Common Sense Dieting

[iron addict]

I peruse the lifting forums and read posts from extremely frustrated and confused lifters on a daily basis regarding dieting. While it can take some trial and error to get things dialed in, setting up a great diet is extremely easy to do. Once setup, it may not necessarily be extremely easy to do every day as willpower and discipline are required, but figuring out what to do is the easy part.

First I will dispel the need for “fad” type diets that are USUALLY based on lousy science or faulty premises. I assure you a “peanut butter” or “grapefruit” diet is not what you are looking for. You need balanced nutrition that does not revolve around some trendy food or supplement. Then ask yourself what is the purpose of a diet? A sound answer is that it is to change body composition and provide all the nutrients needed for both body composition changes and health.

The next need will be to define your goals. Almost all of us want more muscle and less bodyfat. A good percentage of the lifters out there go about it in a different fashion. They bulk and get more muscle and way more bodyfat. Then they “cut” and get less bodyfat and lose hard earned muscle. There is a better way! Do a recomp and add muscle while SLOWY dropping bodyfat. If you somehow are of the belief that this is an impossibility you simply do not understand the way the body works very well. You can lose some fat doing cardio, or part of the day by carb/caloric restriction, and add some muscle during another part of the day—that simple. Or you can have some days where you are slightly under maintenance levels, and some days over. On the days you are under (provided macro-nutrient ratios and timing is correct) you will drop a bit of bodyfat while preserving all your muscle. On the days you are over (again, provided macro-nutrient ratios and timing is correct) you will add a BIT of muscle. While that is a bit of a simplification, it gives the basics of how it works. Nothing complicated about that—no voodoo involved.

But…..most people want to see results faster than that so they do “bulks” and “cuts”. The way these are typically done are…….well…..lets just say done less than intelligently. Why? Because most people let the scale be their guiding light. They start their “bulk” jump on the scale in a few days and it still hasn’t gone up. Answer? Eat more. And damn it’s hard to get those “big calories” when eating clean, so…..they eat everything in view, and a lot of very calorie dense crap. And guess what? The scale starts shooting up and they are stoked! They start getting bigger and stronger and it is generally only when someone else says something that bursts their bubble that they realize they are headed in the wrong direction. Here is a bit of a conversation between me and a girlfriend had about 16 years ago when I did “bulks”.

Sheri: I thought you were trying to build muscle?
Me: I am building muscle, I’m a lot bigger and stronger.
Sheri: Well you may be stronger, but you don’t look better, you’re just getting REALLY fat.
Me: Well I gained 22 lbs, and most of it is muscle.
Sheri: It looks like mostly fat to me babe, but if that makes you happy, I’m OK.
Me: Well I…um….yeah, maybe I did gain a bit too much fat.

There is absolutely no reason to just eat like a damn pig to put muscle on your frame. Once you are over maintenance calories (assuming macro-nutrient ratios are correct) you are doing all your body needs to add muscle and having a huge surplus of extra calories does very little for your ability to add muscle, but a lot for your ability to add fat.

There are a few times in a lifters career when it is very possible to accrue a bunch of muscle mass in a short period of time:

1. When they first start training,
2. If they have been off of training and are rebuilding mass they had previously.
3. If it is the first time they have trained properly for THEIR body type irregardless of how long they have trained.
4. When doing a steroid cycle.
5. Early on (first few years) in the lifting career of someone with great genetics.

Unless you are at one of those points in your training career don’t look for muscle to be flying on at a super fast rate. Newbies typically gain 20-60 lbs in a year, and 50 is definitely on the high side for most. So lets say you are a brand newbie and are going to gain 50 lbs of muscle this year, and are not going to do it totally clean, but let 15 lbs of fat come along for the ride to ensure you are always fed well enough for maximal mass accrual. That is 65 lbs and 65 divided by 52 = 1.25. So you are going to gain all of 1.25 pounds a week. A number that for all intents and purposes is not readable on a weekly basis on a normal bathroom scale taking into account water weight variations. Do any of you see the utter foolishness of jumping on the scale and being thrilled with your 2-3 pound a week increases while bulking? You are in almost all cases just getting damn fat, damn fast.

Past your first year a 20-30 lb gain in lean mass is fantastic. Let’s call it 25 for example sake and that means a .48 lb gain a week. Again, nothing you can see on a bathroom scale. And I know on the internet and in the cell-tech ads everyone gains that much every 16 weeks or so, but this is the real world and guys that can put on 25 lbs a year consistently are soon FREAKS, and well, most people are not freaks so you figure out what is reality and what is fiction.

So why do so many of you eat until you can see the scale go up 2-3 lbs a week? Mostly because you are bound and determined to do a big aggressive “cut” where you lose 2-4 lbs a week and a lot of muscle with it because again, you are too damned impatient and gauge your progress by what the scale says instead of the mirror and tape measure/calipers. What is a reasonable amount of bodyfat to expect to lose a week? 1 to 1-1/2 pounds for under 200 lb lifters, and 1.5-2.25 for 200-250 lb lifters. Go much past that and a lot of bad things happen metabolically.

The better way is to just do a recomp. No, the scale won’t be moving fast enough for most of you. In fact, it may stay static for weeks on end as muscle is slowly built and fat is slowly removed. The downside is you have to be way more detail oriented to pull this off. Doing a traditional “bulk” you just eat like a pig. Doing a traditional “cut” calories are restricted so low there is lots of wiggle room. But on a recomp more precision is needed which brings up a most important topic-the need for precision.

WHY MOST OF YOU FAIL DIETING
There are three BIG reasons why people fail with their diets:

1. Caloric and macro-nutrient levels and timing are off kilter
2. They don’t log their diets/weigh food when needed.
3. They are inconsistent and or lack discipline

Calorie levels are very often off as a result of the trainee using USELESS “formulas” to determine caloric needs. As someone that works with a large number of trainees I can tell you that two 200 lb lifters with approximately the same bodyfat levels may have baseline maintenance levels that are off 1000-1500 kcals from the other guy. How well can you do with a diet 1000 calories off? EXACTLY, you can’t progress like that!!!

Everyone I train is required to log their EXACT CURRENT diets and then tell me if they are:
Adding/maintaining/losing bodyfat
Adding/maintaining/losing muscle

I make my calculations based on known numbers, not some retarded “formula”. That is how you should go about setting up a diet also.

Assuming your diet is thought out properly and the correct calories and macro’s are planned it’s still USELESS if what you are eating doesn’t hit those numbers reasonably close, and consistently. That is done by logging your diet along with weighing your food for at least long enough to KNOW what your serving sizes look like. After that, you can eyeball them, but not before. I assure you that what looks like 8 ounces of chicken to one person looks like 4 to another, and 12 to another. At this point I know I am losing a bunch of you—this is too complicated, why bother when I know a lot of people that do great and don’t log their diet or ever weigh their food? You are correct, a LOT of people never go through this trouble and succeed. But as many or more fail—is this you?

So to start your common sense dieting you first log your food for long enough to get a baseline number. Once done, calculate a starting point, don’t worry if it is perfect or not. It just has to be close. Why is perfection not a requirement? Because the perfection will come with the next step. And the next step is to start logging everything you eat for at least LONG ENOUGH THAT YOU KNOW WHAT THE PORTION SIZES ARE AND ARE EATING A REGULAR DIET AND HAVE ALL THE FOODS YOU GENERALLY EAT WEIGHED AND LOGGED. There is a lot of software out there that can be purchased for this. You can buy a cheap calorie/macro nutrient counter at a bookstore or online and log on paper or in a spreadsheet. Or use one of the online free services like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal

After you have logged for awhile and reviewed your results, you can make a precise change in the direction you need to go and rest assured that since it is logged and precise, the change will be going in the right direction.

DETAILS

At this point I know many of you are wanting to know something like:
If I am cutting how many calories under maintenance should I go? Or, if I am bulking how many over maintenance should I go? Or if recomping how many? The short answer is “some”. I can’t give you exact numbers because there is a bit more to it to factor in when I make the calculations for training clients. The long answer is to start and make adjustments as needed while logging and weighing if need be.

Protein requirements are a stumbling block for many of you. The good news is the word is getting out and the old wives tales of bygone days are slowly being replaced by what works in the real world. And that is simply put, 1.5 grams per lb of bodyweight (unless you are very fat) as a MINIMUM and 2 grams per lb is more optimal for most hard lifting trainees. I don’t care what study you read, or the fact that you read in a muscle magazine your body can only assimilate 30 grams at a time, or that your friend Fred does great eating 1 gram per lb. He is the exception I assure you.

You can debate all you want, or step up to the dinner plate and start eating and see for yourself. I have people enter online debates about this all the time and when questioned about their results when trying the higher numbers more often than not the response is they have never tried it, but they read a study that said……..Well, studies are great, but when they don’t match up to what occurs in the real world with real lifters, they are useless. And most studies of this nature are not done with REAL lifters—usually untrained college students.

Types of diets
There are a LOT of different diet types and they all work for SOME people. Without going into a lot of detail here (I’ll save that for another article) the general types I recommend are LEAN bulks, and recomps for adding mass, and Timed carb diets (both full TCD’s and ½ day TCD’s) for cutting. Keto diets work fine, but are deprivation diets and have some serious drawbacks. Simply stated, the general guidelines for these diet types are as follows:

Lean Bulk
You will be over maintenance calories by a bit and have enough carbs that energy levels are good and glycogen stores are adequate. Protein at 1.5-2 grams per pound of bodyweight, and fat at at LEAST 20% of overall kcals. Low intensity and high intensity cardio should be done according to your time schedule and work capacity.

Recomp
You will be over maintenance calories by a bit, but will either zig-zag calories some days under maintenance, or have an earlier carb cut-off, and will do daily low intensity cardio. You will have enough carbs that energy levels are good and glycogen stores are adequate. Protein at 1.5-2 grams per pound of bodyweight, and fat at at LEAST 20% of overall kcals. Diet supplements can be used to create a further deficit.

Half day timed carb diet
You will be under maintenance levels, cut-off carbs 5-8 hours before bed, and do low intensity cardio daily. Diet supplements can be used to create a further deficit.


Full TCD
You will eat zero carbs EXCEPT post workout 4-6 days a week, and have 1-2 carb up days a week. Under maintenance on no carb days, over on carb-up days. Low intensity cardio daily. Diet supplements can be used to create a further deficit.


There are all kinds of other diets out there. Many fad and “trendy” others time proven and efficient, the ones listed are easy to do and simply work if you will do your part.

Carbs and fat
All carbs are not created equally. It’s real simple to get fat eating high glycemic carbs. Eat a bunch of processed or even non-processed fast carbs and you can bet a large percentage of them are going to head straight to your waistline where you will pay hell getting them back off. Go to Google and type in glycemic index. Now find a GI index that has the foods you like to eat and bookmark it. Unless it is post workout, the foods you eat as the vast majority of your diet should be 50 or below on the index.

That doesn’t mean you can never eat any higher GI foods, it just means they are the exception, not the rule. Most people truly get fat from carb intake, not from fats unless they eat a very high fat diet. Combining lots of carbs and fats in meals is also a sure way to ensure you are continually laying down bodyfat. And that can happen even while UNDER maintenance if you eat big fat/carb, or very high carb/high glycemic meals.

You NEED essential fatty acids. The ESSENTIAL part should be your first clue that it is a requirement, not an optional component. A tablespoon of olive oil and 1-2 of flax oil, or better yet, 4-8 grams of fish oil is a good starting point for most of you.

Carb-cutoffs
I recommend every single lifter do a carb-cutoff at night before bedtime, no matter the type of diet used.

Cardio
Morning cardio works for fat loss and mass accrual. If done while massing you WILL be hungrier throughout the day as a result of the cardio. If dieting, you will drop weight faster doing morning cardio, but anytime you can fit it in will be beneficial. Either way there are a slew of benefits to doing it and it should be done irregardless of what type of diet you are doing.

All pretty commonsense stuff that WORKS if you will work it.

Good luck!

Iron Addict

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[Budlite74]

very good read!!

[Goes4ever]

good post IA