People often look at training program design and immediately consider periodization – because how can you have an effective training plan if you don’t actually plan for the days, weeks, and months ahead of you? You can’t.
But what about the diet…? People often fail to consider periodization when it comes to their nutrition plan; which is also why we’ve recorded multiple podcasts (HERE) on Nutritional Periodization and even wrote Blogs detailing the process out as well (HERE).
It’s our goal to educate people on WHY this is so important and hopefully get the message out to the masses more and more as time goes on.
In doing so, we expect to see more well thought out diets created by the coach and ultimately better results achieved by the client.
Now, for you reading this today, what does this actually look like?
Well, for a long-term periodization plan completely mapped out and explained, I’d suggest reading our blog on that specific topic. Because it doesn’t get much better than that.
However, for the short-term periodization plan or the “Now Diet” you’re about to step into – we have a specific 3-Phase Fat Loss System we like to use with each and every one of our clients here at Tailored Coaching Method.
This video will take you through each phase and after completing the video, check the bullets below for a quick summary of each phase:
PRIMER PHASE:
The primer phase is similar to a dynamic warm up before a training session in the fact that it’s entire purpose is to prepare you for what’s ahead; in this case, the diet.
See, a calorie deficit is stressful to the body in more ways than one. It can be draining physically, physiologically, and psychologically. Which means if your body isn’t fully ready for the stress it’s about to be placed under, it simply won’t respond well to the diet.
And there is NOTHING worse than eating at a calorie deficit and not seeing any results! Hard work with no return of investment.
In this phase we’re aiming to:
- Eat at Maintenance Level Calories
- Progressively Overload in The Gym
- Consistently Track Data
- Improve Simple Biofeedback Markers (Sleep, Stress, Digestion, Etc.)
- Mentally Prepare For The Fat Loss Journey Ahead
With this, we’re treating our body a little better than normal AND what we will be in the near future. It’s taking the time to create optimal health, hormonal function, metabolic processes, and mental capacity.
This phase may last 2-3 weeks or 2-3 months, it is completely dependent on the individuals’ needs and history. For example, if someone has just dieted not long ago – this phase will be at least 2 months, if not longer, because their body just went through it and needs time to regroup before jumping into it again.
Another example would be someone who is fairly new to this or has been chronically stressed, because the priming phase may actually improve health and performance so much that sleep and energy expenditure throughout the day both increase, leading to fat loss. So in this scenario, we milk it as long as we can and drop pounds of fat while eating more food!
PROGRESSIVE PHASE:
And now, the diet begins! This is where we purposefully attack the goal, which is often fat loss if we’re going through these phases.
{Muscle gaining phases may need a priming phase as well, it’s just likely not going to take as long and serves the primary purpose of finding true maintenance calories and building consistency before entering the massing phase.}
The progressive phase will be at least 8 weeks and last as long as 24 weeks, because fat loss timelines are determined by the amount of weight being lost to reach the goals, how often refeeds or diet breaks are implemented, how responsive the individual’s body is, and what the person’s lifestyle/social life looks like.
During this phase we’re creating a deficit, planning for weekly losses in fat, and tracking all the same data points tracked within the priming phase. This is simply gametime for the individual.
RECOVERY PHASE:
And now comes time to reverse diet (for a deep dive on this topic, read this article) and get out of the deficit, with the goal of maintaining the result achieved.
The leaner an individual gets, the faster we need to reverse calories up. But this often is only a concern for someone getting on a bodybuilding stage or doing a photoshoot, where body fat levels are at extremely low levels.
For most people getting generally lean, even really lean, it’s fine to approach this slightly slower by increasing calories as the weeks go on. You will gain some weight due to glycogen stores increasing and water retention, but this is normal and not a bad thing at all. However you should be able to see maintenance of results achieved in your progress photos and measurements, alongside improvements in the gym due to the increased energy intake.
I recommend reading the article we’ve put together on reverse dieting if you want to know exactly how to increase calories overtime and exactly why you need to do so. But for the sake of this article, just know that the purpose of this phase is to recreate normality and find your new maintenance intake, so that you can sustain the result you worked so hard for with us.
CONCLUSION:
This system has worked successfully for thousands of people through our coaching, membership app, and even just through individuals consuming our free content, like you are right now.
It does make the entire process take longer, because of the initial and concluding phase. But the actual fat loss process is the same length as any other fat loss phase – however, it often works much better, more effectively, and more efficiently.
So taking the time to primer and recovery, gives you a sustainable result that is EASIER to achieve.
In other words… take the extra time, do it the right way, and avoid weight regain post diet.
