Chapter 4

Chapter 4: On Diet

Okay, so we’ll make this quick. Diet accounts for half of your results. It’s important!

There are a zillion diets out there. This chapter is intended to get you started on how to think productively in considering a diet plan to complement your workouts. You’ll find some basic information here but how you execute your specific diet plan is up to you.

If you want to keep it simple, most trainers will agree that changing the way your body looks is a matter of monitoring the calories you take in by eating and at the same time being mindful of the calories you burn off by physical activity. That’s the simple answer. This chapter will focus on some specific ideas that I and other trainers have recommended in the past. Try them out, use what works for you, and don’t be afraid to change your habits.

It’s a good idea to eat six to eight small meals a day. (Key word: small meals) This habit will keep your metabolism active throughout the day. Sometimes clients have expressed that six to eight meals seems counter intuitive. Shouldn’t eating less meals be conducive to weight loss and muscle gain? But consider this, when the body is not getting enough nourishment it goes into what some people would call “hibernation mode”. It begins storing nutrients as fat instead of burning calories. It says, “Whoa! What’s up with this? You’re not giving me what I want! So I’ll take what you are giving me and save it for a time when you’re gonna need it.” That’s what fat is - storage. Now there is some debate among  trainers about the validity of the “hibernation mode” or “storage mode” theory. Their argument is “Where are all the fat anorexics?” But I’ve personally seen obese people who will eat only one meal a day and wonder why they can’t lose weight. However when they distribute those calories out throughout the day THAT’S when they begin to see results.

Now let’s look a little more closely at how to eat right for sustaining energy, burning fat, and building muscle. 

Eat Appropriately For Your Goals

If you want better workouts, you have to eat better quality calories. If you want to lose weight by burning fat you have to eat appropriately to maintain energy while building muscle. It sounds complicated but let’s go through the "basics of the basics": Carbohydrates or “Carbs”, Proteins, and Fats.

Carbs: Let’s dispel one myth now, despite popular opinion and media hype - CARBS ARE NOT EVIL! They give you energy for a better quality workout, to lift more weight for longer durations and in maintaining energy. You burn Carbs off during exercise so it’s a good idea to eat them an hour before your physical activity. Now here’s the kicker - if they don’t get burned off, Carbs get converted into fat. So lay off them later in the day.

Proteins: Proteins help rebuild muscle structure after a workout. The reason why you’ve heard so much hype about protein is because muscle maintenance is the key to raising your metabolism. The best time to eat foods high in proteins is twenty to thirty minutes after your workout. When you train, you’re actually not building muscle - you’re tearing tearing and breaking muscle down! The Proteins help rebuild the muscle fibers over the long term which is why they are essential in raising metabolism and a key component for strength maintenance.

Fats: They help you feel satiated. So used strategically, Fats can help you balance your diet. However, 1 gram of Fat goes a long way. In fact, one gram of Fat holds nine calories! This is compared to only four calories per gram of Carbs or Protein. I recommend a daily amount of 15 percent or less of Fat when compared to your intake of Proteins and Carbs. "How do you figure out how much is 15 percent?" you might ask. Stick around, we’ll cover that in a moment.

Journal Your Food Intake

If changing your whole diet seems a little...um...intimidating to say the least, just start out by journaling what you eat. By writing it down you’re acknowledging the choices that you’re making on a day-to-day, moment-to-moment basis. If you acknowledge your choices then you can realize that you do in fact have choices. A journal provides you something extra and that would be accountability. Accountability allows you to raise the stakes; it’s no longer about you being alone in the dark. It becomes about becoming in full career of a Quest and the journal will help you appreciate the gravity of the choice you made to change. Nothing will track your day-to-day choices better than what you choose to eat on a moment-to-moment basis.


Diet Formula

Again, in the interest of pointing you in the right direction, here’s a universal formula to figure out how and what to eat throughout the day. 
    
The most effective way to monitor eating habits for enjoying optimum results is understanding the concept of taking calories in and working calories out. On top of that it’s important to know how you’re taking in those calories in terms of nutrients from Carbohydrates (energy), Protein (muscle structure), and Fat (storage).

First take your weight. Say, you’re 150 pounds. Take this figure and multiply it by ten.

150 x 10 = 1500

Enter your weight here and multiply it by ten:

__________ x 10 = ____________________

What this means is that your body will burn off 1500 calories a day (if you're 150 pounds) if you did nothing but stay in bed. Whatever you answered in the above equation is theoretically what your body burns off in one day if you remain inactive.

How active is your day? Do you sit all day at work? Then remember this number - 1.2. Is your day very active? Are you on your feet fairly often, walk a lot, or have fairly strenuous activity? Then use this number - 1.5. The greater your activity the higher the number. 1.1 is essentially no activity. 1.9 or 2 is pretty much working out all day as a professional athlete might do.

So let’s go back to the fairly low activity number of 1.2.

1500 x 1.2 = 1800

Now plug in the specific numbers as they specifically apply to you:

____________ (Your Daily Calorie Requirements x ____(Activity Ratio 1.1 - 1.9) =


______________ (Amount of Calories Burned in One Day)


This number means that it requires 1800 calories a day to maintain a weight of 150 pounds if your activity is fairly minimal. Use the equation above to personalize what this magic number is for you.

Now there are 3500 calories in a pound. If you take away 500 calories a day for seven days then you would be able to burn 1 pound a week.

So take 1800 - 500 = 1300/calories a day.


_________________(Answer to Equation 2) - __________(Amount of Calories Taken

Away - *See Below) = ___________________(Your Daily Allotted Calorie Intake)

Taking away 500 calories will put you on course of losing a pound a week. This doesn’t even include calories burned by cardiovascular activity or calories burned when kicking up your metabolism by maintaining muscle.

*Simply stated:
Take 250 calories out for half a pound a week of fat loss.
500 for a pound.
750 for a pound and a half.
1000 calories for 2 pounds.

Don’t take away any more than 1000 calories a day! Men should consume no less than 1500 calories a day. For women it's no less than 1200 calories a day. Remember you still need the nutrients to get a good quality workout and to rebuild muscle.

Now the magic ratio for effectively building muscle, maintaining energy, and burning fat is 3 parts Carbs, 2 parts Protein, and 1 part Fat.

So take our 150 pound trainee who is working on a diet of 1300 calories a day. So the 3-2-1 ratio is divided into six parts.

1300 divided by 6.

The calories work out to six parts of 216.7.

3 parts Carbs, 2/Protein, 1/Fat would work out like this:

216 x 3 = 650 calories of Carbs
216 x 2 = 432 calories of Proteins
216 x 1 - 216 calories of Fat

Now, try this equation for your program:

__________________ (Your Daily Allotted Calories) / 6 = ________________ (Let’s call this your “X Factor”.)

Ugh! Counting calories! There’s nothing more frustrating than counting calories. I think it’s easier and more productive to be aware of grams of Carbs, Proteins, and Fats. That way all you have to do is look up a label, or check the gram content online, and you have a better idea of what you're consuming.

For Carbs and Proteins, there are 4 calories per gram.

650/4 = 162.5 grams of carbs per day. (Represents “3 part Carbs”)
432/4 = 108 grams of protein per day. (Represents “2 part Proteins”)

Now plug in your personal numbers:

________ (X Factor) x 3 divided by 4 = ______________ (Daily Carb Allowance in Grams)

________ (X Factor) x 2 divided by 4 = ______________ (Daily Protein Allowance in Grams)

For Fat content the calorie count is a little different. There are 9 calories per gram of Fat!

216/9 = 24 grams of fat per day. (Represents “1 part Fat”)

________ (X Factor) divided by 9 = _____________ (Daily Fat Allowance in Grams)

That’s how you can figure out what, how, and when to eat per day. Be aware of the grams each food item has and you’re able to better plan out your meals. It doesn’t have to be on the mark every day, but shooting for those approximate numbers will keep you on track with your diet. Spread them out between your six to eight small meals a day and this will put you in the right direction.

Now if you’re leaning toward more of a body building routine for gaining muscle mass, then the recommended ratio is 2 part Carbs, 2 part Proteins, and 1 part Fat. I’ve also heard it said that you’ll want to take about 1 to 2 grams of protein per pound of your ideal weight. Again, use your best judgement. There are debates among trainers (Seems to be a lot of those!) about too much Protein being stored as Fat. After experimenting on my own diet I would recommend not taking more that 2 part Proteins in your diet if you're trying to maximize muscle development.

Final Words on Spirituality and Diet

I know there will be friends of mine who will read this and have questions about vegetarianism. I think being vegetarian or vegan is a wonderful thing. I do not personally subscribe to it as I will consume chicken and fish on a regular basis to meet my own protein requirements. But many of my friends with a spiritual lifestyle are vegetarian and I respect them for this.

You have to choose for yourself how your diet reflects your choices. How can someone lead a spiritual life while eating the byproducts of animal suffering? We might choose to believe that another life form sacrificed itself to make the quality of our lives better. Ancient peoples in fact practiced animal worship to the point of deifying the animal! Or do we choose to see ourselves as predators feasting on weaker members of the food chain? Whatever your choice, make it a conscious one about the resources you consume.

Like everything, we all have choices. There are some people who tell me how their lives have completely changed for the better once going vegetarian. Maybe even I, a spiritual meat-eater, might consider going vegetarian if my path leads me towards this lifestyle. There are other sources of protein.

The choices are always yours. Even the right to respect another person's decision.

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