Don't diet, just eat!

One of the biggest problems that my clients had when they started with me wasn’t what they were doing in the gym, but rather what they were doing in the kitchen.

In this post I’d like to talk about how easy it can be to fix your diet, how to gain weight, how to lose weight, why caloric expenditure is often overused, what macros are, what micros are and how sometimes we worry about the WRONG THINGS when we eat.

Firstly, it should be noted that most of those who struggle to put on weight, often eat much less than they think they do and those who struggle to lose weight often think they eat less than they actually do.

Which leads me to the very simple solution to most people’s problems: COUNT. YOUR. CALORIES. Using an app like Myfitnesspal, you can scan barcodes and track almost any food you can think of and it typically takes me less than five minutes a day.

Secondly, stop thinking that your Fitbit knows exactly how many calories you’ve expended during your day, it doesn’t. Often activity trackers massively overestimate the level of calories burned during the day and give people the impression they have a free pass on over-indulging on certain foods when in actual fact they have far less calories available for the day than they thought. So find your caloric maintenance based on your current activity level, and then modify your caloric intake accordingly after staying at caloric maintenance for a few weeks at least. It would be incredibly complicated and ill advised to constantly be modifying your caloric intake based on a perceived energy expenditure that is likely wrong, so just worry about tracking calories.

If you’d like to gain muscle and get bigger, then you need to eat in a caloric surplus. What this typically means is adding between 2 to 3 hundred calories and allowing your bodyweight to come up. I typically will not only add 100kcal at a time as the body is very good at adapting and will do what is called metabolic adaptation or adaptive thermogenesis, whereby you will not continue to lose weight on a small deficit as the body will start to reduce your basal metabolic rate (speed of your metabolism) and therefore your weight gain will stagnate (this also works for weight loss).

So what this means is that you should add 2-300 kcals, see how your body reacts over several weeks, if your body weight after 2-3 weeks stays the same then add another 2-300kcals. This process can continue until you hit your desired bodyweight, although if you continually do this month in month out, you can find yourself easily in a too higher bodyfat percentage. So find your surplus, stick with it, reap the training benefits of a heavier bodyweight and then stay at the increased caloric intake you are already at or bring your calories back down depending on your goals.

The same can be said for weight loss, only with calorie restriction you can eventually find yourself at a too lower bodyfat percentage, which for men can lower your testosterone levels and make you feel terrible and for women, a too lower bodyfat percentage can lead to amenorrhea and other hormonal issues. So once you have got to your desired bodyfat percentage you can either maintain the lower bodyweight or bring your bodyweight back up, post caloric restriction you often will feel like superman with the added calories so the rebound can often reap great benefits.

Now, on to macros. Carbohydrates, fat and protein are what compose macronutrients. They are the nutrients you use in the largest amounts. Most people worry far too much about fat and carbohydrate distribution in the diet with the goals of weight loss or weight gain, when in actual fact you can achieve the same results with differing macronutrient breakdown. The ketogenic diet for example is a high fat low carb diet, a higher carb lower fat diet can be used just as effectively with the objective of weight gain or weight loss.

If you’re in a caloric surplus, and trying to gain weight a general rule of thumb is to consume at least 1.7g of protein per kg of bodyweight, then partition your carbs and fats as works best for you. When in a caloric deficit (trying to get leaner) you should keep your protein higher as your body will start to breakdown muscle if you have insufficient calories and protein in the body.

Concerning health, if your fats are higher but your bodyfat percentage is reasonably low, you’re much more likely to be healthy then if you consume very few fats but have a high body fat percentage. There are people on the ketogenic diet who have incredibly good blood results, so don’t be terrified of consuming fats. It should be noted however that you should try to keep the fats that you consume as “healthier” fats if possible, as in HDL (high density lipoproteins/healthy fats) rather than LDL (low density lipoproteins/unhealthy fats). You can find healthy fats in foods like fatty fish, nuts, seeds and olive oil to name a few. Try to keep processed foods and deep fried foods to a minimum as these tend to be high in LDL.

Low or no carb diets can be very difficult to maintain as we tend to find carbs in almost everything: rice, pasta, bread, cereal, fruits, veg… so I would simply say it is probably easier to keep carbs in your diet but TRACK HOW MUCH, the biggest mistake I see people making in regards to carbs is just having random amounts of pasta, bread, rice, potatoes, etc. Buy some scales and weigh how much you’re having, it takes 30 seconds and avoids the guessing game altogether.

Fiber is not a macronutrient as it is not absorbed by the body but does play an important role in gut health, for this I would simply say have as much fiber as you need to feel good, if you’re bloated and farting all the time, there’s a good chance your fiber intake is too high. If you are regularly constipated, have more fiber, it’s really as simple as that. I personally like to get most of my fiber from low FODMAP (low inflammation) fruits and vegetables that are high in micronutrients but have a low inflammatory response from the gut: spinach, bell peppers, carrots, oranges and potatoes are all great sources of vitamins and minerals and don’t inflame the stomach (maybe just go easy on the potatoes).

Now, on to micronutrients, as mentioned above, which break down into vitamins (necessary for energy production and immune function). and minerals (important for growth, bone health, fluid balance and other vital processes). Micronutrients are not necessarily going to be as useful in regards to body composition, (i.e. bodyfat percentage and how much muscle you can carry on your frame) but they do serve a very important role in overall wellbeing. Without making micronutrients over complicated, I would just make sure that you are having an array of colours in your fruit and vegetable consumption, eat nuts and seeds (TRACK THEM!), and eat foods like eggs and lean cuts of red meat as these are all very micronutrient dense.

So to conclude, you can eat the foods you like, as long as you track and you’re hitting your calorie goals, you can divide your macronutrient breakdown as you prefer, but make sure you are getting sufficient protein as this will make building muscle considerably easier. First get your calories and protein sorted, then worry about carbs, fat and fiber breakdown, and then start to play around with what is the best way for you to get in sufficient micronutrient dense foods. Don’t get overwhelmed by the details to begin with, first just start by tracking, finding what your maintenance level of calories is for you at your current activity level and then modify according to your current goals, take your time and don’t overthink it, just track it.