Getting control of your diet can seem like a very daunting task. Going to the gym consistently is something that can be grasped pretty easily. You either went or you didn't. Diet, on the other hand, is a whole other beast. There is so much diet information out there that it can be overwhelming to say the least. I want to use this article to talk about what we have seen with our members over the years when it comes to their diet. Here are the 3 most common issues we see with people's diets when they join one of our gyms.
1. No awareness
One of the first things we talk about with our new members as they are going through their On Ramp program is diet. We typically ask them about what their diet looks like and discuss basics of nutrition. Nine times out of ten when asked about their diet they will say it's "pretty good" or "it's not bad, but it's not terrible". Upon further review, however, it is not pretty good. It's actually pretty bad. Most of the times really bad. Food recollection is notoriously bad, and when asked about it we tend to remember the few times we had vegetables last month and tend to forget the countless times we had pizza, or burgers, or snacks from the vending machine, or candy. Knowing what you are eating is the first step to making a change and the vast majority of people have no idea what they are eating.
How can we fix this? The first step is to just start tracking it. Write what you eat down. Put it in an app. Or simply start paying attention to what you are putting in your body every day. You will be shocked at what you will find out if you start doing this. It never fails that after asking someone to do this for a few days that they tell us they didn't realize how bad their diet was. Start paying attention to what you eat and you will be able to start making changes.
2. Eating way too little
I know this sounds counterintuitive, but stick with me here. Many times we will have people who are "dieting" and have set their daily calorie intake ridiculously low. I have seen people who are working out multiple hours a day and work a full time job who tell me they eat 1100 calories a day. This is WAY fewer calories than they are burning every day. They are baffled by how their weight hasn't changed, or that they have hit a plateau. This situation requires a little bit of deeper digging. Losing weight is as simple as calories in versus calories out. If you are taking in fewer calories than you burn every day over a consistent period of time then you will lose weight. Period. So why are they not losing weight?
Upon further investigation it never fails that the following is the case. This person has a lot of willpower and can go a long time at this calorie deficit. They might make it an entire week. Maybe they go two weeks. But this willpower eventually gives out. They simply CANNOT stay at such a drastic deficit for so long. After an extended period of chronic underrating they rebound, and they rebound HARD. They might not even realize that they do it, but they do. Maybe they go out to eat Mexican on a Saturday night and have finished off two baskets of chips with queso (the chips aren't part of the meal so they don't really count them), drink two margaritas, eat the salad they ordered, and also pick off of their friends leftovers. Or maybe they just can't take it anymore and eat an entire pizza and a gallon of ice cream in one sitting. Or they think they have earned a cheat meal and just go crazy. What happens is they give up their ENTIRE calorie deficit in one meal. They might eat 4, 5, or 6 thousand calories in one day. If you do the math on that they have at best broken even over the week, and at worse actually reach a calorie surplus! It's not about the day to day calorie deficit, it's about the week to week and month to month.
So what can you do to fix this. Set a realistic calorie deficit goal and stick to it every single day. If you are going out to eat make sure and pick something that will fit with your daily calorie goal. If you are having pizza for dinner then eat a very light breakfast and lunch. You will be much more likely to stick to a diet long term when you aren't depleted all the time.
3. Not eating enough protein
This is something that we see all the time that when fixed can change someone's body composition drastically in a very short time. We like to use the InBody scanner, not just the scale, because it tells us what our body composition looks like. We can tell how many fat pounds and how many muscle pounds we have, as well as our body fat percentage. The only way to drastically lose body weight without losing muscle is to eat enough protein. It is imperative for overall health, performance, longevity, and many other things to maintain or add to our total body muscle mass.
Most people, from what we have seen, or eating at best HALF of what we recommend in protein. We want people to be at least 85% of their bodyweight in grams, but ideally in the 1 gram per body weight to 1.15 grams per bodyweight range. That means if you weigh 200 pounds we would like to see you at least 160 grams per day, but ideally 200-230 grams. Most people, with the modern high fat diet that is hard to avoid, are sitting from 75-125 grams per day (if not less). We need to get those numbers up! I have seen people lose 5% body fat in one month simply by increasing their protein intake. Think about that! In one month they have completely changed their body composition simply by adding additional protein to their diet. We have had many people over the years who have been frustrated by lack of progress (either performance or body composition) who increased their protein levels and broken through plateaus in weeks.
So how do you increase your protein? There are a few ways. The first is to make sure every meal is based around a lean protein source. You also need to make sure you are getting at least three big meals a day that are based around protein. Another way to do it is to supplement with protein. We like to have people drink a protein drink post workout and then have another either before bed or at another point in the day. It can be very hard to get 150-200+ grams of protein in a day without supplementing it. Finally, make sure your protein doesn't have a ton of added ingredients-these have been known to cause digestion issues.
There you have it-the three biggest diet mistakes we see people making. There are obviously many other aspects of diet, but if you get these three in line you will be well on your way to making big body composition changes.