Nutrition Periodization
Nutrition Periodization
Have you heard this term before? Unless you are in the health and fitness industry, most likely not. You've probably heard the terms, dieting, calorie counting, or maybe if you are more advanced -- macro counting.
Nutrition Periodization a fancy-sounding term that refers to your personal nutrition going through phases or “periods.” Just like we have different seasons - winter, spring, summer, and fall, our health and fitness goals should take on different seasons or "periods." The three different periods are Maintenance, Fat Loss, and Gain or Surplus. Let’s first define each of these phases:
Maintenance: This is when you are eating adequate food to nourish every part of your body. You are giving your body enough nourishment for every physiological function, especially your hormones! This phase is one of the most overlooked in the “diet world,” but I would argue that it is the *MOST* important. If you are not eating at maintenance the majority of the time, when you do attempt to lose body fat, you will plateau very quickly. Your body will quickly revolt and make losing body fat a chore. Your maintenance calorie needs can be calculated using a variety of different TDEE online calculators. This one is my favorite. Eating in maintenance is what prepares your body for a diet. Unfortunately, most women are significantly eating under their TDEE OR not eating enough of a specific macronutrient (protein, fat, or carbohydrate.)
Again, you should be spending about 75% of your year in maintenance. Most women think that they need to live on a diet in order to maintain their results. This is one of the biggest misconceptions in the health and fitness industry! You are doing yourself a big disservice by remaining in a caloric deficit long term.
Fat Loss: This phase in the nutrition periodization process is definitely the most sought after. This is the phase that keeps the diet industry in business. The truth is, you should be spending the least amount of time in this phase. It should have a projected start and finish to ensure compliance and great results. In order to achieve fat loss, a person has to be in a caloric deficit from their calculated TDEE. This can either happen through increased exercise/movement, decreased food intake, or a combination of both.
EXAMPLE: A client comes to me and wants to lose 20lbs. She has tried different popular "diets" over the past year but hasn't had much success. The first thing I would recommend to this client is that we set a solid foundation by making sure she is eating enough, especially the right balance of proteins, carbs, and fats. After about 4-6 weeks in "maintenance," we would determine whether or not she is ready to lose weight. How is her energy? How is she sleeping? Is she having a consistent menstrual cycle? How is she recovering from exercise? Is she consistently hitting her maintenance macros? If all of the answers to this are positive, then we would initiate a fat loss period. Since this client wants to lose 20lbs, we could assume that she could realistically lose anywhere from 0.5-1.5lbs per week, which could take anywhere from 15 to 40 weeks. (Losing much more than 1.5lbs per week indicates water and/or muscle loss, not fat loss.) Also, realize that if a person is lifting weights or doing any type of strength training, her body composition (ratio of muscle to fat) will improve and won't always be reflected on the scale. If the fat loss phase is done correctly, the client could stay in a fat loss phase for as long as 24 weeks. (This does depend on a lot of individualized factors such as starting body weight, diet history, hormone health, and thyroid health, and I often find that MOST clients do not need this much time.) After the client reaches her goal body composition, we would most likely do a "reverse diet" back to maintenance (gradually increase macros/calories back up over several weeks to prevent gaining the weight back.) The client would then stay in maintenance for at least 12 weeks before attempting to lose any additional body fat.
Gain: The final possible nutrition period is a gaining or surplus phase. In this phase, a person will intentionally eat MORE than their TDEE in order to strategically build muscle. The caveat with this phase is that you have to be actually building muscle in order for this to be effective. A person cannot simply eat more and expect muscles to magically appear! During a surplus phase, gaining fat is inevitable. Now, how MUCH fat a person gains is highly dependent on much of a surplus they are in and their exercise programming. A lot of women get scared of gaining fat, when it's a natural process of getting stronger! If you want to look and feel strong, you have to eat enough food! Being in a surplus can actually be very freeing for some women, knowing that they are strategically eating more so that they can feel and look their best! A gaining phase should also have a set duration, but as long as it is being done strategically, a person can stay in a surplus for an indefinite amount of time!
If you are reading this and cannot remember the last time you weren't "on a diet" or following the latest "diet trend," then I would highly recommend determining your maintenance calories and working towards eating enough. If you are interested in diving deeper into any of these phases in more depth, then 1 on 1 coaching could be a great fit for you! You can book a strategy call here to discuss your goals, diet history, to determine if we are a good fit to work together!
