- You can download this whole post for offline viewing as a PDF for free by clicking here.
- I appreciate this is one of those things you’d want to share with your kids so they grow up smart and not have to resort to selling protein shakes on Instagram. So, to ensure the spreading of good information, the continuity of our species, and the well-being of your children: you can read the child-friendly version here.
This is the part where every other fat loss article gives you a virtual blowie by telling you why it’s not your fault, why it’s all going to be okay with this one simple trick, and why you’re a special snowflake who just needs to think happy thoughts and click your heels so you feel justified reading it – well, guess what?
That’s bullshit – because it IS your fault.
If you’re unhappy with your weight, or your body, for whatever reason, that’s your problem. The sooner you accept this, the sooner you’re going to start making progress.
You can read all the “TOP 10 FAT LOSS HACKS YOU AREN’T DOING” articles you want, or stare at motivational quotes by some famous dead person plastered across a pair of random abs or glutes – but until you realise that change depends on you getting off your ass and doing something, nothing’s going to happen because your fat loss is down to you actually wanting to make a change.
And seeing we’re here now: I get gazillions of emails and questions from people asking me for the solution to their lack of motivation – well, fuck you. There is no solution.
Did I hurt your feelings? Well, fuck your feelings.
Here’s what nobody tells you about motivation: the more you look for motivation, the less motivated you become – because you don’t do anything.
Action begets motivation.
And unless you – yes, you – don’t start taking the steps toward making a positive change, no other person or thing can help. If this isn’t what you want to hear, then feel free to close this page and go back to living in denial. For those of you who are ready to accept this and want to make a change, let’s get started.
HERE’S THE DIRTY SECRET OF THE DIET WORLD: EVERY DIET WORKS.
Don’t believe me? Fine. Let me drop some facts on your face.
In 1964 a group from the Institute for Medical Research in Oakland, California, set out to study the impact of different macronutrient compositions on weight loss in obese patients.
The study involved five obese patients residing in a hospital metabolic ward.
The patients were fed a liquid formula diet containing the same number of calories per day – either 800, 850, or 1200 (depending on the patient) – for ten weeks.
Every three or four weeks the investigators changed the formula to vary its content of protein (from 14 to 36 percent of calories), fat (from 12 to 83percent of calories), and carbohydrates (3 to 64 percent of calories).
ALL of the obese patients lost weight at a constant rate, regardless of the nutrient composition of the diet; whether fat or carbohydrate intake was high or low – what mattered was the total calorie deficit.
The title of the study was eponymous to the findings: Calories Do Count
A similar experiment was done in 2009, with researchers concluding:
All diets work by, in one way or another (whether they admit it or not) having you control your calorie intake.
You get the idea.
So, to clarify: all diets work by having you control your calorie intake in some way.
People don’t fail with diets – people fail to maintain a diet for the long-term. And the biggest reason why is because they fall for nonsense like juice cleanses, or adding butter to coffee because apparently butter is a fucking health food now – spoiler: it’s not. Or any of the smorgasbord of weird and wacky dumbfuckery that’s rampant in the diet world. If you’re wanting to be successful with your fat loss, find a diet you enjoy and can stick to. Here aresome considerations that will help you do just that.
CONSIDERATIONS FOR PICKING A DIET
CONSIDERATIONS FOR PICKING A DIET
After much thought and deliberation on the topic, I’ve noted two things that every good diet should have: Enjoyability and healthiness.
But, there needs to be an equal amount of enjoyability factor to its healthiness factor -otherwise, the diet is dumb. We can represent this with the How Dumb is Your Diet graph.
The graph has four quadrants, so let’s take a look.
• Quadrant 1. Enjoyable but not healthy: This is the prototypical Standard Western Diet – high fat, high carb, high calorie, high everything.It’s highly enjoyable but about as healthy as bungee jumping without the bungee into a pit of fire breathing great white sharks.
• Quadrant 2. Healthy but not enjoyable: This is when you eat in a way you don’t enjoy but think it’s the only way and is the direct opposite of the above. It doesn’t matter how healthy a diet is if you don’t enjoy it.
• Quadrant 3. Not enjoyable and not healthy: This is the mystical realm of what I like to call “Dumb Fucking Shit”. And it’s where things like juice cleanses and coffee enemas (no, really, this is a thing) reside. Like Mufasa told Simba: Stay the fuck away from there.
• Quadrant 4. Healthy and enjoyable: This is where you want to be. You’re eating a diet that provides you with a wide range of whole, nutrient-rich foods while allowing you to eat in a way you enjoy.
UNDERSTANDING HEALTHINESS AND ENJOYABILITY
UNDERSTANDING HEALTHINESS AND ENJOYABILITY
It’s important to understand what I mean when I use the terms ‘healthiness’ and ‘enjoyability’.
– ENJOYABILITY
• Taste preference: Does your diet support your personal taste preference? If you enjoy fattier foods then your diet should account for that. If you enjoy carb-based foods, then you probably shouldn’t be using a ketogenic diet.
• Quirks: I didn’t really know what to call this, so we’re going with quirks. Do you enjoy cheat meals or higher calorie days? Or maybe having fasting days? Then your diet should account for this.
• Autonomy/choice: The overall enjoyability of the diet will be predicated on whether it was your choice. (Refer back to quadrant 2 of the How Dumb Is Your Diet Graph).
– HEALTHINESS
We can break healthiness down to psychological and physiological health.
– Psychological
• Restrictiveness: The biggest psychological factor here is how restrictive your diet is. Now, just to be clear, restriction is a necessity at times – a calorie deficit, for example, is a form of restriction – and you need to understand that to be successful in changing your body composition there will be times when you’re going to need to be disciplined and restrict certain foods. But, this should only be for a short period of time and not how you should be eating all the time.
• Personality Type? This sounds complicated, but it’s not. Simply put, your personal idiosyncrasies play an important role in how you set up your diet. I’ve noted that people generally fall into two categories:
– Moderators: Moderators are people who can moderate food intake. These are the people who can have a few bites and stop. These types of dieters do well with a much less rigid and more flexible approach. They thrive on the “IIFYM” based diets. They don’t have many trigger foods and can eat everything in moderation.
– Restrictors: restrictors are the polar opposite. They need a lot more structure and rules (and certain restrictions). These are the people who do well with removing certain foods if they cause bingeing or overeating.
• “Must Haves”: ‘Must haves’ are things that you absolutely must have in your diet or it’s a no-go. Now, don’t get me wrong, chances are that there will be some things you’ll have to remove if they’re going to impede your progress (like trigger foods); but generally, these will only amount to a small number of things, whereas the must haves will be the overarching things, like certain foods, macros, etc.
Must haves will also include your work and life circumstances – do you travel? Are you sedentary / seated for large parts of the day? Does your job have odd work hours, like working night shifts?
– Physiological
• Calorie controlled: Of course calorie control will be king, because even a healthful diet won’t save you from the ill-effects of carrying excess body fat.
• Food quality: As I mentioned here, food quality does matter and plays a powerful role in health and longevity.
• Body Fat %: I’ve touched on this in detail in a previous meditation essay. Simply, your body fat levels will dictate what sort of macro composition you should be using. Due to things like insulin resistance, people with higher a body fat % tend to fare better on a lower carb diet. And conversely, someone with a lower body fat % tends to fare better with a carb-focused diet – there are, of course, exceptions. But this holds true for most.
I just want to point out that it’s not necessary for people with a high level of body fat to go low carb, and as long as there is a calorie deficit in place, you will lose fat. However, from experience, people with high levels of body fat (20%+) tend to fare much better restricting carbohydrates initially. Their energy levels tend to stabilise, they feel less lethargic, cravings subside, and due to the water loss from going low carb, it acts as a motivator as they see results from the get go.
• Injuries and Medical History: Pretty straightforward – any injury or medical history that may affect your training and diet should be factored in. Even if you think you’re perfectly healthy, it doesn’t hurt to get a check-up before starting a new diet and training programme.
All of this is important to understand because while the basics of changing your body composition are simple –energy balance– each person’s personal psychology and physiology will differ. Someone who’s never exercised before and has a lot of fat to lose will have different physiological and psychological requirements than someone who stopped training for a while and gained some body fat in the interim; conversely, a lean beginner is going to be in a different place than an overweight beginner.
Gettit? Good.
Once you’ve understood your psychological and physiological needs of dieting, you can start to set up your actual diet. And, on that note…
WHEN IT COMES TO DIET SETUP, THERE’S A HIERARCHY OF PRIORITY
WHEN IT COMES TO DIET SETUP, THERE’S A HIERARCHY OF PRIORITY
As the pyramid above illustrates:
CALORIES COME FIRST.
Despite what you’ve probably heard about hormones and insulin and good and bad calories and demonic toxins living inside of you bent on eating your insides – the number one reason you’re not losing fat is because you’re eating too much. Yes, even when you’re adamant you aren’t.
Setting calorie intake
I’m going to give you a super simple way to set your calorie intake. While people try to impress you with fancy equations, the truth is that the difference between the most complicated equations and the simplest (like the one I’m about to show you) is only 5%; and seeing your calories will be adjusted anyway, the easier it is to set your numbers, the less paralysis by analysis and the sooner you can start getting results. Cool? Cool.
To work out your fat loss calories:
Take your bodyweight in pounds and multiply it by 9-14
Why the range? Simple: depending on a few factors your calorie needs will vary.
- If you’re a sedentary female (think office job) who trains anywhere from 3-5x per week: go with the lower end (9-10).
- If you’re a female who works a fairly active job or any job that has you on your feet quite a bit and you’re training 3-5x per week: go with the mid range (10-12).
- If you’re a sedentary male (office job) who trains 3-5x per week: go with the low to mid-range (10-12).
- If you’re a male who works a fairly active job, like I dunno, maybe you’re Batman or something and you’re training 3-5x per week: go with the higher end (12-14).
The Blue Box of Read This Shit: to learn more about the weird and wacky world of calories, read this.
Ok, so you’ve set your calorie intake – awesome. Now, we need to set your macros.
Macro is short-form for “macronutrient”. Macronutrients make up the components of food and are:
The Blue Box of Read This Shit: alcohol is technically the fourth macronutrient but we’re not discussing that here. If you want to find out more about alcohol: read this.
Macronutrients are needed by the body in large amounts – thus the ‘macro’ – to keep you alive and functioning.
Macronutrients contain calories and each macronutrient contains a certain number of calories per gram.
So:
As you can see, fat contains more calories per gram than protein and carbohydrates, and while I could explain why by talking about carbon atoms and oxidation and a host of other nutrition nerdery – who really gives a fuck? Let’s move on.
Protein and Its Importance in Fat Loss
• Muscle Retention: When you’re in a calorie deficit –which, as you know by now is needed to lose fat – the body starts to use its own energy stores for fuel. Strength training provides the stimulus and, in conjunction with eating sufficient protein, stops the body from burning muscle.
• Satiety: Protein is more satiating than either fats or carbohydrates. So, when calories are low and hunger is inevitably high, protein will help keep you full.
• Uh, it’s delicious?
How much do you need?
So, if you’re a guy who weighs 170 lbs:
And if you’re a female who weighs 140lbs:
ONE EXCEPTION.
The general rule is to set protein intake per pound of LEAN MASS. But the problem is, figuring this out can be both time-consuming and troublesome, not forgetting hardly accurate. Using per pound of bodyweight is easier and tends to work pretty well for leaner folk. However, it doesn’t work as well for people who have more fat to lose (20% + body fat for men and 30% + for females).
In this population, going with 0.6g per pound of body weight works better.
For example, if someone is 250lbs, using per pound of body weight would mean 250g of protein. This amount is unnecessary. I’ve found using 0.6g/lb to work well for this population: 250 lb x 0.6g/lb = 150 gram of protein.
Far more reasonable.
• AND LASTLY, YOU HAVE CARBS AND FATS.
Once calorie and protein intakes are set, the number of carbs or fats you consume is totally up to you. If you prefer a higher carb diet, then eat a higher carb diet; if you prefer a higher fat diet, then eat a higher fat diet.
Remember: the psychology of dieting is more important than the physiology of dieting – pick what suits your taste preference.
A few things that warrant highlighting before we move on.
• Carbs may not be essential to our survival (unlike protein and fats, we could survive without consuming carbs) but there’s a difference between ‘surviving’ and ‘thriving’. Carb-based foods contain important vitamins, minerals, and fibre that lend themselves to a healthy body and life.
• Despite the recent rise in popularity of low-carb, high-fat diets, carbs are the preferred fuel source of the human body, not dietary fat.
• While a chronically low-fat diet can affect testosterone levels, what is often overlooked is the totality of the caloric deficit and more importantly how much weight (and body fat) someone’s lost. Eric Helms summed this up brilliantly:
”In many ways, body fat is the same as food intake, it’s all available energy, and this is reflected in the fact that adipose tissue produces leptin. You can increase fat by 10-20g, and that’s another 90-180 calories your body “sees”, but gain 1lb of body fat and you’ve got 3500kcals that your body is seeing now…so yeah, changes in body fat can make much larger impacts than what you consume…that’s why I shake my head when guys freak out about going from 50g to 45g of dietary fat….really, you think the 45 calories per day is what is going to kill your libido, not the fact that you lost 10lbs (35,000kcals) of fat? ”
Some recommendations :
– If you enjoy a carb-focused diet, ensure fat intake makes up at least 25-30% of total caloric intake.
– When in a calorie deficit, don’t let your fat intake drop lower than 15% of total calories.
Setting carb and fat intakes?
- Set fat intake between 0.3 – 0.6g/lb.
If you prefer a higher fat diet, go with the higher end (0.6g/lb), if you prefer a higher carb diet, go with the lower end (0.3g/lb). Or, of course, if you prefer a moderate split of the two, then go somewhere in the middle (0.5g/lb). I’m not here to tell you what you should do, only what you can do and then you decide what suits you best.
SETTING UP YOUR DIET
I know I just blasted your face off with a bunch of information, so now I’m going to illustrate how you’d take all of this and put it to use.
Meet Tim.
Tim’s let himself go a bit and over the years his weight (and body fat) has crept up. He currently weighs 190 lbs and according to his doctor:
Determined not to die and finally see his abs, our cuddly hero decides to sort his shit out.
So, remember – calories first.
Tim isn’t very active, working an office job sees him seated for 8+ hours a day. So we’ll go with the lower end of 10 as his multiplier.
To work out his calorie intake we’re going to take his body weight in lbs and multiply it by 10:
So, Tim’s calorie intake per day for fat loss is going to be 1990 Cals.
Next, we need to set his protein intake.
As I mentioned before, keep things simple and set protein intake to 1g/lb.
Tim’s daily protein intake will be 190g.
Carbs and fat?
Seeing that Tim has quite a bit of fat to lose, I’d generally keep his carb intake lower
However, Tim enjoys his carbs and can’t see himself sticking to a low carb diet – and seeing that adherence is perhaps the biggest factor to diet success, we’re going to set his fat intake to 0.4g/lb to allow for enough carbs.
Tim’s daily fat intake will be 76g of fat per day.
This is where we are right now with Tim’s numbers:
All we need to work out now is his carb intake. To do that, we’re simply going to fill in the calories that remain after having set fat and protein with carbs.
Here’s how.
Step 1.
We’re going to first work out the calories in Tim’s protein and fat totals. To do this, multiply his protein intake by 4 (because there are 4 calories in a gram of protein) and multiply his fat intake by 9 (because there are 9 calories in a gram of fat). So, it’ll look like this:
Step 2.
So, we now know that Tim is getting 760 calories from protein, and 684 calories from fat. We now need to add the two totals – protein and fat – together.
So, Tim is getting 1444 calories from his fat and protein intake.
Step 3.
We now subtract the fat and protein total (1444 calories) from his total required calorie intake (1990 calories):
So, Tim has 546 calories left to distribute to carbs.
Step 4.
And now, the last step: Just divide 546 by 4 (because there are 4 calories in a gram of carbohydrate).
No comments:
Post a Comment