Unlock Your Energy Potential
As the new & improved Challenge 25 kicks off, we’re ready to push ourselves like never before. First, we wanted to share with you some pro tips on unlocking your energy potential. Why? Because there’s nothing more vital than understanding the way your nutrition affects your performance.
To better equip you to achieve your goals in Challenge 25, we’re evolving to give you individualized calorie recommendations. To help you understand, let’s explore energy balance and weight loss, as well as the strategies to make it as simple as possible for you to achieve your goals in Challenge 25.
Energy Balance & Weight Loss:
When it comes to weight loss, one of the biggest factors to understand is energy balance. This simply means the relationship between your energy requirements, based on your food choices and activity levels. Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy needed to support your metabolism and keep your body functioning. This is a unique number that changes from person to person, driven by factors like age, gender and weight. Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is your BMR plus your daily activity factor. This takes into account your training sessions at F45, the energy it takes to cook your dinner, wash your hair, and every other activity you undertake throughout the day.
For weight loss, your body needs a negative energy balance, which means you burn more calories than you’re consuming. This is also called an energy deficit. Generally, a 500-1000 calorie per day deficit is plenty to deliver weight loss. For specific recommendations, remember to check out our calorie calculator (located in your Dashboard) to help choose the right amount for you.
The Secret Ingredient:
The secret ingredient to working with energy deficits is timing your portions and food choices to fuel your body for performance and recovery. Too often, we cut certain foods or food groups excessively. This creates an extreme energy deficit that increases the risk of binge eating and can disrupt hormonal balances and mood, which may actually threaten your ability to lose weight in the short and long-term.
Pro Tips
The most important things you can do to optimize food choices for the Challenge:
Be prepared! Be organized! And most importantly, be consistent!
1. Food Prep
Give yourself the time to explore how food fits into your days at work and at home. Are you getting pre-prepared F45 meals? Are you cooking? If so, when are the shopping days and do you have a list of what you need?
2. Volume Eating
Your body will take some time to adjust to functioning with less energy than before. So be warned, your hunger levels might make you a little cranky. Don’t worry, this is normal, and more importantly, there is a solution! Volume eating. Volume eating means making calories count and choosing the ‘bang for buck’ foods that will nourish and satisfy you with high-quality nutrition. These are foods high in fiber, like whole grain breads, cereals and grains, and also fruits, vegetables, nuts and seeds. Most of those foods contain good carbs, an important nutrient for your brain and your muscles during high-intensity exercises like F45.
3. Know Your Foods
Incorporating carbs closer to your training session ensures you have fuel to burn, and reducing them at other points in the day when you’re less likely to burn will help your energy balance and maximize your body transformation. Make sure each meal and snack contains protein, color and healthy fats to make you feel fuller longer, meaning you’re less likely to get cravings for food choices you’ll regret.
4. Consistency Over Perfection
Aim to follow the 90:10 rule. Eat the right foods at the right time 90% of the time, and give yourself a buffer of 10%. Flexible eating ensures you can work on your goals without completely depriving yourself of the good stuff. If you have a ‘cheat’ day at a social event, don’t discourage yourself and don’t give up. Learn from it and grow. Your habits will reflect what you do over the long haul. Celebrate the majority of your choices, instead of kicking yourself for the occasional slip-up.
We hope you love the evolution of the F45 Challenge as much as we do. Know that with more specific calorie recommendations for YOU, you’ll achieve better results. Be patient, work hard, and keep building those healthy habits to achieve the body transformation you’re aiming for.
