What to do After the Diet - Avoid the Post Diet Binge

In the spring of 2006, I began my most successful dieting effort to date, and over the course of 12 weeks I would accomplish the impossible. Beyond the usual insanity accompanying a restricted carbohydrate intake, I was at the same time fighting the symptoms of an undiagnosed case of hypothyroidism that would go undetected until March 2010. I felt like the mashed avocado in my chicken salad–green and a little fuzzy–so let’s just say this diet was a littledifficult.

However, my efforts paid off. I finished my diet in a supplement-induced haze that had me shaking so badly I could barely keep my coffee inside its mug. I had cut down to a manorexic 7% body fat, sporting nicely etched abs and 5-mm caliper readings.

On “D-Day,” as I called it, I took my shirt off at a friend’s lakefront party and proceeded to lay waste to an assortment of barbecued goodies. Shortly thereafter, I would move on to the requisite snack fare of the ‘ito’ food group – Cheetos, Tostitos, Doritos – and revel in all its flavored orange wonder.

I woke the next morning famished, and after a few minutes spent admiring my newfound vascularity, I started in on Chinese leftovers. Somewhere around my second helping of General Tso’s chicken, I realized that I had lost all hope of dietary control. I’d been perfect for weeks on end and then, overnight, I had unleashed some gastronomical monstrosity that left me binging for days.

I recovered in the subsequent week through a hasty ‘re-dieting’ effort, but my success was short-lived. The next weekend I was right back at the proverbial cookie jar, setting a pattern that would repeat itself for weeks to come.

I know I’m not the only one who has had this happen: a wildly successful dieting effort unravels after an innocuous dietary diversion. How much potential progress do we sap by not having a plan? Even here, as in war, no plan ever survives contact with the enemy, and it’s no easy effort to manage the demands of your body. Make no mistake; you are at war with your body and with food and with your environment at the end of a diet, and you’ll need to muster everything you’ve got to fight the siren’s call of starchy carbohydrates.

But fear not. In the next few thousand words, you’ll learn how to make the leap from the despair of dietary restriction back into the realm of normalcy. After numerous successful client experiences and subsequent dieting forays of my own, I have learned a thing or two about “sticking the diet landing.” Here are six guidelines to help craft your post-diet program. Just keep some wet-naps handy to deal with those orange Cheetos stains.

1. Track your calories to help manage post-diet weight gain.

First, let’s address the myth that dieting is somehow ‘natural.’ It’s not. In fact, it’s perhaps the most unnatural thing we could do from an evolutionary standpoint. We are, after all, talking about self-induced starvation. When calories are suppressed, the body makes no distinction between what’s volitional and what’s incidental. While you’re dreaming of a waxed chest and a bronzed six-pack, your body is making every effort to get food back into you. It doesn’t care that you’re dieting for a Hawaiian vacation, your body cares that you’re starving.

This explains why most people fail at long-term weight loss. Dr. Traci Mann, an associate professor of psychology, published research in 2007 showing that amongst the general population, dieting is a future predictor of weight gain. Mann concluded that “most [dieters] would have been better off not going on the diet at all. Their weight would be pretty much the same, and their bodies would not suffer the wear and tear from losing weight and gaining it all back.”

So how does one avoid becoming another rebound diet statistic? By having a plan. When returning to normal eating, prepare for a drastic increase in your scale weight to the tune of 20 pounds or even more. Just remember, it’s water, not fat, and if you can manage your hunger, your weight will balance out shortly.

Keeping track of calories can help you make heads or tails of what’s water gain and what’s fat gain. If you’re eating 500 calories above what you were eating previously, there’s simply no way you will be gaining that much fat. Keep a food log for the first weeks after your diet target date. Your sanity will thank you and you’ll be less likely to say “screw it” and embark on some self-deprecating binge.

2. Eat more, but not too much more.

Going from a 2000 calorie diet to 4000 calorie diet isn’t exactly the smartest thing to do, in spite of what common bodybuilder canon might say. I know the temptation is there and can be justified if you cruise the internet long enough. You’ll find some contest prep guru encouraging you to down pizzas to optimize the ‘anabolic rebound.’ This works great if you have some drugs to help you along the way, but for us mere mortals it’s best to leave this strategy to the pros

Start slowly by adding an additional 500 daily calories to the diet each week. This will get you to a maintenance intake within a reasonable time frame while giving your body a chance to catch up with the increase in calories. The best way, though by no means the only way, to add calories back in would be to begin by focusing your surplus around your workouts.

The partitioning advantages of workout nutrition are well documented. When discussing his personal growth as a nutritionist and bodybuilder, Men’s Health Weight-Loss Coach and WannaBeBig contributor Alan Aragon, M.S. waxed philosophical on nutrient timing in his 2008 interview with Lyle McDonald. “Basically, I had no nutrient timing,” says Aragon, “I just trained as hard as I could, and ate when it was convenient. Talk about taking one step forward and one step back. If you can remember as recently as ten years ago, it was all about post-workout nutrition. Improvements in size and strength really didn’t exponentiate for me until I grasped the ‘sandwich your training bout with protein and carbs’ concept.”

As one of the foremost authorities on sports nutrition, Aragon further suggests that the energetic demands of the body should be met with proximal nutritional considerations.

In lay terms, you can eat more when you exercise, and you should eat that food as close to the workout bout as practical. Adding in more calories before your workout will help fuel your weight training or cardio sessions. Adding in more calories after your workout will take advantage of the inherent partitioning advantages of exercise and help to spur recovery and refill glycogen while providing a convenient calorie sink so you can enjoy all those treats you’ve foregone for the past months. Furthermore, you’ll end up with more muscle and less body fat than when you started your diet if you take advantage of these nutrient timing principles.

3. Increase your training volume to offset the extra food you’ll be eating.

Most people think training is work that needs to be done in the gym, so they fail to consider all of the metabolic churn they can get by taking care of errands and day-to-day needs. Low-intensity cardio burns more absolute calories than high-intensity for the simple reason that low-intensity cardio can be sustained for a longer duration. Extrapolated out, you can net quite a lot of caloric turnover by just walking around all day.

If you want to get really sexy with your non-exercise activity, try getting up from your chair as often as practical. The unspectacular act of standing up generates a huge spike in metabolism, and if done enough times throughout the day, can be more calorically costly than a 45 minute cardio session. Those of you with metabolic monitors like the BodyBugg or GoWear Fit can verify this unexpected fact for yourselves.

Under dieting conditions, most people unconsciously reduce how much they move in a day. By virtue of being tired, folks are less likely to mill about or twitch off calories. Combined with a suppressed metabolic rate, this tends to make end-stage fat loss particularly difficult. The precisely opposite phenomenon occurs when someone increases calories and comes out of a diet. The person will unconsciously move more.

Be careful though; appetite tends to outpace activity, so this by no means gives you a free pass to eat ad libidum. Elevated cortisol at the end of a diet means you’ll have your hands full trying to manage your hunger. That’s why it’s a good idea to add cardio in if you weren’t doing it already, or to up your cardio if you have been doing it. In particular, relaxing activities like yoga can help curb spikes in appetite through a reduction of cortisol levels.

Epel et al. found that women who secreted more cortisol during and after novel stressors chose to consume more foods high in sugar and fat. It has been long thought that cortisol influences food consumption by binding to receptors in the brain. Therefore, it’s best to avoid cortisol-provoking cardio like HIIT that can make a bad problem worse and to instead focus on relaxing activities that reduce cortisol, like walking, easy cycling, yoga, or pilates.

Is this you the day after you have achieved your diet goal?

4. Cycle off thermogenics and other diet-specific supplements.

If you’ve been using an aggressive fat loss supplement or thermogenic to aid your dieting efforts (or maybe visiting Starbucks multiple times per day), it’s time to start lowering down your doses. Long-term thermogenic use has its downsides. People who go for years without tapering off their EC stacks increase their susceptibility to a psychotic episode. In a 2000 study by Jacobs et al that reviewed the long-term effects of ephedrine on mental health, he and his team discovered a strong correlation between EC use and psychiatric disturbances and manic-like symptoms. It’s best to keep doses low when using any thermogenic because the costs can rapidly outweigh the benefits.

As with any drug, don’t go cold turkey. It’s best to reduce your intake in a sane manner until you’re down to a non-diet dosing. Excessive stimulant consumption (at least in the short-term) can inhibit the body’s ability to replenish muscle glycogen. Why mess with your body’s want to preferentially store incoming carbs in the muscle by continuing a thermogenic protocol?

5. Don’t go crazy with the free meals and turn them into free days or free weeks.

It’s ridiculous to think that when coming off a diet you’ll be able to go right back to cover model-friendly eating. The human mind is powerful and able to rationalize some astonishing acts of nutritional debauchery, so stay vigilant. You should, however, allow yourself some flexibility in the few days after your diet. You’ve earned it.

What’s more important is what happens in the weeks that follow. It’s easy to take that sense of entitlement at the end of a successful cutting phase too far and find yourself in an “off-season” bulk leading you from 5% to 20% body fat. The best way to prevent such catastrophes is to limit the number of off-diet meals you consume following your splurge.

Let’s define free meals in this context. Free meals are any meals that break your diet either in composition or in caloric load. By planning your nutrition post-diet, you’ll be able to focus your efforts on rebuilding strength and making gains in the gym without waffling between the “should I bulk/should I cut?” questions. Limit the free meals to one or two a week and you should be able to stay right in your target caloric range.

6. Stay accountable by measuring progress.

Keep up with your diligent weigh-ins, caliper sessions, and mirror checks. Avoid the temptation to hop into sweat pants or break out your fat jeans after the diet is over. If you stay accountable during your trip back up to maintenance calories, you’re less likely to throw caution to the wind and in the end, you can reap the benefits of your dieting efforts that merit a leaner and muscular physique.

My favorite method of assessing progress is to have clients pick a pair of skinny jeans or pants that flatter their physique. If they start pushing the seams, then they know they need to rein in the calories or increase activity levels. As simple as it sounds, the act of monitoring body composition through any method is linked to long-term diet success. In a review by Wing and Phelan published in the July 2005 issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, the researchers found that of those who successfully maintained a weight-loss exceeding 10% of their pre-diet weight for more than a year, all used some form of progress charting.

If it worked for them, it will work for you.

Conclusion

So there you go: six easy to apply tips to help you the next time you’re setting up a diet. I’d be remiss if I didn’t mention that all the technical know-how can’t replace the experience of actually coming off a diet. Although it is beyond the scope of this article, you should work on setting physique goals in advance. If you know where you want to be one year from now, you can break that long-term goal into multiple short-term goals. That way, when you come off your diet, you can begin your pursuit of lean-mass toward a three-month checkpoint with defined target metrics rather than founder in a post-diet malaise of pizza.

Goals focus the mind, so be sure to set ambitious ones. With defined aspirations, your unconscious self will begin making the necessary changes to get you to that next level.

One final note: this piece is written without knowing what kind of diet you, the reader, might be following. Based on the available research, if you’re male, you can speedily diet yourself into the 12-15% body fat range without affecting hormones too much. However, this article is aimed at the person who is looking to break into the single digits and keep going. The slower you can diet into single digits, the better off you’ll be in the long run. When I say slow, I mean maybe two-pounds-per-month slow.

Crashing off the weight in the lower body fat ranges wreaks havoc with hormone levels and only serves to set up a binge down the road. My most successful diets have barely felt like diets at all. The weight creeps off week after week and I hardly notice the deficit. I don’t obsess about the end of the diet, nor do I really feel like I am on one – I incorporate refeeds multiple times per week and maneuver into a beach-ready physique without much strain. I get to eat the foods I love on a regular basis, which means I can go out and not become a social pariah.

As crazy as it sounds, body composition isn’t everything, and mental health is just as important as physical health. Keep these principles in mind and you’ll prevent the yo-yo dieting effect that has become so common in our society.

Written by Ryan Zielonka

Discuss, comment or ask a question

If you have a comment, question or would like to discuss anything raised in this article, please do so in the following discussion thread on the Wannabebig Forums - What to do After the Diet discussion thread.

About Ryan Zielonka

Ryan Zielonka is a writer, a researcher, and a public speaker.

Ryan struggled with obesity in his adolescent and teen years and decided in his freshman year of college to exercise with regularity. As a result he lost 16 inches from his waistline and discarded his size 44 jeans for a size 28. Ever since, the world of exercise science and nutritional biochemistry has never ceased to capture his imagination.

Ryan is a regular contributing editor and columnist for Wannabebig and his work has been published in T-Muscle and the Alan Aragon Research Review, and you can find him blogging on anything that strikes his fancy atwww.ryanzielonka.com.

The Dirt on Clean Eating

Introduction

Everyone knows the difference between dirty and clean foods, so I don’t have to explain the obvious…or do I? My favorite response to questions about how to eat clean is, “Wash your food.” The biggest problem with discussing foods in these terms is that there’s no clear definition of clean or dirty. The difference might seem obvious, but a closer look shows that it’s far from clear-cut. The confusion is compounded when clean eating is preached as the best way to optimal health and body composition. In this article, I’ll use research and field experience to shed some light on these muddy issues.

The Fickle Nature of Clean

To illustrate the inconsistency of clean through decades, I’ll begin with the 1980’s, widely regarded as the start of the fitness revolution. Through much of the decade, fat (regardless of type) was portrayed by both the academic and lay press as the bad guy. Eating clean in the 80’s was largely characterized by avoiding fat, whether through the plethora of fat-free products, or the vigilant avoidance of all forms of added and naturally occurring fats within foods. Toward the end of the decade, whole grain products were regarded as the foundation of optimal health.

The 1990’s was a decade that dichotomized unsaturated fats as good, and saturated fats as bad. Red meat, egg yolks, and pretty much all sources of dietary cholesterol were to be avoided. Abundant grain consumption was still encouraged, and even more so if the grain product had a low glycemic index (GI). High insulin elevations were considered harmful to health and body composition. Therefore, multiple small meals around the clock was recommended not only to control insulin levels, but also to supposedly raise metabolism.

Moderation is the key. Gorging on fast foods is most certainly not the way…

Clean in the 2000’s was characterized by the beginnings of amnesty toward saturated fat and cholesterol. They no longer were considered as dirty as previously thought; now hydrogenated vegetable oil was the poison. Omega-3 fatty acids from fish and flaxseed were placed on a heavenly pedestal, receiving the more-is-better stamp. Carbohydrate was now seen as a potentially greater threat to dieters than fat. Sugar was particularly unclean, as evidenced by the boom of artificially sweetened, low-carb products.

The present decade has just begun, and eating clean has taken some interesting directions. One is an appeal to imagination about Paleolithic eating habits, which eliminates the consumption of grains, legumes, dairy, added salt, sugar, alcohol, and even certain vegetables. This definition of clean is perhaps the most logically inconsistent one. It emphasizes a prehistoric model, yet many of its proponents take an array of cutting-edge nutritional supplements, and use satellite technology to navigate their drive to the closest parking spot at the gym. Fruits and vegetables have always been a mainstay of clean eating, but pesticide-free produce is now somehow cleaner, pests and all. Another twist in the carbohydrate saga has snowballed as well. Insulin spikes from high-GI carbs were the bane of the 90’s. But now, fructose, a low-GI carbohydrate with minimal effects on insulin response, is now one of the top public enemies.

As you can see, the definition of clean is an elusive target. Are there any common threads among the decades with respect to eating clean? Is there any way to objectively label foods as clean or dirty? Before I get to that, let’s take a look at the concept as it’s been traditionally applied to bodybuilding.

Bodybuilding Clean

Clean eating in the bodybuilding sense deserves its own discussion. Much of its ‘rules’ are adaptations of dogma from the 80’s and 90’s with a healthy dose of contradiction. Many bodybuilders who consider themselves hardcore will avoid (among other things) dairy and fruit, regardless of training season. Why? Nobody really knows, but I’d speculate that fruit & dairy phobia among bodybuilders originated from the pre-contest leaning-out process, which typically involves the reduction of carbohydrate. Milk and fruit are both carb-dominant foods, and are thus prime candidates for reduction or elimination.

But still, my example above is speculative. This dogma could just as easily have come about by someone cutting milk and/or fruit out of the diet and experiencing further fat loss from the re-creation of an energy deficit, and declaring those foods barriers to fat loss. Nevertheless, in some pre-contest cases, carbohydrate restriction to extreme degrees is called for, and this nullifies the possibility of including milk & fruit (or any carb source, for that matter), at least cyclically. So, milk and fruit got blamed as bad for all occasions, when their omission only potentially applies to certain aggressively carb-restricted dieting phases. Bodybuilders often pride themselves on having nutrient-rich diets, yet many of them opt for a significant portion of their day’s carbohydrate allotment as dextrose (or some other empty-calorie carb source) instead of fruit.

Fruits should not be avoided

Attempts at Objectively Defining Clean

Scientific investigations of the nutritional status of bodybuilders have shown some interesting results, and here are some of the highlights. Kleiner and colleagues examined the pre-contest dietary habits of male & female junior national & national-level competitors,15-40% of whom admitted to using various drugs [1]. Despite consuming adequate total calories, women were “remarkably deficient” in calcium intake, which is not surprising given the widespread milk-phobia among bodybuilders. In subsequent work led by Kleiner on female & male competitors at the first drug-tested USA Championship, men consumed only 46% of the RDA for vitamin D. Women consumed 0% of the RDA for vitamin D, and 52% of the RDA for calcium [2]. Zinc, copper, and chromium were also underconsumed by the women. Despite dietary magnesium intakes above the RDA, serum magnesium levels in females were low. Serum zinc levels were high in men and women. It’s notable that not all research on bodybuilders has found nutrient deficiencies. Intakes in significant excess of the RDA in both offseason and pre-contest conditions have also been seen [3,4]. Still, the potential for nutrient deficiencies in this population is strong due to the elimination of food groups combined with a high training volume and lowered caloric intake overall.

The two most commonly cited characteristics of foods considered clean are a lack of processing and a high nutrient density. Let’s look at processing first. Foods in their whole, naturally occurring state are often deemed clean. In contrast, foods that are altered or removed from their original state are stripped of the clean stamp. Is this demerit warranted? As we’ll see, this is not a reliable method of judgment for all foods. By this definition, most supplements are dirty, since they often undergo extensive processing and are far-removed from their original source.

To use a common example, whey is doubly processed in the sense that it’s not only a powdered form of milk protein, but it’s a separated fraction of milk protein. Yet, when combining the results of standard ranking methods (biological value, protein efficiency ratio, net protein utilization, and protein digestibility corrected amino acid score), whey has a higher total than all other proteins tested, including beef, egg, milk, and soy [5]. Furthermore, research has shown not only its benefits for training applications [6], but whey has a surprisingly wide range of potential for clinical applications as well [7-10]. Therefore, despite whey being a refined/processed food, it has multiple benefits and minimal downsides.

The next commonly proposed qualifier for a food to be considered clean is its nutrient density. A little-known fact is that there is no scientific consensus on what nutrient density actually means. To quote Miller and colleagues [11],

“There is currently no science-based definition for either nutrient density or nutrient-dense foods. Without a definition that has been developed using an objective, scientific approach, the concept of what is a “nutritious” food is subjective and, therefore, inconsistent.”

The existence of multiple methods of measuring diet quality illustrates the point expressed in the quote above. Nutrient profiling systems include the Healthy Eating Index (HEI), Diet Quality Index, and Alternative HEI. The most recent profiling method is the Nutrient Rich Foods Index (NRFI). The NRFI attempts to consolidate principles from previous methods to establish a more comprehensive definition of nutrient density. It judges individual foods based on the presence of selected important nutrients and absence of problematic ones [12]. Still, the NRFI has its bugs and biases, particularly against saturated fat (& fat in general).

Nitrean+’s combination of 3 whey fractions, casein, and egg proteins affords multiple proven benefits despite being a highly processed foodstuff product.

Attempts at Objectively Defining Clean

A simplistic learning tool called the “Go, Slow, and Whoa” (GSW) food classification system was designed to help children and families make better food choices [13]. GSW was recently compared with the more sophisticated NRFI, and despite some differences, both methods closely corresponded with each other in terms of distinguishing energy-dense and nutrient-rich foods [14]. Although the two methods aligned fairly well, they also share similar out-dated ideologies. For example, sports drinks have a “Slow” designation, and whole milk is nailed as a “Whoa” food – brilliant, huh? Tuna canned in water is in the most favorable “Go” column, while fatty fish like salmon is not even listed. A final example is the listing of egg whites in the “Go” column, and whole eggs in the “Slow” column. Unsurprisingly, the government-issued guidelines are still stuck in the fat-phobic era.

Perils of Judging the Parts & Not the Whole

In the process of classifying foods based on nutrient density, the context of the foods within the diet as a whole is often lost. Attempts at defining nutrient density of foods on an individual basis, for the most part, have failed. Much of the classifications are out-dated at best, and counterproductive at worst. It would seem to be a simple matter of labeling foods with a high ratio of micronutrients to calories as nutrient-dense, and foods with a high ratio of calories to micronutrients as energy-dense. However, this simply is not the case. An energy-dense food can still contain more essentialmacronutrition and/or bioavailable micronutrition than a nutrient-dense, energy-sparse food. Another thing that tends to get ignored is that athletes with high endurance demands or high overall training volume would compromise their performance if energy density was neglected. Ultimately, it’s impossible to judge a food in isolation from the rest of the diet. Furthermore, it’s impossible to judge a diet without considering the training protocol, goals, preferences, and tolerances of the individual.

Dirty Fat Loss

Clean diets are commonly touted to produce more favorable body composition changes than unclean diets. In fact, some even claim that dirty dieting will not allow fat loss to occur. For weight or fat loss, concerns of a dirty diet used to be centered on fat intake. That’s no longer the case; carbohydrate has been receiving the brunt of the contempt lately. In light of the current sugar-phobic climate with an emphasis on fructose, the following studies deserve special attention.

First up, Surwit and colleagues compared the 6-week effects of 2 hypocaloric diets - one with 43% of the total calories as sucrose (table sugar), and one with 4% of the total calories as sucrose [15]. No significant differences were seen in the loss of bodyweight or bodyfat between the high and low-sucrose groups. Strengthening these results was the use of dual X-ray absorptiometry (DXA) to measure body composition. Furthermore, no differences in blood lipids or metabolism were seen between the groups. It looks like a more sugary intake still cannot override a calorie deficit.

Janeil knows a thing or two about eating right.

Next up is a recent study by Madero and colleagues, comparing the 6-week effects of a low-fructose diet (less than 20 g/day) or a moderate-fructose diet (50-70 g/day) mostly from whole fruit [16]. The moderate-fructose group lost significantly more weight than the low-fructose group (4.19 kg versus 2.83 kg, respectively). Notably, the moderate-fructose group lost slightly more fat, but not to a statistically significant degree. Unfortunately, body composition was measured with bioelectrical impedance analysis (BIA) instead of something more reliable like DXA. Nevertheless, bodybuilders afraid of fruit would have to admit that the dirtier diet prevailed in this case.

Trans fatty acids (TFA) have earned a lot of bad press for their adverse effects on biomarkers of cardiovascular health [17,18]. However, some research indicates that not all TFA are harmful. A distinction should be made between industrially produced TFA via hydrogenation of vegetable oils, and naturally occurring TFA in dairy and meat [19]. Vaccenic acid, the main form of TFA in ruminant fats, might actually lower the risk for coronary heart disease [20]. Currently, there’s no controlled human research specifically comparing the effects of TFA with other types of fats on body composition. In any case, the fitness-conscious population has nothing to worry about unless they start indiscriminately gorging on fast food, cooking with vegetable shortening, and pounding loads of processed/packaged pastries and desserts.

All-or-Nothing Dieting & Eating Disorder Risk

In 1997, a general physician named Steven Bratman coined the term orthorexia nervosa [21], which he defines as, “an unhealthy obsession with eating healthy food.” It reminds me of the counterproductive dietary perfectionism I’ve seen among many athletes, trainers, and coaches. One of the fundamental pitfalls of dichotomizing foods as good or bad, or clean or dirty, is that it can form a destructive relationship with food. This isn’t just an empty claim; it’s been seen in research. Smith and colleagues found that flexible dieting was associated with the absence of overeating, lower bodyweight, and the absence of depression and anxiety [22]. They also found that a strict all-or-nothing approach to dieting was associated with overeating and increased bodyweight. Similarly, Stewart and colleagues found that rigid dieting was associated with symptoms of an eating disorder, mood disturbances, and anxiety [23]. Flexible dieting was not highly correlated with these qualities. Although these are observational study designs with self-reported data, anyone who spends enough time among fitness buffs knows that these findings are not off the mark.

Applying Moderation: The 10-20% Guideline

For those hoping that I’ll tell you to have fun eating whatever you want, you’re in luck. But, like everything in life, you’ll have to moderate your indulgence, and the 10-20% guideline is the best way I’ve found to do this. There currently is no compelling evidence suggesting that a diet whose calories are 80-90% from whole & minimally processed foods is not prudent enough for maximizing health, longevity, body composition, or training performance. As a matter of fact, research I just discussed points to the possibility that it’s more psychologically sound to allow a certain amount of flexibility for indulgences rather than none at all. And just to reiterate, processed does not always mean devoid of nutritional value. Whey and whey/casein blends are prime examples of nutritional powerhouses that happen to be removed from their original food matrix.

Use the 10-20% discretionary intake rule and enjoy life a bit.

The 10-20% guideline isn’t only something I’ve used successfully with clients; it’s also within the bounds of research. Aside from field observations, there are three lines of evidence that happen to concur with this guideline. I’ll start with the most liberal one and work my way down. The current Dietary Reference Intakes report by Food & Nutrition Board of the Institute of Medicine lists the upper limit of added sugars as 25% of total calories [24]. Similarly, an exhaustive literature review by Gibson and colleagues found that 20% of total calories from added sugars is roughly the maximum amount that won’t adversely dilute the diet’s concentration of essential micronutrition [25]. Keep in mind that both of these figures are in reference to refined, extrinsic sugars, not naturally occurring sugars within whole foods like fruit or milk. Finally, the USDA has attempted to teach moderation with their concept of the discretionary calorie allotment, defined as follows [26]:

“…the difference between total energy requirements and the energy consumed to meet recommended nutrient intakes.”

Basically, discretionary calories comprise the margin of leftover calories that can be used flexibly once essential nutrient needs are met. Coincidentally, the USDA’s discretionary calorie allotment averages at approximately 10-20% of total calories [27]. Take note that discretionary calories are not just confined to added sugars. Any food or beverage is fair game. The USDA’s system is still far from perfect, since it includes naturally-occurring fats in certain foods as part of the discretionary calorie allotment. This is an obvious holdover from the fat-phobic era that the USDA clings to, despite substantial evidence to the contrary [28].

It’s important to keep in mind that protein and fat intake should not be compromised for the sake of fitting discretionary foods into the diet. In other words, make sure discretionary intake doesn’t consistently displace essential micro- & macronutrient needs, and this includes minimum daily protein and fat targets, which vary individually. This may be tough to accept, but alcohol is not an essential nutrient. Its risks can swiftly trump its benefits if it’s consumed in excess, so it falls into the discretionary category.

10% Versus 20%

Another legitimate question is why I’ve listed the discretionary range as 10-20% rather than just listing it as a maximum of 20%. This is because energy balance matters. In bulking scenarios, maintaining a 20% limit could potentially pose health risks that are already elevated by the process of weight gain, which in some cases involves a certain amount of fat gain. Conversely, weight loss tends to be an inherently cardioprotective process, independent of diet composition [29]. So, the 20% limit is more appropriate for those either losing or maintaining weight. Those who are gaining weight but want to play it safe should hover towards the lower & middle of the range (10-15%). Another factor that can influence the upper safe threshold is physical activity level. I’ll quote Johnson & Murray in a recent review [30]:

“Obesity and metabolic syndrome are rare among athletes, even though dietary fructose intake is often high, underscoring the robust protective role of regular exercise.”

In the above quote, you can substitute any controversial food or nutrient in place of the word fructose, and the same principle would apply. A greater range of dietary flexibility is one of the luxuries of regular training. Sedentary individuals do not have the same level of safeguarding from the potentially adverse effects of a higher proportion of indulgence foods. And just in case it wasn’t made clear enough, 10-20% indicates the maximum, not minimum discretionary allotment. If someone strives to consume 0% of calories from any food that’s been processed or refined from its original state, then that’s perfectly fine – as long as this is the person’s genuine preference, and not a painful battle of will. I’d also like to make it clear that there is still plenty of grey area in the study of dietary effects on health. As such, the nature and extent of the miscellaneous or rule-free food allotment is a delicate judgment call. In this case, it’s wise to keep scientific research at the head of the judging panel, but don’t ignore personal experience & individual feedback.

Final Note: Linear Versus Nonlinear Distribution

A legitimate question is, what’s the best way to distribute discretionary calories? Should they be confined to a daily limit, or can it be a weekly limit? The best answer is to let personal preference decide. If we use a 2000 kcal diet as an example, a flat/linear approach would mean that 200-400 kcal per day can come from whatever you want, while meeting essential needs otherwise in the diet. Weekly, this translates to 1400-2800 kcal, depending on the factors I previously discussed. One nonlinear option would be to break the weekly allotment in half, where 2 days per week you indulge in 700-1400 kcal of whatever you want, keeping the remaining 5 days relatively Spartan. Again, there is no universally superior method of distributing the discretionary allotment. The same principle applies to the choice of foods to fulfill it. Honoring personal preference is one of the most powerful yet underrated tactics for achieving optimal health and body composition. And that’s the nitty-gritty as I see it.

What You Should Know About Intermittent Fasting

In fitness circles, the concept of intermittent fasting (IF) is catching like wildfire, and it’s no surprise as to why. There is some intriguing new published research showing that IF may offer a host of health and body composition benefits. Additionally, a small but growing group of IF experimenters are swearing by these relatively new fat-loss techniques, techniques that include skipping meals and sometimes going entire days without eating!

I know, I know…the idea of fasting for a few extra hours every day seems to fly in the face of conventional nutrition wisdom, and many of you probably think that going entire days without eating is sheer lunacy–I get it. As a long-time proponent of grazing (eating smaller meals more frequently), I was a little skeptical of the concept too. Would I get moody? Experience blood sugar drop? Have muscle proteins dissolve and burned for energy? It’s enough to make any weightlifter run screaming from the room.

But here’s the funny thing. If you do intermittent fasting right, none of that actually happens.

How do I know? Well, first, there’s the research. In fasting-related studies, muscle isn’t lost like you’d expect, unless there’s a huge energy deficit and there’s no weight training involved. However, I’ll be honest…I don’t always believe the research. Even though I spent eleven years in higher education and earned a research-based PhD, I know how poorly research can be conducted. Furthermore, how many actual bodybuilders end up in research studies? Very few.

My Experiments with Intermittent Fasting

I do have some additional evidence, however: I myself have spent the last eight months experimenting with intermittent fasting. Indeed, I turned myself into a human guinea pig and tested dozens of different fasting-related protocols. Throughout the process, I meticulously recorded everything from body composition to blood values to lifestyle factors, all in an attempt to figure out whether intermittent fasting is a new and potentially valuable paradigm shift in the nutrition world or just another fad diet.

(For those who are interested, I published my findings in a free E-book called “Experiments with Intermittent Fasting,” which you can download here.)

In the end, some of the experiments were a huge success, leading to improvements in my body composition, health, and performance. Others were disastrous, causing me to drop muscle mass and develop food obsessions. Yet at the end of the day, I was able to accomplish most of my goals. I lost about 20 pounds of fat while preserving most of my lean mass, strength, and power. According to my Intelametrix device (a validated ultrasound-based form of body composition testing), I went from a fairly lean 10% body fat to a very lean 4%.

Here are some progress photos:

Before

After

Of course, not everyone is interested in getting leaner. So what about muscle gain?

Well, another one of my clients (a guy with different goals than me) gained 20 pounds of quality weight in the last few months while also experimenting with intermittent fasting. He also improved his aerobic and anaerobic exercise performance at the same time. His protocols were obviously different than mine, but his results also show that intermittent fasting can assist with either fat loss or muscle gain as long the protocols are a good fit are and are followed correctly.

Different Fasting Styles
For those of you who don’t even know what I’m talking about here, quite simply, intermittent fasting is not eating for a short while, and although I know that some of you bodybuilders are afraid of that very thing, the truth is that you already do intermittent fasting.

That’s right; every night, from the time you eat your dinner to the time you eat your breakfast, you’re fasting, and believe it or not, that fasting brings some unique benefits. So before you freak out and summarily dismiss the concept, understand that you’re naturally already doing some form of IF.

Of course, the type of intermittent fasting I’m talking about here extends out a little longer than overnight. The most extreme version is one in which you simply eat every other day, fasting on the days in between. It’s called alternate day fasting, and this one’s probably not for people who train regularly and want to be strong, muscular, and lean.

There are other versions, of course. The most flexible option simply recommends a single day of fasting as little as once per month or as often as once per week. This is the type of fasting the client I referred to above followed. He cycled his calories during the week, eating high calories and carbs on strength training days and moderate calories and carbs on conditioning days. Then, every Sunday, he followed one of my full-day fasting protocols. These include avoiding food for 24 hours but drinking lots of water and green tea and supplementing with 5g BCAA, 3g fish oil, and ½ serving of a green food product like greens+ every few hours.

Another interesting version doesn’t involve whole days of fasting. Rather, it extends the daily fast from the typical 10-12 hours to a longer 16-20 hours. You would also train at the end of this fast using 10-15g of BCAA during your workout, and then you’d eat all your calories during a 4-8 hour post-workout window. I extensively tested this form of fasting personally and found that it can be very physique- and performance-friendly. However, you have to do it right; if you don’t, then trouble awaits.

The Benefits of Intermittent Fasting
Many of you are probably wondering why I did these fasting experiments in the first place.
Well, a lot of it is curiosity…I’m what you’d call a ‘professional dieter’. In other words, I’ve tried nearly every diet or nutritional protocol that’s around in order to test its efficacy.

In addition, I’ve been pursuing a new goal: track and field. When you’re running competitively, every pound has got to earn its rent, so I wanted to test drive this new way to drop fat and get extremely lean while staying strong and powerful. Finally, the proposed benefits of IF are quite interesting and extensive. They include:

Reduced:
• blood lipids (including decreased triglycerides and LDL cholesterol)
• blood pressure (perhaps through changes in sympathetic/parasympathetic activity)
• markers of inflammation (including CRP, IL-6, TNF, BDNF, and more)
• oxidative stress (using markers of protein, lipid, and DNA damage)
• risk of cancer (through a host of proposed mechanisms; we’ll save them for another review)

Increased:
• cellular turnover and repair (called autophagocytosis)
• fat burning (increase in fatty acid oxidation later in the fast)
• growth hormone release later in the fast (hormonally mediated)
• metabolic rate later in the fast (stimulated by epinephrine and norepinephrine release)

Improved:
• appetite control (perhaps through changes in PPY and ghrelin)
• blood sugar control (by lowering blood glucose and increasing insulin sensitivity)
• cardiovascular function (by offering protection against ischemic injury to the heart)
• effectiveness of chemotherapy (by allowing for higher doses more frequently)
• neurogenesis and neuronal plasticity (by offering protection against neurotoxins)

To be frank, most of the research to date has been done in animal models with pretty limited data collection in humans. While the human studies that have been done show some promise, we’re probably a good 5-7 years away from knowing exactly what IF does in humans and why, and 10-12 years from knowing which IF protocols are “best.” That’s another reason why I’ve been putting IF to the test.

Frequent Meals and Intermittent Fasting
Of course, people have been getting in shape for a very long time without using the intermittent fasting ideas I outline above. In fact, the dominant nutrition paradigm suggests that we should be eating smaller meals every few hours…so doesn’t intermittent fasting just fly in the face of everything we’ve been told to do?

Not really. The rules of good nutrition haven’t changed. You still need to eat good foods. Calorie balance still applies. Peri-workout nutrition is still important. The only real difference between more traditional bodybuilding-style eating and intermittent-fasting style eating is how you distribute your calories between days or meals.

This means that for most people, as long as we eat the right foods in the right amounts, meal frequency is a matter of personal preference. You can eat lots of small meals (every few hours) or you can eat a few big meals (with bigger time gaps between them). You can even go an entire day without eating, once in a while.

But what about speeding up the metabolism, controlling appetite, and controlling blood sugar?
New data have been published showing that eating more frequently doesn’t necessarily speed up the metabolism, and although grazing is supposed to enable better appetite and blood sugar control, that effect isn’t reliable. For some people, eating more frequently does help to control both. For other people, the opposite is true; eating less frequently gives them an appetite and blood sugar advantage. This means that your decision to eat small meals more frequently or larger meals less frequently should be based on what works best for your schedule, your mood, your appetite, and how you prefer to spend your time, and that flexibility is pretty cool.

In the end, we shouldn’t totally abandon the grazing concept. Instead, we should recognize that we don’t have to graze. It’s not a must; rather, in most cases, it’s a choice.

Summary
A growing number of experts claim that short fasts can accelerate fat loss and make you healthier. As a result, I spent the last eight months testing the most popular Intermittent Fasting (IF) protocols for myself. During this time, I dropped twenty pounds of weight (from 190 pounds to 170 pounds) and reduced my body fat from 10% to 4% while maintaining most of my lean muscle mass. I also helped others lose fat and gain muscle using a host of different intermittent fasting strategies.

Of course, the full details of my experiments are beyond the scope of this article. However, if you’d like to learn more, you can check out my free e-book called “Experiments with Intermittent Fasting.”In the book I cover everything I did, including details of my training programs and my exact eating plans for all of the IF protocols I tried. There’s also measurement data (including blood work) and a host of other cool features you won’t want to miss. The best part? It’s 100% hosted online so anyone interested in more can pop over to the site and read the entire thing right now, for free, without having to enter an email address or anything.

As a result of my experiments, I learned that IF is a helpful tool and one I’ll continue to use periodically, but it’s not the end-all, be-all of nutrition or fitness. People have been getting in awesome shape (and staying in awesome shape) for decades without the use of intermittent fasting. Simply put, when people control their calories, eat good quality food and train regularly, they get in shape. The rest is a matter of personal preference, lifestyle, and individual difference.

About The Author

John Berardi received his PhD in Exercise Physiology and Nutrient Biochemistry at the University of Western Ontario, Canada. He’s currently an Adjunct Professor at Eastern Michigan University and the University of Texas.

As an elite nutrition coach and exercise physiologist, Dr. Berardi has coached hundreds of elite amateur and professional athletes. In fact, in the last two Winter Olympics alone, his athletes collected over 25 medals, 12 of them gold. He’s also a high performance consultant with Nike.

Further, for the last four years, Dr. Berardi has acted as the director of the world’s largest body transformation project. This one-of-a-kind fat-loss coaching program has produced more total weight loss than all eleven seasons of The Biggest Loser combined.

Enhance your Strength Training

When most people think of kettlebells, they usually think of exercises such as swings, snatches, cleans, and jerks, but the kettlebell can be used for a variety of other moves as well. Kettlebells are a great tool for building work capacity, power, strength, and even endurance using a set of classic exercises. Although all of the previously mentioned exercise are examples of quick power movements, it is important to note that most people can simply begin by focusing on building size and strength before working on speed and power (among other goals). Building muscle is a good first step because, as a wise person once told me, “You can’t flex bone.”

To build size and strength, there is probably no better tool than the barbell. The problem is that many people jump right into heavy barbell training without first adequately mastering proper form and movement patterns. For certain movements, the design of the kettlebell actually forces the body into positions that are better suited to learning basic technique using many of the same exercises that are traditionally done with barbells. The right technique will ensure that the targeted muscles are working optimally from both a muscle-building and strength-building standpoint. By mastering good form, lifters will also be able to train longer and harder and avoid injury. As a result, they will make better gains and improve performance more steadily.

There are many different roads to getting big and strong, but I’ve found that using heavy compound movements are the best way to develop size and strength. Variations of the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press are the keys to developing a strong and powerful physique as well as improving performance in both athletic endeavors and strength competitions. The powerlifting moves essentially challenge every muscle in your body because compound movements use multiple joints and work muscle mass throughout the body, thus making them very effective for building size and strength. Novices and advanced athletes alike can benefit from strength work with kettlebells for the squat, deadlift, bench press, and overhead press in order to build strength as well as reinforce good foundational movement patterns.

KB Goblet Squat

The kettlebell goblet squat, popularized by strength Coach Dan John, is a great way to learn how to squat properly. Two of the biggest problem lifters face when squatting is rounding the lower back and allowing the weight to go too far forward. Being able to hold the kettlebell in front of the body in the goblet position helps combat this problem. The goblet squat drill reinforces proper position in both the upper back and the hips. Holding the weight in front makes this movement feel very similar to a front squat or Zercher squat in that the weight pulls the lifter forward and actually produces a more upright posture. If the lifter bends the spine and rounds the back, there is a very good chance s/he will drop the weight or stumble forward. Strength Coach Zach Even Esh refers to this movement as “the kettlebell Zercher squat”and has used it with his high school and college wrestlers for many years as both an introductory exercise before barbell squats as well as in kettlebell conditioning circuits. Using goblet squats, lifters learn to brace their cores and keep their upper backs tight, techniques that are integral in all variations of squatting.