FACTS UP FRONT
Any type of diet, done with consistency, can work for the average newbie. But catch up to those people a year later and you'll see how things turned out for them. You need to change your lifestyle to truly be successful. That means stop eating junk every damn day!
For any real success, you must be willing to get active.......and stay active. If You cannot commit to at least one hour of physical activity everyday, or train 3-4 times per week, then walk away now because this advice will not work for you.
Low-carb diets do work......for the right people........for a short amount of time. Bodybuilders and professionals use low-carb diets SHORT TERM to trim extra fat and boost their metabolism. If you are just starting off, you don't need to take any excessive measures. Low-carb diets rob your body of fuel and almost all of the lost "weight" is water and muscle glycogen. Wait, but muscle glycogen is important, right? Exactly.
Think about eating food to fuel your activities, instead of being active to counteract your food.
Eat the right foods, for your activity level, and you won't even have to count calories and stress about your diet.
You don't have to suffer and avoid foods you love. In fact, you should be feeling full after each meal and even enjoying a few cheats every now and then. Believe it or not, I am not obsessive about my food or training. I train 3-4 times per week, I eat good foods and besides that, I just try to stay active on most days.
WHERE TO BEGIN
1. Determine How Much You Should Eat Find one of the many FREE Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) calculators online and figure out what you should eat every day. But don't get too wrapped around the numbers game. Afterall, many people underestimate how much they eat and over-estimate how much they train. But we do need a baseline for what you SHOULD be eating daily. After a few weeks you can adjust those numbers based on your habits and activity. Now what about those macros?
Men: Consume .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight; 20-30% of your calories are from fat; the remaining calories are from carbs. Naturally, if you are trying to lean down and "cut," your carbs will go down, meaning your protein should increase.
Women: Consume .8 grams of protein per pound of body weight; maximum 25% calories from fat; the remaining calories are from carbs. Same as men, if you are trying to cut or get leaner, you can cut a bit of carbs but, to keep the proportions correct, your protein will go up - not fat intake.
2. Eat the RIGHT foods. Believe it or not, most people know what food is good or not. It's built into us. Do I really need to tell you that potato chips and cupcakes are bad? Do I really need to tell you to drink water, instead of soda all day? Thought so...you know what to do; just do it.
Seek out nutrient dense foods and avoid calorie dense foods. It's that simple.
3. Eat for YOUR Fitness Level & Activity
Once you have established your BMR, you can then adjust your macros accordingly. If you are having a heavy day, add 150-300 extra calories. Try to eat a large breakfast to give you plenty of fuel until your next meal. If you cannot eat breakfast, try to eat a large dinner the night before. There are zero legitimate studies showing that large dinners promote unhealthy weight gain. On that note, there are zero legitimate studies showing that "intermittent fasting" leads to long-term healthy weight management. These are just little tricks influencers will push on you. Stick with the basics and you will be fine.
If you find that you are starving by dinner time or late at night, that is a good indicator that you did not eat enough during the day. Make a plan to eat more, earlier, the next day, and that should help. You shouldn't walk around feeling full all the time, but you also should not have endless cravings, with low energy.
4. Stop Demonizing Carbs!
Seriously, this nonsense has to stop. Carbs are not your problem - over-consuming them, in junk-food form is your problem. Carbs are fuel.
Carbohydrates are our primary source of energy, period. Glucose is the ready source, while your muscles and liver store them as glycogen. Glycogen is easily used by the body during activity. Forget about the gurus and pseudoscience for a minute. Your body wants to utilize carbs so much that when you cut off the supply it will make them from other sources, known as gluconeogenesis. Sure, you can force your body into Ketosis, where it must utilize other nutrients as glucose, but why would you make your body go through all the extra work? All this low-carb, keto crap is just that: crap. Notice that your friends who praise it always seem to get off it at some point. It's because their bodies get tired of being starved, and force them to eat food again. Then, in their survival-mode panic, they consume nothing but junk food and lay around the house. Then, they claim that the carbs made them fat.
5. Know What Training is, and Actually Train
People tend to confuse activity or "exercising" with actual training. "Training" is a specific activity designed to induce an exact effect. Example: strength and power training, a 5k running program. Going for an unloaded, leisurely walk is activity, or exercise. Training makes you grow, get faster, while demanding a ton of energy. Activity, while extremely beneficial for overall health and longevity, will not induce specific results, and do not require a lot of energy. Examples of training, with links to videos:
You should TRAIN for at least 3 days per week as a beginner, and around 5 times per week as an athlete. You should conduct basic activities EVERY DAY. This can be as simple as an hour walk, or 6 10 minute brisk walks, or an hour of light sports. Most experts agree that getting in at least 10,000 steps per day has an amazing health benefit, and will also assist in fat loss on the long run. Go look up your favorite body builder. The great majority spend the first hour of their sessions walking on a treadmill.
What if you don't have a smart watch? 10,000 steps for most people is just around 5 miles. If you cannot do this all at once, split it up throughout the day:
- Six, 10-minute brisk walks
- Park far away and walk
- Walk if you don't have to drive
- Always take the stairs
- Stand more
So let's put it all together
Here is my typical day of eating:
(below is my typical week of training)
Breakfast
4 whole eggs, either on a cheese sandwich or scrambled with shredded cheese
Pre-workout (1 hour before training)
peanut butter sandwich and some coffee
Post-workout
Huge glass of chocolate milk (3/1 carbs/protein ratio)
OR, a standard whey protein shake
Afternoon Snack
Options:
1. A few tablespoons of peanut butter, washed down with whole milk
2. 3 boiled eggs
Dinner
Options:
1. Huge grass-fed beef cut, with either potatoes or rice, topped with steamed broccoli
2. Home-made burgers with some cheese and lettuce
3. Chicken breast and rice, topped with steamed broccoli
My Typical Week of Training
*I try to get a minimum of 10k steps daily
Tuesday: Cardio: either BW conditioning, or a longer SS cardio run
Wednesday: Strength 2: same as above
Thursday: Cardio 2: Hill Sprints, or similar
Friday: Options:
1. Strength again and then on Sunday more cardio OR
2. A large fitness challenge, which could be a long, tough ruck, or a massive workout that challenges the entire body, and lasts more than an hour. Then, Saturday and Sunday are "recovery days."
Recovery Days do not mean laying around, doing nothing. In fact, light activity including easy sports on off days have been shown to not only increase recovery and mitigate soreness, but they have also shown to help people avoid injury. As it turns out, daily movement is good for the human body.
That's all there is to it, folks. Being fit and healthy certainly does not mean starving or restriction. Hang out with me for a day and you will see just how much food I can destroy! The fact remains that as long as at least 80% of your diet comes from good foods, then you really can do whatever the hell you want with the other 20%. As you become fitter and leaner, you will learn how to do all this naturally, without having to count. Even better, you'll be so fit that you'll have to introduce some "junk" food, just to be able to fuel your body for those long days. Example: Super skinny backpackers who live on absolute crap for months, but it doesn't show one bit. So do you want to keep counting every calorie, starving yourself everyday, and dying to eat just one piece of chocolate everyday? Or do you want to train, be active, eat like a maniac, and still have room to enjoy some of your favorite treats every now and then?
Randall
Grunt Proof
SOURCES
BMR Calculator (http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/)
Nancy Clark's Sports Nutrition Guidebook (http://www.nancyclarkrd.com/books/sportsnutrition.asp)
Mark Rippetoe's Starting Strength
Insulin Index of Foods (clinical study) (http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/66/5/1264.full.pdf+html)
Tortora & Derrickson's "Introduction to the Human Body..." 9th edition (http://www.amazon.com/Introduction-Human-Body-Gerard-Tortora/dp/1118129199)
Sport Medicine on "Post-Workout Nutrition." (http://sportsmedicine.about.com/cs/nutrition/a/aa081403.htm)
Clinical trials on high fat diets and health risks (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19828712)
Clinical trial on high cholesterol and health risks (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16549459)
Clinical trials: Cholesterol and Atherosclerosis (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14623804)
Clinical trials on low-carb diets and obesity (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12761365)
The science behind caloric measurements and inaccuracies (http://www.livescience.com/26799-calorie-counts-inaccurate.html)
Dietary fats http://www.medic8.com/healthguide/articles/fats.html
