I've been promising to write a little more about what I am eating. I held off doing this until now, because I wanted to experiment to figure some things out. In previous posts, I explained what I think is important when trying to lose weight. The two unconditional rules are to control calories, and to pile on the protein. The details, like carb to fat ratio, carb timing, and diet set up were things that I wanted to experiment with to find out what works best for my body.Over the past six weeks I have tried three different diet approaches. The first was a high fat diet with carbs only after training. The second, was a Leangains style approach, where calories were high on training days, and very low on rest days. The third was a more traditional bodybuilding style diet, with moderate fat and moderate carbohydrates everyday.
To start off, I used the time tested approach of multiplying lean body weight (in pounds) by 10-12 to determine total calories. This gave me a total caloric intake of 1750cal/day I set protein at 1 gram per pound of current bodyweight, giving 170g/day. These two factors remained unchanged in all three dietary approaches.
High Fat Approach
I wanted to see how my body would do on a low carb diet. I only ate carbohdrates after weight training or sprinting workouts. This meant that two days a week I ate 150g of starchy carbs (rice or sweet potatoes) and after my toughest workout, squats and deadlifts, I ate a big re-feed of 300g of carbs. On rest days carbs were limited to the small amounts found in green vegetables like broccoli, spinach, etc. The remainder of my calories came from healthy fat sources like avocado, free range eggs, salmon, grass fed beef, olive oil, coconut oil, almonds....
To quickly give you a feel for how much fat I was eating, here are the numbers for a rest day (carbs ~50g from vegetables)
Fat calories = Total Calories - Protein Calories - Carb Calories
= 1750 - 170*4 - 50*4
=870 cal from fat
Which gives about 95g of fat (9 calories/gram of fat). This was pretty typical on a rest day, and it is no problem to get 95g of healthy fat into your diet. On training days, carbs were 150g and fat was around 50g. On the re-feed days, I did my best to keep fat as low as possible (under 30g).
I felt really good eating this way. I lost a pound a week, my energy levels were great, and my strength increased. The one thing that is tricky with this high fat approach, is that fat being a calorie dense food at 9cal/g, fat is very easy to overeat. It is surprising how a handful of almonds, or a little extra olive oil on a salad can push total calories up quickly. If you are going to eat a high fat diet, you need to be diligent and make sure you hit your caloric targets.
Leangains Approach
The Leangains approach is the style of intermittent fasting popularized by Martin Berkhan. His method is to eat 110% of your baseline calories on training days, and 70% on rest days. There is a formula that can be used to calculate your baseline calories, you can check it out here. My caloric requirement worked out to about 2000 cal. So my numbers looked like this:
Training Days
Calories: 2200cal
Protein: 170g
Fat: 50g
Carbs: 265g
Rest Days
Calories: 1400cal
Protein: 170g
Fat: 60g
Carbs: 50g (green veggies only)
Traditional Bodybuilding Approach
I call this a traditional bodybuilding approach for lack of a better term. Before carbs became hated by most fat loss experts, people managed to eat carbs and still lose weight. Curious to try for myself, I once again set calories at 1700cal, protein at 170g, fat at 55g (30% of total calories), and made up the remainder from carbs, giving 125g of carbs. I ate this every day except for my big re-feed day, where I ate 2100 cal. On the re-feed day, the extra calories were almost exclusively from carbs.
I felt great eating this way, but my fat loss slowed. My strength continued to increase at the same rate as before, and my energy levels were good. My take on the lack of fat loss, is that my insulin sensitivity is still not high enough to eat carbs without first earning them with intense training.
Cookie Cutter Diets are Ridiculous!
I did this to figure out what works best for me. You need to experiment to see what works best for you. It's your body, and only you can know what feels right for you. I have decided that I like to keep calories constant every day. I am not going to eat starchy carbs on rest days, and will fill up on healthy fat sources instead. On training days, I will eat a nice sized serving of carbs, but will stay within my calorie targets. Once a week, I'm going to bump the calories way up, and eat a pile of healthy carbs. I can say with confidence that this is a sustainable, painless way for me to burn fat.
Experimenting is a great way to get in tune with your own body, and to learn how to eat in a manner that best suits you. There are so many people blindly trying diet programs without ever considering that their body may not react to the diet in the same way as other people's. You need to take some accountability for yourself and not be afraid to experiment a little. As long as you eat a caloric deficit, you will continue to lose weight. The question is whether or not the diet is sustainable. If it makes you miserable, then there is probably no chance of you sticking to it. So, take the time to find what works best for you, and make fat loss as painless as possible. What are some different strategies that you have used before to lose weight? Maybe some interesting food choices that made dieting easier. Please share your experiences with us here, and hopefully we can help people achieve their goals, without going insane.
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