Simple Nutrition, 2 Basic Principles

Before you even start reading this, try to clear the diet information clutter in your mind.  Read this with a fresh mind as if you are reading about nutrition and body transformation for the very first time.  There are a million ways to go about this, but trying to follow all of it is just suicide.  I am going to give you the facts.  There are some Basic Principles of weight loss that are always the same.  If there is a method out there that works, it follows these Basic Principles.   You will hear so many different things; you will no doubt begin to question everything since it all contradicts.  And you will just be paralyzed.  Just refer back to these principles to judge the potential efficacy of any program.  And remember, not one program is perfect for everyone, not one.  And not one will work for you your entire life.  You must accept this is a journey for life.  That is why having these basic principles to compare any approach you are considering is a rare and wonderful tool.  I promise you this:  nothing (that works) contradicts what you are about to read. 

What you must do to lose weight

The programs and diets (methods and details) out there are all just different procedures towards the same end.  You MUST burn more calories than you take in. You must create a caloric deficit of 3500 calories to lose 1 pound.   This caloric deficit is created in 2 ways:

1.             Reducing the calories you eat

2.              Burning calories

Reducing the calories you eat

Reducing the calories you eat is fairly straightforward.  If you know exactly how many calories you eat, then you reduce those calories each day and you will lose 1 pound when the sum of that daily deficit =3500 calories.

Unless you have a detailed log of what you eat and know exactly how many calories you must eat to maintain you current weight, you must choose a caloric goal for each day, eat that many calories and measure your progress and adjust from there.  For example if you choose 2000 calories and you maintain your weight for 2 weeks, then you will need to eat fewer calories per day to lose weight.  The rate at which you lose weight will be determined by how quickly your daily caloric deficit= 3500 calories.

The quality of those calories is important so you give your body what it needs to be healthy.  Eating a diet of natural foods that contain fiber, nutrients good fats, vitamins, minerals and quality carbs and proteins is advisable to keep us from all the diseases and health issues (do I need to list them?) that poor diet choices have been proven to expose us to.  That is not all, the more nutrition our choices, the better we are able to perform at work, play and everything in between!

Burning Calories

There are 3 basic ways you burn calories

            -Bodily functions

            -Daily activity

            -Daily exercise

Bodily functions:  The calories burned by your body performing daily functions like breathing is basically your RMR (Resting Metabolic Rate).   RMR is determined before we're born and accounts for about 60-75% of total calories burned everyday.  That leaves the smaller percentage to exercise and daily activities.  Now you know why trying to out-exercise a bad diet is impossible.  Back to RMR.  Larger people ‑- both in height and weight ‑- tend to have higher RMR values.  Muscle mass also uses more energy, so people with more muscle mass have higher RMR values. That's the same reason RMR can decrease as we age ‑- if we lose muscle, we don't need as much energy to exist, and our RMR goes down.  So now you know what affects the first component, and you cannot control your genetics and you don’t want to be larger to burn more calories to be smaller, which leaves the one thing you can affect:  muscle mass.  Now you know why strength training is purported as being essential for body fat loss and why cardio is no longer the recommended solution.  If not, see my article, “Why Strength Training is Fat Loss’s Best Friend.

Daily activity:  Simply put, this is the calories you burn in your daily way of living work, eating and free time.  You burn more calories the more you move.  About 10% of the calories you burn comes from digesting your food.  This is why it is advisable to eat often rather than a few large meals a day.  If you climb stairs instead of take elevators, bike to work, throw away the remote, work on your feet, take regular walks every day, have moving recreational activities and spend minimal time on your hind parts, you will burn a lot MORE than the person who rises to sit in a car commuting to work, sit at a desk all day, commute home, then sit to watch TV and play on the computer. 

Daily exercise:  Calories burned through intentional exercise!  So, going for a 30 minute walk is a great thing to do every day to increase daily activities but if you are trying to create a 3500 calorie deficit, then it will take 23 of those walks to burn 1 pound.  If you want to increase this component, then you must go for intensity and work out like you mean it.  You will want to weight train so you get the calorie burn of the exercise as well as the increased RMR we learned about from above, and do your cardio with enough intensity to maximize that caloric deficit.

The truth is that is not complicated.  It is  completely in your control and you now have enough information to create your best body.

BEYOND BASICS

This is where I start using personal experience from my research, and my client’s results to report what works.  Of the many I have experience with, this is the method I recommend to transform your body based on the principles above.

Men:  Bodyweight X 10 = A

Women:  Bodyweight X 9 = A

A =            Maximum Daily Calories you should eat each day.

           

A * 7 = B

B = Maximum Weekly Calories

Method 1:

Plan to eat exactly A every day.

Method 2:

Divide B by 8 and use that number as a daily calorie target (it will be lower than A).  Then create a “Bank” of that amount as well.

B / 8 = C

C= Daily Calorie Target

C= “Bank” to use throughout the week or on weekends

WHAT TO EAT

DIRECTIONS:  Eat 5 or 6 meals a day.

For every meal, eat your allotted amount of calories for that meal by combining a lean complete protein from list 1 in appropriate calories and protein with up to 3 servings (calories allowed) of fibrous veggies from list 2.  Add a high quality carbohydrate from list 3 to the large meal before and after your workout (within calorie range).  Then follow the guidelines for good fats.

In addition, the rule of thumb for protein recommendations are

Men:  Bodyweight X 1=grams of protein per day

Women:  Bodyweight X .8= grams of protein per day

Roughly divide this by the number of meals you eat each day to get your guides for each meal.

1.  LEAN COMPLETE PROTEINS Egg whites to 1 egg at a 3 or 4 :1 ratio Chicken Breast Turkey Breast Inside Round Steak Lean Red Meat (97%+) Tenderloin Pork Ground Turkey or Chicken Lean Fish Canned Chicken or Canned Tuna Pouch chicken or fish Fat Free Cottage Cheese 2.  FIBROUS VEGETABLES Alfalfa sprouts Artichoke Artichoke hearts Asparagus Asparagus Bamboo shoots Beans: green, Italian, yellow or wax Bean sprouts Broccoli Brussels sprouts Cabbage Carrots Cauliflower Celery Chicory Chinese cabbage Cucumber Eggplant Green onions or scallions Greens: beet, collard, dandelion, kale, mustard or turnip Jicama (Mexican potato) Kohlrabi Leeks Lettuce: endive, escarole, leafy varieties, romaine Mixed vegetables without corn, peas or pasta Mushrooms Okra Onions Parsley Peppers (all varieties) Radishes Rhubarb, artificially sweetened Rutabaga Sauerkraut Snow peas or pea pods Spinach Summer squash Swiss chard

Tomato, raw Tomato, cherry Tomato juice Tomato paste Tomato sauce Turnips Vegetable juice cocktail Water chestnuts Watercress Zucchini 3.  HIGH QUALITY CARBS Oatmeal Fruit Fat-free yogurt Corn Potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams Winter squashes, such as pumpkin, butternut squash, acorn squash Dried beans, peas, lentils Beans Steamed brown rice Steamed wild rice Barley 1 SERVING Whole-wheat bread 4.  GOOD FATS (Omega 3 and 6)-you want to get about 20% of your calories from a mixture of the sources below focusing on the Omega-3 sources. Omega-3 Flax seed oil (keep in fridge, not for cooking) Fish high in omega-3: salmon, mackerel, herring, other cold-water varieties If you are not a regular consumer of fatty cold water fish (about twice a week), dietary supplement containing flax oil, fish oil or a blend is recommended to ensure adequate Omega-3s in your diet. Omega-6-most people are already set in this area. Seeds and Nuts (and their oils) Whole grains Plant and Vegetable Oil If you are not consuming the above as a part of your diet as most people are, you will want to supplement with a blend that has Omega 3 and 6.