Month: January 2021

6 Reasons Why You Should Start Jump Roping

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

Jump roping seems to that it was a lost form of exercise, but looks to have been picked up more recently due to some of the awesome videos you’ve seen.  If you’ve been on TikTok or Instagram, chances are you’ve seen some of these awesome videos of people jump roping. It’s aesthetically amazing, but that’s one of the least important reasons you should start jump roping.

What was once popular during the Rocky Era seems to have been merely forgotten. However, besides it looking cool, the benefits of jump roping are amazing and can be a key piece of your daily workouts to help achieve your goals. Here are some of the reasons you should start jump roping. 

#1 You Can Take It With You Anywhere

One of the reasons people tend to stray from their workout regimen is due to vacation or needing to go away. If you’re going away, most likely you don’t have or want to bring any equipment with you. I doubt you’ll be throwing some kettlebells in your luggage with you to the airport. What makes jump roping great is how lightweight it is and you can bring it with you anywhere. 

A jump rope you can easily store in any of your luggage and it won’t impact weight. 

Besides it is light, you can also jump rope in most places with constriction. 

If you want to stay home, you can easily just jump rope inside your place. I know many people would think jump roping in your place would make a bunch of noise, but if you’re landing properly and with good form, you shouldn’t be making too much noise.

Let’s say you want an outside workout, you can easily bring your jump rope to an open area and start doing it there. 

What makes jump roping great is its lack of limitations environmentally and physically. 

#2 Get a Total Body Workout

Jump ropes come in all different shapes and sizes. You can get a speed rope, designed for faster jumping or you can get a weighted rope. A weighted rope will be a bit harder to sling around, but that’s the point.

A weighted rope will add some extra resistance to the workout. While jump roping already workouts out your legs overall and requires core stability, a weighted rope amplifies this and hits those muscles even harder. 

If you ever wanted to add a little extra burn to a leg day or just get a more full-body workout, then you should start jump roping. As well, get a weighted rope. 

#3 Get Strong Calves

We just went over that one reason to start jump roping is that it’s a great overall total body workout. I do want to emphasize though, the jump rope really works your calves. If you feel like your calves may be weak or need improvement, I highly suggest you start jump roping. 

I personally have fairly decent calves (at least I thought I did), and when I picked up a jump rope and started for 10 minutes, I felt like my calves were nowhere near as strong as I thought. It was a humbling experience, to say the least.

#4 Burns a Great Number of Calories

Jump roping easily burns a great number of calories. You can easily burn 200 calories in a 20-minute workout. However, this also depends on how much you weigh cause your body is its own resistance in this case. The more you weigh, the more calories you’ll burn. 

Most people like to compare jumping rope vs running in terms of calories. If you’re running a 10-minute mile you will probably burn around ~100-115 calories. A good jump rope session in that same time frame can burn around ~115-130. Granted, not a huge difference but in terms of the impact running can have on your body and all the other factors you have to take in to play, I think it’s safe to say jump roping is the better option to choose with a better outcome. 

#5 Helps with Coordination / Balance

Jumping up and down seems fairly easy. To do that though over a rope at different intervals and keeping your body fairly balanced to not trip over the rope is a more difficult task. The better you get at jump roping, the better your coordination and balance will be for those exact reasons.

If you’re jump roping and your arms start flailing out to one side more than the other, you’ll trip over your rope. You time your jump wrong, you’re going to trip over the rope. It takes patience, but the better you get at jump rope, the better your balance and coordination will get. 

#6 Easy to Jump Into (Pun Intended) 

The last reason to start jump roping is that it’s a fairly easy exercise to get into. I will say, it may require some patience if you have balance issues as I do, but overall for most, it should be something to easily pick up. You can easily get going with it and incorporate it as a warm up, or as just some extra cardio into your workout. 

Since jump roping (when done correctly) should be fairly easy on your joints, and you can do it anywhere, it makes it an easy option to pick up. It doesn’t matter if you’re a beginner or advanced athlete, this is still something you can easily throw into your workout with ease. 

Getting Started Jump Roping

If you’ve been convinced to start jump roping, well then awesome! I’ll like to go through a quick starting portion on how you can pick up a jump rope and learn how to use it with proper form.

Buying a Rope

First, you need a jump rope. Personally, I use the Rogue SR-2 Speed Rope . This was my first rope, but I’ve heard from others if you’re starting out you should start with a weighted rope instead. 

Measuring Your Rope

Once you get your rope, you actually may need to measure it and cut it for your height. I had no idea this was a thing, so I hope to save you some time by mentioning this. Here is a video on how you can measure and cut your rope:

Jumping with Proper Form

Jump roping with proper form is essential to mitigate injury and ensure a proper workout.

Here is a good video on jump rope form:

If you end up like me and tripping over the rope 100 times, here is a video that can help fix your mistakes:

Workout Regime

Okay, so you’ve got your jumping down! Now here’s a quick sample workout you can use to get you started and keep improving over time.

Final Thoughts

Jump roping has many benefits. You increase your cardio but also get a total full-body workout that can help with coordination and balance. It’s somewhat of a lost art form that’s gained some popularity as of the last couple of years. 

If you’re trying to lose weight or just need to include some more cardio into your regime overall, this is a great tool to have that you can bring anywhere with you.

Photos:

Photo by cottonbro from Pexels

How Should You Warm Up Before a Workout?

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

Warming up before a workout is something that is important to do before any workout. There are plenty of benefits to it, but some people have many different warm-ups than others. Some people would warm up with just the exercise they’re doing in general. Others warm up doing static stretching, dynamic stretching, bodyweight exercises, etc. taking overall 30 – 40 minutes. So what is the right way to warm up? Before we get into that, let’s discuss some of the benefits of warming up before a workout. 

Benefits of Warming Up Before a Workout

The first thing is first, why should you warm-up before a workout in general? Well, it has plenty of benefits to it, but the main benefit, in my opinion, is that it leads to a lower risk of injury(1).

If you’ve been injured, you already know it’s something that can derail your progression overall. You can always overcome that injury and setback with the proper tools like BFR training but it still may take sometime before you’re back in the full swing of things. I’m always for lowering the risk of injury and warming up plays a big factor in that.

Another benefit of warming up is that it can help increase your range of motion. Personally, I have terrible mobility overall, it’s something I’m consistently working on to try and get better. I know for some exercises if I don’t have the proper range of motion I will most likely injure myself or not get the same benefit of the exercise. 

What’s the Goal of a Warm Up Before a Workout?

The main goal of a warm up is to get your heart rate up, get your blood and oxygen flowing more and increase your range of motion. Any time you’re warming up, you would want to check off those 3 boxes:

  • Is my heart rate at an elevated, but not super high level (around 100bpm, but will depend on your overall fitness level)
  • Do you feel like you’re warmer in general?
  • Are you feeling looser and will have the ability to perform your exercises without as much restriction?

Once those boxes are checked off you should be good to go.

How Should You Warm Up Before a Workout?

Like I mentioned before, people have varying different techniques to warming up. Some people spend up to 30 – 40 minutes warming up. Others will warm up with some compound movements with lightweight and move right into it. For example, some people will warm up for bench press, by just bench pressing the bar for a couple of sets at high reps and a slow tempo. 

What’s the best way for you to warm up though? Do you need a 30 minute warm up? or should you just be warming up with the exercise? Well, it depends.

warm-up

When You Should Have a Longer Warm Up

There are cases you should potentially be warming up a bit longer to help decrease the risk of injury and to increase your range of motion.

Here is a perfect example for me. My lower body in particular is always fairly tight. Ankles, calves, hamstrings, quads, and hips. So if I just try warming up for Squats with just the bar, it’s usually not the best thing for me because I won’t even be able to squat the bar with proper form on my first couple of sets. Even if it does get better and I start loading the bar with weight, it still doesn’t feel quite right. Times I have tried to warm up with just the bar, I’ve actually ended up with some minor tweaks. So now, I’ll take some time and do some dynamic stretches for all of the above movements above until I feel like I’ve hit an adequate level that I can put the barbell on my back and squat without much issue. Usually, a warm up before squats takes me about 15 minutes. 

If you’re someone who struggles with mobility and range of motion with the exercises you’ll be hitting in the workout, it will more beneficial to have a longer warm up to decrease the risk of injury.

I do want to note a word of caution though. If you’re powerlifting or someone who’s trying to hit heavyweight, a long warm up can make you more fatigued overall and you may not be able to lift as much. Your performance may overall decrease that workout. In my opinion, I rather have decreased performance than an injury. 

When You Should Have a Shorter Warm Up

If you can perform the exercise as a warm up with a range of motion not being an issue, you can likely shorten your warm up to just the exercise and maybe some quick dynamic stretches.

Another example for myself is when I bench press. I don’t normally have to do too much for a bench press warm up. I’ll do some quick arm circles and jumping around for a couple of minutes and then I’ll warm up with the bar for the bench. I don’t normally have to do too much and it only takes about 10 minutes until I’m at my working set for bench press. (Working set meaning the intended weight for reps for the workout).

Compound vs Isometric Exercises

I’ve been talking mainly about compound movements (squat and bench press) but what happens if your workout consists of mainly isometric exercises like bicep curls and tricep kickbacks? You probably won’t need to warm up too long in cases like this. You most likely can hit those 3 checkboxes I mentioned in the ‘What’s the Goal of a Warm Up?’ section pretty fast or with just the exercises in general without risking many injuries. 

Do I Need to Warm Up for Every Exercise?

What happens if you’re doing multiple compound lifts in your workout? Do you need to warm up for every exercise? Most likely, no. You should be good to just warm up before the workout in general and then do warm up sets for your exercise. Again though, this is subjective to your body composition, and if you’re struggling with a range of motion in areas for your exercise that can potentially lead to injury.

For example, if I’m doing squat, bench, and deadlift on the same day. I’ll warm up for squat, by the time I get to the bench I’m only doing warm up sets with the bar. When I get to deadlifts though, I’ll just do some quick core exercises to get get some good core stability and get into it. 

Tips on Warming Up

Personally, my go-to warm ups focus on increasing range of motion in areas that are limited by doing dynamic stretches (only in severe cases, static stretching) and usually doing some stability work if I’m doing compound exercises like squats or deadlifts. Depending on the exercise though and your range of motion limitations, a dynamic stretch for you can just be doing warm up sets at a lightweight for the exercise. If you’re looking for a good leg day warm up, I highly recommend checking this out.

Final Thoughts

Long vs short warm ups before your workout are subjective and really depends on your body. For most, you may be able to do some dynamic stretches and move right into some warm up sets and get into your working sets. If you have more issues in your range of motion, you may need to warm up longer to target those nuance areas. Longer warm ups will tend to lead to more fatigue and overall lower performance if you’re lifting heavy weight. In my opinion, I will rather be moving less weight with better form than more weight with crappy form. 

As long as you’re able to hit an adequate range of motion for your lift and you generally have a higher than normal resting heart rate and you’re feeling warm and loose, you should be good to start your workout/exercise!

Photos:

  1. Photo by Victor Freitas from Pexels
  2. Photo by Ketut Subiyanto from Pexels

References:

  1. LaBella CR, Huxford MR, Grissom J, Kim K, Peng J, Christoffel KK. Effect of Neuromuscular Warm-up on Injuries in Female Soccer and Basketball Athletes in Urban Public High Schools: Cluster Randomized Controlled Trial. Arch Pediatr Adolesc Med. 2011;165(11):1033–1040. doi:10.1001/archpediatrics.2011.168

Jocko MOLK Protein Review

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

This review will be covering the Jocko MOLK protein supplement created by Origin Maine and Jocko Willink.

Origin Maine is a company that sells multiple different and innovative items. From GI’s to fitness equipment and now nutritional supplements. One of the things Origin Maine is famously known for is that all items are made in America. Especially when it comes to clothing and accessories this is something very rare to see, but in this case, we’ll be mainly going over the protein supplement.

Jocko, who isn’t for the Sugar Coated lies, has a great supplement that is a bit different from others but has an amazing flavor and gives you a good bang for your buck. 

This review will specifically be going over the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor.  This Jocko MOLK review will be breaking the protein down by Nutrition Facts / Ingredients, taste, mixture, and price. Let’s dig into it.

Jocko MOLK Protein Review

A high-quality protein with great ingredients and great taste. With a variety of flavors, it's a fantastic protein to pick up. A bit on the pricey side, but if you support Jocko and what the company stands for, it's worth it.

 

Nutrition Facts / Ingredients

From the image above you can see the Nutrition Facts as listed:

  • Calories: 110
  • Fat: 2
  • Carbohydrates: 1
  • Protein: 21

Serving Size = 1 scoop

Right off the bat, this a low carb protein drink like many others. Even though most protein drinks are low in carbs, this protein is a bit lower than most. Whereas something like Optimum Nutrition, for example, has about 4g of carbs. If you’re a fairly carb-conscious person, this is a great protein for you.

In terms of ingredients, there isn’t anything too crazy being done except for the inclusion of Monk Fruit Extract.  Monk Fruit Extract not only is safe and fine for you, it also contains zero calories and is fairly sweet. This is probably how the protein itself can contain such a low amount of carbs while also maintaining a fairly good taste. (more on that later)

Another great thing about this product is that it contains: No Soy, No rGBH. It does contain peanuts, milk, and eggs. Now unless you have a severe allergic reaction to milk and you’re just lactose intolerant, you may still be able to take this protein due to it containing digestive enzymes and specifically containing Lactase. It also contains other digestive enzymes like Lipase (used for indigestion), Amylases (helps for indigestion), Protease 1 and 2 (helps break down protein). It also contains a probiotic called L. acidophilus (good for gut health and helps produce lactic acid)

Overall, the nutritional content is pretty solid with this product. It also doesn’t include much useless junk in it which an always a positive! 

jocko molk nutrition facts

jocko molk nutrition facts jocko molk nutrition facts

Nutrition Facts / Ingredients : 5/5

Taste

This review is going to cover the Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor. However, I’ve also tried the Chocolate Mint, Vanilla, and Chocolate flavors. The Chocolate Peanut Butter flavor is phenomenal! (Especially when taken with milk). It’s up there with some other good flavored proteins like Legion and Optimum.  If you’re looking for a great tasting protein shake, you got one! 

Now, this won’t affect the review, but the Chocolate Mint is probably my 2nd favorite then being Vanilla and Chocolate. 

There isn’t too much to delve into the taste, but it’s awesome!

Taste: 4.5/5

Mixture

The mixture is always an important factor when it comes to protein. No one wants things big ol clumps of protein all over their bottle. 

It’s unfortunate that this has been one of the biggest falls of the protein to an extent. Now if you’re the sane person and you mix your protein in a protein bottle, then you’re good to go. No chunks and has is pretty easy to go down.

Now if you may have forgotten your protein bottle or it’s still sitting in the dishes dirty, you may need to mix it with a glass and spoon. If you’re going down this route, it’s still not that bad. There will be some clumps but overall it should be something still fairly easy to get down without much of an issue

Mixture: 4.5

Price

If ordering this on Amazon (affiliated link) this will cost you $45 for a container. Now how does this rank against other proteins? 

Let’s take Legion Protein. This protein comes in at $40 on Amazon (affiliated link). With one less serving size as Jocko MOLK (31 Serving Size). So you can assume that for Jocko MOLK it’s about $1.45 per scoop and Legion is $1.33 per scoop. So Legion is a bit less

If you look at Optimum Whey Protein, it ranks at $30 on Amazon with a serving size of 29.  This would be about $1.03 a scoop.

Overall, the price is definitely more on the higher end of things, granted not by much but it makes a difference in the long term if you have a protein container a month would come out to $540.

Price: 3.5

Final Thoughts

My overall review of  Jocko MOLK is a great protein overall. With its awesome ingredients and great taste, it’s a great protein and you’re supporting a great company as well. It is a bit more on a higher scale overall in terms of price, but also, not by much. If you like Jocko and want to support the company, then you’re getting awesome and high-quality protein. If you’re trying to get something a bit cheaper, you may want to look for something else.

You can buy Jocko MOLK here from Amazon (affiliated link). You can also go to Origin Maine’s site and get it there as well. 

If you’re looking for a good pre-workout that will get you fired up, check out my review on Outwork Nutrition’s Preworkout.

Overall, I’m giving this protein a 4.4/5.
jocko molk review score

How Much Protein Do I Need per Day?

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

The amount of protein you intake per day can alter your results whether your goal is to gain muscle or lose fat. Protein can play a vital part in both preserving muscle mass if you’re trying to lose fat. It can also help you build muscle if you’re in a caloric surplus.

Many people too often consume less protein then they really need. On the other hand, sometimes you have people who eat too much protein per day and it’s not really doing much for them. We’re going to go over just how much protein you need per day and how to properly allocate protein in your diet.

How Much Protein per Day?

Taking directly from my, Why are Macros Important article:

Protein is possibly one of the most important macronutrients. Protein is responsible for building, restoring, and maintaining muscle. It’s also responsible for creating healthy blood cells, enzymes, hormones, and much more. Protein is made up of amino acids.

There are 2 categories of amino acids, essential amino acids, and nonessential amino acids. Essential amino acids can’t be made by the human body. You can only get them from food. Non-essential amino acids can be made by the human body.

The recommended amount of protein to make sure you’re not in a deficient is 0.8 grams per kg or 0.36 grams per pound. For someone who works out regularly you want around 1.5-2.4 grams per kg or 0.65-1.1 gram per pound. Protein is broken into 4 calories per gram.

So if you’re let’s say 150lbs (68kg), you should be having around 130-140 grams per day. You can also always use the Macro Calculator to get your other Macro Nutrients

What Happens if I Don’t Eat Enough Protein

Intaking an adequate amount of protein is highly important. There are multiple things that can happen if you aren’t intaking enough protein per day:

  • Muscle Loss
  • Weakness
  • Potentially Weaker Immune System

What Happens if I Intake too Much Protein

On the other hand, taking too much protein can lead to some other issues. If you’re intaking too much protein, it can start to break down into sugar and can lead to weight gain. This can be an even bigger issue if you’re on the ketogetic diet considering this can throw you out of ketosis. 

Final Thoughts

Protein is essential to building and maintaining muscle as well as overall body functions. Try to intake around 1.5-2.0 grams per kg or 0.65-1 gram per pound. You should divide your daily intake of protein into about 3 -4 meal (or more) meals per day. 

Use the Macro Nutrients to figure out the rest of your macro nutrients

References:

  1. Schoenfeld BJ, Aragon AA. How much protein can the body use in a single meal for muscle-building? Implications for daily protein distribution. J Int Soc Sports Nutr. 2018;15:10. Published 2018 Feb 27. doi:10.1186/s12970-018-0215-1

Photos:

Does Exercising with Extra Clothing Make a Difference?

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

Have you ever gone to the gym and seen that one person exercising with extra clothing like with a hoodie and sweats on and completely drenched? Yeah, if you haven’t seen that before you will one day, I promise you. Even though many people do this, is it necessary and does it actually provide any real benefit to you and help with fat loss?  As well, can there be any other hidden benefits to it that we may not originally guess? 

Does Exercising with Extra Clothing Burn More Fat?

The first thing you’ll probably assume when thinking of exercising with extra clothing is that you sweat more. That’s absolutely true! (1) 

When your body is sweating, the purpose of it is to cool down your body.  This makes sense especially if you’re exercising with extra clothing. However, it’s imperial to note that sweat ≠ fat loss. Although it is usually a sign that you’re working (or your body is working) a bit harder in general, the process of sweating doesn’t burn a crazy amount of calories. 

Now, there isn’t as much research on this topic as I would hope. However, exercising with extra clothing is bound to increase your heart rate even for the sole reason as it provides another form of resistance to your training. Due to the extra resistance, your body will need to work a bit harder and your heart rate should be higher, so you’ll probably be burning more calories than usual. Now, will it be a significant amount? Probably not. 

So to clear clarify and some up this portion, will it burn more fat? Not necessarily. You’ll exert more, but not enough for it to make a significant difference.  

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable

Okay, so we know that exercising with extra clothing doesn’t burn more fat, so why should you do it? For this simple reason.

Getting Comfortable Being Uncomfortable.

Exercising with extra clothing is usually no easy task. It’s uncomfortable and hot and you’re dying to just get cool. The longer you keep your composure though and hold your disciple to not take the easy way out, the more comfortable you’re getting being uncomfortable. 

You will notice, the more you keep doing uncomfortable things, you’ll have a tougher mindset and not so easily willing to quit tasks.

This is something that will translate into your day to day life and I can’t recommend it enough. 

 

When to Exercise with Extra Clothing

Anytime I exercise with extra clothing, it’s usually during cardio. Why is that? There is a couple of reasons:

  • Burn a bit more calories
  • More difficult

I usually don’t wear extra clothing when I do weight lifting like squats, bench and deadlift. Mainly squats for me because it’s an exercise I don’t want to be dripping sweat and have the potential to slip, as well I’m trying to lift heavy weight. With extra clothing, I’ll probably burn out a bit quicker and not be able to hit my reps and sets. 

Obviously, it’s up to you when you want to wear extra clothing, but that’s my personal preference. 

Dangers

If you do plan on exercising with extra clothing, I highly recommend bringing some extra water with you. The more you sweat, the more your body is is excreting water/fluid and electrolytes. I would even go as far as say drink something with electrolytes in it.

Final Thoughts

Exercising with extra clothing may not make you burn as many extra calories as you were hoping for, however it can be a great asset for you to sweat more and build a better mindset during your training. You will get comfortable being uncomfortable and such lessons will carry into your everyday life.

I personally like to exercise with extra clothing mainly during cardio, but you can choose to do it when ever you want! If you do plan on doing it, I would recommend brining some extra water or even a drink with electrolytes in it. 

References:

  1. Institute of Medicine (US) Committee on Military Nutrition Research; Marriott BM, editor. Nutritional Needs in Hot Environments: Applications for Military Personnel in Field Operations. Washington (DC): National Academies Press (US); 1993. 3, Physiological Responses to Exercise in the Heat.

Photos:

  1. Photo by Burst from Pexels

Do You Need to Track Macros and Calories Every Day?

Posted on by Bashir Murtaza

One of the main issues I’ve heard from clients over the years is that they don’t want to track macros and calories every day.  I get it, it seems like a fairly daunting practice to do every day.

You’ll know, I always advise people to track their macros and calories. Especially if you’re trying to lose weight easily and effectively. I also talk about changing your mindset on food, and why tracking is an important part of that process. Just because it’s an important process though, does it mean you need to track macros and calories every day though? Let’s go over quickly why tracking your macros and calories are important and then we’ll dive further into that question.

Why is Tracking Macros and Calories Important?

Whether you’re gaining weight, losing weight, or even maintaining weight, tracking macros and calories is an important factor in all of these. We know that macros in general are something important to look out for. Calories are as well when it comes to weight management. 

When it comes to weight management, it mainly comes down to CICO (Calories in and calories out). This is true for gaining, losing, or maintaining weight. If you intake more calories than you’re burning, you’ll gain weight. Whereas if you’re burning more calories than you’re intaking, then you’ll lose weight. Intake just as much as you burn, and you’ll be maintaining weight. 

Why Tracking Calories is Important 

Tracking calories is important because depending on your goal, you’ll need to track to ensure you’re hitting your goals of calories and macros that will determine if you hit your goal weight. If you have a calorie range of 1700 and you just assume you’re eating 1700 calories a day and you gain weight, you’re going to think that you need to lessen your caloric amount. In reality, though, you might be eating more than you were expecting because you weren’t tracking your calories or macros.  Then you might really start eating way less than you need to and you’ll drop weight, but you also may start dropping lean body mass as well. 

Why Tracking Macros is Important

Macros are extremely important to track as well. When losing weight, the main goal should be to drop weight while limiting the amount of lean body mass being lost. Losing lean body mass is inevitable when losing weight but you would want to limit that. One of the main components of that is by eating enough protein throughout the day. Getting an adequate amount of protein throughout the day when cutting will help you preserve your lean body mass as much as possible.

Trying to calculate your macros? Check out the Macro Calculator here. 

Tracking when Starting Out is Extremely Important

If you’re just starting out, tracking macros and calories is extremely important to find out where you’re at and how your body is responding to the new calorie intake. Maybe you hit your target of 2000 calories a day for a week but it hasn’t made a difference. GOOD, now we know we can effectively cut some calories and try again the following week. We do know that 2000 calories weren’t getting the job done and losing at the pace you wanted to lose. You can cut down to 1900 calories and maybe your body starts dropping .25-.5 lbs by the end of the week.  

Only Eating What You Need to Eat

One of the main reasons I advocate to track macros and calories besides the reasons mentioned above is that you should only be eating what you need to be eating. If you’re on a cut, and you can lose a steady weight of 1900 calories a day, there is no need for you to eat less than that. Why would you eat at 1600 calories a day unless you wanted to really speed up the process but this will also leave you being cranky and potential to lose more lean body mass? The same goes for gaining weight and bulking, if you can gain a steady weight at 2400 calories a day, why jump up more then that? You can eat 2800 calories but you’ll only gain more fat in the process and not tack on that much more muscle. 

Trying to find out how much you need to eat? Check out the Calorie Calculator here.

Do I Need to Track Macros and Calories Every Day?

Ah yes, the question we’ve all been waiting for. So the question is, do you need to track macros every day? thinking-about-tracking-calories-and-macros

Short Answer: No

Long Answer: Well, it depends on your goals.

When You Don’t Need to Track Every Day

If you’re following the same diet and you eat the same things every day, it does become rather useless to keep on tracking the items you’re eating. If you intake something that you normally wouldn’t you can probably gauge if you’re going over and under pretty easily.

The more time you spend tracking calories, the better you get at gauging if you’re over or under for your maintenance. It honestly becomes second nature at some point.

When You Need to Track Every Day

I would say though if you’re planning on just dropping weight for a competition or for a very specific goal, it might be worth to track every day to keep yourself in check. This will also keep you prepared and if you won’t have any slip-ups.

Another reason to be tracking your calories every day is if you aren’t making progress towards your goal. You may need to reevaluate your caloric and macro goals then. After you reevaluate, you would need to start tracking your calories and macros again at least for a week to see if everything is matching up and you’re making progress towards your goal now. 

Final Thoughts

Tracking calories and macros is relatively important, especially when you’re first starting out with weight management. Whether if you’re trying to gain muscle, lose fat, or even maintain. If you’re starting with a new caloric/macro range it’s best to track everything to make sure the range is good for you and you’re meeting your goals. If you’re following the same diet and you’re eating the same thing every day, you can usually stop tracking until you hit a plateau.

However, if you’re someone who is doing a competition or trying to hit a specific weight goal, it might be best to track your weight every day to not have any slip-ups and stay on track. 

Photos: