Nutrition

draft chapter of the book I'm working on that is relevant to this stack, questions and feedback welcome!

Brook Lark - Unsplash

What is the optimal diet? Like everything else in the realm of health and fitness, it depends. Your particular goals will more or less determine what is optimal, and since goals are highly variable I’ll confine this overview of how to make nutrition choices that work for you to support other higher order efforts to basic principles that are generally applicable.

CICO

First of all, a Calorie is simply a unit of energy. It could just as easily be expressed in other units such as calories (note the lowercase “c), Joules, or Coulombs, but when it comes to nutrition, everyone uses Calories by convention, so that is what we’ll use. I will sometimes abbreviate “Calorie” to “kcal” which is itself an abbreviation for “kilocalorie” or 1,000 calories. To be clear, one Capital “C” Calorie is exactly 1,000 lowercase “c” calories. Using Calories or “kcal” instead of calories makes Calorie counting a lot easier, which is probably why we use it! Calories-In/Calories-Out, or CICO for short, is a way of expressing a fundamental truth of the universe. This is essentially a formulation of the first law of thermodynamics as applied to human nutrition. Energy is neither created nor destroyed, in other words, it is conserved. This is more straightforward in a closed system, and humans aren’t closed systems, so when we’re looking at the flow of energy through a human being there are an incredible array of inputs and outputs that make tracking such things to the exact Calorie essentially impossible, but that doesn’t mean we can’t get close enough to use this information effectively. The reason CICO is important to consider, is because it can help prevent you from falling into the trap of believing that there are “magic” diets that will allow you to avert this fundamental rule of physics. If you take in more calories than you expend, your bodyweight will increase as that energy has to go somewhere, and that somewhere will probably take the form of bodyfat. We’ll take a look at outputs first which we can break down into two major categories: Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR) and physical activity.

RMR: This is the average energy expenditure over the course of a 24-hour period for any given person assuming no physical activity. There are countless metabolic processes that are ongoing at any given moment in time that keep you alive. These processes convert useful energy that is stored throughout the body (as triglyceride/fat or glycogen/carbohydrate) into unusable energy that dissipates into the surrounding environment in accordance with the second law of thermodynamics (entropy).

Physical Activity: This is everything that happens above and beyond those baseline processes accounted for as RMR. This can be non-exercise physical activity (NEPA) like cleaning your house or walking to and from a parking lot to conventional exercise like lifting weights or going for a run.

So, there you have it, those are your outputs. Now that we have that covered, we can talk about what is most important for this chapter, the inputs!

Caloric Intake

When we consume food and drink that contains energy, that energy comes in four basic forms often referred to as “Macronutrients”: Carbohydrate, Fat, Protein, and Alcohol. Each of these forms contains a different density or energy as well as other properties that are of strategic importance for anyone hoping to develop a basic understanding of how to develop their own nutrition plan.

Carbohydrates: Each gram of carbohydrate you consume has up to 4kcal of energy. Since your body can convert stored energy into carbohydrate if you run out, this is one of the two macronutrients you don’t need to consume in order to survive. Carbohydrate is very good at raising blood sugar and triggering an insulin response, which can be good or bad depending on your goals. Insulin is the most anabolic hormone in the body, so if you’re trying to gain weight, this is invaluable. If you’re trying to lose weight, it isn’t as helpful. There are four basic types worth discussing:

1. Starch. Starches are “complex” carbohydrates that need to be broken down into smaller parts in order to be absorbed into the bloodstream. Some examples of starchy foods include grains like rice, wheat, and oats. Many vegetables are predominantly starch as well such as potatoes, carrots, beets, peas, parsnips, and corn. Beans and legumes are starchy but do tend to come with more fiber and some protein than the other examples. Breaking down starches into their constituent components so that they can be absorbed takes a little time. If you have a meal with other macronutrients mixed in and/or a high fiber content, this process takes longer, so if you need energy for a current task such as an exercise session or even a cognitive task[i], you might be better off using…

2. Sugar. These “simple carbohydrates” are what starches get digested into. In nature there are foods high in sugar like fruit and honey, but they’re relatively rare. With the advent of industrial agriculture and modern food science that has changed of course, so now sugars get added to almost all processed foods because *surprise* they make them taste better. Unfortunately, this adds an unnatural quantity of energy to those foods and makes them equally unnaturally delicious/difficult to consume in moderation. Most people store about 70 grams of carbohydrate in the liver as “glycogen” that can very easily be converted into the simple sugar called glucose and dropped into the bloodstream to regular “blood sugar.” If you run out of this liver glycogen your body can start making its own glucose, but some people experience a decline in physical and cognitive performance when this happens, which is why I bring it up here. A single piece of fruit is often enough to restore liver glycogen levels in support of cognitive tasks while engaging in heavy exertion might warrant some extra sugars if optimal performance is a concern. That said, this effect will usually pale in comparison to caffeine use or even stimulating music. Like all the finer points of nutrition, it gets highly subjective at the margins, I just had to mention this because there are some for whom tactical use of simple sugars makes a clear and obvious performance difference. When consumed in excess, fructose releases some nasty metabolic byproducts when it gets converted for storage as fat, but here, like elsewhere, the problem is the excess energy, not the fructose.

3. Fiber. On nutrition labels, fiber is typically listed as a Carbohydrate. This is true, but the human body can’t metabolize fiber directly. That said, there are bacteria in your gut that can get the job done, and as it turns out, you CAN metabolize their excrement allowing you to get around 2-3kcal of energy from every gram of fiber you consume. Although the mechanisms are complex, it is generally accepted that fiber aids in digestion[ii], and might also aid in satiety[iii], so it is worth separate consideration. As noted above, you can live without carbohydrate, so you can also live without fiber, so admonitions about having to get a certain number of grams aren’t hard and fast requirements like some would have you believe. When in doubt, listen to your bowels for guidance.

4. Sugar Alcohols. These are typically used as sugar substitutes, although they’re found naturally in a variety of foods, mostly fruits and berries. The amount of kcal/g varies quite a bit within this category, so I won’t bother to list them all out. What I will do, is extol the virtues of my favorite sugar alcohol, and say why I avoid most others. Erythritol is my favorite sugar alcohol. Not only do I like the taste of products that use it such Truvia, which combines it with the stevia extract, it also contributes the fewest calories of all the sugar alcohols as most (>90%) is excreted via urine and is therefore not metabolized. Other sugar alcohols such as maltitol, xylitol, and sorbitol all tend to cause gastrointestinal disturbance in higher quantities so I avoid them, but everyone’s mileage may vary.

Fats: Fat is the most calorie dense of the macronutrients packing in a walloping 9kcal per gram. The diversity of fats is truly extraordinary, and there are purported health benefits associated with different types. I won’t go into all those details because I don’t think they’re super important for most people, but I will cover the basics. While fat is more calorie dense than carbohydrate, those trying to maximize muscle growth often rely more on carbohydrates because fat doesn’t trigger the same growth pathway that carbs do. Fat is one of the two essential macronutrients. If you have a zero fat diet, you will eventually die. Since many micronutrients are fat soluble, you can’t absorb them without having at least some fat. Fats are also required components for everything from the walls of your cells to the synthesis of hormones that are also critical for life. Some of these fat components can’t be made by the body, so if you want to keep the wonderous process of life flowing through your person, you’ll need to consume some of these essential fats. There are four basic types.

1. Trans Fat. I put these first because I can confidently say you should just avoid these. They do exist in nature in trace amounts, but they only became a problem when they were popularized as a “healthy” alternative to saturated fat that had this profound ability to extend the shelf life of anything you put them in. It turns out they wreck your health, go figure. Partially hydrogenated vegetable oil contains some trans fat, but food labels get to say “zero grams” of anything that has 0.5g or less of any given macronutrient per serving. Keep an eye out for tiny serving sizes and “partially hydrogenated vegetable oil” on the label. There’s probably some trans fat hiding in there if you see these things.

2. Monounsaturated fat. The classic example is olive oil, although avocado, peanut, and even Canola oil are mostly monounsaturated fat. These are thought of as “healthy fats” largely because of correlational studies showing improved health markers for those who practice a Mediterranean diet. I think these health benefits are a little oversold, but there are some weird things that monounsaturated fat seems to help with, but a single tablespoon of olive oil would likely give you all of those purported benefits. That said, it probably isn’t worth the extra calories to deliberately include if you’re trying to lose weight.

3. Polyunsaturated fat. These are the essential fatty acids. The omega-3 fatty acids seem to be very important for optimal health, particularly the EPA and DHA found in fish and fish oil supplements. If you aren’t eating a ton of fish, it makes sense to supplement with up to 4 grams of EPA and DHA daily (the literature tends to undersell fish oil because many studies use lower doses of around 1 gram EPA and DHA/day. Studies with higher dosages tend to show substantial effects). The other half of this equation, omega-6 fatty acids are also essential, but they’re almost impossible to avoid. No matter what you eat, you’ll probably get plenty of omega-6 fatty acids (probably too many, in fact).

4. Saturated Fat. The most maligned fat of all doesn’t really deserve its negative reputation. The poor reputation of saturated fat can essentially be traced back to the outright fraudulent research of Ancel Keys with his “lipid hypothesis” that cherry picked data that I vaguely referenced above with respect to Mediterranean diet. The bottom line is that it is far from clear that saturated fat poses any health risk when consumed in moderation. If you’re in a calorie surplus it might have a tendency to alter lipid profile (cholesterol levels) in ways that make physicians uncomfortable, but you’re getting enough Omega-3’s and you’re not in an energy surplus (i.e. eating too damned much) it doesn’t seem to have the same effect. I think of saturated fat the same way I think about fructose, not likely to give you problems if you’re not in a state of chronic energy surplus.

The main takeaways about fat that I would like to impart is that is the most calorie dense macronutrient, supplementing with 4g of DHA and EPA through fish oil makes sense, and avoiding trans fat is really important. Apart from those considerations you’re probably not going to see big differences by adjusting what types of fats you consume and their overall representation in your diet. What type of fat comes in the types of foods you prefer is probably the more relevant consideration.

Protein: Protein is another essential macronutrient, which, like carbohydrates carries 4kcal/g. You can’t do without it. Proteins are made up of amino acids, and some of these amino acids can’t be manufactured by the body. This wouldn’t be a big deal if you didn’t need some of these essential amino acids in order for your body to execute a number of vital functions. Oh yeah, muscle and connective tissue is composed almost entirely of protein. Getting enough protein to fuel your vital processes shouldn’t be an issue for you, because as someone who wants to be healthy and strong (right?) you’ll need a lot more protein than is required to just get by. If you are exercising in a way that will prolong the number of functional years you have on this earth, eating up to .7g/lb bodyweight in protein can lead to better performance and health. You can eat more than that, of course. In fact, there are some proposed mechanisms such as increased satiety and thermic effect of food that might explain why higher protein diets might be well suited for weight loss.[iv] might try to bring up research from the 1980’s indicating high protein diets are “hard on the kidneys,” but this is malarkey. If you have chronic kidney disease this is a consideration, but for everyone else, it isn’t. There’s one particular amino acid that might be more anabolic than the rest called L-Leucine, but other than that, I wouldn’t worry about amino acid profile of individual protein sources. What I would recommend is to prioritize animal sources of protein over plant sources.

My reasoning on this could be challenged, but you’ll not find any serious bodybuilders who disagree, unless of course they happen to be vegans. Vegans that espouse the equivalence of animal and plant protein are always vegan for ethical reasons first, which I find informative. Given the complexity of nutrition, motivated reasoning allows you to reach the conclusion that there isn’t a difference between plant and animal protein. To be fair, the literature is just equivocal enough to allow this. Nevertheless, I’m pretty damned sure animal protein is just better. Most people can feel a difference, and that should be enough, but I’ll throw out my cursory hypothesis as to why based on evolutionary biology. The parts of plants that want to be eaten don’t have protein. Protein is biologically expensive, and plants only make it because they need it in order to function. It isn’t advantageous for these valuable components of their corpus to be eaten, so plant variations that have somewhat toxic compounds tied closely together to the proteins of plants were selected for survival over their peers over the eons by herbivores interested in avoiding an upset stomach or other deleterious effects. One notable example that has important implications is the soybean plant. Most people know of the estrogenic effects of soy, which are perhaps a good enough reason to avoid it. A lesser known issue is that soy protein specifically carries compounds that inhibit the action of trypsin. Trypsin is an enzyme that is critical to the digestion of protein, so by consuming soy protein, you are also taking in an enzyme that inhibits your ability to absorb said protein. Counterproductive. Many other compounds like this exist and accompany other common plant-based sources of protein, but outlining them all is outside the scope of this chapter. The only point I’m trying to get across is that plant protein just isn’t as good as animal protein and provide one possible explanation as to why. By all means, try it out. Some people tolerate that shit better than others, but for most people it is much easier to get that .7g/lb protein without a bunch of other crap you don’t want by using animal sources.

One other important note about protein is timing. Have you heard that you can only absorb 30-40g of protein at a time? Well, it turns out that isn’t exactly true, but it does hint at something that is true and worthy of consideration. Whenever you eat protein the MTOR pathway of growth is activated. It turns out that the more protein you eat, the more MTOR activation you get, BUT only up to 40g. Beyond that point, you don’t get any more of that activation. Moreover, this trick works every 3-4 hours or so. This is the main reason bodybuilders have 4-6 meals/day. They are spreading out these protein intakes in order to maximize the ability of these feedings to trigger muscle protein synthesis. Maximizing muscle protein synthesis is a key tactic in the realm of performance nutrition and health almost regardless of your goals. If you’re trying to build muscle the application is obvious. If you’re trying to lose body fat, it is perhaps even more important though. When you’re in a calorie deficit there is always a potential to lose muscle mass. This “lean mass” is one of the key factors that determines your RMR, or how many calories you burn in a day aside from physical activity. It also plays a huge role in how easy it is for you to burn calories with physical activity! Finally, it makes you look awesome. If you’re able to lose bodyfat while retaining your muscle mass you’ll be a lot happier with how you look afterward, I promise. Protein intake and timing matters.

Ethanol/Alcohol: Alcohol can be a heck of a lot of fun, but unfortunately for the health conscious, it does have 7kcal/g and some deleterious impacts on health and performance, especially in higher quantities. The biggest problem alcohol typically poses though isn’t from the alcohol itself, but its impact on behavior. If you have a solid nutrition plan that is working great, nothing makes it easier to throw all that planning to the wayside than a solid buzz. In terms of general health effects such as cardiovascular risk it seems like men can get away with up to 2 standard drinks (28g of ethanol) while women seem to only be able to get away with 1 drink (14g of ethanol). Some research has shown that there is a sweet spot where this amount lowers your risk of certain health issues while causing other problems to a lesser extent making it a wash in terms of your overall health, but there isn’t a consensus on this. The bottom line is that there probably isn’t any amount of alcohol that is straight up good for you, so it is all about how much you enjoy it compared to the consequences that will determine your what works for you. If you’re going to drink and you like to get buzzed and you have some concerns about bodyfat, it is probably a good idea to fast for a couple hours before you drink, enjoy your drink on an empty stomach, then wait for your buzz to subside before eating. This is a good way to control those calories while being able to enjoy an adult beverage of your choice. 

Supplements: If you have a diet with a good variety of whole foods you almost certainly don’t need to supplement with anything, but I will talk about some supplements that tend to offer a good return on investment.

1. Fish Oil. I already mentioned this. 4g of DHA/EPA daily has pretty significant effects on lipid profile, especially combined with a hypo or isocaloric diet. The literature supports this and I’ve tested with a few people using bloodwork, including myself. It works.

2. Creatine Monohydrate. Cheap and effective at making you about 10% stronger. It will also make you heavier, but that extra weight is water getting held in your muscles making you look more jacked. There is some evidence that it even has positive cognitive benefits. 5g/day every day, why not? Well, some people are non-responders and it isn’t the best idea for endurance athletes. Everyone else should give it a shot.

3. Vitamin D3. Good to take with your fish oil. There is solid research showing that Vitamin D3 supplementation works better than a flu shot at preventing the flu. This might just be because flu shots are worthless, who knows, but the list of benefits for Vitamin D3 goes on and on, and there are probably benefits to pushing your blood levels into the highest end of the reference range. I won’t go into all the potential benefits because there are a lot ranging from promoting bone health to modulating autoimmune disorders and the effect sizes are all individually pretty modest, but put together this is absolutely worth your time and money. I would take 2,000-5,000 IU daily. Keep in mind, since this is fat soluble it can get toxic, probably won’t ever happen at those dosages, but such things are not unheard of. Perhaps get bloodwork every once in awhile to ensure you’re not overdoing it.

4. Zinc and Magnesium. Take these at night, a lot of folks are magnesium deficient and it can help you relax/sleep better, so why not? Also, there’s some evidence this helps with testosterone levels somehow. Go figure.

“Energy Balance” vs. the Micronutrient/Food Sensitivity/”Inflammation”/Macronutrient Breakdown/Optimal Timing Wormhole

In popular nutrition literature there is a huge focus on micronutrients, food sensitivities and allergies, inflammation, toxic exposure (such as heavy metals) and so on. I’m not going to say none of this stuff matters. It definitely matters, and for some people, many of these things can be game changes either individually, or in concert. That said, I don’t think any of it matters as much as energy balance. The thing is, energy balance is the hard part. In the modern world, hyperpalatable (extra tasty), hypercaloric (loaded with calories) food is the norm. Our bodies are not designed to be able to handle this glut of energy nor our minds resist the temptation to stuff our faces with foods that combine a blissful blend of fat, salt, and sweet crafted by food scientists operating with billion-dollar budgets. What essentially happens in this environment is our “low brain” (hat tip to the book Brain over Binge for introducing this concept as it pertains to food) convinces our neocortex that how much we eat isn’t really the problem. It’s that we’re not getting the right vitamins, or we’re eating too much of x and not enough of y. It’s that our aluminum pans are poisoning us, or it is all because of that damnable gluten! Anything that lets us avoid coming to terms with the truth: None of this matters much if we’re in a chronic calorie surplus. Of course, this doesn’t apply to people trying to gain weight, but note they’re almost never the ones perseverating on any of these issues. Let us address each of these factors individually.

1. Micronutrients. If you’re reading this, you probably don’t have a micronutrient deficiency. In the supplement section I mentioned some micronutrients that I do recommend, namely Vitamin D3 and Magnesium. If you have a varied diet of whole foods you are very unlikely to have a deficiency here.

2. Food Sensitivity, Allergy, and Metabolic Disorders. This one is complicated because for the folks that have issues with any of these things, they do make a huge difference. The thing is, most people don’t have these issues. First off, some of these issues can make it so that you essentially have zero tolerance for some components of food. Some of the most common include lactose intolerance and Celiac disease. If you have these issues, then removing the offending compound/food will be a game changer for you. If not, it won’t.

If you’re concerned that you have any of these, allergies and some metabolic disorders can be tested for, food sensitivity really can’t be. The only way to know for sure is to go scorched earth and do an elimination diet, the most extreme of which is cutting out everything except beef and salt. If this produces a notable improvement in your quality of life, you can add one thing back into your diet at a time until you notice a difference for the worse. At that point, you cut out the offending compound, get back to baseline, then continue until you’ve isolated what sensitivities you have. This takes incredible discipline, so unless you’re having some serious issues, it is probably best to save this strategy for those extreme circumstances. Also, if you’re obese, you’re probably better off getting into a hypocaloric diet/making progress losing bodyfat before trying a full on elimination diet. If that doesn’t get you feeling a bit better, you can always go more extreme. It is much easier to adhere to a hypocaloric diet than an elimination diet for most people.

3. Inflammation and Antioxidant Fixation. This one is probably the most dubious as compared to getting into a negative energy balance. Adipose (fat) tissue is highly inflammatory. The metabolic processes that happen when you are in an energy surplus are highly inflammatory. All of the problems that have been attributed to “inflammation” are generally looking at the consequences of a chronic hypercaloric diet. Don’t believe me? Review some nutrition literature. Anytime diets are evaluated based on health markers such as lipid profile, blood pressure, blood triglycerides, blood sugar etc. any differences between nutritional strategies (timing, macronutrient breakdown etc.) are completely negated when the study design adequately controls for calories. This fixation on inflammation and the idea that antioxidants can offset the metabolic damage caused by a chronic hypercaloric diet is just your low brain tricking you into thinking that you can drink massive fruit smoothies all day without having a negative impact on your health. You can’t (unless you’re consuming enough calories to make space).

4. Macronutrient Breakdown. What is the optimal balance of carbs and fat? What about protein? This is probably worth the most consideration among these ancillary factors, but the balance between macronutrients doesn’t matter nearly as much as the overall calorie balance. As discussed earlier, protein intake drives muscle protein synthesis in a particular way such that if you’re working out, you’re going to want to get in at least .7g/lb bodyweight. The balance between carbs and fats is a lot more dependent on individual preferences and goals, but practically speaking trying to maintain a hypocaloric diet that is high in fat is difficult because fat is so calorie dense. Having enough carbs to completely fill your muscles and liver with glycogen on a daily basis might have some noticeable performance impacts, but then again, maybe not. Some people do great on ketogenic diets that are extremely low in carbohydrates. If eating enough carbs to do that makes it difficult for you to maintain the energy balance you need to reach your goals, then don’t do it. Energy balance is the most important, remember, CICO.

5. Optimal Timing. You can waste a lot of time worrying about optimal nutrition timing. The most important thing to time is your protein meals for optimizing muscle protein synthesis. Next in line is nutrition around workouts and other periods of intense physical activity. Other than that, it probably matters very little. Yes, this includes intermittent fasting. The benefits of all types of time restricted feeding vanish when you control for calorie intake. Everything else comes down to personal preference, what works for your schedule, and what allows you to be content and consistent. Don’t stress about what is optimal aside from protein timing and what you eat around periods of performance (if you notice it makes a difference). In the latter scenario trial and error will tell you more than diving into the literature, but everything from mixed meals to simple sugars can make a notable difference in performance that might be worth your time and consideration.

Set Point Theory

This is important to consider for one very simple reason: Expectation management. Have you ever noticed that some people are ripped without ever thinking about their diet, while others are portly even though they spend a lot of time and attention on what they eat? The hypothesis that explains this phenomenon that I subscribe to is Set Point Theory (SPT). SPT informs us that we are all genetically predisposed to have a certain number of fat cells (adipocytes), and that these cells tend to want to be about half full at all times. When these cells exceed this halfway mark, various hormones are released that suppress appetite and promote lipolysis (fat burning) in order to facilitate a return to homeostasis (half-full fat cells in this case). When these cells start to empty out, the opposite happens. Now, there is some ability for the body to add fat cells, but once they are added, they tend to stick around. Fat cells can go away (commit apoptosis), but this phenomenon is difficult to encourage and it usually doesn’t happen very quickly or at a scale large enough to help you out in any significant way. What this means is that the %bodyfat that you will be most content with is largely genetically determined. That said, in the modern world with all of the hypercaloric food and lack of physical activity most people are probably way above their set points. This is most important to consider for folks that want to walk around all year long looking ripped. Hate to break it to you, but if you’re not ripped right now, getting down to very low bodyfat and staying there just isn’t feasible. Biology has limits, but fortunately there are some strategies that you can employ to stay just under your set point which I’ll cover in the next section. Also, this set point is probably between 12-25% for most males and 17-30% for most females, ranges that most obese folks would be absolutely thrilled to fall within.

Strategies/Implementation

All of that background was required to outline a couple simple nutrition strategies that might help you achieve whatever health and fitness goals you might have.

1. Focus on calorie density with everything you eat. If you’re trying to gain weight, calorie dense is the way to go. If you’re trying to lose weight, you will probably have a way easier time with foods that are lower in calorie density. To illustrate this point, 1 pound of spinach is about 100kcal and takes up just over 15 cups of volume. Meanwhile 100kcal of cashews in under 2oz and takes up about 1/8 cup of volume. This means calorie for calorie spinach takes up over 120 times as much space! Does this help explain why nuts might not be a “health food” for someone who is obese and trying to lose a few pounds? I hope so.

2. Remember CICO. If you aren’t making progress i.e. your weight isn’t changing from week to week, then you must either change your energy intake or your expenditure. There are 3500kcal in a pound of bodyfat. This means that if you have a great fat loss diet set up for yourself that has a daily energy deficit of 500kcal, you will lose 1lb of bodyfat in 1 week (assuming you’re doing some resistance training to let your body know you need that lean mass!). If you do this for 2 weeks, that’s 2lbs. Say after two week of being on the money with your new diet, you decide to celebrate with a couple drinks. You drink some hard seltzer like White Claw because it only has 100kcal/can. After 3-4 you’re feeling pretty good. So good, in fact, that you figure it couldn’t hurt to treat yourself to some pizza and ice cream. You’ve been eating clean, and you’ve been in a deficit a couple weeks now, so with that good buzz going you devour a large pizza, then have an entire quart of premium ice cream. You do this over the course of a couple hours while watching one of your favorite movies. Now, you know this is bad, but how bad? Well, in those two hours you completely undid 336 hours of disciplined nutritional intake.

The other common pitfall is not accurately accounting for the calories coming in while you are ostensibly paying close attention. The food industry essentially does whatever it can to convince you you’re taking in less calories than you are when you purchase their product. This is typically done through serving size shenanigans, but there are also little things that add up. Remember how I said they can say there are zero grams of something in a product if there is less than 0.5g? Well, look at seasonings where one of the first ingredients on the label is “sugar” then look at the kcal from sugar that are supposedly in the product. If you see a serving size of (1/4 teaspoon) you’re being taken for a ride. 0.5g of pure sugar has a volume of 0.235 teaspoons meaning that they can sell you pure sugar with a label saying that it has zero calories. This same principle applies for cooking sprays which are pure oil with a serving size of “1/4 second spray.” Those products deliver 10kcal/second to whatever food you apply them to. These types of things can add up spectacularly completely obliterating your planned deficit.

Finally, another error people make is assuming they’re burning more calories than they really are. At the end of the day, consistency will be the only thing that allows you to adjust and progress appropriately. If you’re consistent, and keep CICO in mind, you can adjust calories or activity up or down in a systematic manner and be sure that you will see results. If you’re not seeing results, you are missing something. If you’re absolutely certain you’re not missing anything and still not making progress, consider: Are you violating basic laws of thermodynamics, or are you missing something a lot more mundane? Then look more closely and drive on.

3. Be patient and be consistent. Fat loss can happen relatively quickly, but if you’re trying to lose more than 1% of your total bodyweight/week, you will start to lose some muscle mass. This is not a winning strategy, to target a maximum of 1% bodyweight per week if you’re trying to lose weight. The further below your set point you get, this figure will glide closed to 0.5% of bodyweight/week. Now, if you’re way above your set point it is possible to achieve “body re-composition” and gain lean mass and lose fat simultaneously. This is always great, but if you need objective feedback to gauge progress assessing bodyfat vs bodyweight might be worth your time. There are many options for this, whatever you choose, just stick with the same method as none of them are 100% accurate, but many can be very consistent and provide an objective measure of progress. Another useful tool is just to monitor your strength levels. If you’re getting stronger (or at least not getting weaker), you’re probably doing a good job retaining your lean mass.

For gaining weight, it is probably even more important to be patient because adding lean mass takes a very long time. Gaining 2lb of lean mass in a month is exceptionally good progress for a beginner while gaining >3lbs in a month is pretty strong evidence that you are putting on bodyfat. For people that have been resistance training for a few years, gaining 0.5lbs of muscle in a month becomes exceptional with anything beyond that being almost certainly bodyfat. The amount of excess energy needed to add lean mass isn’t that much. Eating like crazy might allow you to make a little more progress a little more quickly, but you don’t have to get fat to put on muscle.

4. Go to bed. You need sleep in order to maintain discipline in every aspect of your life. Nutrition is no different, but there is another added benefit for folks trying to lose weight: If you’re sleeping, you aren’t eating.

5. How well you need to understand your nutritional intake is directly proportional to your goals. If you have general goals to be healthy, you probably don’t need to count calories or pay close attention to protein timing or macronutrient intake. If this describes you, an intuitive paradigm like Team USA/UCCS’s “Athlete’s Plate” might be all you need.[v] Specific goals like achieving a very low bodyfat percentage requires a tremendous amount of attention. If you’re pursuing a challenging goal, the most important thing you can do is understand exactly what you’re taking in, how much activity you’re engaging in, and keep it consistent. You can use RMR calculators and fitness trackers to get a rough idea of where to start, but when you inevitably stall out you will need to have that routine dialed in. By establishing a solid routine, the most effective method of busting through plateaus is unlocked. It is very straightforward to add or subtract a fitness activity or meal/snack if you have a solid routine. If you don’t, it is nearly impossible. This adjustment up or down from a fixed routine is how stubborn plateaus are busted and challenging goals where nutrition plays a part are achieved.

Closing Thoughts

To close this chapter up, I think it is important to note that nutrition is a weird field. You might have known some of this stuff, but you may be finding it hard to believe that such straightforward concepts aren’t widely accepted conventional wisdom. Have you ever noticed how many registered dieticians (RDs) are obese? There’s a reason for that. Up until very recently in the history of the profession, they have pretty much been mouthpieces of special interests supporting whatever dietary choices are best for industry. Unfortunately, this is pretty easy to get away with when it comes to nutrition. Really, all you have to do is sell your dietary recommendations on the bases that they promote an abstruse “health.” The fact that they don’t quantify that term in any meaningful way has allowed them to peddle garbage advice as sage wisdom for decades. Performance dieticians are another animal entirely because, you guessed it, performance can be measured. If you want to really understand nutrition though, there is a general group of folks that are probably worth listening to above all others: competent scientists who are also into bodybuilding. Even better are coaches with a proven track record of getting their clients results that they’re satisfied with. If this short chapter didn’t sate your thirst with respect to understanding nutrition check out Dr. Mike Israetel, Greg Doucette, or Dr. Layne Norton. They’re all eminently qualified to provide more information to those who desire it, and each have their own unique teaching styles and spin on the general concepts I’ve outlined here.

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[i] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29863386/

[ii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/27229126/

[iii] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/23885994/

[iv] https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4258944/

[v] https://swell.uccs.edu/theathletesplate