The biggest nutrition mistake that female lifters make

I get excited every single day when I see more and more women falling in love with lifting weights. The standard of fitness has completely transformed and instead of women being stuck to the cardio machines they can find their inner strength and express it through lifting. Women are no longer so obsessed with what their bodies look like but have developed a passion for realizing what their bodies can do. Now don’t get me wrong, we all want to get strong but we also want to look strong. This is where nutrition comes into play.

Unfortunately, nutrition hasn’t been able to keep up and lifting requires more thought than just calories in vs. calories out. Try lifting weights for an hour or two and you will understand the feeling of hunger afterwards. Once you become a lifter your appetite starts to grow. You’re working muscles that have never been worked before and it’s almost as if each muscle develops its own appetite. Women who choose the lifting lifestyle know that eating lettuce, and counting calories wouldn’t help them, but do they know what will?

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The biggest mistake women are making is that they take diets to the extreme and then find it almost impossible to stick to. I constantly hear – don’t eat bread, gluten is bad, don’t have too much red meat, cupcakes are really what are making you bulky. Putting restrictions on food will only lead to one thing, loss of control. Women get stuck in this mindset I call the “cheat day mentality. This is where they eat super clean all week, train hard and Saturday night end up downing a whole pizza and half a tub of ice-cream, we have all been there. There is a happy medium between being super strict and an all out binge-fest. You can eat what you want without derailing your goals, seems impossible, right?

The biggest mistake women are making is that they take diets to the extreme and then find it almost impossible to stick to.

It’s simple really. By putting the right macronutrients into our body, we can create a state of optimal performance and fat/weight loss. We want to change our bodies to look the way they perform. Therefore, our bodies need protein to build muscle and/or prevent muscle loss if you are in a calorie deficit. It needs fat to assist in vitamin absorption, brain function, and more. And our bodies will use carbohydrates for energy. Of course, if we count calories alone we can lose weight, but women no longer are searching for the number on the scale to drop they are interested in an athletic, healthy looking body.

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If you know how much of each macronutrient your body needs then simply eat the food, you want and ensure you meet that goal for the day. No more meal plans, cheat days, avoiding carbs like the plague or debating whether a potato is paleo or not. If you feel like steak and eggs, have it! If you want a bowl of ice-cream (my favorite) then, you should have it! You have earned it and should not have to feel an ounce of guilt because of it. More importantly, that steak or ice-cream should not set you back from achieving your goals.

Learn on

• Check out the Faction Foods Nutrition Course for more great nutrition knowledge
• Take your Weightlifting training to the next level with World Class Weightlifting 
• Make sure to check out Working Against Gravity, and follow Adee on Instagram and YouTube