029 - Dieting is not starving

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Transcript

If we were to play a word association game and I say the word “diet” my guess is you will associate it with starving, restrictive, bland, or extreme. Dieting has taken on the dark characteristics of a villain whose name you shouldn’t say out loud. It seems like total deprivation and at its unhealthiest, extreme diets can be dangerous. 

I’m sure you’ve heard horror stories of people continuing to take more and more food away in order to continue driving down calories to the point where they are eating less than my 3 year old. Unfortunately that approach is called “dieting” too, but what that really is, is idiotic. That’s not what I’m after.

What I’m hoping to reframe for you is a gradual approach to adjusting what you eat with the intention of nourishing your body so it can reach your version of peak performance. We want to strive not starve. 

I know this may be the most counterintuitive thing you’ve heard today but, in my anecdotal experience I would say most clients need to eat more food in order to improve their physique, lose fat and improve their function. Hear me out. 

There are three main measurements of food: volume, quality, energy. Each measurement impacts the other like a 3 way see-saw. 

1. Volume is the amount of food on your plate. Some foods occupy more space than others, for example Broccoli vs. Almonds vs. A muffin. 
2. The quality of the food is generally determined by its source, for example, Organic vs. Non-Organic vs. Processed. 
3. The energy of each food is most commonly shown as calories. The more calories a food has the more I need to expend to use it up.
   1. If I want to lose weight I need to expend more than I consume
   2. If I want to gain weight I need to consume more than I expend
   3. If i want to remain the same weight I need to consume and expend the same amount. 

Let’s do a really straight forward comparison and keep things simple. I don’t necessarily want to get into the weeds here, more so, I want to get the point across for how the majority of people can diet safely and effectively without starvation. 

Example 1.

In this example, for a 100g of each, if we first look at the volume of food on your plate the amount you could eat of broccoli is going to be more than enough to fill you up in a meal and likely not even come close to the calories of a mars bar. You are also vastly (obviously) improving the quality of the food by choosing broccoli over a mars bar. 

Example 2. 

In a restaurant you are more likely to run into the example of swapping out French fries for a baked potato. The potato takes up about the same volume but the calories are 4 times less which means you could eat 400g of potato to match 100g of French fries (for calories). Way more than you’d need to feel full. Plus, the quality of the potato is higher, giving better nourishment for the body. 

Because there is usually always room to improve the quality we can eat a larger volume of food with higher quality and lower calories. This means that on a meal to meal, day to day, and week to week basis you are eating more food, with fewer calories, and better quality of food that is going to nourish your body giving it better building blocks to heal, repair, and recover from your workouts and activities. 

The likelihood you feel starved at any point with this approach is unlikely.

Here’s a few “rules” I like to use:

1. Add before you subtract
   1. increase the volume and quality of food. Eat the high quality food first. This will leave you feeling full of nourishing food and not leave much room for low value, high calorie foods that aren’t working for you. 
2. Upgrade quality before downgrading calories. 
   1. If you can swap a higher quality food for a low quality food, you can avoid removing daily calories. In the potato/french fry example, if you do the swap for the potato (increase volume/quality) versus getting the French fries and not eating (in order to reduce calories). You will get enough food to be satisfied (no binging and snacking later) and you’ll give your body more building blocks to repair and recover.
3. Fruit and veggies are Cart Blanche 
   1. I have not run into a scenario where someone consumed so many fruits or vegetables that it negatively impacted them. Only roughly 2% of carbohydrates will convert to stored body fat and the likelihood that conversion happens with fruits and veggies is as likely as snow in the Sahara. If you give your body ample nutrients, vitamins, minerals, your snacking, cravings and binge eating will disappear. 

This is a diet. You will likely consume fewer calories than you have been. You will likely eat fewer low value foods than you have been. Your physique will very likely change. 

With everything I’ve said in mind, do you think this dieting approach would lead to you feeling like you were starving or striving? Nourish your body, improve the quality, swap out the low value food, and you will feel like a different person with more energy, better recovery, sleep and performance. 

I challenge you to 10 weeks of these changes, then reach out and let me know how you feel. Bonus, take before and after photos and see if you can tell the difference.