I’m going to write a series of posts talking about “Flexible Dieting;” a.k.a. “IIFYM.”  IIFYM stands for “If it fits your macros,” which is the idea that you can eat whatever you want to achieve changes in body composition, as long as it all fits into your Calorie and macronutrient ranges for the day.

I tend to veer away from using the term “IIFYM” in favor of “Flexible Dieting,” because there’s a sort of negative connotation with IIFYM; a lot of people think it means making terrible food choices for every meal.  While I’m sure there are those out there who do make poor food choices the majority of the time, there are also many out there who do it right.

What does that mean, “Do it right”?

This is what I’ll be examining over the next few posts.  In this first post, I will talk about why flexible dieting works, and how you’re able to eat everything from vegetables to ice cream, and still achieve whatever body composition goals you want.

Think of this as energy and nothing more.

So why would someone want to do flexible dieting?

The biggest reason I advise flexible dieting is the flexibility it gives you–  You don’t have to restrict yourself from foods unnecessarily.  If you make room in your daily nutrition for something, you can have it!  An example I give my clients is how much I love chocolate:  I eat chocolate daily.  Pancakes are one of my all time favorite foods:  I eat them regularly.  I eat animal crackers, strawberry preserves, chicken nuggets, etc.  I don’t have to have a “cheat day,” because every day, I eat foods I enjoy based on whether they fit into my goals; not based on some arbitrary distinction between “good” and “bad.”

It’s also very easy to develop a binge eating disorder by unnecessarily restricting yourself–  By being flexible, however, you can avoid that (or work to fix it if you’re experiencing it) by promoting a healthy relationship with food, which is very important!  Now, you can have a serving of ice cream (that fits within your macros) rather than destroying a whole gallon of ice cream because you don’t know when you’ll allow yourself to eat it again.

You can’t be serious.  You can’t lose weight with ice cream!

The basic principle behind weight loss, and weight gain, is “Energy Balance.”

If you want to lose weight, eat less Calories than you burn; if you want to gain weight, eat more Calories than you burn.  It’s that simple. (Source | More reading about energy balance)  There are some that believe that they’re made differently; that they’re somehow special and live outside the laws of our universe.  If you think that about yourself, I’m sorry to break it to you, but you are not exempt from the First Law of Thermodynamics.  If you are, please submit your body to science, as you’re the first being that has managed such a feat.

But I’ve heard certain foods make you fat and others make you skinny!

If someone tells you that certain foods, by default, make you fat, they don’t know much about nutritional science.  Likewise, if they say a food will make you skinny, they’re terribly misinformed, and are likely trying to sell you an agenda.  To illustrate this point, let’s discuss the three main macronutrients (commonly referred to as “Macros”):  Fats, Carbohydrates, and Proteins.  As a blanket statement, we can say that all foods are comprised of a combination of these, as these are “energy yielding” nutrients–  That’s just a fancy way of saying they contain Calories.  In fact, a “Calorie” is really just a measure of how much energy is contained in the food from the combination of macros.  (Source)

A common misconception about macronutrients is that your body can differentiate where it came from–  People claim there is a magic sensor inside your body that tells your body if the sugar molecule you consumed came from ice cream vs. a banana, and it should treat it differently.

Your body can’t.

This is why flexible dieting works.  In the body, all macronutrients are broken down into “substrates;” Carbohydrates, no matter where they came from, get broken down into one of 3 “Monosaccharides;”  Proteins, no matter where they came from, get broken down into individual amino acids;  Fats, no matter where they came from, get broken down into (or remain as) triglycerides.  (More reading on Macronutrients)

Are you sure that’s right?

Yes.  To illustrate, though, let’s look at two different foods, and what will happen when eaten.  Let’s take a twinkie.

A twinkie has 4.5g of Fat, 27g Carbohydrates, and 1g Protein.  Let’s compare that to a 100g of avocado: 15g of Fat, 9g Carbohydrates, and 2g Protein.  In both cases, the Fats will be broken down into triglycerides; the Carbohydrates will all be broken down into one of three monosacharides (Glucose, Fructose, or Galactose); and the Proteins will all be broken down into individual amino acids.

I’m still not convinced.

Let’s take an even simpler example:  Let’s say you have a can of cola sweetened with high fructose corn syrup, a bottle of cola sweetened with sugar, and a banana–  3 examples that are all very high in carbs.  What will all of the carbs in these examples be broken down into?  1 of 3 monosaccharides:  Glucose, Fructose, or Galactose; and they’re all the exact same molecule.  (Source)

Truth.

I’m still not sure I believe you.  How can you lose weight eating “bad foods”?

First off, I can’t think of anything that I’d call a “bad food.”  There are foods that aren’t very nutritious, but it’s still not a “bad food.”  Thinking of foods in terms of “good” and “bad” is a poor mentality to have.  Also, there’s a fantastic story about a nutrition scientist that wanted to demonstrate the principles of energy balance to his students by following a 10 week “convenience store diet,” and he ended up losing 27 pounds.  (Read about it here)

So I should go eat twinkies all day!?

Not exactly.  While it’s true that a “Calorie is a Calorie” in terms of body composition / energy balance, there is something else to consider.  In my next post, I’m going to talk about nutrient density and variety, which addresses this.  Many people will make the claim that not all Calories are created equal;  from a healthful diet standpoint, they do have a point; in terms of fat loss, though, they’re way off!

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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Last week, I was checking in with an online training client with some of my usual queries: How is your nutrition, training, etc.?  At the end of their response, they asked me how my training was going.

I appreciated the thought, but more than anything, I was happy to be ale to share something with them–  I’ve had clients, family, and friends comment on my dedication to working out as if I never have issues with motivation.  I’ve also been told that I don’t understand motivation issues.

But, I do; and lately, I know them very well.

For the last few weeks, I have had some serious motivation issues with my training.  I find myself toying with the idea of skipping workouts; I’ve found myself putting off my workouts; I’ve considered scaling back the intensity; During a few workouts I’ve cut out a set; In one particular case, I had to basically force myself to start my warm up and train.

Life is stressful–  Between work, school, studying for a nutrition certification, contest prep for my show, acting in a web series, and everything else I have going on, it has definitely worn me down.  Somehow, though, I manage to keep myself in the gym and compliant on my nutrition.

The point of this post?

I’m writing this to tell you that motivation issues are normal, and that I know exactly how difficult this journey can be.  I’m right there alongside everyone else in struggling to maintain a healthy lifestyle.  It’s not limited to me either–  You’ll find that even professional athletes, professional physique competitors, amateur physique competitors, etc. have regular struggles with staying on their nutrition, or staying motivated in the gym.

Staying as consistent as possible, and trying to find motivation every day can be difficult, but they’re necessary; and hopefully, you have someone in your life that can help you maintain that!

What can you do about motivation issues?

There’s no real solution for motivation issues.  Usually I try and tell people to find the root of the issue–  Often it can be something like sitting down after a long day when you should have gone directly the gym.  Other times it’s a sort of response that occurs after deviating from your nutrition plan.  Getting the root of the problem can often do the trick.  For me, personally, I just remind myself of how I’ll feel if I don’t train vs. if I do. If I skip a workout, I’ll feel bad about it, and I’ll feel like I wasn’t working toward my goal. . .  But I know that, if I can get started, I will feel better once I’m training, and I’ll feel great when I’m finished!

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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When I was young, I wanted to be a scientist–  There was a wide variety of fields I considered, such as paleontology, astronomy, geology, astrophysics, engineering, and others.  At some point along the way, I deviated from my passion for science, and instead pursued the arts.

. . .  Oddly enough, the arts brought me back to my passion for science.  I’m now in school with the eventual goal of a M.S. in Nutritional Science (Possibly a PhD), and I now research all subjects thoroughly so that I have scientific evidence to back up my claims and recommendations.  (You’ll also notice that my blogs started containing sources.)

It’s easy to get sucked into the sort of anti science mindset that is stereo-typically associated with artistic types.  For a while, I was anti GMO, believed in faulty nutritional science, and wrote a lot about pseudo-scientific topics on this blog.  I’ve actually gone back and destroyed that evidence–  I don’t want to contribute misinformation to the Internet.

While quite a bit went into my rediscovery of my passion for science, there are 5 different moments in particular that had a pretty profound effect on me, and they all happened within a relatively short time period; and that is something I would like to share with you.

“Why are GMOs bad?”

I was against GMOs–  They seemed horrifying!  You see all of these memes shared on Facebook that talk about the different health risks of these “Frankenfoods,” and indeed, if you lack the any knowledge in Biology (or disregard it), GMOs must be stopped.  One day, someone asked me, “Why are GMOs bad?”  I couldn’t think of a reason off the top of my head, and went to Google it.  The strangest thing happened–  I couldn’t find a single credible resource claiming any drawbacks whatsoever (health or otherwise), but found plenty of credible, scientifically based resources proving their safety and efficacy.  I’m not afraid to admit when I’m wrong, and this was a time when I most certainly was.  My position has changed, and I have evidence to back me up.  (Source)

“You know protein causes a spike in insulin, right?”

I spent a lot of time spinning my wheels–  Years, in fact.  I wasn’t able to lose weight no matter what I would do.  For a while, I thought following an extremely low carb diet would work for me, and indeed, I saw an initial result (as everyone does), but that was it.  From reading a myriad of incorrect articles, I thought that restricting carb intake would suppress insulin release, thus turning off my body’s ability to store fat.  This would eventually, hypothetically, lead to ketosis, where my body would “burn fat” for fuel.  All of this was wrong (which I’ll address later), but I had no idea.  I explained this logic to someone on a forum, and someone else asked, “You know that protein causes a spike in insulin, right?”

I immediately started researching, and eventually found a plethora of scientifically based articles proving that person’s point.  (Source 1 & Source 2)

This is very similar to the next–

“There are several main reasons that I recommend retaining carbohydrates.”

Dr. Layne Norton (PhD Nutritional Science) is a. . .  I don’t want to say a hero of mine, but I definitely respect him and look up to him.  I trust the information he puts out not only because of his education and experience, but because research backs his advice and recommendations.

That said, he has a fantastic article (more like novella) about preparing for a bodybuilding show, and right off the bat, he talks about the importance of consuming carbohydrates.  At this point in my life, I thought that bodybuilders ate no carbs to prep for a competition, and indeed, I came across this article just around the time I had become enlightened to protein’s effect on insulin.  This completely shook up my world–  For the better!  After reading the article twice through, I started reintroducing carbohydrates into my nutrition plan.  (Source)

Citation Needed

I had started putting a lot more energy into my research; I was also very strict, limiting myself to only reputable resources with adequate research backing it up. . .  I was also adding these resources to the end of my blog posts–  I had begun looking for sources in everything I read, so I wanted to provide those to my readers.  There’s a phenomenon that I used to believe in that basically said if you diet a while, and then have a massive cheat day, your body won’t absorb those Calories because, and I quote, “your body doesn’t know what to do with all that food.”  Someone recommended I write a blog post on that subject, and when doing research, I couldn’t find any evidence to support this claim, but mountains of evidence to the contrary.  In fact, as I’ve learned in my textbook “Nutrition (5th Edition),” the human body can absorb at least kilograms of Carbohydrates, 500g of Fat, and 500g – 700g of Protein.  For a little perspective, that means, at an absolute minimum, your body can absorb at least 10500 Calories a day (but really, is capable of significantly more).  (Source)

It’s worth noting that my notoriously insane, regularly scheduled cheat meals also helped me not lose weight.

Beta – Oxidation

The final event–  my complete turn to the right side of The Force, came when I was studying the textbook for my NASM certification.  The book is very science heavy (as it should be), delving into physiological topics such as biomechanics, bioenergetics, anatomy, metabolism, and much more.  The book details beta-oxidation, a dominant metabolic pathway, and one that is lipolytic (fat burning).  All that work to convert my body to “burn fat for fuel” by not eating carbs, and my body already did it daily.  (Source 1 & Source 2)

“Zealot”

What was even more amusing is that, in addition to these instances, my first science class after returning to school managed to break down all of the remaining pseudo-scientific myths that I hadn’t yet let go of.

I am now so pro science that I would almost classify myself as a zealot; but I mean that in the best possible way.  If you don’t trust in science, what can you trust?  What can you believe?  If you reject science, do you think the Earth is flat?  Do you believe in the geocentric model of the Universe?  I know that’s a bit of a “Slippery Slope Fallacy,” but I maintain that it’s a fair argument–  How do you choose what science to reject and what to “believe”?  Science has done so much for humanity, continues to do so, and I want to contribute to that; I want to help spread the word, and help people achieve their goals!  Remember:

Preach it!

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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The best way to get a nice perky bum is to build muscle in that area of your body and to lean out. How do you build muscle there? You lift heavy weights! I used to suffer badly from “flat bum syndrome,” so I can tell you that the best way of fixing that is lifting!

Our society has trained us to think that, as women, if we lift heavy weights we will get “big and bulky.” This is just not true, unless you are on steroids. Heavy weight lifting will increase muscle mass so that when you lose fat you will look nice and lean and “toned.” If you have no muscle under your fat you will just look very skinny when you get thinner.

My two favorite exercises to not only feel strong but get those glutes activated for a nice bum are squats and deadlifts. Both of these compound movements use a vast majority of the muscles in your body and specifically the gluteus maximus (aka your booty!).

I am including my prep pictures for both exercises as well to emphasize how important it is to really focus and visualize what you are about to do. For me, this was on a max strength training day so I was telling myself  “you can lift this weight, you only have to lift it once, it is easy.”

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Alissa Christensen
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Meal Planning & Tracking is the most important aspect of achieving your goals, and it takes some time to not only get in the rythym of it, but to also know how to do it effectively.  Here are a few tips:

Tip #1 – Make sure all of your foods are an option in your tracker!

I consume a lot of the same foods on a weekly basis, but I am always looking for ways to enhance variety, and work in specific cravings.  For example, I was recently overwhelmed with a craving for whole grain bread, so I went to the store and got a loaf.

I can’t explain it.

The first thing I did when I got home:  Entered in the completed nutrient breakdown into my SparkPeople.com account.

This is a sort of ritual for me after every shopping trip where I add something new to my nutrition plan–  The very first thing I do is put it into my tracker.  I often opt to create my own entry rather than rely on the ones already entered because those already entered usually:

• Aren’t entered using the metric system.
• Aren’t always complete.

Tip #2 – Measure individual foods in meals as you go along!

When preparing a meal, it is absolutely imperative that you measure and update each ingredient as you go, otherwise, you will have no way of knowing how much of which ingredients are present in your meal.  So how do you do that?  Simple.  Weigh it all as you go!  If you’re making spaghetti and chicken:

• Weigh the chicken before you prepare it and enter it into your tracker.  (If it’s frozen chicken, weigh it frozen, if it’s already cooked, weigh it directly out of the bag.)
• Weigh the pasta dry before cooking.
• Put the cooked pasta and chicken on a plate on your food scale.  Turn on the scale, and weigh out the amount of tomato sauce you used.

Now for more involved recipes, the principle is the same.  Take for example the No Bake Peanut Butter Protein Bars:

• Weigh each individual ingredient as you go, and calculate the nutrient totals for each ingredient.
• Combine the weight of each ingredient (since they’re all dry) to figure out the total “yield;” combine the nutrient totals for each ingredients to find out the complete nutrition facts for the yield.
• Enter those nutrition facts into your tracker using your total yield as the serving size.
• When you want to eat some of the food, weigh out each piece, and input that as the updated serving size.

What that recipe looks like in my SparkPeople.

It sounds a little complicated, but after you do it yourself once you will understand, and then it will be easy!

Tip #3 – Use a “Mole Fraction” to measure bulk prepared foods!

My kitchen is my lab!

If you don’t remember the “Mole Fraction” from chemistry, don’t worry, I’m not even going to bother explaining it here.  The principles we’re going to use is the exact same, though.  We’ll continue with pasta as an example.  Let’s say you’re cooking a big pot of pasta, but don’t want to prepare separate pots of it for your serving vs. everyone else’s pasta.  Follow these steps:

• Weigh out the pasta first, and try and stick with servings (Though, it’s not necessary). To make this easy, let’s say there are 5 people eating; let’s get 5 servings.  The pasta I eat is 56g per serving, so we would weigh out 280g of pasta (56g * 5).
• Cook the pasta.
• Obviously we can’t weigh the pasta afterward the same as before because the absorption of water will change the weight.  We can, however, use a sort of “Mole Fraction:”
  • Weigh the total amount of pasta cooked after draining it.  Let’s say it weighs 600g total.
  • Serve yourself and weight it–  Let’s say you scooped out 150g worth of pasta.  Now, we’ll set up our “Nutrition Fraction;” divide the amount you served by the total cooked amount.  This will give us the percentage of the food you served.  (In the case of our example, 0.25, or 25%.)
  • Next, multiply that by the dry measurement–  That’s how much pasta you were served and how much you should put in your tracker (70g, a bit more than a serving).  Here’s how to set it up on paper:

“X” represents the ratio of pasta served, and “n” represents the various measurements of pasta.

• Let’s say we need to be more precise and need to figure out how much to serve rather than calculate how much was served:
  • In the case of our pasta example, let’s say you want just 1 serving of the 5 we cooked; and cooked, it came out to 600g.  Find out what 1/5th of 600g is:  [(1/5)*600] = 120g.  Now you know that you need to serve yourself 120g of cooked pasta to get the equivalent of 56g of dry pasta.

Tip #4: Measure and track everything as accurately and precisely as possible.

This post wouldn’t be complete without reminding you of that!

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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I measure everything I eat–  Unless it’s something packaged, processed, and sold by weight where I know how much each individual item is, it gets weighed on my food scale.  Actually, even some of those items get weighed.

I had a client ask my how much of my day is spent weighing my food, so I set out on an experiment–  I also made a video about it:

To answer the question: 10.5 minutes total.  Such a small part of my day is devoted to measuring, and that 10.5 minutes isn’t even all at once–  That’s spread out throughout the day.  It works out to 0.73% of your day.  If you think of your day like a dollar bill, that means that less than a penny is “spent” on measuring my food for my goals.

Something else I would like to discuss (that isn’t in the video) is what my day looks like when it’s planned vs. how it ends up–  It evolves quite a bit as I update everything as it’s measured.  Here’s my tracker at the start of the day:

There’s a lot of food there, so my final stats got cut off, but it ended up at 2,261 Calories; 273g Carbs; 54g Fat; 192g Protein.  Here’s how my tracker looked at the end of the day:

I finished my day at these totals: 2,326 Calories; 280g Carbs; 60g Fat; and 188g Protein.  I was within my macro ranges, and came in just below my Calorie needs.

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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I was sent an Email this morning about a miracle weight loss supplement featured on Dr. Oz.  First, let me say I later found out the Email was sent from an Email that was hacked.  Second:

Dr. Oz is entertainment.  He’s a surgeon, not a scientist; but more than that, he’s an entertainer whose goal is to increase viewership and ratings so that the network may sell advertising space at a premium.  He’s been called out by Popular Science, and other organizations for giving non scientific advice.  His show is chock full of pseudoscience, and he was even given an award to recognize his “extraordinary contributions to America’s scientific illiteracy and pervasive fear mongering.”

You’re a “doctor” yet you believe in magic?

Anytime someone says they saw something on Dr. Oz, I am immediately skeptical.

This post isn’t about Dr. Oz, though. . .  It’s about fat burners and what you should consider before buying.

Let’s start with the claims of the supplement–  It will “melt fat away.”

Well I want my fat to melt away!

Here’s the thing about any weight loss supplement–  It’s meant to supplement an effective weight loss plan.  If you eat whatever you want and your Calories are way above maintenance, no legal (or safe) supplement can burn off the amount of Calories necessary for you to burn fat.

But there’s a study about it!

Hah!  “Study.”  True. . .  In the initial article, there was this link:

If only it existed. . .

Unfortunately, when you click to view the study, it takes you to an online order form with no study in site.  In fact, there is no way to actually find the study they claim proves it’s effectiveness, but I did keep running into clips from Dr. Oz.

This is why I advise all clients to check with me before buying supplements–  There is an entire world of effective supplements out there than will help you toward your goals, but it takes a bit of education when deciding what to buy.

But people lost weight with it!

True, and it’s possible for a supplement to enhance your weight loss–  There are a lot of effective fat burners, thermogenic compounds, etc., but let’s look at the numbers for a second to see how these work.  Let’s say you want to lose fat:

Option #1: You’re completely sedentary, and you don’t watch what you eat.  Without realizing it, you’re currently eating 200 Calories above maintenance, which means you’re steadily gaining 0.4 lbs. per week.  You take a fat loss supplement that raises your energy needs by 150 Calories per day, but since you don’t track anything, you don’t realize that you’re still eating above maintenance.  While this will slow your fat gain, it doesn’t create a situation where you’re losing, or even maintaining.  Instead of gaining 0.4 lbs. per week, you’re now only gaining 0.1 lbs. per week.

Option #2: Through your nutrition and training you’re currently maintaining your weight because you’re struggling with your nutrition plan.  So you take a fat loss supplement–  This raises your energy needs by 150 Calories per day–  That means that now you could lose 0.30 lbs. per week.

Option #3: Through your nutrition and training, you’re currently losing 0.5 lbs. per week because you’re very good at maintaining a deficit of 250 Calories per day.  As happy as you are with your fat loss, you want to lose weight faster, but don’t want to consume less food.  You take this fat loss supplement, which raises your energy needs by 150 Calories.  This means that your daily deficit is actually 400 Calories per day, which leads to 0.8 lbs. of fat loss per week.

The stories you hear about in the testimonial section of these websites are from those in the “Option #3” camp. . .  They already have a grasp on their nutrition and exercise, and are using the supplements to enhance their results.

Need more proof?  Here’s the fine print from the website: “Actual weight loss will vary and in many cases will not be typical. . . […] Each person’s experience will depend on the reasonableness of their weight loss goal, the time they allow themselves to lose the weight to attain their weight loss goal, their age, state of health, their diet and exercise and any limitations placed on them by their health care professional due to the above or any other factor.”

I added the bold for emphasis.

So what’s the truth about this supplement?

I won’t link to the website from the Email I got for two reasons:

1. I don’t want to give them any traffic since they’re not only deceptive, but they’re also promoting through Email hacking.
2. They’re not a supplement manufacturer that I trust.

The supplement itself can be an effective tool for fat loss.  Looking it up on Examine.com shows that there is evidence to support the claims made (even though more studies are needed).  I just recommend buying it from a trustworthy company, consulting someone familiar with the topic (Trainer, Coach, Doctor, etc.), and understanding the role a supplement plays in your plan.

What supplements are in your cupboard?

It’s worth noting that this post may make it seem like I’m on the fence about fat burners and supplements.

I’m not against supplements–  In fact, I’m all for them!  There are fat burners in my supplement cabinet, and before doing cardiorespiratory training, I take a mild fat burner “stack.”  What matters, though, is that my nutrition and training is 100% dialed in, and I use supplements to enhance my results.

The key is to remember what the point of a “supplement” is; it’s to supplement a healthy nutrition and training plan.

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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If you’re interested in living healthier, or losing fat, you’ve likely shopped for items that are have a Calorie count of 0–  Whether it be cooking sprays, flavored beverages, or any number of other items. You’re not alone–  I am a huge fan of items that are 0 Calorie, but there’s something that everyone should be aware of when it comes to these options. They rarely contain 0 Calories.

Whaaaaaaaaaaat?

Yes.  It’s true.  To demonstrate, we’ll take this sparkling flavored water as an example.

Notice how it says there are  0 Calories.  Notice how it says there are 0g carbohydrates.  Notice how it also says that it contains 3% fruit juice.  If fruit juice is sugar, and sugar is Calories, then how can this drink have 0 Calories?

Simple.  The regulations regarding labeling state that a product may be “Calorie free” if it contains less than 5 calories per “Reference Amount Customarily Consumed” (RACC).

Well, that’s just 5 Calories!  So what?

Now let’s throw out a hypothetical situation–  Let’s say this whole bottle contains 9.8 Calories, right?  That would mean that they have to list the Calories, right? Not so fast. . .

“About 2 Servings.” Or 2.06 to be exact.

The RACC for drinks is typically 8 fl. oz., which means there are just over 2 servings in this 17 fl. oz. bottle, which means this drink could contain up to 10 Calories.

Well that’s just 10 Calories!  So what!?

Do you use cooking spray?

Oil contains 0 Calories?

Do you make sure that your spray lasts less than 1/3 of a second so that you’re getting less than 5 calories of oil?  Let’s say you spray pretty liberally, and use it during two meals–  You could be consuming anywhere from 20 – 40 calories from fat.

Well that’s just a few extra Calories!  So what!?

Let’s put this all together–  Let’s say you drink two of those flavored waters, use cooking spray liberally, chew non sugar free gum, etc.  All of these things, under the guise of 0 Calorie, contribute Calories–  Maybe even as much as 100 per day if consumed in sufficient volumes. Let’s say your deficit is -500 Kcal / day.  Now your deficit is only -400 Kcal / day–  That means instead of losing a pound per week, you’ll be losing 4/5 lb. per week.  It all adds up.

So what should I do?

My recommendation is to be mindful of these foods in your diet–  There’s nothing wrong with consuming them, and if you use them (very) sparingly, don’t worry about it. However, if you consume multiple items that could contain hidden calories, I would do my best to try and come in just below your Calorie goals to account for it.

As an example, if the only hidden Calories in my day are from my cooking spray, I don’t bother with it.  If, however, I also drank some of those 0 Calorie drinks, and used cooking spray, I will choose to end my day 20 Calories below my target; this is done, of course, because I’m preparing for a contest and need to be as accurate as possible. . .

This may be a little extreme for you, but for best results, you must be as accurate as possible.

Sources and Links

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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I would argue the most important part of any positive lifestyle change (Which includes physique goals, weight loss goals, health goals, etc.) is nutrition–  I know I’m not alone in that.

The question is, though, how do you plan your meals?  Well, it’s really not that difficult once you get the hang of it–  The key is to plan, while simultaneously tracking, rather than simply tracking.

Planning / Tracking vs. Tracking – What’s the difference?

If you only track your food, that means you track is while you eat, and at the end of the day, your macronutrients (Protein, Carbs, Fats) may be way off, and you may overshoot (or undershoot) your Calorie goals

I’m going to share with you how I plan (and track) my meals daily, and hopefully this will help shed some light on how to plan your own day so you can achieve your goals!

Let’s get started!

Typically, I plan my day the night before–  Though there are times where that’s not practical, so I plan them the next morning as soon as I wake up.  Here’s an important note:  I always have my day planned out before I start eating anything.  This way I can make sure I hit my macros for the day and haven’t sabotaged myself.

When I start planning, I start with my high protein meals first (Which for me is every meal), so that I ensure my goal for the most important macronutrient is met.

(There’s a lot more that goes into my planning, of course, like getting a variety of foods so I get a broad range of phytochemicals, and other such things, but this is just a basic idea.)

So now, I’ve been awake for about 15 minutes, and here’s what my tracker looks like:

Now, for those who have some level of experience tracking their food, you may say: “How do you know that the banana you have is going to weigh 150g?”  “How do you know that your pancakes at Denny’s will weigh 200g?”

The answer to that:  I don’t.  I put in placeholder values for all of these items, and then I update them throughout the day–  In a lot of cases it will be close to the mark, but there are times where there are drastic differences.  This is also why I tend to keep some calories open for the end of my day.

As I go throughout my day, I update the values as they’re measured.  At Denny’s, a serving of pancakes is 170g, and contains 310 Kcal.  Of course, their pancakes are never made to a serving size, and always go over, which is why I not only anticipate that in my tracker:

. . .  But I also bring a food scale to Denny’s with me to measure.

Why would you do that!?

The largest variance in serving size I’ve experienced at Denny’s was 62g–  That means that someone who looks at the nutrition facts but doesn’t measure them thinks they’re consuming 310 Calories, but really, they’re eating 423 Calories.  (Even on the day I’m showing you the pancakes were 32g more than a serving, which is an extra 58 Calories over a serving.)  As an example: If you get nutritional counseling from me, I typically set up a 400 Kcal daily deficit, which is slightly less than 1 pound per week of fat loss;  if you went to Denny’s and had those pancakes one day, your deficit would only be 287 Kcal–  And that’s only from one food having a massive variance.  Just imagine if other foods had such variances.  Would you even be eating in a deficit?  This is why you track.

The rest of the day should be tracked similarly–  Update the foods you consume with the accurate measurements as you’re prepare and consume them.  As an example, my Massive Fruit & Veggie Smoothie™ has a lot of placeholder values added at the start of the day–  When I prepare it, I just leave the blender on the food scale while I measure every ingredient.

By the end of the day, I’ve updated everything, made revisions, and my day looks like this:

And this is why I see results at the rate I should see them.  While you can never track your calories with 100% certainty, you can get as close as possible, which I feel I do on a daily basis.  The more accurate you are with your tracking, the quicker you will achieve your goals!

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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I constantly see memes, pins on Pinterest, and countless “articles” that spout off nonsense regarding health, nutrition, and exercise.  More often than not, there is no source cited, and they can give information that is not only completely wrong, but sometimes dangerous.

So, how do you protect yourself from these sorts of articles?  Well, luckily there is an organization known as The Food and Nutrition Science Alliance (FANSA) that is a coalition of 6 organizations:  The American College of Nutrition (ACN), the American Dietetic Association (ADA), the American Society for Nutrition (ASN), the American Society for Parenteral and Enteral Nutrition (ASPEN), the Institute of Food Technologists (IFT), and the Society for Nutrition Education (SNE).

Why are you telling me this?

FANSA has put out a fantastic guide for consumers looking for information on the Internet and in the media titled “The 10 Red Flags of Junk Science.”  Anyone interested in health, fitness, or nutrition should keep this list handy and compare it to what they read.

1. Recommendations that promise a quick fix.
2. Dire warnings of danger from a single product or regimen.
3. Claims that sound too good to be true.
4. Simplistic conclusions drawn from a single study.
5. Recommendations based on a single study.
6. Dramatic statements that are refuted by reputable scientific organizations.
7. Lists of “good” and “bad” foods.
8. Recommendations made to help sell a product.
9. Recommendations based on studies published without peer review.
10. Recommendations from studies that ignore differences among individuals or groups.

I personally have one more guideline that I follow:

1. If there are no sources, and / or the author is underqualified, the article should be treated as nonsense until corroborated with a legitimate source.

Example of this:  An article I read made a really interesting claim, citing a study that supported the claim.  There were no sources, no links, and the author had no related credentials.  I then searched for the study the article referenced and found it.

Think about these guidelines, and think about articles you’ve read, or what sort of infographics you’ve shared over social media– Would it be safe to say that the vast majority of the information out there is “junk science” based on these guidelines?

I would say so, and it’s only further contributing to the sort of scientific illiteracy / ignorance that pervades society.  It’s so easy to find the right answer, you just have to find the source and not go out of your way to “believe” in something else.

Truth.

That’s great and all, but why should I care?

I spent the better part of a few years spinning my wheels as far as achieving my goals because I followed advice and programs that were nearly completely devoid science–  I’m very thankful that I’ve learned all that I have, because now I’m on track to achieve what I originally set out to do.

Sources and More Reading

Filed under: Health, Nutrition, Nutrition Myth by Gabriel DeVine
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