The Importance of Context

I get asked a load of questions;

• Is it OK to eat this?
• How inclined should my incline bench be? Which is best?
• Is this exercise better than another exercise?
• This food is healthy right?

These questions lack one major ingredient; CONTEXT. Please watch my video to understand why it is so essential.

The Perfect Diet

Yep that’s right I am going to share with you the perfect diet, crazy I know!

So what makes this diet perfect? How does it differ from other diets? Why does it work and how does it manage it? I expect and want you to be suspicious, dubious and cautious, but don’t despair, I am going to answer all these questions, and believe me when I tell you I will, because as stated, this diet is perfect, there are no flaws, you cannot find a better diet than the one I am going to share with you now.

The Major Ingredients

This diet has three key components, that in combination make this diet unstoppable, get one wrong and the whole diet is kaputt, get all three bang on and well you are in for a treat!

Ingredient No.1 – Preference

So here is the first ingredient, preference. This means that the foods you choose to eat should be governed by you and only you. Everything you eat is your choice, and because you like what you are eating, you will stick to the diet. Sure you will have some overriding objectives, a calorie or macronutrient target to hit, but the foods that get you there are your choice. There are no ‘bad’ or ‘good’ things to eat, just those that you either enjoy or don’t, and if you don’t enjoy it that’s fine, don’t eat it!

Furthermore, as individuals we all have different genetic make ups, of course we share more than 99.9% of the same genes, but then all life on earth shares roughly 50% of the their genes. These small genetic differences are called ‘Genetic Polymorphisms’, and they explain why people react differently to different diets.

So what I am saying is that just because one person is in great shape and eats certain things, doesn’t mean you have to follow their exact plan. For example, I like to eat frequently through the day, it keeps me nice and satisfied, however, many people find that by following an Intermittent Fasting (IF) protocol they feel far less hungry. Furthermore, I do lots of exercise, I am young and fit, therefore I can eat carbs galore, however, for someone who is mainly sedentary and doesn’t do a lot of intense exercise, may do better by eating more fat preferentially to carbohydrates.

Key here is finding out what nutritional regime works best for you, because you have a whole host of different methods to choose, and they all work, just some may be more effective for you.

Like it? Eat it.

This ingredient is probably, no definitely, the MOST IMPORTANT aspect of the diet, trust me if you get this one wrong you will fizzle out quickly. Why? Because, we all want what we can’t have, if we go long enough without it we will in one way or another get it, even if we go about it the wrong way. This when applied to foods leads to binge eating, and you’re fooling no-one when you call it a ‘cheat meal’, you’re falling into an eating disorder. Furthermore, this is the classic ‘yoyo’ dieting outcome, in which you follow a strict plan for months, but then you break, you always do, and suddenly you’re back where you started, or worse.

Ingredient No.2 – Flexibility

The next component is flexibility. Using a flexible dieting approach you are going to be less stressed, anxious and enjoy your diet more than ever. Diet plans should be abolished, they put a number of rules and regulations in place that don’t need to be there. You must have 100g of chicken breast and 200g of sweet potato at 1:00pm, no thank you sir! Imagine if you were out all day, you had to see family, go to business meetings etc. you didn’t have time or the ability to hit all the meals on the plan. You get stressed because you have to stray from it, and you might even take it out on your family and let it impact your work.

Eating out is OK.

I’ve been there and done that, and it is not nice, for you or the people around you. This is where being flexible makes dieting easy, because you can hit your goals in a way that suits your lifestyle. You don’t have a meal plan, a specific time to eat, you just know that by the end of the day you need to have eaten a decent amount of protein, carbohydrates and fat. Out all day? that’s OK, get in your nutrition when you can, make choices from what you have available, fit them around your goals and you will be fine.

Ingredient No.3 – Evidence

The final ingredient is evidence, and it is the backbone to this diet. By using the latest scientific research you can get the most out of your diet. By following evidence you are effectively learning from others, seeing what works and then implementing it for yourself. It’s almost a fail safe approach, especially if there is a great number of studies backing up certain dietary aspects.

Scientific research is ever evolving, and this means you will continually update your knowledge, making the perfect diet tentative. That might sound like a weakness, but it is a massive strength, you will be at the forefront and take advantage of any new research that might enable you to get to your goals quicker or more efficiently.

Be open minded and skeptical, follow the grounded scientific concepts and beware of anything that strays too far from them.

Putting it all together

Jeff Alberts – Flexible Dieter, Pro Natural Bodybuilder

There we have it, the perfect diet. By using the current most up to date scientific research we can select a dietary outline that will lead us to our goals, using this we can choose foods we enjoy and fit them in around our lifestyle. This makes the diet enjoyable, easy to adhere to and doesn’t take over our lives. It’s really a lifestyle, you don’t come off this diet feeling the need to pig out, because you don’t have rules and regulations, you have freedom and flexibility.

The perfect diet is continually evolving, around you and around the evidence.

If you want to know more about how to make a diet be sure to check out Need to know nutrition Part 1 and Part 2.

5 Simple Scientific Steps to Ramp Up Your Metabolism

2 years ago I was eating less than 2000 calories a day, today I am eating 4250 calories daily. I am not fat, I have not taken any mystery supplement and I do not do masses of cardio. Here I am going to explain how I more than doubled my calorie intake and how you can apply the same principles to increase the amount you can eat too! Now who doesn’t want to eat more while staying in shape?

Metabolism = the sum of physical and chemical processes that occur in the cells of our bodies to produce energy

The steps I provide are playing on our metabolism, they will increase the energy used by our bodies. And by increasing the amount of energy we use, the more we can eat. I am not going to tell you to eat every 2 hours as it will stoke the metabolic fire, don’t worry, the steps I provide are evidence based.

First I need to tell you one very important rule:

‘Energy cannot be created or destroyed, only moved from one form to another’

This is the first law of thermodynamics and it means when you consume food the energy in that food must go somewhere, that might be movement, metabolic processes, growth or repair. If you expend more energy than you take in you will lose weight, if you do the opposite you will gain weight. It is a numbers game. Here I am telling you how you can increase your intake and not gain a shed load of fat. You are not defying this rule, it is the law, you are just manipulating things to work to your favour.

Step 1

Take Your Time: You’re going to hate me for this one, but you really need to take your time, if you rush things you are going to make things a lot harder for yourself. It’s like tetris, if you speed the game up the screen gets full of blocks a lot quicker, but if you slow it down and carefully fit your pieces into place you’ll get in a lot more blocks! Replace blocks with food and the screen with your body, and hey presto we have a system in place.

Step 2

Make Small Changes: This is very much like the first step, but it’s important so it requires it’s own place. When you decide to try and increase your calorie intake do not gorge down 1000calories more a day, be smart and increase by 25-50 calories every few weeks or so. At first this seems like nothing, but slowly adds up, I am a perfect example of that.

Step 3

Lift Heavy Weights: In my low calorie days I did a lot of circuit training and general cardio. I didn’t have the energy left to lift heavy weights. Doing weight training not only helps to initiate hypertrophy and increase lean mass but it is anaerobic and causes Excess Post-Exercise Oxygen Consumption (EPOC). With more lean tissue and EPOC your RMR will rise, which means when at rest you will be using more energy. Muscle burns roughly twice the amount of energy as fat, don’t get me wrong it’s not a load but if you follow the other steps it will help.

Step 4

Eat More Carbs: There are a few reasons I have said this, first carbs are tasty and have been seen to improve mood. However, more importantly carbohydrates are our bodies preferred fuel, they positively impact our energy levels and are needed for high intensity exercise. Without them our exercise just cannot be as intense, therefore by eating more carbs we will be able to increase our energy expenditure during our workouts. This is a total win win in my book! Furthermore, when compared to fat, carbohydrates need more energy to be digested, it’s not a lot but it adds up over time and as I said before, we are being patient with this process. Of 100 calories consumed 4-7% will be used in digestion when eating carbs vs. 3-4% per 100 calories of fat. Furthermore, if you increase your fibrous vegetable intake the Thermic Effect of Food (TEF) will increase, as per 100 calories consumed of these 15-20% is used to digest them.  Please note, I am not telling you to drop your other macronutrients, a balanced approach is needed, but most who are on restrictive diets seem fearful of carbs. The main factor here is the fact carbohydrates are our bodies best fuel, and with them we can be more active.

Step 5

Move More: This one might sound like a cop out, yeah of course if you move more and use more energy you’ll be able to eat more. Well hear me out, yes that is true but many do not take the opportunity to. I don’t mean adding treadmill sprints or further exercise, I mean when there are stairs or an escalator, you take the stairs. The little things like this add up, instead of going to the loo on your floor, go up stairs, walk to the shops instead of taking the car and stand up watching TV rather than sitting down. These make up your Non Exercise Physical Activity (NEPA) and it accounts for more than you might think. For example a cleaner would burn close to 120 calories an hour due to NEPA vs. an office worker who would burn half that, over the course of a working day this really adds up.

Using the above steps I went from 169lbs eating less than 2000 calories:

To 190lbs eating 4250 calories:

The Principle of Individuality Strikes Again

The amount you can increase your total calories by will be individual. Studies have shown that some people will take every opportunity possible to burn the extra energy consumed, while others activity won’t change. You may have heard this being called the ‘thrifty genotype’, these are the people who are going to survive a famine but when there isn’t a shortage of food, they’re more likely to gain weight. This is subconscious and largely defined by our genetics, it is our NEAT/NEPA energy burn and not formal exercise.

Why The Above Steps Work

Our bodies love homeostasis, it likes where it is and doesn’t want to change, and it will adapt to a calorie surplus or deficit accordingly. This means when we eat more our body will want to burn more and when we eat less our bodies will want to burn less. The end result is the body ramping its calorie expenditure up or down without any changes in body weight, as they balance one another out this is called ‘energy homeostasis’. All things being equal it is why you could follow steps one and two and keep going for a long time, slowly eating more and more.

It takes a fairly dramatic change in calorie intake to cause a change in our body weight. By doing the above steps extremely slowly you will get the most out of your current form, and if you want to increase lean mass like me then you can up the pace a little more (please see my Nutrition Application article for more).

Just incase you didn’t believe me, here is how I get in those calories:

Resources:

1. Levine JA, Eberhardt NL, Jensen MD. Role of Nonexercise Activity Thermogenesis in Resistance to Fat Gain in Humans. Science. 1999 Jan 8;283 (5399):212-4.
2. Benton D, Donohoe RT. The effects of nutrients on mood. Public Health Nutr. 1999 Sep;2(3A):403-9.
3. Morton GJ et al. Central Nervouce System Control of Food Intake and Body Weight. Vol 443|21 September 2006|doi:10.1038/natur05026.
4. David A. Bender. Introduction to Nutrition and Metabolism. 2008

Need to Know Nutrition- Part 2 (Practical Application)

As we learnt in part one a diet is made up of food which contain a variety of nutrients and calories. These need to be eaten in a balanced and individualised way to achieve good well-being, and if you want to impact your body composition and health further I am going to give you some more guidance.

Calories

There are many forumlas at our disposal but they are not gospel, they are estimates and give us ballpark starting points. If you know how much you consume and know how that is impacting your weight, then you do not need a calculation. In part one I said I favoured the Harris Benedict equation, but here I am going to share with you the Alan Aragon equation:

Target Body Weight (lbs)) x (9-11 + average total weekly training hours)

Target Body Weight (note if you want your maintenance you can enter your current weight) is the weight you want to get to, you then choose between 9 or 11 depending on how intense your training sessions are. Alan notes that this is more suited to the active populations and that if it seems way off then scrap it! Which just goes to show how these formulas are really estimates. Once you have an estimate or idea of what your maintenance is you can then go about selecting foods that will best suit your goals. If not using Alan’s formula or you know roughly what your maintenance intake should be then try adding or subtracting 5-10% of your calorie requirement to initiate weight gain or loss.

Macronutrients

• Protein: 1g/lb of  body weight, which is slightly higher than the minimum researched dose but I like it one as a buffer and two if there is any benefit to be found of a higher intake then we will be making use of it.
• Fat: 0.3-0.6g/lb of total body weight, depending on preference and goals.
• Carbohydrates: whatever calories are left after subtracting fat and protein.

We can then manipulate these and therefore our calories to bring about a change in our body composition.

Fat Loss

• To maintain as much lean mass as possible (which I think everyone should be) protein wants to be increased or maintained. Personally I would go with 1 to 1.5g per fat free lb. Furthermore, protein is highly satiating, people who eat more protein tend to eat less calories and stay fuller, a win win for weight loss.
• Fat is essential for hormone function amongst other things, and therefore we do need some when dieting down. If going below 0.3g/lb of total mass do not do this for an extended period of time, and ensure you are getting sufficient Essential Fatty Acids.
• Carbs although non-essential are protein sparing and required for sustaining training performance. Try and keep these as high as possible throughout your diet.
• Generally the more concerned you are with performance the more you want to go for carbs over fat and the more worried you are about general health and overall weight loss the higher fat and lower carb you’d want to go. I personally don’t like to restrict one over the other and use a mixed approach.
• The greater amount of fat mass you have the faster the rate you can lose weight without negative consequences. Someone who is obese can stand to lose 2-3lbs a week, whereas someone who is averagely lean would want to go for half that. I always say slow and steady wins the race, so practice patience.
• The best diet for weight loss is the one that people will stick to, this is seen over and over in the research. So make sure you allow yourself flexibility and enjoy the foods you are eating, and if you have a ‘bad’ day please just jump back on track as it won’t destroy all your progress to date.

Muscle Gain

• When gaining muscle you are in a calorie surplus which in itself is protein sparring, therefore protein intake can be lowered, personally I would not go lower than 0.8g per fat free lb.
• Fat intake would be down to personal preference. I like to see someone who is active increase their carbs over fat once minimums are met. However, I will always allow the client to decide, as fats are extremely tasty of course.
• In terms of rate of weight gain, it depends on your training age. The longer you have trained the nearer to your natural capacity you are and so the slower muscle gain will be. Generally someone who is a novice can stand to gain 1.5-2lbs per month whereas someone who is advanced would only want to go for 0.4-0.8lbs per month.

I hope now you have the resources you need to start your own diet and can now progress with confidence towards your goals!

Resources

1. Helms ER, et al. A Systemaic Review of Dietary Protein During Caloric Restriction in Resistance Trained Lean Atheltes: A Case for Higher Intakes. Int J Sport Nutr Exerc Metab. 2013.
2. Phillips SM, Van Loon LJ. Dietary protein for athletes: from requirements to optimum adaptation. J Sports Sci. 2011;29 Suppl 1:S29‐38. 
3. Hession M, Rolland C, Kulkarni U, Wise A, Broom J. Systematic review of randomized controlled trials of low‐carbohydrate vs. low‐fat/low‐calorie diets in the management of obesity and its comorbidities. Obes Rev. 2009 Jan;10(1):36‐50. 

Need to Know Nutrition – Part 1

The information here is the stuff everyone should know, no matter if you’re an elite athlete or an office worker. I believe that we should all have a basic understanding of nutrition, so we can be empowered to change our body in positive ways if so required.

Think of it this way, you wouldn’t put the wrong type of fuel into your car, or feed your pet just anything, so do yourself a favour and read the below, note it down and use it to make a healthier you.

Calorie Facts

• A unit of measure; the amount of heat needed to raise 1g of water by 1 degrees C.
• Researchers burn foods to see how much heat is given off, this gives a calorie content.
• Each person burns a certain number of calories per day, this is made up of their basal metabolic rate (BMR- energy used to stay alive), activity level (exercise), non-exercise activity expenditure (NEAT- cleaning, cooking, waitressing etc.) and to a lesser degree the thermic effect of food (TEF- energy lost in digestion).
• Energy expenditure is measured by the rate of oxygen consumption by our body or heat output.
• The take home point is that everyone has a different caloric burn, there is no one size fits all.
• There are energy equations that can be used to estimate your calorie burn, my personal favourite is the Harris Benedict.

Macronutrient Facts

Protein

• 4 calories per gram.
• Essential for growth and on-going repair, nitrogen balance, enzymes that catalyse innumerable chemical reactions, cell signalling and signal transaction.

Fat

• 9 calories per gram.
• Needed for hormone production, cholesterol formation, protect organs, supply vitamins (A,D,E,K) and gives the main energy source for the body at rest.
• There are many types of fat including, saturated, poly-unsaturated, mono-unsaturated, trans-fats and omega fatty acids.
• Essential Fatty Acids (EFA’s) are by name essential for the body, these include Omega 3 and 6. Generally people lack Omega 3, which is found predominantly in fatty fish.

Carbs

• 4 calories per gram.
• Non-Essential but it is the bodies preferred energy source, especially during stress and exercise. When glycogen levels get low in the body, cortisol levels rise.
• Contains fibre which cannot be digested and thus helps to increase the bulk of intestinal contents, aiding digestion. Furthermore fibre provides energy for the intestinal absorptive cells, also they may absorb bile salts and potential carcinogenics in the diet.
• Fibre is great, but you can have too much (currently it looks like 70g is the upper limit).

Alcohol

• 7 calories per gram.
• Cannot be stored by the body and is essentially a toxin.

The above are found in foods/drinks to varying degrees, and come together to give you an overall calorie intake. All as you can see have their own specific roles for our body to remain healthy (bar alcohol), long-term restriction of any one macronutrient can lead to a decrease of metabolic function.

Micronutrient Facts

Vitamins

• Organic compounds obtained from food, required in small amounts for maintenance of normal metabolic function.
• They are a dietary essential and cannot be synthesised by the body (Vitamin D and Niacin can be synthesised but not sufficiently so are included).

Minerals

• Inorganic and found in foods, most who eat a mixed diet receive adequate amounts.
• When intake is insufficient a deficiency may develop but when taken in excess may become toxic.
• Provide a variety of roles including; maintenance of muscle contractility, response to hormones and neurotransmitters, metabolic regulation, maintenance of healthy bones and teeth, protection against free radicals, efficient reactions and hormone synthesis, oxygen transport and enzyme function.

Practical Application

So now you have an understanding of what a diet consists of, you may be a little unsure how best to approach eating. Well first off I want to say if you don’t have extreme goals in terms of physical appearance or sports performance it is best not to over think it, and just make sure you are eating a well rounded mainly whole-food diet with lots of colour and variety. However, for those of you specific goals or want to know more I have some simple/general guidelines in part 2!

Resources

1. David A. Bender. Introduction to Nutrition and Metabolism. 2008
2. Leigh Peele. Starve Mode. 2013
3. Alan Aragon. AACUK. 2013