Determining what you should or should not eat is often difficult, especially when you are trying to achieve specific fitness goals. With weight training, your eating choices become even more critical to your success.

Here are a few tips for ensuring that you are getting the right nutrition when you are weight training.

Focus on Eating a Balanced Diet

There are hundreds of diets and meal plans. However, the consensus among medical professionals, personal trainers, and nutritionists is simply to focus on eating a normal, healthy diet.

You shouldn’t need to follow a strict meal plan that keeps you from eating certain food groups. A healthy diet should have a balance of nutrients.

Instead of cutting specific foods from your diet, eat a balance of fresh fruits and vegetables, along with healthy proteins, such as poultry, eggs, fish, and even low-fat dairy.

Besides eating a variety of healthy foods, you should try to cut back on salts, alcohol, saturated fats, and excess sugar.

A healthy diet also requires you to stay hydrated. Ensure that you are drinking the recommended amount of water each day. Typically, the average adult should drink about eight glasses of water per day. However, size, weight, age, and other factors can affect your hydration needs.

Adjust Your Diet Based on Your Goals

A balanced diet creates a solid foundation for people of any fitness level, whether you want to lose weight or bulk up. However, your fitness goals may require that you make a few modifications.

If you want to burn fat, you’ll need to eat a calorie deficit. If you plan to build more muscle mass, you need a calorie surplus.

Weight Training for Weight Loss

Weight training is typically thought of as a method for bulking up. However, it is also effective for those who want to lose weight. You can target fat and burn extra calories. In fact, weight training is essential for weight loss, as it allows you to maintain muscle mass and bone density while eating at a calorie deficit.

With a calorie deficit, the total calories that you burn throughout the day should exceed the total calories that you consume. The typical recommendation is to create a 15 to 20% deficit. For example, if your body needs 2,000 calories to maintain your current weight, consuming 1,600 to 1,700 calories should help you lose weight over time.

Weight Training for Muscle Gain

Building more muscles requires you to eat a calorie surplus each day, instead of a deficit. Your body needs more calories, about 15% more than your daily minimum.

The hardest part of proper nutrition for muscle gain is avoiding fat gain. One option is to eat a calorie deficit after gaining muscle to target fat loss. As mentioned, you can still maintain muscle mass and bone density while eating a calorie deficit, as long as you include weight training in your fitness routine.

If you want to learn more about proper nutrition for weight training, you should consider working with an experienced personal trainer. I can assess your goals and help develop a nutrition and fitness programme that works for you. Contact me today to find out why Be Your Best with PT is the top choice for one-on-one training. I do personal training in Mayfair and in Belgravia, Notting Hill, Marylebone and Holland Park.