The problem

I have been working out many years but i was never satisfied with how my body looked.
I always knew that the reason being was my nutrition and although towards the years i moved on to more healthier options in my diet, i still couldn’t find what was right for me. I read many articles about nutrition on the Internet but the result was just to make things more complicated than they already were. Also asking for opinions from unqualified people didn’t made things any better either. Then i took one of the best decisions i made the last years. I went to a nutritionist.

Before starting it

First thing you have to sort out before pledging to something like that is the ‘why’. Why are you doing it? Find all the reasons, important or not, you need to make this a priority. For me it was vanity and health reasons. I wanted my body to look good but i also wanted to improve my health and my well being.
Secondly you have to set a goal, a smart goal. Let me give you an example on that. A goal is “i want to lose fat” and a smart goal is “i want to achieve 15% body fat till next summer”. Do you see the difference? The first case is very abstract. It doesn’t target a number and it doesn’t even set a timeframe. So it could mean to lose 2% of body fat in a month or maybe 5% in 5 months and that's it. A smart goal is much more specific thus helping you to stay focused on it and forces you to take necessary action in order to achieve what you want at a certain timeframe.

Going to the expert

A nutritionist is a professional, after all this is why you are paying him. This means that you don’t need to worry figuring out the portions of your food or what kind of food you need to eat every day. He lays it all out for you. You just need to tell him what you want. After measuring my body fat to 26% i set my goal to 15%. “You can drop body fat and put on some lean muscle at the same time” he said to me. I replied that i didn’t mind doing both but losing fat was my main priority. He explained to me that we were going to apply the 6 meal per day plan which is successfully applied for decades on countless people. Two of them were main meals while the other four were smaller and were considered as snacks. The timing between meals should optimally be around 2.5 to 3 hours while 1.5 to 4 hours were the minimum and maximum time limits. My food portions would be measured in grams so i had to buy an electronic scale to weigh my food. And i was set to go!

Setting that metabolism on fire

I started with a two week nutrition plan which its solely purpose was to get my metabolism up and running. My food portions were huge and eating them was a real struggle. I remember spending hours on my kitchen preparing my meals.
A quick advice from me to you is don’t start something like that in the middle of the summer like i did. Imagine me showing up at the beach holding a mini fridge filled with Tupperware which contained meals that could feed the people of the entire beach! When everyone was enjoying the sea i was eating my one and a half pound ‘spaghetti with meat balls and tomato’ meal and i had to wait for at least one and a half hour to digest it before i could even get my feet wet.
At the end of the two weeks i wasn’t struggling to eat my meals any more. In fact i was hungry for more. I couldn’t believe that after all this food i lost 0.5% body fat.

Getting to the point

After the two week nutrition plan for engaging my metabolism, my second plan was all about losing fat. My nutritionist explained to me that each plan remains 100% effective for 15-20 days. After that its effectiveness declines as your body and metabolism adapts to it. I personally preferred to change nutrition plan every month.
This time my food portions were smaller. Each meal was consisted of a certain amount of macronutrients such as carbohydrates, protein and fats. When i say certain i mean down to the last gram. The electronic scale was my best friend. The ratio of each macronutrient was in direct proportion of my body muscle and fat composition. No cheat meals were allowed at this stage but it didn’t bothered me at all.

Seeing results

I was losing about 2 to 3 pounds of body fat per month. Sometimes less and sometimes more. I was also hitting the gym as much as i could in order to keep the results coming and they did. One thing that amazed me was that even though i was in a hyper-caloric state i was gaining muscle! Everything was going great not to mention that now i even had one cheat meal per week (hooray!!).
Things got even better as i reached 17% body fat. I was feeling better than ever and full of energy. My stamina had improved, my focus was sharper and my sex drive was skyrocketing. As my body fat declined i felt that my hormone system was resetting to how it should really be. It wasn’t long till i hit 15% body fat.

Reaching my goals

As i reached 15% i can’t say that i was completely satisfied with how my body looked. The changes were big but i wanted more. My nutritionist proposed that building muscle should be our priority but i preferred to keep pushing down the fat. I remember reaching 12.5% before realising that my nutritionist was right. In order to achieve the image of my body as i visualised it i had to make gaining muscle a priority and so i did.

After a year

After exactly one year of nutrition the overall score was 13% body fat. I lost 24 pounds of fat and gained 20 pounds of muscle. Not bad at all in my opinion. Nowadays my body fat is around 15% but my muscularity has improved even more. Although i am not following a strict nutrition i have absorb its philosophy and made it a lifestyle. After all why not doing something that makes you feel good and perform even better in your everyday life? I am planning to go strict mode again in a couple of months with new goals not to mention that i miss my nutritionist.