Eat To Perform Team Challenge

It was clear from the genesis of Eat To Perform that we needed to live up to our namesake and emphasize the role proper nutrition plays in maximizing your performance in the gym.  At this point, the majority of our blog posts and materials reflect that.  Over time, Performance Focused Fat Loss became a priority and as such we started what ultimately became our ETP Live Challenge.  In those challenges the goal was simple: build muscle and lose fat.  The more muscle you gained, the better, but you also got points for fat loss.  What we really wanted people to know is that they shouldn’t always be seeking fat loss; a general focus on adding lean mass makes the times you do pursue fat loss much easier and more permanent.  A year and half later, people have gotten our message loud and clear.

To be perfectly clear, we’ve never suggested that fat loss should never be a goal but the fact of the matter is that many people are coming from an extreme dieting background – they’re not giving their bodies the energy and nutrients they need to adapt positively.  Our members have worked diligently to increase their energy intake and as a result, their work capacity has gone up.  That of course isn’t the end game for a lot of people.  Many people have more fat to lose and we want to help them get there.

With that in mind, we’re holding the first-ever Eat To Perform Team Challenge!
Over the course of this two month, 60 day challenge, we will be dividing everyone into teams.  The number of teams will be dependent upon how many members participate.  Each moderator in the Science Lab will be assigned to a team; what this means is that you will have a significant amount of support for the two month period.  In the end, points will be tallied, winners announced, and prizes distributed.  This challenge is only for Science Lab members so if you haven’t signed up, now is the time to do so.  In addition to being able to participate in multiple challenges every year, you’ll become part of a community and receive legitimate, science-based advice from our team of doctors, nutritionists, and coaches.

In addition to the team we will have individual winners (similar to our ETP Live challenges).  Here are some basic guidelines we will be using as a framework for judging:

• After seeing 1000’s of body fat tests, one thing is clear:  the faster you lose weight, the more lean mass you lose.  This is not a good thing, so we came up with a general guideline of who should be most aggressive and who needs to be careful.  If you are a female over 35% or a male over 25% you will be allowed to lose more than eight pounds, or a pound a week.
• For the leaner folks, we would like you to stick to the one pound a week guideline.  Please note that that’s a GUIDELINE, not a hard/fast rule.  If as an example you can get the weight to come off easily at a higher calorie point you probably aren’t jeopardizing a lot of the muscle.
• Super lean people need to be even more careful.  If you are a female under 20% or a male under 12% your goal might be four to five pounds lost.
• If you are coming from an extreme dieting background this challenge will be different for you.  Your goals will be to lose fat by gaining muscle.  We will help you do that by addressing deficiencies in the way you eat but fat loss is an equation.  If you are undereating, that needs to be addressed first.  It’s extremely common for people coming from a pretty restricted background to put on a decent amount of muscle in a few short weeks but if you are eating 1200 calories a day right now and you want to eat less than that as part of this challenge, that isn’t what we are trying to do.  This is about health, mental first and then physical.

What we’re ultimately trying to do is get people the fat loss results they want without detracting from their performance goals.  Losing lean mass is never desirable.  It certainly can and might happen when you pursue fat loss but we want to make people aware of the conditions that cause this.
We are excited about this challenge but because of the short time frame (two months) we need to have a quick turnaround on the materials submitted.  The latest we’ll accept entries is August 10th so act now!

source: http://eattoperform.com/2014/07/02/eat-to-perform-team-challenge/