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FOREWORD
By James Barnum
Id like to thank you for your purchase of this eBook and congratulate you on taking what may be the
first of many steps towards a healthier, stronger, happier version of yourself.
The concept of this text began development over two years ago when Paul and I started writing articles
together. Not a lot of people know this, but before Eat To Perform came to fruition, we were
YourDietSucks.org. We wrote about many of the concepts that ended up in this book especially the
need for a less restrictive approach to carbohydrates and food in general. This was right around the
time the Paleo diet had peaked in popularity and we wanted to help people understand that you can eat
real food, lose body fat, build muscle, and feel awesome without cutting out all the carbs from your
nutrition.
Our response was to work with Dr. Mike T Nelson to develop an eBook based around the concept of
Metabolic Flexibility, a theory that hed been researching for quite some time. Our goal was to bring a
more balanced nutritional approach to the burgeoning army of high-intensity athletes that were training
in gyms around the world without adequate fuel in their bellies. As time passed and our community
grew, we recruited April to administrate the Science Lab forum a place where people can go to followup and get advice from coaches, doctors, and people just like them, without the negativity and drama
that can crop up in similar outlets.
Eventually, we had time to collaborate with Spencer on some videos as he prepared for his first
bodybuilding show and we started brainstorming a new eBook that would distill our collective approach
to nutrition down into an easily-digestible format. As youll read, weve each had our share of struggles
as it relates to food and wed like nothing more than to spare everyone from having to deal with those
same pitfalls.
The result of our collaboration is an expression of that desire; an honest examination of why it seems
losing and maintaining fat loss is so hard, and an explanation of basic concepts that anyone interested in
health and fitness should be familiar with, whether its for personal use or to help guide others in the
right direction.
Once again, THANK YOU for reading and good luck on your path.
Contents
FOREWORD ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 3
Who is This eBook For? ................................................................................................................................. 5
Part I: The Basics .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Why Your Diet SUCKS.................................................................................................................................... 7
What Happens AFTER the Diet ................................................................................................................. 9
Why Do We Diet?.................................................................................................................................... 11
Dieting Doesnt Have to be so Hard ............................................................................................................ 15
Flexible Eating Case Study: Spencer........................................................................................................... 18
Part II: The Nitty Gritty ............................................................................................................................... 19
Energy Balance: An Introduction ............................................................................................................... 20
Keeping the carbohydrates: why a balanced approach is better ...................................................... 22
Flexible Eating Case Study: April ................................................................................................................ 24
What is Flexible Eating? .............................................................................................................................. 26
What Makes a Food Naughty or Nice? ............................................................................................ 26
Why Eating Real Food Is Important ........................................................................................................ 28
Flexible Eating Case Study: James .............................................................................................................. 31
Designing an Approach to Nutrition ........................................................................................................... 34
START HERE: Establishing TDEE and Transitioning into Maintenance ................................................... 35
Step 1: Log Food ..................................................................................................................................... 35
Step 2: Establish your TDEE.................................................................................................................... 36
Step 3: Un-dieting .................................................................................................................................. 38
Part III: Flexible Eating for Different Goals................................................................................................. 42
Guidelines and Strategies for Maintenance ........................................................................................... 42
Guidelines and Strategies for Weight Loss ............................................................................................. 45
Guidelines and Strategies for Lean Mass Gain ....................................................................................... 49
Flexible Eating Case Study: Paul ................................................................................................................. 53
Conclusion: The Five Tenets of Flexible Eating .......................................................................................... 56
References .................................................................................................................................................. 57
Youve tried every diet, weight loss plan, and supplement on the market without results and
youre tired of it.
Youve gotten results with the aforementioned diets and supplements, but lost them all when
you stopped dieting/following the plan/taking the supplement.
Youve ever attended a birthday party and declined a slice of cake because you were on a diet.
Youve seen a picture/video of a famous athlete or model and honestly thought less of yourself
because you dont have abs/shoulders/legs/glutes like they do.
Youve gone months (or years) without eating potatoes, rice, or bread simply because it wasnt
on the list of foods you were allowed to eat.
Youve ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, If I just lost 5 more lbs. Id be so much
happier.
Youve given into cravings for food in the middle of the night and ended up eating a half-sleeve
of cookies at 2:30 a.m.
Youve gotten up at 5 a.m. to work out for an hour at 5:30, worked all day, and then headed
back to the gym to work out AGAIN without having so much as a cup of coffee and an avocado
to fuel your activity.
Youve ever had your body fat tested and gotten upset because it was higher than you expected
it to be despite the fact that youve added 100 lbs. to your deadlift over the past 6 months.
you wont eat white potatoes because they arent on the list, youve run out of Calories for the day
and cant eat because youll get fat, or youre avoiding rice because youre on a low carb diet,
youre engaging in a restrictive behavior that may not actually help you achieve the result youre after.
When a diet is designed around arbitrary external factors, it cannot produce a specific result. An
approach to nutrition should be a direct response to the individual nutritional requirements of the
dieter or there is no guarantee of success. Let me rephrase that: when you judge your level of success
upon how well you adhere to an ideology, rather than on the achievement of specific short- and longterm goals, your diet is broken. Positive results are all that matter! The perfect list of foods for you may
not resemble another persons list. The number of Calories you need to consume to effectively lose
body fat wont be the same as mine. Cutting carbs (or fat) from your diet for prolonged periods of time
probably wont result in great long-term results. Whats good for others may not necessarily be good
for you.
Now, theres nothing wrong with deliberating over what you do and dont eat. In fact, thats a healthy
behavior that youll likely benefit from greatly. You shouldnt eat food with reckless abandon and as an
autonomous individual granted with free will, you have the right to make the decision to never eat
another piece of bread in your entire life if you dont want to. Likewise, if you want to lose some weight
because youre not satisfied with the number on the scale and you decided that this is the year youll
finally get your summer six-pack, thats entirely up to you.
Although the choice is yours, eliminating foods from your diet or restricting food intake can result in a
variety of negative outcomes that most people simply arent aware of. The least insidious thing that
can happen is that perhaps you dont reach your body composition goals; you dont lose as much weight
or body fat within the timeframe youd given yourself. When you take into consideration how physically
and mentally exhausting a diet can be, thats a disheartening way to end things. You might fall off the
wagon at this point and give up, or you could move onto another diet and give that a try. Maybe you
were just following the wrong list of what not to eat. Maybe you were eating too much. Maybe your
carbs were too high.
As youll learn later in this eBook, its probably not the carbs, nor is necessarily your choice of foods, nor
how much you were eating. In isolation, these factors cannot make or break a nutrition plan. They
must be considered in context to your overall lifestyle, and thats why the aforementioned diet
methodologies always fall short: they dont take YOU into account.
under the pressure of restricting your food choices and wound up binging on your favorite flavor of Ben
& Jerrys). Since starting your diet, you notice that you have more energy; perhaps you think more
clearly and youre motivated to exercise more often and with greater vigor. Certainly if youre not
dropping jaws at the beach, youve made a commitment to improve your most valuable asset: your
health.
Dont get me wrong. There is overwhelming value in limiting your consumption of highly processed
foods and learning how to appreciate cooking and eating whole, minimally processed, nutrient-dense
foods, especially when youre on a weight loss/fat loss diet. I have to hand it to you. Youve made a
positive change and if you could continue on that path for the rest of your life, I honestly think youd be
better off. The issue of course is that most people cant do it: they cant cut out processed foods
forever. That doesnt make them weak, and it doesnt mean theyve failed. As I pointed out earlier,
these negative connotations go hand-in-hand with the dieting mindset. Restriction, negation, shame,
loss: theres really no positive movement.
That brings us to a crossroads. The diet is over. Theres no more challenge, and were all out of
supplements. Where do we go next? Do we do it all over again and continue to adhere to the
modifications we made? Thats certainly an option, but the very nature of a short-term diet or challenge
makes this almost impossible. At some point, youll get sick of it. As human beings, we crave novel
experiences. While we can settle into consistent behavioral patterns that go against our natural
inclinations, unless the reward is great enough, we tend to revert or loosen up.
The second option, for the Calorie counters who never stopped eating the naughty foods in the first
place, is to further reduce Calories and start looking for ways to increase the satiety effect of what little
food is allowed.
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This can have a devastating effect on your health and push you further and further from your intended
destination. What may have started as a journey towards a better, leaner you can get completely out
of hand and result in years of setbacks and potential health complications. For more information on
eating disorders, how they affect your health, and how they can be linked to chronic dieting, check out
the National Eating Disorders Associations website.
Why Do We Diet?
There are a perhaps dozens of reasons as to why we feel like we have to continuously subject ourselves
to diet after diet. A lot of it stems from the fact that we associate success and achievement with
idealized physical appearances. Sometimes, we diet because we get a number on the scale or a certain
body fat percentage stuck in our heads. We expect achieving these goals to change our lives and
revolutionize how we feel about ourselves; if our expectations are not met, we go to extremes or give
up altogether.
Does this sound familiar? You're standing in front of a full length mirror scrutinizing your stomach, hips
or thighs and whispering to yourself about how much fat you need to lose ASAP. You are certainly not
alone. We have all been there at some point or another in our lives.
We see people with perfect jobs, perfect families, perfect lives, and yes, perfect bodies, all over
television, on the internet, and on the covers of magazines. Our sense of realistic, healthy body image
has been altered tremendously over the course of the past few decades.
How we feel about our physical appearance (how we think and talk to ourselves about our
bodies); and
Even our athletic idols contribute to the feeling that we just dont look good enough to achieve our goals
or be the people we want to be. Indeed, the top competitors in many weight-classed sports maintain
very lean physiques year-round to maximize their strength-to-weight ratio and this leads us to believe
that we too must have six pack abs if we want to perform as well as they do.
Its a bitter pill to swallow but you have to take a few things into consideration when you look at the
physiques of celebrated people and athletes:
Genetics play a huge role in how you look. Everything from your bone structure to muscle
length and insertion, even fat distribution patterns and the density of fat tissue, is determined
by your genetics. That doesnt mean that you cant look and perform your best, but you need
to accept what your parents gave you; youll always have unique traits and thats wonderful.
Dwelling on things you cant change, like the shape of a specific muscle in your legs, or how
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much fat you hold around your belly button vs. another person, will set you up for
disappointment because you cannot realistically change those physical characteristics through
diet and exercise alone.
Athletes do not starve themselves to look that way. I think this is one of the most pervasive
misunderstandings surrounding the physiques of professional athletes. These people spend
more time training in an average week than most of us do at our jobs. They burn through so
many Calories that their food choices are often surprisingly unhealthy by your average persons
standards. The physique is a natural consequence of incredibly high demands for energy met
with massive caloric intakes. Theyre NOT on restrictive diets!
The good thing about understanding this fact is that if you eat and train like an athlete for long
enough, youll eventually wind up looking like one.
Maintaining an idealized physique is a full-time job. This goes hand-in-hand with the last
point. Movie stars, physique competitors, and fitness models make a living at photo shoots.
Their marketability depends upon their appearance. Most of us dont have the time to train 20
hours a week on top of our jobs, nor do we have the disposable income available to hire chefs,
personal trainers, and nutritionists. Its unrealistic, unfair, and unhealthy to compare ourselves
to people who do.
A lot of the images we see are misrepresentations or altogether fake. Yep. This is perhaps the
most damaging element of the way we perceive our physique idols. Very few people maintain
extreme levels of leanness year-round. Typically, a person will achieve a certain condition and
maintain it only for a day or two to take pictures, attend an event, or film a scene. In addition,
thanks to digital photo manipulation, weve lost touch with how a real human being looks:
highlights and shadows are tweaked, pores and imperfections are scrubbed away, limbs are
resized or replaced, and proportions are altered. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Dont be fooled.
The fact is, constantly obsessing over our flaws, imperfections, and constant dieting are hindering you
from making body composition progress. Being in an energy deficit constantly does not give your body a
break to reset hormones and regulate itself. Everyone needs a vacation every now and then, and so
does your body. Focusing on your flaws is going to keep you in that "I need to diet to lose fat" mindset
indefinitely. Improving your body image will go a long way here. Poor body image increases the risk for
extreme diet/body control behaviors.
Here are just a few things you can do to improve how you see yourself:
Focus on your inner qualities. Rather than telling yourself you need to lose your abdominal fat
or tone up your legs, reflect upon how awesome of a friend, mother, or father you are. You can
love unconditionally. You may be a good listener, or perhaps youre very inspirational to others
and youre not even aware of it. These things (and many more) are all positive qualities that we
should acknowledge on a daily basis.
Focus on your positive physical qualities and accomplishments. I dont know about you, but
whenever I pull a heavy deadlift off the floor, Im not thinking about what I need to do to get
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better abs or a better butt. Instead, Im thinking about how strong and accomplished I feel for
achieving that. For most people, negative self-talk is silenced by the overwhelming joy of
physical accomplishment. It feels incredible to move! Instead of worrying about abs, focus on
your performance. For example, do you think someone whos just completed their first 5k or
marathon is worried about their body fat percentage? No. They are thinking about their
achievement and all of the time and hard work they put into it.
Utilize positive affirmations. For every negative thing I see or say about myself, I immediately
follow it up with two positive things. For example, if I am standing in front of that full-length
mirror criticizing my hips, I immediately tell myself two positive things in return like My hair
looks really awesome today! or My biceps have finally started growing! Simple efforts like
this can make a huge difference in how you feel about yourself.
outlook to have. Our body weight will fluctuate day-to-day based on so many factorssodium intake,
fiber levels, hormone cycles, exercise, and more. It is very healthy for the scale to move up and down.
This is a positive sign that our bodies are functioning well and that our cells are efficiently processing the
nutrients we feed them. We can learn to use the scale as just a number to measure progress or go down
the dark road and allow it to control us.
For years, I lived my life according to that number on the scale: I let it define me. That said, when I
started weight training, I knew the likelihood of me putting on a few pounds waswelllikely. To say
that I was okay with the idea then of a few added pounds would be a flat out lie; it scared me but I knew
I had to trust the process and stop placing so much emphasis on weighing a certain amount.
Rather than focusing on scale weight alone, focus on making progress with your training
and gradually losing body fat. You may likely achieve your ideal body composition at 15 pounds heavier
on the scale than what your original "goal number" was. Even for myself, I am currently sitting less than
10 pounds at my heaviest weight yet wear three sizes smaller than the last time I weighed this
number." Don't be a slave to the scale. Use it as a tool to monitor normal fluctuations and gauge
progress. Measure your waist, legs, arms, and chest with a tape measure to monitor changes in the
circumference of these areas. Take progress pictures every few weeks. You can also take a look in the
mirror. If you like what you see, the scale doesnt matter. Dont let numbers control or define you!
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eating right, and exercising, yet your body is changing very slowly. But if you focus on habits, you dont
need to rely on the scale for gratification. Just completing the right habits becomes an accomplishment
in itself.
Lets say you go on a cruise. Like most people, youre worried that youll gain weight. Instead of focusing
on the scale, focus on your habits. Sure, you may eat more than you would have liked, but if you stick to
the right habits, youll still come back to shore feeling good about yourself.
Finally, habits are with you all of the time. You dont need a scale, a diet book, a points system, or
anything else to stick to your habits; that is, assuming you chose the right habits to stay lean.
1.
Eat when youre hungry and stop eating when youre full.
Assuming youre eating a fairly healthy diet, this one simple trick is often the only habit people need to
stay lean.
Most people eat a large number of Calories when they arent hungry. (Wansink) Thats not all bad: food
is for more than just keeping yourself full. We often eat to celebrate, feel certain emotions, and try new
foods, but that shouldnt be the case all of the time. Instead, become slightly more mindful of when
youre eating without feeling hungry.
2.
Spend the first minute of your meal only thinking about your food
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3.
Whether we like to admit it or not, we tend to become increasingly more like the people we spend time
around. The people we spend the most time around rub off on us in many ways, some of which are
good, and others bad.
If you eat every meal with other chronic dieters, its going to feel uncomfortable eating larger meals. If
you eat around people who dont care at all about their health, youre more likely to eat like they do.
If you want to develop healthy eating habits, try to find someone whos already practicing these
behaviors. Try to find a role model.
These habits will help you stay lean for the rest of your life. Theyll put you in the proper position to
consistently lose fat when you start dieting again, without developing disordered eating behaviors or
sabotaging your progress.
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After I finished wrestling in college as a heavyweight wrestler, I decided to lean down a bit. I was always
into nutrition science and fitness (exercise science was my college degree) and at the time it seemed the
best way to get leaner was to cut out starchy/sugary carbs and stick with meat, vegetables, and fruit.
This strategy was pretty effective but it cut out a lot of my favorite foods and took a toll on my
workouts. Luckily, I wasnt going through the strenuous wrestling practices, otherwise I would have
never made it. I was also now sitting for a lot of the day because thats how medical school is in the
beginning, which didnt take a toll on my energy.
After about six years of doing this with okay results, I decided to employ a more flexible way of
eating. Instead of just eating what are considered healthy foods only, I started to actually track my
intake of food while measuring everything. When I had my baseline Calories I was eating daily, I decided
to shift a lot of the Calories I was getting from fat towards carbohydrate-rich foods that I was previously
restricting. Because of this shift, I was then able to enjoy many of the foods I once previously shunned.
Just as significant as now enjoying new meals, my body fat started to decrease and my performance in
the gym started to INCREASE. The carbohydrates allowed me to go harder and longer (if need be) in the
gym. Now, I enjoy an easy, flexible approach to food.
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Energy Homeostasis
Body weight is regulated by energy homeostasis. Every second youre alive, your body is struggling to
maintain homeostasis by altering the way it functions and when that balance is disrupted for several
weeks, months, or years, your weight will go up or down as the system adapts to account for the change
in energy availability. When youre in a neutral energy balance or youre eating at maintenance youre
providing your body with roughly what it needs to maintain body mass: both fat-free mass (mostly
muscle, bone, vital organs, anything that isnt body fat) and fat mass (body fat).
When you put on weight, youre essentially just telling your body to store energy and grow. As an
example, if your diet has consisted almost entirely of energy-dense, processed foods for years and
youve gained a considerable amount of weight, you can be reasonably certain that youre in a chronic
state of energy surplus. Losing weight happens for exactly the opposite reason. If you begin eating just
meats and veggies, there isnt any magic going on but youre pretty much guaranteed to see the scale
drop. Why? The meats and veggies do the trick simply because they are less energy dense; you reduced
your energy intake, entered into a state of chronic energy deficit, and that caused the weight loss.
Its true that you could achieve an energy deficit eating practically anything but a bagel and coffee for
breakfast, followed by a sandwich, chips, and a soda for lunch will leave you starving whereas meat and
veggies will fill you up (well come back to this example in a bit.) That sounds like the ultimate duh
statement but most people dont put a whole lot of consideration into the way they eat. Its not that
any one of those things is inherently bad on occasion; its that they dont really address why we need
food.
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transformed into glucose and used for energy production, the process is fairly slow and costly, resulting
in a significant loss of energy.
The thermic effect of food (TEF) is essentially a tax the body pays to break down and store food. Of all
three macronutrients, protein comes with the greatest tax. What that means is that some of the energy
we derive from food is lost as heat when its metabolized (remember DIT) and that promotes weight loss
through increased energy expenditure. A protein-rich diet can be very helpful during weight loss to
maintain lean mass as well. (Paddon-Jones)
Protein is also highly satiating; it fills you up and effectively turns down the signal to your brain that
compels you to eat more. This can be very useful when you want to lose weight! Well go deeper into
the role satiety plays in your diet later.
When developing a way of eating, protein should always be the base of your nutritional pyramid. A
good place to start is at about 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight and some people may benefit
from as much as 1g per pound of body weight or more. (Helms, Zinn, Rowlands, & Brown) Later, well
go into greater detail regarding who exactly benefits from eating more protein but for now, keep those
numbers in mind.
The next two macros, fat and carbohydrates, represent the bulk of the energy in your diet. Many diets
are based on either eating fats or eating carbs as the primary fuel source, usually in a mutually exclusive
fashion. Recall the bagel and soda example from earlier and you have one of the primary reasons most
people fail on low fat diets; Calorie-for-Calorie, carbohydrates just arent as satiating as fat and protein.
Diets focused on limiting dietary fat in favor of carbs leave the person hungry, which leads to snacking,
and perhaps binging. Once you open the floodgates, its game over. I know this because that was my
life for years; I got to five oclock and I was starving and I certainly didnt make the best choices for
myself.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could choose to eat fat as your primary source of energy.
Most people argue that fats keep you full longer and are your bodys preferred fuel source at rest. Fats
should be part of the equation but suggesting that you need to eliminate carbs misses the point and
often leads to either over eating fats (which can store as fat without the presence of insulin) or
drastically under-eating. Certainly a diet that consists of proteins, fats and fibrous veggies is a good
thing but its unnecessary to leave out the starchy carbs and I will explain why.
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Why then do carbohydrates get a bad rap for being inflammatory? The primary reason is that since
carbs require water to be stored, they do come with a certain water tax, somewhere around 2g of
water for every 1g of glucose. That means that carbohydrates add water weight to your body, which
can make you feel bloated, sluggish, and inflamed. Again, theres a lot more going on here and lifestyle
factors ultimately influence how carrying extra water weight makes you look and feel.
From a perspective of losing body fat, cutting carbs to inhibit water retention is a bit of fools gold.
Rapid weight loss associated with a low carb diet gives you the impression you are making more
progress than you are but when you actually test body composition, what you see is that ultimately you
arent addressing sustainable fat loss over time.
Another argument against dietary carbs is that they arent technically necessary for your body to
function, which is based in truth but misconstrued as it applies in the real world. Remember that
protein can be used to create glucose through a process called gluconeogensis. The problem is that
when you limit dietary carbohydrates and force your body to make glucose, you effectively increases
your protein requirements since a large portion of your protein intake will be used for energy
production rather than repair and growth. The bottom line: when you restrict carbohydrates, youll
likely end up restricting total Calories as well. Under those circumstances, you arent allowing your body
and muscles full recovery and for athletic people that is a really big deal.
If you look at that last paragraph and think to yourself Phew! He isnt talking about me. Im not an
athlete! Well, I have news for you. On the contrary, even sedentary people need carbohydrates
(provided there isnt medical issue like diabetes at play)! You learned earlier that your basal metabolic
rate is essentially just a way to quantify the amount of energy it takes to keep your vital organs
functioning at rest. An interesting fact is that around 25% of that energy goes towards fueling your
brain, which runs almost entirely on glucose. Thats right: even at rest, your brain needs a continuous
stream of carbohydrates to function, about 50g each day for a 150 lb. woman!
Even if you do achieve a certain level of success with a low-carb diet, eventually youll add back in the
carbs with disastrous results. A lot of the impact is mental. When you deny yourself something, it can
often lead to binging when its reintroduced. The solution to this conundrum is a balanced approach to
nutrition called flexible eating.
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First, let me start out by saying that for as long as I have known what a true carb is, I have always (I
guess not technically always) had a sort of fear of them. Within the past 2 years, the light bulb finally
went off in my head and I had that much-needed Ah-ha! moment. This has truly got to be the best
thing, both physically and mentally, to have ever happened to me.
I want to rewind to when this amazing experience first occurred. In August 2012, a group I was part of
decided to have a friendly sixteen week competition where guys and gals were separated into categories
of cutting and bulking. At the time, I honestly did not have a lot of so-called weight or fat to drop, but I
had bulked over the summer and put on some extra fat that I wasnt feeling comfortable with. I decided
to be a good sport and join in, to help keep the others in the group motivated. My initial plan (in my
mind) was easy: I thought, Well crap, Ill just go low carb with a once-a-week refeed, drop a bunch of
fat and breeze through this!! Well, that was a nightmare; a freaking nightmare. If you look up freaking
nightmare in the dictionary, it will reference a picture of me. I was still continuing to lift heavy at the
gym three days a week. The first couple of days were fine, but then my workouts started to suffer.
Actually, they sucked. I was so weak that my body would tremble with simple movements like dumbbell
bench press. My main lifts, like deadlift, squat and bench press, were even worse. My pulse would race
to the point that I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, but I kept up with it for six weeks. At the
end of the six weeks, the scale had only moved a whopping 3lbs. Only 3lbs???!! What?? I wanted to
eat my sweet potatoes, kabocha squash, and Brussels sprouts more than once a week!! So, I sat and
thought it out and said, There has to be a better way.
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If you think you might have a food allergy or sensitivity, I urge you to consult a physician before you add
a questionable food into your plan. Even if you dont have a diagnosable allergy, you should work with
your doctor to understand why you respond negatively to the food. You might be avoiding something
unnecessarily, or you might be avoiding the wrong food without realizing it. This can save you months
(if not years) of discomfort and frustration.
If you havent been diagnosed with an allergy, but suspect you may be sensitive to or intolerant of a
food, you should certainly remove it from your diet but you should consider the impact it will have on
your overall nutrition. Removing a major food group can result in a nutrient deficiency, so you should
replace the potentially aggravating foods with other sources that provide similar benefits without the
negative side-effects youre experiencing.
For instance, if you remove whole wheat from your diet to avoid gluten, youll reduce carbohydrate and
fiber intake. To account for this modification, you should replace wheat with brown rice. Another
alternative would be white potatoes (for the carbs) and broccoli (for the fiber).
Just as the removal of a food from your plan may necessitate replacing it with something else to prevent
nutrient deficiencies, if you are considering reincorporating a previously off-limits food and you want to
experiment, youd do well to have a plan. Start off by slowly eating more of the reintroduced food to
gauge your response.
Lets say you havent eaten bread in three years because the last time you ate it, it made you feel
bloated and you were convinced you had a gluten sensitivity. Now, after over a year, youre not so sure
and youre ready to give it another try. Please dont immediately jump into eating bread twice a day for
the next week! Instead, begin reintroducing gluten with half a slice of toast or something to that effect.
Dont go overboard.
Hunger/satiety
One of the least considered factors in setting up an effective nutrition plan is how certain foods affect
your hunger levels. The satiating effect of whole foods is a major contributory factor in why people tend
to lose weight when they opt for a nutrition strategy based around altering food options. Indeed, many
highly processed foods have a minimal effect on hunger levels while whole foods are often highly
satiating. For instance, when selecting starchy carbohydrate sources, you want to consider things like
fiber, the amount of water present in the food, as well as the total weight/volume of food consumed.
Compare two slices of toasted white bread (processed food) to a small sweet potato (whole food). Both
foods will provide roughly the same amount of energy, and most of it will come in the form of glucose.
The major functional difference between these two selections is that the toast isnt going to fill you up;
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there isnt much substance to it as its dry and barely weighs anything, while the sweet potato, which
has more fiber, water, and weighs twice what the toast does, will effectively satisfy your hunger. In this
way, you may actually be influenced to eat less if you eat the sweet potato, even though it provides the
same ballpark number of Calories as the toast.
If youre attempting to lose weight, highly satiating foods can become your best friend, especially when
you have a very specific fat loss goal in mind. When Calories are set low, hunger signals will be
increased and choosing foods that make you feel full may prevent you from overshooting your daily
Calorie/macro goals without the negative mental effects of eating a hypocaloric diet. On the flip side,
Calorie-dense, low satiety foods may be conducive to gaining weight and they can be useful for fueling
extremely high energy demands. If your daily Calorie goals are set high (as they are for many athletes)
the opposite can occur and its very easy to undershoot if you eat highly satiating foods. In this instance,
foods that provide more Calories without the impact on hunger can make the task of eating what may
seem like an insurmountable number of Calories much more easily attainable.
From the standpoint of hunger signaling VOLUME MATTERS. A Snickers might satisfy your hunger
temporarily but the Greek yogurt does the trick for much longer, which is why diets that emphasize real
foods like this have good success rates. Fibrous veggies are pretty important whether you are trying to
expand your caloric needs or trying to restrict them. Youll find overall that when youre trying to
increase your energy intake youll need to be less reliant on fibrous veggies and when you are restricting
your energy intake, you will be more reliant on them. Veggies take up a lot of room in your stomach and
have very little useable energy. For that reason, you dont really want to go overboard with them at any
point. A few servings a day is perfect.
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(2) Snickers 2 to
Go:
Protein: 8g
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I recommend you exercise every day during your diet break. Its important to maintain the habit of
regular exercise, so it wont be hard to become more active when its time to lose weight. This also helps
you understand that exercise is about more than burning Calories. If youre trying to maintain your
weight, you need to find other sources of motivation to exercise, such as enjoying being outside.
When people exercise, they also generally feel more motivated to eat well and feel more in control.
You dont need to do hard workouts every day, but you should stay active.
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In May of 2011, I had the privilege of witnessing my younger sister Elizabeth graduate from the
University of South Florida with her Bachelors degree. All along shes told me that she pursued her
degree not for herself, but for her family; for me. Her accomplishment inspired me to take a look deep
inside myself and reflect upon my own life. I asked myself what I was doing with the time Id been
given, what my ancestors would think of me, as well as where I was going to end up if I continued on the
path Id set out upon.
I had given up on my life-long goal of becoming a successful musician and started work as a line cook at
a local barbecue restaurant; I had never made so little money for so much work but it was all I could
find. My social life had dwindled to nothing, my girlfriend was constantly at my throatmy self-esteem
had hit rock bottom. Not only was I poor, uneducated, and demotivated, but I was also fat, weak, and
chronically ill. I contemplated ending everything practically every day, but I thought to myself, I cannot
let my sister down. I have to get better. If not for myself, I have to do it for her. I made a promise to
her that I wouldnt carry on that way any longer.
Fast-forward to now: Im writing and editing this eBook, Im an NASM certified personal trainer and
nutrition coach, Im a state record-holding powerlifter, I run at least 5 kilometers every week, and I can
pull a 2.5x bodyweight deadlift any day of the week. I make enough money to provide for myself and
my family and I have a new car after eight years of riding a bike to work!
Its absolutely astonishing how things can change if you keep an open mind and take advantage of the
incredible fountain of information we commonly refer to as the Internet. I lost over 50lbs, added
45lbs of muscle to my frame, and (most importantly) found new respect for myself and my body. It
wasnt easy; I wasted a lot of time (and muscle), drove myself crazy on a few occasions and endured
countless paradigm shifts, but I made it.
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a day) paleo diet. Marks Daily Apple became my Bible and I almost bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers. I sprinted, played, did a ton of pushups, synthesized a ton of vitamin D, and within six months
Id dropped from 56 180lbs to 130lbs. I got a gym membership and started doing some HIIT training
on machines (think Arthur Jones), but as 2012 rolled around, low carb perma cutting had rendered me
a spry 120lbs.
After posting a progress picture on my favorite Facebook group (which Paul happens to have created) it
hit me: I was emaciated, and I wasnt all that lean. I thought to myself, Oh my God. How did this
happen!? I had struggled with bulimia and self-abuse in high school, so I was surprised that it took me
so long to see what I was doing to myself. I knew that there had to be a better way, so I fired up the
Google, did some research and took the plunge; I started training and eating like a powerlifter.
The cornerstone of my new lifestyle was eating a ton of food and heavy barbell lifts to the tune of the
Westside conjugate method. When I began training in February (30 months ago as of this writing), I was
benching 95lbs for two reps, I couldnt squat the bar, and deadlifting actually gave me an upper
respiratory tract infection the first time I tried it. Im not kidding. It was THAT bad.
Now, Ive never been a very athletic person; I was born with clubbed feet, my shoulders and hips
dislocate at will, and the only sport I ever liked was hockey (GO RED WINGS!) so although my numbers
arent fantastic, Im proud of what Ive accomplished. Im a competitive powerlifter and I hold a Florida
state record in the United States Powerlifting Association. My best lifts in competition are a 369 lb.
squat, 203 lb. bench press, and 435 lb. deadlift. I went from a bodyweight of 122 lbs. to 173 lbs. and
maintained a relatively lean physique. I attribute the bulk (pun intended) of my strength and muscle
gains to how I ate over the course of this period.
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Eat To Perform and Met Flex are part of a toolkit into which Ive reached and pulled out a viable method
of continuously getting stronger and gaining weight, of healing the metabolic and psychological damage
that dieting can cause in those whore susceptible. My mind has been liberated, my world
reconstructed, and I have a much healthier relationship with eating; for the first time in my adult life,
food and physical activity are my best friends. Im proud of myself and I feel like Im finally living up to
the promise I made to my sister.
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What were ultimately looking for is a seven-day average of total Calories consumed, protein,
carbohydrates, and fat.
For example:
Monday
Carbs: 230g
Fat: 110g
Protein: 145g
Calories: 2490
Tuesday
Carbs: 145g
Fat: 130g
Protein: 100g
Calories: 2150
Wednesday
Carbs: 220g
Fat: 100g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 2380
Thursday
Carbs: 160g
Fat: 110g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 2230
Friday
Carbs: 230g
Fat: 90g
Protein: 115g
Calories: 2190
Saturday
Carbs: 280g
Fat: 135g
Protein: 170g
Calories: 3015
Sunday
Carbs: 340g
Fat: 135g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 3170
Average
Carbs: 229g
Fat: 115g
Protein: 140g
Calories: 2517
Here are some general rules to follow for the initial one week tracking period:
Report accurately. Youre logging your food to collect data so you know how to make
modifications that will put you closer to your goals. That means weighing your food when
possible and being honest about portion sizes.
Try to be consistent. Dont log Monday but skip Tuesday unless you have to. Dont fill out
Wednesday halfway because you couldnt find a couple minutes to log your dinner. The more
consistent you are, the more accurate your data will be!
Dont stress. If you do miss a day or you cant weigh and measure your food, do your best but
dont beat yourself up over anything. Get a good picture of what a busy day where you dont
have much time to eat looks like as well as a day where you eat for joy and dont pay much
attention to your food choices and call it well enough.
description of its functions. The height, weight, and age fields are fairly self-explanatory but the
rest of the options may require some explanation.
Activity
This is the money spot right here. If you work out, Moderately Active probably represents the activity
level of a guy/gal who trains 2-3 times a week and works a relatively inactive job. Very Active people
work out 4-5 times a week. Extra Active correlates with someone who exercises with intensity and
works a pretty active job, or does two-a-days in the gym.
The next two fields, gender and units are also self-explanatory; youre either a male or female. If
you live in the United States, select Imperial. If you live anywhere else and you measure in grams,
liters and meters, you will want to switch to Metric.
Results
There are two options here but for our purposes, you want to select TDEE (total daily energy
expenditure) and ignore the -10% option.
Protein Calculation
This provides you with two settings: 1 gram per lb. and LBM. LBM or Lean Body Mass is based off of
the body fat percentage that you input in the next field. If you dont know your body fat percentage,
either select the first option or make a guess; you dont need to be 100% accurate.
Fats
The calculator can also solve for carbs based upon how much fat youre going to eat. When solving for
fat, you should go for roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight.
Carbs
This gives you a drop-down menu where you choose your theoretical carb intake for a day. That
number combined with your protein number allows the calculator to come up with a suggestion for how
many grams of fat (not carbs) you need to eat to reach your TDEE goal. Carbs should be set at roughly
35-45% of your daily Calories or 1.3-1.8 grams per pound of body weight.
With everything plugged in, you can hit the calculate button and get a fairly accurate estimate of your
ideal TDEE! Hooray!
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BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )
Its important to note that variations in body composition can affect your BMR significantly. People
whore either very lean or carrying around a lot of body fat may find that the resultant numbers dont
line up with data obtained from other methods of estimating BMR, like scales or body fat tests. This is
OK. There will always be some level of trial and error involved in applying calorimetry to real-world
scenarios. The potential for slight inaccuracy does not render the equation useless.
After youve estimated your BMR, you simply multiply it by an activity factor to determine TDEE.
Activity Multiplier
Sedentary (little or no exercise)
BMR x 1.2
BMR x 1.375
BMR x 1.55
BMR x 1.725
BMR x 1.9
Again, because of variations in body composition, training intensity, duration, and a host of other
factors, this number is only an educated guess (albeit a very well-educated guess).
Now that youve done a bit of math, youre ready to begin putting it to use to develop a new approach
to nutrition that will stick with you for the rest of your life.
Step 3: Un-dieting
At this point, youre left with two sets of numbers: one set represents what youre currently eating, and
the other set represents what you should be eating. The difference may be staggering, and you may
feel confused. If youre a highly active person youre probably under-eating quite significantly and you
know that needs to change. So what the heck do you do?
The answer is to gradually add in more food over the course of a few weeks (or even months) until
youre hitting your TDEE on a consistent basis. Many people refer to this as reverse dieting or a diet
break, but wed like you to think of it as un-dieting. Youre simply moving towards giving your body
what it needs to function properly so you can move on to effective and sustainable weight loss.
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your digestive system throughout the day. In general, this will make you gain about 3-5 pounds in the
first week or so.
Youll find that you have more energy as your body recovers from the stress of undereating and you
might notice a more full look in the mirror.
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Calories over the course of several weeks will allow you time to adapt and potentially minimize any fat
gain. You realize the value of eating at maintenance and taking breaks for both your mind and body.
Keeping all of that in mind, here are a few tips you can employ to keep your weight relatively stable
once youve gone through the un-dieting process.
1. Eat the same foods most of the time. While you should eat a wide variety of foods, you dont
want to eat randomly. Develop several standard daily meal plans that fit your TDEE and adopt
an 80/20 rule so you dont go overboard or restrict your food intake. For example, if you eat a
couple fried eggs and a small bowl of oatmeal each morning but you forget to buy oatmeal, its
OK to substitute with fruit or maybe even a bagel as long as you arent allergic or sensitive to the
substitute.
2. Continually self-monitor. As weve explained at several points throughout this eBook,
developing habits that help you accomplish your goals is key to managing your nutrition. You
dont want to constantly track food and weigh yourselfyou want to live your life, be healthy,
and look good! That said, it can be very helpful to occasionally revisit the process of logging
your food to make sure you arent dramatically under or overshooting your food intake. For
more examples of habits that can help you stay on the right track, revisit the section Dieting
Doesnt Have to be so Hard from earlier in this eBook.
3. Remain active. I know this isnt a problem for everyone wholl read through these pages, but it
has to be noted that most people who maintain weight easily are active at least a couple times a
week. Diet and exercise in combination are the key to weight management! If you arent
already exercising, you should start as soon as possible. Weight training and aerobic work like
walking, running, and cycling are all valuable tools to bring along on the quest for health. If you
do high intensity exercise, youve already got this part covered.
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At Eat To Perform, we typically suggest that new people work up to their maintenance Calories from
wherever is theyre at when they arrive at our digital doorstep. Once theyre eating at TDEE on a
consistent basis, we like them to cycle Calories between higher carb days and lower carb days based
upon their activity levels, referred to colloquially as loading and control days.
Heres an example of what that loading and control days might look like throughout a week.
Daily TDEE: 2155 Calories
Monday (workout)
Carbs: 225g
Fat: 75g
Protein: 145g
Calories: 2,155
Tuesday (workout)
Carbs: 230g
Fat: 75g
Protein: 145g
Calories: 2,175
Wednesday (rest)
Carbs: 100g
Fat: 85g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 1,765
Thursday (workout)
Carbs: 225g
Fat: 80g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 2,220
Friday (workout)
Carbs: 220g
Fat: 80g
Protein: 145g
Calories: 2,180
Saturday (rest)
Carbs: 115g
Fat: 75g
Protein: 140g
Calories: 1,695
Sunday (rest)
Carbs: 100g
Fat: 90g
Protein: 150g
Calories: 1,810
What happens, naturally, is that the more rest days you have each week, the greater the Calorie deficit
you create. This allows you to keep your average Calorie intake at just below TDEE so that you
essentially maintain body weight, but give your body the chance to utilize the principles of Metabolic
Flexibility you run on mostly fat during your rest days, and rely more upon carbohydrates when you
need them the most.
Well go over a few more examples of how to use Calorie cycling for different goals in the next few
sections so keep this fresh in your mind.
Calories: Equal to established TDEE with control and loading days based upon activity levels
Protein: Roughly 25% of your daily Calories or 1 gram per pound of body weight
Fat: Roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight
Carbs: Roughly 35 to 45% of your daily Calories or 1.3-1.8 grams per pound of body weight,
adjusted between loading and control days
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Heres an example of what your average monthly Calories might look like over the course of an 8 month
period:
Starting Weight: 151
lbs.
January
February
March
56,000
Calories
56,000
Calories
4 lbs.
weight
loss
8 lbs.
weight
loss
500 Calories
April
May
June
July
August
54,000
Calories
54,000
Calories
66,000
Calories
12 lbs.
weight
loss
16 lbs.
weight
loss
Maintenance
at 135 lbs.
68,000 Calories
If this seems to you like this is a slow rate of weight loss, if it appears as though youre taking a long time
to lose only 16 lbs. of fatThen youre right. This IS a slow approach, but there are two very important
benefits to taking it slow rather than trying to lose weight as fast as possible.
First of all, this rate of weight loss will spare lean mass. Whether youre losing weight to look better, or
youre doing it to improve your strength:weight ratio and enter a lower weight class for competitive
reasons, maintaining as much lean mass as possible is vital. If you lose too much lean mass as you lose
weight, youll just look like a smaller version of your former self, and youll see a significant decrease in
athletic performance. Thats not good!
Second, losing only 1 lb. of weight each week and taking long breaks to un-diet is sustainable. In Part I
of this eBook, you learned all about (and have very likely personally experienced) the dreaded weight
loss stall. With a slow and steady approach, stalls will occur less frequently because youre allowing
your body to recover during the periods of maintenance. Equally beneficial is the fact that youll be
focused on achieving several small goals throughout the year. Biting off small chunks to achieve a
greater goal will keep your head clear and youll be able to stick to your guns as you lose fat because
youre only eating slightly less than normal.
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1. Intensity and strength should remain the same or increase. If you were (for example)
overhead pressing a 50 lb. barbell for 5 repetitions during maintenance, you should strive to
increase or at the very least maintain the weight on the bar for the same number of repetitions.
In the same vein, if youre running an 8:00 mile, you should try to improve or at least maintain
your speed. In other words, dont lift lighter and dont slow down just because youre eating
less. Keeping the intensity up will go a long way to preserve lean mass as you lose weight.
2. Volume should decrease slightly. When intensity is high, volume should be low. In response to
decreased energy input, energy output should naturally decrease. Dont eat less/do more or
youll just create an unnecessarily large Calorie deficit, which is not favorable as far as sparing
lean mass is concerned. You want to do the smallest amount of the most effective work to
maintain lean mass in an energy deficit. That might mean dropping some assistance exercises or
doing fewer sets on days youre just not feeling it. Do not sacrifice intensity for volume stick to
the basics. Get in, get out!
3. Frequency should remain about the same. You dont need to be in the gym lifting weights or
plodding away on a treadmill every day while you lose weight. If youve found success doing
resistance training and cardio 3x a week on maintenance Calories, just keep things how they are
so that you dont unwittingly increase volume, which will necessitate a concomitant decrease in
intensity.
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2. Eat most of your carbs before your workouts. Carbohydrates are the preferred energy source
of the human body. In Keeping the carbohydrates: why a balanced approach is better, you
learned that your brain and nervous tissues use a considerable amount of glucose each day,
even at rest. Another tissue that needs a lot of glucose to operate at peak capacity is skeletal
muscle. Unfortunately, carbohydrate intake will, under most circumstances, have to drop
during a fat loss plan to facilitate an energy deficit; Calories from fat can only drop so low
because theyre necessary for basic functions like absorption of vitamins and production of cell
membranes.
Since glucose will be scarce and Calories from carbohydrates will be lower, its important to pay
a bit of attention to nutrient timing and make sure that you get in a good amount of
carbohydrates before you exercise so that you can keep your energy up. Remember that
intensity of exercise needs to be either preserved or improved upon during a weight loss phase.
To ensure that you maintain a high level of performance, eat up to 50% of your daily carbs in
your pre-workout meal. The exact amount will vary based upon how you respond so you need
to experiment with this to hit the nail on the head.
3. Allow room to eat for joy. While you do want to emphasize high-satiety foods on a fat loss
diet, theres no reason to completely exclude foods you love when the opportunity presents
itself. Remember that fat loss takes place over the course of many weeks and months, not
overnight. A night out at the movies with your family that involves ice cream or pizza wont
hurt if you plan for it and refrain from using it as an excuse to binge for the next week. When
you do eat for joy, make it count dont feel guilty for messing up your diet. Instead, enjoy
yourself and eat mindfully. Think about how good the particular food tastes, and how awesome
it is that you can still have foods you enjoy while you lose weight.
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If a larger Calorie deficit doesnt get your weight moving downward, youre probably at the point where
you need to head back to maintenance for a few weeks before you recommence losing weight. Its
really that simple.
Calories: 10-15% (200-500 Calories) or more below established TDEE, mostly by reducing
carbohydrates
Protein: 25-30% of your daily Calories or 1-1.2 grams per pound of body weight (depending
upon how lean you are)
Fat: 40% of your daily Calories or 0.7 grams per pound of body weight
Carbs: 35% of your daily Calories or 1.3 grams per pound of body weight
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As an example, someone whos set aside a solid 8 months to gain weight might have to gradually build
up to eating 28,000 Calories over maintenance to gain even 7 lbs. of solid body weight.
Starting Weight: 151
lbs.
January
February
March
May
June
July
August
84,000
Calories
89,600
Calories
93,800
Calories
98,000
Calories
80,500
Calories
April
78,000 Calories
Maintenance
at 165 lbs.
enemy when youre trying to lose body fat become your most valuable tools when youre trying
to pack on lean mass.
All things considered, that doesnt mean you want to live on fast food and baked goods. You
should instead think about building upon the foods both in terms of volume and selection
that you would eat to maintain your weight.
2. Log your food dilligently to avoid under-eating. Again, self-monitoring of food intake is key to
achieving your desired result. You may feel like youre eating a lot...you may be eating some
pretty huge meals...but the fact of the matter is that most people inaccurately report how much
theyre eating! They undershoot when theyre trying to gain weight, and they overshoot when
theyre trying to lose weight! Dont let that happen to you take the time to log your meals and
remain accountable.
3. Get the bulk of your surplus Calories from carbohydrates. Carbs are highly thermogenic in an
active body especially when the majority of your activity involves heavy resistance training.
(Denzer & Young) What that means is that a considerable amount of energy is lost just
processing carbs after training. Because of this effect, you can potentially stay leaner on a high
carbohydrate weight gain diet than you would on a high fat weight gain diet. In addition,
increased carbohydrate consumption will ensure that you have plenty of fuel for your workouts,
enabling you to push your workload higher and higher.
4. Eat for joy on a regular basis. Again, weve reached a stark contrast among the strategies to
gain and lose weight. Whereas eating out with your friends and family can put you at a
detriment when your goal is to lose weight, gaining weight is another story. You shouldnt go
nuts and order 3 sundaes for yourself on date night, but you should very seldom turn down the
opportunity to get some extra Calories in...especially when its a food you love. Remember to
exercise moderation and get the majority of your Calories from whole foods while taking
advantage of the fact that any bit of extra energy you can put in your body will probably be
useful.
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Calories: 15-30% (500-1000 Calories) or greater above established TDEE, mostly from
carbohydrates
Protein: Roughly 20% of your daily Calories or 0.8 grams per pound of body weight
Fat: Roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight
Carbs: Roughly 50% of your daily Calories or 2 grams per pound of body weight
Weight Training: IDEALLY high volume, heavy weight, high frequency but only if the Calories
are there to support the workload
Conditioning: IDEALLY moderate exertion, low volume, moderate frequency but only if Calories
are there to support the workload
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My name is Paul Nobles. I am the founder of Eat To Perform. I am both a Level One and Kids certified
coach and I have a BA in Liberal Arts from Metropolitan State University.
Like a lot of people, my dieting history was complex. The standard advice to eat less and do more never
made sense to me but I tried that route for what amounted to roughly 10 years. Basically every other
Thanksgiving I would either show up as a smaller or bigger version of myself. The problem with the eat
less/do more approach is that its an attempt to defy physics. Food is energy so denying yourself food
and then asking your body to perform more work might work initially but you are essentially playing a
rigged game.
Dieting, for me, like with most people, just left me fat and out of shape. At my worst, I weighed 225 lbs.
and I wasnt motivated to do anything. Logic would have me burning the candle at both ends to lose
weight but what works best is something less taxing to my system. For me, things started with exercise
but I quickly realized that food needed to be part of the equation as well. The only thing that came from
working out excessively did was pain and sickness. From 225 lbs. I was able to get down to 185 just by
improving my nutrition. After that my approach had to be refined and a lot of things I thought Id never
give up had to go. I eliminated them one at a time. Here are a couple short examples of what was
wrong and what I did to change things:
1. Coming from a mostly glucose-dependent way of eating, I often filled up with carbs which didnt
leave a lot of want for protein. I switched that around, focused on eating more protein, and things
changed drastically. Not only is protein favorable for hunger signaling but it also aids in the
maintenance and repair of muscle. The two single greatest things you can do for fat loss are to eat
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adequate amounts of protein combined with a resistance training program (lifting weights or body
weight movements).
2. I lived for coffee with cream and sugar. Honestly, just writing that is laughable now because its been
so many years since I have drank it that way. What I found was that iced coffee was more palatable
black, so I started drinking that. Eventually (like most people) I just let my coffee cool a bit and I learned
I liked it better than iced coffee. Now I drink my coffee black. That was 200 Calories a day that could
either be eliminated or replaced with better nutrients.
That, however, is only half of my story. I eventually got down to 149 lbs. and 9% body fat. When youre
overweight, you sort of envision things a certain way but the dream is different than reality. Sure, it was
nice to have veiny abs and a well-defined 4-pack but once all the fat was gone I look emaciated, not like
the muscular person Id envisioned. I also wasnt phenomenal at exercise; body weight movements
were great but not vastly better than they are now that Im heavier. Certainly I couldnt lift what I can
now. I was just looking back at my journal; since that time I have put almost 200 pounds on my deadlift
and just over 100 pounds on my squat. Thats the problem with fat loss: it sort of robs you of a lot of
things that you might not realize are important. Once I lost my obsession with body fat percentage my
performance took off. I also gained a lot more muscle.
That probably sounds great to the guys reading this but its likely not what most women want to
happen. Take my word though: after years of working with clients, most women pursuing fat loss
would be much better off with a strategy that emphasizes building muscle. Setting arbitrary aesthetic
goals based upon how much you weighed at some point in the past is pointless. Here are two examples
to illustrate my point:
Its pretty well known that we work with Games athlete Dani Horan. At this point Dani is on cruise
control and Im grateful to have contributed to her success, however minuscule our role may have been.
I was talking to a friends wife who told me she was 10 pounds over weight and I asked her How do you
know? She said Trust me I know. So I pulled up a recent picture of Dani and asked the gal how much
she thought Dani weighed. She guessed 105 lbs. I posed the same question to a number of women and
not one guessed over 125 lbs. which is why they were all astounded to find out that Dani in fact weighed
150 lbs! The problem for these ladies is that they have bought the starve and move mantra. Theyre
constantly putting their bodies in a state that isnt conducive to maintaining and building muscle. They
were all runners and none them lifted weights regularly so they are literally on the treadmill for life,
even though they have a shining example of the value of muscle right in front of them. I understand; we
all want abs but abs are muscles! If you arent building and preserving lean mass with regular resistance
training, its extremely hard to get defined abdominals.
For my second example, Id like to talk about another client who felt like she had some fat to lose. She
was 160 pounds. and 20% body fat but had been 15% at one point. She was also a doctor. When she
was leaner, she weighed 143 lbs. so she was under the impression that she had to get back there to get
to 15%. The major difference was that she had gained 9 pounds of muscle between those two weights.
So basically what that means is that her ideal number was adjusted to 152 pounds because of the
muscle. Mentally, that was a gigantic relief and what seemed daunting now became much more
realistic. The eight pounds came off easy.
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The point of these examples is that our perceptions often cloud reality. I am not saying that there wont
be hard work along the way but its much easier when you have good information and understanding in
front of you.
To end my story, I just felt too small at 9% body fat so I have spent the last three to four years just
enjoying my journey. I find that I like what I can do and feel better at about 15%. Thats one of the
enduring messages I hope we can get out there to people. While you certainly dont want to be obese,
most of the people we talk to on a daily basis arent. Unless there is a health issue, body fat is not an
accurate predictor of health so lets quit pretending it is. Its well-known that extreme dieting is more
detrimental to your well-being than a moderate approach. The obsession with maintaining uber-low
body fat isnt something I am a proponent of. Most athletes who maintain very low body fat
percentages do so because theyve built a significant amount of muscle, not because they dieted all the
time. You get that way from eating adequate amounts of food. I was personally stuck at 20% body fat
for a long time until I started eating enough food and lifting heavy weights. Adding 15 pounds of muscle
is what got me to 9%. This is why we dont want people to ignore muscle. We want people to know
that if your body needs 2300 Calories a day with adequate amount of proteins, fats, and (yes) carbs but
you are giving it 1500 Calories, you arent building muscle. End of story. That is the biggest argument
for not dieting most of the time, in my opinion.
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