12 Feb The Last Diet You’ll Ever Need To Be On
Are you tired of getting hyped over new fad diets, only to be let down because it’s not sustainable?
Me too.
Today, we’re going to learn the last diet you’ll ever need to be on.
This “diet” will provide a proven plan to help you maintain a lean and athletic body. Then, we’ll cover tips on how to tweak it to lose body fat or improve your strength and endurance.
Let’s start with the principles and why this proven plan will work.
The Principles
Eat For A Goal – Whether we realize it or not, we generally have one of 3 goals, improving our fitness (generally considered strength and endurance) while maintaining body fat, losing body fat, or gaining muscle mass. Most people generally want to maintain or lose body fat throughout the year. By being clear about what your goal is, you can tweak your nutrition intake to achieve your desired goal. Reevaluate monthly.
Calories In/Calories Out – It’s a law of life and the predominant factor to fat loss and body fat maintenance. The amount and type of training you do has a HUGE impact on the hormonal response on your calories out, but for simplicity, let’s assume that you’re doing strength and/or cardio training 2-5 times a week for 30-60 min. (The differences between 4 days of week of strength and metabolic conditioning versus 4 days of cardio cannot be understated, see “Break Your Plateau: Are You Doing Too Much Cardio” for more).
Macros – The type of calories that you consume strongly affects the hormonal response in your body as well. Protein repairs our body and has many functions for optimal health. Carbohydrates are an ideal energy source for performance and everyday life. Fat provides balanced energy with many other health benefits. In the long run, ALL ARE NEEDED for optimal health. Typical protein recommendations are often considered insufficient for a fit population. So for simplicity, we stay pretty consistent with our recommended protein intake and change carbs and fat based on your goals.
*If you favor a plant-based nutrition plan, the principles below still apply, but instead of meat, it will be replaced with fish, egg whites, or high protein carb sources such as beans, but the total calories should be the same.
Veggies – Vegetables provide fiber, vitamins, minerals, variety, improve your ph and they make you feel full. Just eat em!
Other Tips
Your Lifestyle Matters – Sleep 7-8 hours uninterrupted. Be conscious of your stress levels and the triggers that it has on stress eating. Limit alcohol to less than 6 drinks per week (the less, the better). Women, drink 80 oz of water and men drink 100 oz.
Portions Over Quality – I’m not saying that eating organic, all-natural and other types of “high quality” food aren’t important. I am saying that it’s not the MOST important thing. Focus on being consistent with proper portions first, then focus on food quality whenever reasonably possible. You can eat perfectly healthy at Chick-fil-A, Chipotle, and other “fast food” places if you know what to order. Avoid any known food allergies and try to make connections of bad reactions to different foods.
Build In Flexibility – We’ve found it most beneficial to be conservative with calorie projections because most people eat and drink many more calorie than they realize. Especially on the weekends. By assuming this will happen, you build in the flexibility for cheat meals, off days and still making consistent progress.
Simplicity – If it’s not simple and convenient, then it’s hard to be consistent. So I’m going to save the science lectures for another day and provide you with the blueprint that you need to get started today!
Your Maintenance Nutrition Plan (Your Baseline)
We prefer 4 meals per day, eating every 4 hours. This provides great energy while preventing cravings and crashes, but know that these meals are interchangeable (ex: if you prefer a light breakfast and bigger snack or dinner, be my guest!).
Instead of giving you the exact macros, I’ll use parenthesis for the predominant macro of each food. Protein (p), carbs (c), and fat (f). Feel free to swap out any source with a comparable food. Ex 1: Protein shake or 3 egg whites, Ex 2: 4 oz of steak or salmon.
This should still fuel your efforts to improve your strength and endurance while maintaining your body fat. Note that some people may need more or less total carbs and macros, but for 80% of Americans, this daily diet is pretty sound:
Women
Breakfast: A protein shake (p), a small handful of nuts (f) and 1/2 cup of oatmeal (c)
Lunch: A spinach salad with chicken (p, 4-5 oz) and low-fat balsamic dressing. Toppings may include a small portion of berries (c), nuts (f), etc.
Snack: A protein bar (p, often carbs from fiber)
Dinner: Steak or salmon (p, 4-5 oz) with asparagus and a medium potato (c) and a small amount of butter (f)
Men
Breakfast: A double protein shake (p), a handful of nuts (f) and 1 cup of oatmeal (c)
Lunch: A spinach salad with chicken (p, 6-8 oz) and low-fat balsamic dressing. Toppings may include a small portion of berries (c), nuts (f), etc.
Snack: A protein bar (p, often carbs from fiber)
Dinner: Steak or salmon (p, 6-8 oz) with asparagus and a medium potato (c) and a small amount of butter (f)
Your Fat Loss Nutrition Plan
If we’re trying to lose body fat, we need to decrease our carbs and fat slightly to put us in a calorie deficit.
Besides that, EVERYTHING IS THE EXACT SAME.
Here’s an example of what your daily diet should look like now:
Women
Breakfast: A protein shake (p), a small handful of nuts (f)
Lunch: A spinach salad with chicken (p, 4-5 oz) and low-fat balsamic dressing. Toppings may include a small portion of berries (c), nuts (f), etc.
Snack: A protein bar (p, often carbs from fiber)
Dinner: Steak or salmon (p, 4-5 oz) with 2 servings of asparagus
Men
Breakfast: A double protein shake (p), a small handful of nuts (f)
Lunch: A spinach salad with chicken (p, 6-8 oz) and low-fat balsamic dressing. Toppings may include a small portion of berries (c), nuts (f), etc.
Snack: A protein bar (p, often carbs from fiber)
Dinner: Steak or salmon (p, 6-8 oz) with 2-3 servings of asparagus
Improving Performance
If we’re trying to really focus on increasing our strength, endurance or sports performance, we suggest adding 200-300 more calories per day to the maintenance plan above (or whatever baseline meal plan that you’re following). This can be achieved by adding a cliff bar or banana and peanut butter to your snack. Or increasing the portion size of your potato or oatmeal.
If you’re trying to rapidly build muscle, then you’d add 400-600 calories a day to start and climb from there. This may be as simple as an additional meal with a cup of rice, chicken and a little butter.
Making It Convenient
The examples above were meant to be a simplified “perfect day” for reference.
Make sure to switch up your recipes regularly and use eating out as variety. We recommend meal prepping weekly to make it convenient and cost-effective. If you prefer to cook more then that’s totally cool.
Here are 10 examples of each type of food. You may swap any food below with the example meals in the provided meal plans:
Protein (lean): Chicken, sirloin steak, turkey, lean beef, pork loin, salmon, cod, egg whites, protein powders, protein bars
Carbs: Oatmeal, beans, sweet potato, white potato, fruit (strawberries, oranges, apples), brown rice, corn, whole grain bread (if you handle gluten well)
Fat: The fat that’s in your meat (ground turkey and beef) and fish (salmon), egg yolks, almonds, pecans, cooking oils (olive and coconut oil), butter, avocado
Veggies: Spinach, romaine lettuce, broccoli, asparagus, cauliflower, peppers, zucchini, kale, green beans, mixed veggies
If you follow the plan, you might be able to make transformations like some of our clients…
You now know the last diet that you’ll ever need to be on.
It’s on you to turn that knowledge into skill.
At Faster Fitness, that’s what we help you do best!
We’d love the opportunity for you to experience our 21 Day Metabolic Fast Track Program, which includes 4 Metabolic Strength Training sessions a week plus meal plans (with grocery lists, macros) and coaches that will help you integrate these new habits into your lifestyle. Click the picture below to learn more!