any of these don’t go hand in hand with our plan then you will have to make some adjustments here and there.

After a long night of fasting, you wanna get some delicious food in your belly. What better breakfast food is there than eggs? Alongside those, you also wanna get some carbs. If you’re going for a workout right after you might wanna top up the number of your carbs since you will be needing them. If not, save those for later in the day.

Scrambled eggs never grow old

Breakfast example

  • 3 scrambled eggs (P:19g; F:14g; C:1.1g; kcal 215)
  • 1/2 cup of cottage cheese (P:12g; F:4,7g; C:3,7g; kcal 107)
  • 1 banana (P:1,3g; F:0,4g; C:27g; kcal 110)
  • 2 slices of whole-grain bread (P:8g; F:2,2g; C:28g; kcal 162)
  • 1 cup of blueberries (P:0,7g; F:1g; C:19g; kcal 79)
  • A few slices of turkey bacon (5 slices, in this case; P:12g; F:10,5g; C:1,7g; kcal 150)

Nutritional value

Lunch

Let’s talk about lunch. When it comes to lunch you will probably have the widest spectrum of choices. There are plenty of different foods you can mix up in order to keep things interesting while staying in your calorie range. Today, we chose the baked salmon with some sweet potatoes and some veggies on the side.

Grilled salmon is a great source of protein!

Lunch example

  • 1 grilled salmon fillet (P:50g; F:28g; C:0g; kcal 468)
  • 2 baked sweet potatoes (P:4.6g; F:0.3g; C:48g; kcal 206)
  • 1 cup of cooked or grilled veggies (P:5.2g; F:0.3g; C:24g; kcal 118)

Nutritional value

Dinner

Last, but not least, we have dinner. This should be your last day of the meal after which you’ll start your overnight fast. There are studies that show dinner to be quite important when it comes to building muscle so make sure you find something nutritious to finish the day off. We opted for chili con carne tonight. Perhaps that’s your favorite choice too?

Chili con carne served in a bowl.

Dinner example

  • 1 bowl of chili con carne (P:42g; F:29g; C:32g; kcal 551)
  • 1 serving of Casein protein (P:24g; F:0,5g; C:9g; kcal 140)

Nutritional value

Snacks & Workouts

As always, there is a chance that you might grab a bite on the go every now and then. Also, you might have some supplements on your counter that you use, be it before or after a workout. These will also tilt your calorie scale so make sure to include them into your calorie equation once you’re setting yourself up.

Natural healthy snack.
Be mindful of the calories your snacks have! They could make or break your fitness goals…

Judging by the number, you might want to add a whole meal in between the ones we’ve suggested. Some people simply won’t fit in our mold since they need way more calories. We cannot account for all the different body types out there. But, using the metric we’ve provided you could give or take the quantity of food if needed.

To sum it up, here are the numbers in total:

  • 178 grams of protein
  • 90,9 grams of fat
  • 193,5 grams of carbohydrates
  • Number of calories: 2306

This would be a neat daily diet plan for a person who needs between 2400 and 2500kcal on a daily basis. This person would be able to keep all of the gains while losing some of the unwanted fat at the same time. Keep in mind that there is a chance that some additional supplementation might be needed in order to keep the muscle mass as high as possible.

Conclusion

There you have it, folks. We’ve tried to keep it nice and simple without getting in too much detail. Sometimes it’s easy to get lost in all the data. Truth be told, there are a lot of different ways you can eat in order to lose fat. The most important thing to take away from this article is this. Your calories will determine what kind of progress you’ll be making. Whether you wanna lose or gain weight.

Having a kickass workout will only do so much if you lack a proper diet. Therefore, start planning what you put on your plate as thoroughly as you track your workouts. That’s the only way you can achieve some success in changing how your body looks like.

Thank you for your time!

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