“Why aren’t you adjusting my calories? I’ve been stalled for 2 weeks!”
I get variations of this question a lot from coaching clients.
As with many things, the immediate answer is IT DEPENDS:
on your caloric needs, age, activity, and body composition, etc.
But beyond that, there are a number of reasons why its best to wait before making changes to the plan.
First, sometimes it just takes time for changes to manifest to a degree that we can see or measure.
Our bodies don’t care about messing up our personal fat loss timetable. Our control has clear limits.
Second, and this one’s related to the first reason, sometimes things don’t happen until you finally stop obsessing and get your mind on other things.
I can’t tell you how many times a client has said, “I decided to give up on my goal and quit the diet. I felt a huge relief. Then the next day the scale showed I lost 3 pounds.”
Give a stressed out mind the chance to take a deep breath and the body exhales.
That’s also why just repeating a “stalled plan” another week can lead to progress. The second time you do anything is typically easier, more accurate, and less stressful. A very good combo for fat loss.
Third is simply you didn’t get it right it yet. You were too inconsistent or inaccurate. Usually both.
I can’t make a definitive adjustment to the plan if your execution was off target and your data just too unreliable.
Maybe you’re stalled because “eyeballing” portions has resulted in an average of 200 calories per day more than the 2,000 calorie target?
If I say “drop 200 calories” AND to do it you also start tracking much better, that’s like deducting 400 calories. A BIG adjustment.
Lastly, with fat loss you ALWAYS want to squeeze as much juice out of the orange before lowering calories.
Lowering calories is a race to the bottom and if pushed too far can greatly affect training, recovery, and even quality of life.
So we FIRST nail habits and consistency and “iron the kinks out” thereby ensuring you have plenty of runway if and when we do have to drop calories or ramp up activity, etc.
– Coach Bryan