I remember reading an old article in Iron Mind — maybe it was by John McCallum, but it could have been Ken Leistner — about being young, training hard, and eating big. The author talked about how they would work during the day, train in the evening, then head over to a local diner to eat cheese burgers and milk shakes. He also discussed how they made weight gaining shakes with milk, cream, chocolate syrup, and protein supplements. It’s such a glorious concept; eating what society calls junk food and getting big and strong.
But lettuce be real tea, this won’t last forever. Either you won’t stay 19 forever or you’ll end up chubby. If you think that being marginally stronger and plenty more fat is worth it, that’s fine, but let’s get serious. The percentage of professional athletes and world contendors (who might sacrifice body weight for performance) I know is pretty low; everyone else owes it to themselves to not be sloppy-fat for pride and health reasons. “But what about guys like Paul Anderson?” If you were Paul Anderson (or any other strong-fat guy) you would have fucking known it by now. It’s okay to say, “I want to look good/better/great and still be strong.” Really, it isn’t a big deal. Anyone making a big deal about it inherently doesn’t care about what you want out of your training.
The other day someone asked what their numbers needed to be in order to “dial in” their diet. Much like there is no strength requirement to advance, there is no absolute number to get to before making better food choices. Just becuase food quality increases doesn’t mean the macros or calories have to decrease. Eating high caloric food is easy because it’s readily available. As Johnny Pain’s e-book SWOLE points out, it takes effort to eat better and still make good mass gains.
You are not big boned, ma’am
I’m not a zealot about anything nor am I a diet groupie. Different types of people will require different things, yet it will typically funnel into some basic concepts. If I had to say my ‘nutrition methodology’ revolves around an existing diet, it would side loosely with the Paleolithic Diet. The food choices in a Paleo set up are of the highest quality, meat is aplenty, fat intake is high, and carbs aren’t superfluous. I see it as the end goal for most people to shift into to age with; it just makes sense that eating the most nutrient dense food sources and eliminating synthetic chemicals would yield optimal health. However, I don’t hardline the rules like a zealot and am okay with having leeway. I don’t support whining about feeling sick after eating some ice cream or making a group of people change their dinner plans because you’re frightened over the potential gluten exposure. And when training hard, you’ll sometimes need something more than what a caveman scrounged up for his hairy wife.
But what’s more important than the end product are the steps that are taken to get there. In all the time I’ve been training people, eating seems to be the hardest habit to change, and the fatter the person, the worse it is. People who can make heaps of changes all at once are rare, and instead I recommend that most go through phases. These phases should be followed until their contents become habit. As always, it’s variable based on the person, but I tried organizing it logically. Don’t fucking spend a lot of time worrying and analyzing the order of everything; look at the general trend over time from simple to more complex.
Phase I
– Stop eating processed food (condiments still fine, yogurt fine)
– Stop soda
– Limit milk (or drop it completely if you’re fat)
Phase II
– Cook more meat
– Improve the quality of carbohydrates (single-ingredient sources like oats, rice, whole grain stuff along with obvious tubers/fruit/veggie)
– Increase water intake
Phase III
– Increase fat intake (good oils, nuts, cream, butter, etc.)
– Get consistent with eating times
– Time food intake with respect to training
Phase IV
– Reduce the less natural carbs (like rice and noodles) and get them primarily from tubers, fruits, veggies
– Stop eating chemical sweeteners
Phase V
– Adjust macros for goals (long-term)
– Learn to adjust macros for body fat and weight changes (short-term)
Phase VI
– Tweak specifics for health (e.g. lowering carbs, sodium or fructose to decrease blood pressure)
That’s kind of a lot of stuff, huh? Sure it is. And you’re not going to be able to handle it all right now, so stop worrying about it. Instead, use a progression like I laid out here. If you’re thinking, “Oh shit, what is my blood pressure? What if it’s high?” and you haven’t even stopped eating packaged bullshit foods, then you clearly need to clean things up. Worrying about being fat while still drinking soda should be a no-brainer. That’s like worrying about pleasing a woman in bed when you haven’t even talked to her yet.
Keep in mind that the phases above not only represent general progressions over time, but they aren’t hardlined. For example, let’s say I’m cleaning up my carb sources. Does that mean I never have a hamburger? Fuck no, I’m a bacon cheeseburger connosieur (I’ve eaten 14 in a 5 day period), but I’m not going to eat one every day.
Again, some of these will be more important for certain people. I know how to eat something different to increase my body weight or decrease my body fat. This might be relevant to a military personnel or some dude who is adjusting his body fat. Either way, it’s going to be easier once the basics are taken care. Taking care of the basics and using a good training program will typicall result in a person with decent amounts of musculature and body fat. Having a better diet, more muscle mass, and less body fat are all individual markers of an improved metabolism; in other words they augment the body’s ability to perform more efficiently and reduce fat.
Once the basics of a solid diet and training program are established, individuals can further enhance their results by focusing on specific weight loss diets and supplements. A well-balanced diet that includes a mix of lean proteins, healthy fats, and complex carbohydrates can significantly boost metabolism and promote fat loss. Understanding the number of steps in a mile can help you better gauge your daily activity levels and fitness goals.
Using a tdee calculator weight loss strategy can help determine the right caloric intake for achieving optimal results. This allows you to create a sustainable plan tailored to your unique energy needs and fitness goals. Make sure as well to find out the best weight loss supplements that really work.
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There’s a lot of you who need to read stuff like this to actually start making a change, so hopefully it acts as a catalyst of improvement.
Good read. Sometimes I need a little reminder that even though I’m working out fairly hard, there’s no need to gorge 3 days a week. However, I found out that I thoroughly enjoy a tripple whopper (or 2) with fries after strength training.
A triple whopper has over 1,000 calories, 71 g of protein, and something like 50g of fat. I think the carbs are about 50ish too. That’s not a bad ratio, although the quality is shit. Stuff like this is probably best left when you have missed several meals and are fatigued — the best one I remember was after I had been hiking in the woods all day in the heat.
–Justin
Quality post Justin! Simplifies the whole diet issue for those that need it. It should be obvious if you eat a whole lot of processed shit its going to have an adverse affect on your health.
Good post bro. I feel the same way about nutrition and paleo. Paleo is a great guide… but don’t let it ruin your friendships or marriages.
Brilliant post Justin, the hardest part of getting strong and not looking over weight is the diet.
I’m following the diet from Johnny Pain’s e-book SWOLE. Not to sure if there’s to many carbs in there for me as I work 9-5 in an office and train 3 days a week.
I’m starting on the basic layer diet for a month and then judge from there.
Any thoughts on this?
If you’re worried, you could just aim to have the carb amount similar to your protein amount in those first few meals (around the same amount in grams).
–Justin
inb4 renee
Also, 100% agreed, have actually been discussing this general topic amongst friends lately. (is “amongst” really not a word? wtf)
Being of Polish descent, I find the cuisine interesting and do a lot of research into traditional recipes and such. The Polish diet is based almost 100% on whole foods, right down to making their own breads, pasta and other goods. It is very heavy on meats and vegetables. Looking into the overall health of the country, Poland is very healthy.
This goes against the Paleo science that grain will cause all sorts of diseases, etc because Poles eat various grains (and vodka) regularly, and still thrive. In conclusion, it seems that eating whole, unprocessed foods (no matter what the makeup) seems to be the best way to approach diet (I realize this is not new info).
First: amongst is a word, primarily british.
Second: I like our Polish observation. Whole foods that are in a balanced diet with good exercise/training is pretty much what it’s all about. This goes for bread too. I don’t often have bread (mostly for body comp issues), but when I do it’s Game of Thrones style bread that I break by hand. Dipped in butter. With meat. And wine.
–Justin
Soda is like cigarettes. I can’t take anyone’s compliants of their weight/health seriously while they are heading out for a smoke break OR (often “and”) wheeling in three cases of Dew to their cube every Monday. I work in an I.T. department, so it is full of pasty-pudgy-pimply clones with no ass and the beginnings of an Igor-wannabe hump. Males and females are hard to tell apart if it weren’t for their hair-do’s. (even though receding hairlines combined with long hair occur on both sexes here.
^ lol, compsci bros love the dew
Today on Dr. Oz…
Getting serial though, The processed food thing is probably the most important step as far as I’ve seen, because most of it is loaded with all the stuff you want to cut out.
It seems like most readers here matriculated from Crossfit and decided they wanted to be strong instead, so “paleo” and zone diets end up being the last diet philosophy everyone was exposed to.
Just out of curiosity, are many of you all coming from more bodybuilding backgrounds where the diet philosophy is more in line with stuff like Carb Cycling? I figure the first thing most people look at when they get into working out seems to be either Crossfit.com or Bodybuilding.com.
I was always impressed by the training log Justin Harris used to keep up on EFS.com. While he didn’t go pro he was so damn close and probably would have if he hadn’t gone back to school to get a PhD in physics. Even though he was a bodybuilder he had some of the best raw numbers on the site. He would do drop sets on Incline Bench with 405. He would rep 635 on Deadlifts. In a Photoshoot for flex he squatted to legit depth 735 just a few weeks after a bodybuilding contest and squatted 500X16 in training.
In an interview with Justin Harris he talked about how his diet was like a lyric from a Kenny Rodgers song. You gotta know when to hold ’em and know when to fold ’em. While he would drop carbs very low on non-training days, He would eat up to 1500 Grams of Carbs in one day, having to shovel in a lot of it from white rice and waxy maize shakes. On days like this he would have no fat in his diet and maybe only 140 Grams of protein.
I do like carb cycling in a day, but I don’t like the drastic shifts in carb intake on different days. I don’t know anything about Justin (he sounds impressive). If he’s non-drugged, I’m even more impressed and will probably read more into the carb changes. While I do have more carbs on training days, having zero on non-training days and a crazy amount for training isn’t something I adhere to or promote. I like to keep nutrition advice more regular, more of a way of life thing. And, hypothetically, if his method was something that would benefit non-drugged trainees, he is clearly more advanced in ability and body composition, thus the majority (if not all) readers on this site wouldn’t have any business following it.
–Justin
Good post and particularly timely for me. Yesterday I hit a deadlift PR of 405×3 and then remembered that all of my meats were frozen. I decided to give my self a pat on the back via a trip to Five Guys. Got the double bacon chee with fries. No soda though. I don’t see any possible benefit from drinking that stuff. Soda is for babies. Men drink beer.
I haven’t really drank soda since I was 14. Maybe 13.
–Justin
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smithb9, my only argument against grains/etc in traditional diets like the Poles is that their diets included that stuff because it was easy and/or cheap to get, and it provided sufficient calories for a poorer population to survive. In this day and age, though, why include the empty carbs with potential side effects when there are better options readily available?
“I like potatoes (or whatever) and don’t have any issues with them” is a perfectly legitimate response here…that’s just how i look at it. 80% of the time, I’d rather go for the most nutrient dense choice.
Makes sense Renee, and I pretty much agree.
I just find it interesting from a science standpoint where the paleo zealots suggest eating grains is 100% negative, and this seems to be evidence to the contrary.
Sounds good…I’d prob also drop deep-fried foods in phase I
Great article, Justin.
smithb9 – some people are extremely gluten-sensitive, some aren’t at all, and most lie somewhere in the middle. Everyone has to figure out what works best for them. Ditto dairy. I’ve personally seen a non-gluten/dairy Paleo approach make miraculous changes on some people, and others, like myself, have nowhere near as dramatic results.
There are a lot of people who claim gluten sensitivity who don’t have it whatsoever. These people are a pain in the ass.
On a related note, I have noticed with a couple brands of beers as well as a vitamin I recently took (that had barley grass in it, as well as other random stuff) that my tonsils get sore and tender. I think that by taking this type of vitamin I lowered my immune system and got a bit sick for a couple of weeks. Might be a type of barley that I am sorta allergic to.
–Justin
I just want to say a few things…. I used to be 260lbs…not 70s big 260lbs..but 00’s fatfuck 260lbs.. (i’m 5’6”).
That being said, I got myself down to a pussy 157lbs without fad diets…pretty proud of that, but then I decided not to be a pussy and gain some weight… this time 70s big weight, not 00s fatfuck weight, chuknowutisay? I’m up to 176lbs with a bullet.
As a fat person (I will always be fat, believe me being fat is independent from the scale.. my mind is fat and won’t ever stop), it is just as hard to gain weight as it is to lose weight. I finally reached a milestone in my squatting and now my thighs are too big for my pants. and regardless of my waste size not changing, this scares the shit out of me. for real. Tighter clothes makes me feel fat, not strong.
So, I would like to say that this is a great post… it is correct, i see no errors in how to go about losing weight. HOWEVER…. I don’t like when people who have never been fat offer advice on how to lose fat because the most important part is always left out because it’s something that can not be calculated or “figured out and written down” and thats the mental part.
But yeah, good post, good stuff and I will credit 70s big 100% with helping this former fat person be able to start eating again and putting on weight, because Rippetoe could not accomplish that at all haha… so thanks, Justin.
Just because I can’t empathize with being fat doesn’t mean I can’t sympathize. I’ve trained lots of people — including severely obese adults in a ‘biggest loser challenge’ — who have had tons of trouble with changing how they eat. I realize it’s a mental thing. You are more than welcome to e-mail me or comment here on that experience, because it actually is very different than someone who hasn’t been fat. But my opinion isn’t irrelevant because I haven’t been fat. That’s like my opinion of being weak is irrelevant since I haven’t been weak like an average American in a long time.
In any case, you make a good general point. I know how hard it can be for a fat/obese person to make changes, and that’s why I like to use this phase method (because changing a lot of stuff simply won’t be possible). I’m proud that you took control to drop from being a fatter guy, and I’m glad you are now pursuing strength. I will point out that I don’t want you getting fat in the pursuit of strength, especially because it was an issue before. I assume you’re making good food choices, but I just want to say, again, do better than your best to pick those quality food choices. If you need any help along the way, let me know. Keep it up.
–Justin
@smithb9
are you a compsci bro?
Those who are interested in a Paleo-ish diet that includes some carbs might check out http://www.perfecthealthdiet.com and the associated book. I’ve been doing this for about the last 8 months (stricter Paleo for about 2 years prior), and it works well for me. I think their approach leaves leeway where it is useful and is strict where it is beneficial.
Can you give an overview for those of us who don’t really have time to scour this site?
–Justin
@ron viking
no, but I went to college with a lot of them.
Why limit milk?
In the words of Rip, “It’s a liquid that makes baby mammals grow.”
It has growing hormones in it and is stocked full of calories. If someone wants to address their body fat, removing milk is a standard thing because of those reasons. If a young, skinny guy needs help getting calories (because he can’t/won’t eat enough), then it helps.
Did this help?
–Justin
Justin,
You mentioned on the SV site that you’ve been using some of JP’s methods to get leaner while remaining beastly/getting beastlier. Is that the fasted walking stuff and Swole eating template, or something else?
Not really any of those that you mentioned. Just simple carb timing throughout the day — a combo of what I’ve picked up from him, observation on myself, and other sources. JP didn’t invent it (it’s been around in bodybuilding for probably 50 years), but he utilizes it with people and talks about it a lot. He has a good synthesis of info in his method(s).
–Justin
I never really understood Paleo, I guess because I got the bulk of my nutritional “knowledge” from bodybuilders. I typically get almost as many calories from carbs as I do from protein. Wtf is the point of paleo, though? To be “healthy” and eat the way we did thousands of years ago? Now rice, potatoes, and oats are bad?
When I speak of paleo, I usually just refer to food quality (i.e. more nutrient dense sources). I don’t refer to being a spaz about research and evolution, although some of those concepts are pertinent. The items you listed are bad when abused, just like anything. One good thing about paleo is that it improves meat consumption, which will alter the macros of a typical diet. Bodybuilders and figure competitors typically have it right. If your blood profile is all funky or your blood pressure is high and you’re following their advice, then there are some things you can clean up. If not, don’t worry about it.
–Justin
djay, in short: minimize inflammation, correct metabolic derangement, maximize nutrient density, profit.
the best results are seen in populations with autoimmune conditions and those with serious metabolic issues (diabetes, etc), but that doesn’t mean it’s completely worthless to healthy populations.
Profit?
–Justin
@reneelee – can you post progress pictures and maybe strength stats since you have been on said diet?
Is drinking breast milk ok on the paleo diet?
Is it of your kin?
–Justin
Paleo is also good for gut health which is critical to overall health.
While some may try to do a “stone-age recreation,” it’s not about that. It’s really about emphasizing the nutrient dense foods and removing anti-nutrients and processed crap. It’s about food quality and lowering gut irritants.
Also, there has been significant movement away from the zealot “don’t eat any grains or dairy.” I drink milk post-workout now, but I get raw, unprocessed milk from an Amish farm. The difference is huge.
As far as I understand, potatoes were always Paleo. The biggest thing to avoid is wheat/gluten because they attack you intestinal lining. Some emphasize staying away from industrial seed oils. I’ve worked white rice (not brown) back into my diet when I need a good whack of carbs (like on intensity and volume days), so my approach is very carb agnostic. I still emphasize protein and fat because they are more satisfying.
In general, controlling carbs (usually meaning lower than average amounts) with higher protein and fat is how you get body fat down. Lower body fat is going to be one of the biggest preventative measures of health in an exercising person.
More importantly, rice at legit Thai food places is so fucking awesome. I ate Thai in Australia and it made me erect for a week.
–Justin
Great read. Can you give more guidance on Phase IV and beyond? Specifically:
Phase IV
Chemical sweetners – why are these bad?
You tell me why shitty chemicals in your body would be a good thing.
Phase V
How to adjust macros?
Phase VI
– Tweak specifics for health (e.g. lowering carbs, sodium or fructose to decrease blood pressure) – aside from sodium, and I already eat low carbs, how does tweaking fructose decrease blood pressure? I eat fruit as a carb source and always thought fruit was healthy.
As for these other two, they would have made the post exceptionally long and are planned for future material. Also, if you haven’t taken care of the earlier phases, then don’t worry about them. More importantly, if you took care of the earlier phases, then you will probably know how to do them anyway.
–Justin
@aramirez
Phase IV- Chemical Sweeteners tend to produce a similar insulin response as does regular sugar, making the body respond to them in a very similar way to “regular” sugars. At least this is what I have garnered from all the anti-chemical sweetener material I have seen.
@KKHawk the body does not respond to chemical sweeteners the same way it responds to sugar. I’ve heard that was just a guess that one dude made. The logic behind it is that you’ll psychosomatically decide to spike insulin because you taste something sweet. This simply isn’t the case. Some diet gurus like Shelby Starnes actually recommend diet sodas for (1) Sanity and (2) the added caffeine can give you a little kick of fat burning.
There’s other shit in diet soda that isn’t good. There’s also a lot of phosphorous in soda. How fucking much does Shelpy Starnes curl?
–Justin
@aramirez
re: chemical sweeteners
it factors back into “don’t eat processed junk”, chemical sweeteners being, well, highly processed.
not to mention the chemical sweeteners of a few years ago have been found to be carcinogens, etc. Who knows what we will find out about today’s chemical sweeteners in a few years.
Also, what KKHawk said. I think there is a study out there regarding diet soda and its effects on the body.
Honestly if you don’t know what is wrong with eating chemical sweeteners, then your google fu is weak. They still use aspartame to assist in creating human cancers for study in lab settings. Why would you take that in?
I get all the jazz about chemical sweeteners being bad, but what do you guys/gals use for your protein shakes? I’m not sure I can stomach straight whey.
http://youtu.be/ZPy2u5yFazU?t=11s
–Justin
This is great, paleo is a good shortcut to this – in as much as it is an easy guide to follow in terms of good/bad foods.
Eating should not be a religious act though.
I do have a question: where could I find guidance on phase III – specifically timing food intake, and Phase V?
Future material, my friend. But you could be an internet adventurer and see what you can find in the mean time. Report back with findings.
–Justin
I haven’t had a chance to look at these comments yet, but I’ll get to them after I train this evening.
To add another question, what’s your take on beans? And if you think your training calls for more carbs, should you still prefer say, potatoes to rice and noodles? I too would like to hear more about avoiding milk.
I always saw paleo as unworkable, but since seeing some say potatoes are okay, I’ve managed without wheat when cooking at home. Mixing in potatoes, along with bacon, makes it MUCH easier to eat lots of eggs in the morning.
Cooking eggs in bacon grease makes takes them from “I could take it or leave it” to “yes, I came”. Adding chipotle hot sauce shortens the refractory period. I’ve eaten at least 5 eggs every day in the past year, and at least 3 eggs every day for the last….(had to think)…6 years. So quit whining.
As for beans, the only time I’ve had them is in chili (which I didn’t make, Jacob, so stop shouting). I’ve used chocolate, fruit, oatmeal, honey, and Snickers around my workouts before. Macadamia nuts in coconut covered in chocolate took me from a 6 to 12 REAL fast.
My suggestion is that you have more leeway on quality of choices if your body fat is lower. Mine is low, so I use chocolate. If yours isn’t, then don’t, cause that’d be dumb.
–Justin
I like the Paleo diet a lot, high fat is the way to go, not the cordain version, it’s way more satiating.
Only problem I have with it is that it exacerbates your intolerances to gluten and various other things. When you “cheat” it is like playing Russian roulette, maybe nothing will happen, maybe you will feel like you are being stabbed in the stomach for 5 hours. I just had a whopper and some KFC and am waiting to see if the hammer will drop.
You cheated on that, bro? That’s the shittiest cheat I’ve seen lately. If I’m cheating I’m gonna get an actually good burger. And those coconut chocolate macadamia nuts I talked about. Holy fuck are those good.
Oh, and good point on being all intolerant. People THINK they are intolerant to gluten and shit, but if you don’t eat something your body won’t be adapted to eating it — pretty simple. That’s why if you haven’t had milk in a while, you get farty if you have more than 4 ounces or so. If you never eat bread, then that’s why you get funny feeling when you do. This is why soldiers shouldn’t be stone cold paleo lest they shit through a screened door when they deploy.
–Justin
@walrusyalp
That’s not a problem with the paleo diet as it doesn’t include whoppers and KFC it’s a problem with your personal adherence/buy-in decision and the foods that you “cheat” with.
@Justin Phase II is incorrect, processed grains are less unhealthy than whole grains since a larger fraction of the gut irritating components, as well as protein and mineral binding lectins are removed in the processing. So are nutrients but grains are not a good source to begin with.
I agree with your first point. I wish I cared about the second. I’m more interested with people being fat. They’ll clean up their gut when they aren’t fat, but send me information on this, or just tell me next week.
But seriously, grains are not a good source, but having a person give up everything at once is not realistic.
–Justin
I have to agree with others that for many, Paleo is not the best choice. Alan Aragorn has produced a number of cogent criticisms of the Paleo diet. He also argues (quite rightly) for a diet consisting of 1.5g of protein and .5g of fat per pound of LBM with the remainder of caloric intake made up of carbohydrate – the exact amount of which will be determined by your goals (weight loss/weight gain).
The problem with proponents of various fad diets is very few of them have ever even opened a biochemistry textbook.
Sounds kinda low on fat calories. Agree on your last comment. I haven’t looked extensively at biochemistry (because it’s confusing as fuck), but I’ve been through physiology courses. Biochemistry…sweet jesus.
–Justin
Last year I did a very strict paleo with the exception of adding milk. I felt like shit the first 3 weeks, but dropped a good amount of body fat over the course of several months. There are some real problems with eating this way though. If you don’t consume enough fiber through vegetables like spinach and brocolli, you’ll get constipated a lot. Whats better? A slightly higher body fat and healthy, regular dumps, or rabbit turds and feeling backed up. I had to add oatmeal back in after a while to remedy this. Also, If I was really strict for several weeks, when I did have a grain packed cheat meal, my gut would get really bloated and I’d feel like shit for several hours. I ditched it all and went back to eating healthy, whole foods including whole grains (in moderation usually in the morning)and I just go by the old addage calories in, calories out. I’ve gotten stronger, and my BF hasn’t increased all that much. I’m not scared to eat a cheat meal more often now.
Sounds like you didn’t do a good job of the whole paleo thing. When I did it, my poo was smooth. Paleo pretty much implies there is plenty of fiber, bro. You done fucked it up.
But seriously, this is a bad reason to be loose with paleo, because I don’t think this ‘backed up problem’ is common at all. The “gut going nuts with a cheat meal” is though, like we talked about a few comments ago.
–Justin
@Steve
Precisely. You have to question any diet that forbids nutrient dense and quality natural food like rice, potatoes, oats and milk on the spurious grounds of “because that’s how cavemen ate”.
Calories in, calories out, that’s what it’s all about.
Unfortunately, that’s not the whole picture with the body. That’s like saying if my diet consisted of whoppers, yet met a good macro proportion, then I’m healthy.
–Justin
@joninhell, I mix natural protein with water and baking cocoa. Chocolate taste, no sweetness or sugar. It’s not delicious, but it tastes 1000x better than straight whey.
Why are you guys sipping on whey like it’s Bacardi? I just chug it if it’s in water.
–Justin
@Steve, to be fair, Paleo assumes a high fibrous vegetable intake.
I’m still unconvinced that paleo is the reason people (like Steve, above) dropped bodyfat. They may have eaten fewer calories and therefore dropped bodyfat, but any kind of caloric deficit will accomplish that.
Sure, but you are just irritated by paleo so you’re just Johnny Skeptic. That’s fine, because I’m not Johnny Paleo. Regardless of what you think happened with Steve, paleo would give him better quality foods and typically adjust the macros.
–Justin
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@Justin that does make sense. What is your take on milk for a person like me? I’m a bit on the corpulent side, but I’m not specifically trying to gain or lose weight at the moment. I’m just trying to eat right, get really strong and not get much fatter. I drink a lot of the stuff because it is delicious and I love it.
If you’re corpulent, then it’s probably doing more harm than good. In comparison, I have lower body fat and don’t really drink it that much.
–Justin
re: calories in = calories out, there was a good article on elitefts recently about the second law of thermodynamics wrt diet. Everyone quotes the first law, but not the second.
Got a link, brah?
–Justin
@Justin
Yes you are right, the quality of food does matter to both general health and body composition and I should have qualified my statement re calories in/calories out. However I am skeptical of the efficacy of low carbohydrate diets for fat loss; as is the research literature. For example, carbohydrate metabolism does not change throughout the day, hence the notion of a carb cut-off is largely bullshit.
Except for the observation that it (timing carbs in windows throughout the day) works to drop body fat.
And we would mostly talk about “lower carb” methods of eating instead of traditional (and silly) “low carb” trends since carbs are necessary for training and using insulin; equating the two would be erroneous.
–Justin
Thanks for a great read, I like the phasing idea.
I’ve been reading Gary Taubes “Good Calories, Bad Calories”, and it’s covers some excellent material, albeit with a slightly off-putting ’80s sounding title. Recommend.
— Now, tell me where the heck I can get chocolate coconut macadamias?!?!? —
Thermodynamics link http://articles.elitefts.com/articles/nutrition/logic-does-not-apply-iii-a-calorie-is-a-calorie/