Toh Jia Keng

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Weight loss Vs muscle building

Weight loss:
- only need to manage your calories and protein intake
- sleep well at night
- Exercise is optional but highly recommended for maintaining or building muscle.
- short duration. Can reach your goal in a few weeks or months.

Muscle building:
- you need to manage your calories intake
- sleep well at night
- lose body fat first before bulking to ensure efficiency
- when you bulk you need to make sure you don't gain too much weight in a week.
- stick to the same old boring training routine for a period.
- and switch to another old boring training routine once you are unable to make any progression from your current boring training routine.
- need to train close to failure in every set.
- long duration. It can take years to reach your goal.

Muscle building isn't just stepping into a gym, doing random exercises and lifting random weight. It requires way lots of commitment than fat loss because one of muscle building phases is fat loss except for hard gainers with low appetite.

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1️⃣. Be consistent in training.

2️⃣. Consume close to your maintenance calories (the amount of food you ate will not lead to weight gain or loss over time) and eat enough protein (1.6-2.2 X your body weight in kg)

3️⃣. Train with adequate intensity and training volume.

4️⃣. Perform exercise at full range of motion as much as possible.

5️⃣. Optimise your recovery.

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The undisputable Answer:

C
A
L
O
R
I
E
S

D
E
F
I
C
I
T

Everyone knows about this but not many know how to execute it. Many of us think that to get into a calories deficit you need to cut out all junk/processed food and eat only chicken breast, broccoli and sweet potatoes. No, you don't have to, that way of eating is for insane people.

1000cals surplus from processed food and 1000cals surplus from whole food will lead to the same amount of fat gain. So you don't have to cut out your favourite food entirely, just learn how to manage them and you will be fine.

To get into a calories deficit is to find out what are you willing to sacrifice in your food and what you can't. Like if you love to eat laksa, you may switch your noodle to either shirataki noodles or zucchini noodles while maintaining the rest of the recipe. By doing that you are already reducing the calories by about 200-300cals.

One of the biggest obstacles people face when trying to adopt a healthier lifestyle is that they give up without even starting. They tell themselves it is impossible to change and they walk away.

Let's not think it that way people, let's take that first step out and keep fine-tuning your approach. Don't set a limit before you even begin. Always tell yourself you are capable of doing greater things. -

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Do you know that the total calories you burn for the whole day are more important than the number of calories you can burn in a single activity when trying to lose weight?

Numerous studies have shown that trying to burn as many calories in a short time frame (aka "HIIT" class) leads to lower calories expenditure for the rest of the day.

Like you move your body rapidly for 20mins and become a couch potato for the rest of the day because you are so dead after those intense work.

If done correctly, HIIT will cause a lot of physical fatigue that will make you move lesser for the next 1-2 days. And this may hinder weight loss progress due to lower calories expenditure. And your chance of injuring yourself is also higher if you do it more regularly than you should.

More importantly, it is very difficult to out-train a bad eating habit!!!

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So unless you love doing HIIT, there are alternatives for you that are less taxing to your body, for example walking. Walking may seem boring to many people but it is something you can do it frequently with almost no risk of injuring yourself. It is very good for people who are aiming to build more muscle while trying to burn additional calories as it has almost no interference to your recovery pathway of muscle-building.

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Yes, it will!!!

Endurance training and muscle building have completely different recovery pathways.

If you try to do both at the same time, they will interfere with each other progress and you will end up not progressing at either of them.

So focus only on one goal at a time.

You may structure your exercise program this way if your goal is to build muscle: 80% or more resistance training, 20% or less endurance training.

Please like and share if you think this is helpful to you 😁.

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1. Poor choice of food.
- Instead of solid calories you opt for liquid calories(Eg. Cooked egg white Vs protein shake, whole apple Vs apple juice).
- Instead of baked/grill/steam fish you opt for fried fish(the portion of food you can eat when you opt for comfort food is a lot smaller than healthier food).

2. Dehydrated.
- Dehydration causes a lot of health issues. If you want your health to be at an optimal level do not neglect that.

3. Too low in calories. It can happen if you:
- try to lose weight fast
- received poor advice from your egoistic trainer that is chasing transformation results (more results equal more business in this field).
- you are too sensitive to food which leads you to overestimate them.
- you are already very low in body fat (5-7%), common among competitive bodybuilders during peak week.

4. Poor sleep.
- Sleep quality affect your hunger level. Better quality sleep equals lesser craving and hunger.

5. Surrounded yourself with not so healthy food.
- When you are trying to lose weight, the best is to keep comfort food out of your sight if you are not good at controlling yourself (very common among beginners).

Not in any ranking order, different people have different struggles in life. Some may be binge eating due to work or family stress.

These are my top 5 reasons, what is yours?

Do like and share if you think this is helpful to you 😁.

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5 Red flags that signal your weight loss plan is unsustainable!!!:

1. Claim to make you lose XX amount of weight and body fat in a short time frame. (good weight loss plan should focus on cultivating good habits and not focus on weighing scale)

2. 1000cals a day diet. (If it were so easy, why bother paying for coaching service)

3. Forbid you from eating your favourite food (demonizing food).

4. Make you feel super uncomfortable that you hate your life (If you are not enjoying it will not last).

5. You don't know what are you are doing (because your coach doesn't bother explaining things to you).

A sustainable weight loss plan should design to make you stick to it for the rest of your life and not just within a short time frame and rebound back after.

And more importantly, it should last for a lifetime.

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1. Stick to the same boring training routine for as long as possible.
- Do not vary your workout too much if you find yourself not getting any progress.
- Aim to keep progressing in either total reps or load or both.
- Technique always comes first before chasing for extra volume.
- Train close to failure with good technique to ensure you are getting enough stimulus for muscle growth (hire a coach if you are not sure what this means. Make sure you hire the right one because some are just counting reps and some don't understand how should failure feel because they don't train hard enough to understand that).

2. Get in enough protein (1.8g-2g X your body weight in kg) and enough calories (either your maintenance or surplus if you are lean). After getting enough protein, how much carbs or fats or protein you want is up to you as long as you stay within your calories plan.

3. Reduce your body fat first before bulking. More calories will go to your muscle if you are lean which is around 12-15% body fat and when I say bulking I don't mean anyhow eat, a small calories surplus will be highly recommended.

4. Optimise your sleep as much as possible. As hard as you want to train, without good recovery, your training and nutrition won't help that much.

5. Only take a selfie when you are lean enough, have good lighting and after arms workout 😁.

Bonus tips: wear tighter clothes 😂.

To sum it up, there isn't any secret routine to get yourself to appear bigger. Being consistent with your training, nutrition and recovery is all you need. And how big can you grow is depend on how blessed are you with your genetics.

Come on.... Don't be shy, like and share if you think this is helpful to you 😁.

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1. It should not affect your relationship.

2. It should not make you feel overwhelmed.

3. it should not be a drastic cut. Gradual loss over time is the best for you to develop a new eating habit and to retain muscle mass. (Who doesn't want to look good after losing weight?)

4. It should allow you to have your favourite food but at a control portion. (A small sacrifice is needed no matter what plan you decide to follow)

5. It should raise your self-esteem.

And more importantly, it should last for a lifetime.

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My top 5 Sustainable weight loss tips

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Why do I say my top 5 in the title? It is because you might have a different top 5 in your list. We are all build differently and we got to learn to accept that. However if my tips work for you and it help you, do like and share it to your friends.

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