Flexible Eating

The Eat To Perform Guide to Achieving Sustainable Fat Loss

by
Paul Nobles, Dr. Spencer Nadolsky, April Blackford, and James Barnum
Edited by Rebecca MacLary

Copyright 2014, Eat To Perform. All rights reserved. No part of this eBook may be reproduced or
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This book is neither medical nor any other form of professional advice that requires licensing in any
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Where third party trademarks are used in this eBook, reasonable efforts were made to identify the
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Let it be made clear that all third party trademarks are the property of their respective owners.

FOREWORD
By James Barnum
Id like to thank you for your purchase of this eBook and congratulate you on taking what may be the
first of many steps towards a healthier, stronger, happier version of yourself.
The concept of this text began development over two years ago when Paul and I started writing articles
together. Not a lot of people know this, but before Eat To Perform came to fruition, we were
YourDietSucks.org. We wrote about many of the concepts that ended up in this book especially the
need for a less restrictive approach to carbohydrates and food in general. This was right around the
time the Paleo diet had peaked in popularity and we wanted to help people understand that you can eat
real food, lose body fat, build muscle, and feel awesome without cutting out all the carbs from your
nutrition.
Our response was to work with Dr. Mike T Nelson to develop an eBook based around the concept of
Metabolic Flexibility, a theory that hed been researching for quite some time. Our goal was to bring a
more balanced nutritional approach to the burgeoning army of high-intensity athletes that were training
in gyms around the world without adequate fuel in their bellies. As time passed and our community
grew, we recruited April to administrate the Science Lab forum a place where people can go to followup and get advice from coaches, doctors, and people just like them, without the negativity and drama
that can crop up in similar outlets.
Eventually, we had time to collaborate with Spencer on some videos as he prepared for his first
bodybuilding show and we started brainstorming a new eBook that would distill our collective approach
to nutrition down into an easily-digestible format. As youll read, weve each had our share of struggles
as it relates to food and wed like nothing more than to spare everyone from having to deal with those
same pitfalls.
The result of our collaboration is an expression of that desire; an honest examination of why it seems
losing and maintaining fat loss is so hard, and an explanation of basic concepts that anyone interested in
health and fitness should be familiar with, whether its for personal use or to help guide others in the
right direction.
Once again, THANK YOU for reading and good luck on your path.

Contents
FOREWORD ................................................................................................................................................... 2
Contents .................................................................................................................................................... 3
Who is This eBook For? ................................................................................................................................. 5
Part I: The Basics .......................................................................................................................................... 6
Why Your Diet SUCKS.................................................................................................................................... 7
What Happens AFTER the Diet ................................................................................................................. 9
Why Do We Diet?.................................................................................................................................... 11
Dieting Doesnt Have to be so Hard ............................................................................................................ 15
Flexible Eating Case Study: Spencer........................................................................................................... 18
Part II: The Nitty Gritty ............................................................................................................................... 19
Energy Balance: An Introduction ............................................................................................................... 20
Keeping the carbohydrates: why a balanced approach is better ...................................................... 22
Flexible Eating Case Study: April ................................................................................................................ 24
What is Flexible Eating? .............................................................................................................................. 26
What Makes a Food Naughty or Nice? ............................................................................................ 26
Why Eating Real Food Is Important ........................................................................................................ 28
Flexible Eating Case Study: James .............................................................................................................. 31
Designing an Approach to Nutrition ........................................................................................................... 34
START HERE: Establishing TDEE and Transitioning into Maintenance ................................................... 35
Step 1: Log Food ..................................................................................................................................... 35
Step 2: Establish your TDEE.................................................................................................................... 36
Step 3: Un-dieting .................................................................................................................................. 38
Part III: Flexible Eating for Different Goals................................................................................................. 42
Guidelines and Strategies for Maintenance ........................................................................................... 42
Guidelines and Strategies for Weight Loss ............................................................................................. 45
Guidelines and Strategies for Lean Mass Gain ....................................................................................... 49
Flexible Eating Case Study: Paul ................................................................................................................. 53
Conclusion: The Five Tenets of Flexible Eating .......................................................................................... 56
References .................................................................................................................................................. 57

Who is This eBook For?

This book is for you if:

Youve tried every diet, weight loss plan, and supplement on the market without results and
youre tired of it.

Youve gotten results with the aforementioned diets and supplements, but lost them all when
you stopped dieting/following the plan/taking the supplement.

Youve ever attended a birthday party and declined a slice of cake because you were on a diet.

Youve seen a picture/video of a famous athlete or model and honestly thought less of yourself
because you dont have abs/shoulders/legs/glutes like they do.

Youve gone months (or years) without eating potatoes, rice, or bread simply because it wasnt
on the list of foods you were allowed to eat.

Youve ever looked at yourself in the mirror and thought, If I just lost 5 more lbs. Id be so much
happier.

Youve lost countless hours of sleep to cravings for food.

Youve given into cravings for food in the middle of the night and ended up eating a half-sleeve
of cookies at 2:30 a.m.

Youve gotten up at 5 a.m. to work out for an hour at 5:30, worked all day, and then headed
back to the gym to work out AGAIN without having so much as a cup of coffee and an avocado
to fuel your activity.

Youve ever had your body fat tested and gotten upset because it was higher than you expected
it to be despite the fact that youve added 100 lbs. to your deadlift over the past 6 months.

Youve ever thought to yourself, ManMy diet SUCKS!

Part I: The Basics

Part I of this eBook is a collaborative effort among the four of us (Spencer, Paul, April, and James) to
address the inherent issues that manifest themselves during the course of your average diet. First, we
explore some common problems that pop up as a diet progresses: both physiological and psychological.
Next, we look at the mindset surrounding dieting, what happens when it gets out of hand, and some
factors that influence us to diet in the first place. Finally, we go over a few simple behavioral
modifications that can improve your relationship with food and even help you lose body fat.
Without covering these topics, it would be impossible for us to convey the more functional elements
of nutrition and fat loss, like determining what/how much to eat. Make no mistake: dieting is a
complicated subject and understanding that it affects more than just your adipose tissue will help you
make the most of your efforts. For that reason, we implore you to read through the following pages
carefully before you move on to Part II and learn a bit more about the nutritional concepts that you
should utilize to start on your path to a new way of eating.

Why Your Diet SUCKS

Remember the first few weeks of your diet?
It felt good, didnt it? You were performing well in your workouts, you werent hungry, and you lost
weight. Things were looking good in the mirror and you couldnt wait to see your results in a few weeks.
Over time, things became a little more difficult and your excitement diminished, but not so much that
you couldnt manage. You lost a little strength, you got hungry at the end of the day, and the weight
wasnt coming off as quickly as before, but you still felt good.
Now, weeks later, your diet really sucks. Its no longer giving you results; youve completely stopped
losing weight. You feel weak, hungry, and lethargic. You want to eat more, but youre worried youll gain
fat.
Now, after you eat a larger-than-normal meal, you never seem to feel satisfied. No matter how many
vegetables or chicken breasts you eat, you never seem to feel full. There are physiological and
psychological reasons for this. Your diet isnt working, and eventually, youre going to quit.
Not only are you unhappy and on the verge of giving up, but your diet may be causing several other
problems.

Your diet may be compromising your health

Your immune and endocrine systems function best when you have adequate Calories. When you dont
eat enough, its easier to get an infection and suffer hormonal problems.
Prolonged dieting can lower your testosterone and estrogen levels. (Cangemi, Friedmann, Holloszy, &
Fontana) (NI, JL, HJ, RS, & MJ)This lowers your sex drive, makes it harder to gain muscle, and can
compromise your long-term health.
Dieting also reduces your thyroid levels, which can make you feel cold or sluggish. (Fontana, Klein,
Holloszy, & Premachandra) This wont help you stay active.
If youre a woman, dieting can also cause amenorrhea and low bone mineral density. (Fazeli & Klibanski)
Its not a great thing to have bones weaker than your grandmas!

Your diet is keeping you from building muscle

Unless youre a complete beginner, you cant build muscle if you dont eat enough Calories. (Buchholz &
Schoeller) (Schoeller) Later in this eBook, well cover energy balance and Calories in greater detail so
hold tight. For now, understand that just because you start lifting doesnt mean youll get buff, but you
will get stronger and look a little more solid. (Westcott) With Eat to Perform, we often see folks gain
pure muscle when coming off their chronic diet, but in order for that to happen, there needs to be
enough Calories to fuel this.

Your diet isnt working

The bottom line is that your diet isnt working. Sure, you might have lost some weight, but you still dont
have the body you want. More importantly, youre not happy. Again, your diet may also be
compromising your health, which is more important than whether or not you have abs.
Its time for a change, and thats what this book will give you. Youll learn the essential habits you need
to stay lean, happy, and healthy, without chronic dieting.

Ditch The Diet Mindset

When you read the word diet, what comes to mind? Do you picture a cornucopia of loosely
associated foods strewn across a table? Maybe the image in your head resembles something like Paleo:
sweet potatoes, steaks, and fish oil, or perhaps its a collection of healthy foods like whole grains, lean
meats, and fresh veggies.
In that sense, a diet is a predetermined hierarchy of foods that makes it easy to know what and what
not to eat. If somethings on your diet, youre free to eat it and conversely, an option that isnt on
the list will be avoided under the pretense that including it would somehow disrupt your progress
towards whatever goal youve set your mind to. In essence, its a list of naughty and nice foods.
Naughty foods are oftentimes energy-dense, making them easy to overeat. Sometimes, they may
contain too much of a specific macronutrient, usually fat or carbohydrate. There may be cultural or
ethical roots that shaped the foods that are excluded from the nice list, such as the Nordic or
Mediterranean diets. Under certain circumstances, there may even be a legitimate moral conflict
present, as is often the case with those of us that choose to follow a plant-based diet and exclude
animal products from their list of food options.
Beyond food choices, a diet can also refer to a period of time, whether determined or left indefinite,
where food intake will be deliberately restricted to accomplish weight loss for health reasons, aesthetic
goals, or perhaps both (as is often the case). Oftentimes food will be meticulously tracked and
recorded. This behavior may go hand in hand with altering food choices as described above, or the
dieter might eat anything and everything as long as they dont eat too many Calories. When someone
goes on a 30-Day Fat Burn diet, or accepts a 24-Day Challenge in an effort to melt all of the flubber
from their body, this is what they really mean. Theyre dieting its a verb now.

Dieting Is a Form of Restrictive Eating Behavior

When I think about the word diet and indeed the act of dieting, the prevailing theme that comes to
mind is restriction and creating negative space. Dieting is rarely about what you should do to get the
best results; its all about what you shouldnt do if you dont want something bad to happen. Whether
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you wont eat white potatoes because they arent on the list, youve run out of Calories for the day
and cant eat because youll get fat, or youre avoiding rice because youre on a low carb diet,
youre engaging in a restrictive behavior that may not actually help you achieve the result youre after.
When a diet is designed around arbitrary external factors, it cannot produce a specific result. An
approach to nutrition should be a direct response to the individual nutritional requirements of the
dieter or there is no guarantee of success. Let me rephrase that: when you judge your level of success
upon how well you adhere to an ideology, rather than on the achievement of specific short- and longterm goals, your diet is broken. Positive results are all that matter! The perfect list of foods for you may
not resemble another persons list. The number of Calories you need to consume to effectively lose
body fat wont be the same as mine. Cutting carbs (or fat) from your diet for prolonged periods of time
probably wont result in great long-term results. Whats good for others may not necessarily be good
for you.
Now, theres nothing wrong with deliberating over what you do and dont eat. In fact, thats a healthy
behavior that youll likely benefit from greatly. You shouldnt eat food with reckless abandon and as an
autonomous individual granted with free will, you have the right to make the decision to never eat
another piece of bread in your entire life if you dont want to. Likewise, if you want to lose some weight
because youre not satisfied with the number on the scale and you decided that this is the year youll
finally get your summer six-pack, thats entirely up to you.
Although the choice is yours, eliminating foods from your diet or restricting food intake can result in a
variety of negative outcomes that most people simply arent aware of. The least insidious thing that
can happen is that perhaps you dont reach your body composition goals; you dont lose as much weight
or body fat within the timeframe youd given yourself. When you take into consideration how physically
and mentally exhausting a diet can be, thats a disheartening way to end things. You might fall off the
wagon at this point and give up, or you could move onto another diet and give that a try. Maybe you
were just following the wrong list of what not to eat. Maybe you were eating too much. Maybe your
carbs were too high.
As youll learn later in this eBook, its probably not the carbs, nor is necessarily your choice of foods, nor
how much you were eating. In isolation, these factors cannot make or break a nutrition plan. They
must be considered in context to your overall lifestyle, and thats why the aforementioned diet
methodologies always fall short: they dont take YOU into account.

What Happens AFTER the Diet

Whether or not you experienced success on your diet, the likelihood that youve arrived at your ideal
physique is minuscule. Verily, 24 to 30 days of eating only meat and veggies, avoiding artificial foods,
taking the latest fat burning supplements, and restricting your Calories may have been challengingbut
it probably wont yield a drastic visual difference unless you had a lot of fat to lose, and thats still not
guaranteed. The most common result is that youre a slightly smaller version of the person you were
before.
Of course we have to consider how much better off you are now that youve removed all of those
processed foods from your life (not counting the few times during the past month where you caved
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under the pressure of restricting your food choices and wound up binging on your favorite flavor of Ben
& Jerrys). Since starting your diet, you notice that you have more energy; perhaps you think more
clearly and youre motivated to exercise more often and with greater vigor. Certainly if youre not
dropping jaws at the beach, youve made a commitment to improve your most valuable asset: your
health.
Dont get me wrong. There is overwhelming value in limiting your consumption of highly processed
foods and learning how to appreciate cooking and eating whole, minimally processed, nutrient-dense
foods, especially when youre on a weight loss/fat loss diet. I have to hand it to you. Youve made a
positive change and if you could continue on that path for the rest of your life, I honestly think youd be
better off. The issue of course is that most people cant do it: they cant cut out processed foods
forever. That doesnt make them weak, and it doesnt mean theyve failed. As I pointed out earlier,
these negative connotations go hand-in-hand with the dieting mindset. Restriction, negation, shame,
loss: theres really no positive movement.
That brings us to a crossroads. The diet is over. Theres no more challenge, and were all out of
supplements. Where do we go next? Do we do it all over again and continue to adhere to the
modifications we made? Thats certainly an option, but the very nature of a short-term diet or challenge
makes this almost impossible. At some point, youll get sick of it. As human beings, we crave novel
experiences. While we can settle into consistent behavioral patterns that go against our natural
inclinations, unless the reward is great enough, we tend to revert or loosen up.
The second option, for the Calorie counters who never stopped eating the naughty foods in the first
place, is to further reduce Calories and start looking for ways to increase the satiety effect of what little
food is allowed.

Rebounding, Chronic Dieting, and Disordered Eating

If you regress to your old ways, the way you ate before your diet, youll almost certainly regain weight.
There are many people whove been able to get extremely lean and who end up miserable because they
didnt enjoy their diet. In fact, Ive been there. You dont want to be that person. If you get to that
point, its likely youll rebound up to a higher weight later.
I wont get into the science related to why this happens, but its essentially inevitable. Under the
circumstances where energy-dense foods were restricted, what caused your fat loss/weight loss was the
removal of certain foods to create an intuitive Calorie deficit. Logically, once those food are
reintroduced, the results of your hard work will diminish. If you were simply cutting Calories regardless
of food choices, the unintentional increase in Calories after the diet will cause you to rebound as well.
These changes in behavior and the resultant weight gain can be unsettling. Over time, dieting for too
long or bouncing from diet to diet, losing weight, rebounding, and doing it all over again can take its toll
on your body and mind. I mentioned the best-case scenario already: you just end up falling short of
your body composition goals and figure out something different. The worst-case scenario is that you
end up engaging in a pattern of disordered eating behavior (pathological dieting) and eventually develop
a full-blown eating disorder. (Polivy & Herman)

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This can have a devastating effect on your health and push you further and further from your intended
destination. What may have started as a journey towards a better, leaner you can get completely out
of hand and result in years of setbacks and potential health complications. For more information on
eating disorders, how they affect your health, and how they can be linked to chronic dieting, check out
the National Eating Disorders Associations website.

Why Do We Diet?
There are a perhaps dozens of reasons as to why we feel like we have to continuously subject ourselves
to diet after diet. A lot of it stems from the fact that we associate success and achievement with
idealized physical appearances. Sometimes, we diet because we get a number on the scale or a certain
body fat percentage stuck in our heads. We expect achieving these goals to change our lives and
revolutionize how we feel about ourselves; if our expectations are not met, we go to extremes or give
up altogether.
Does this sound familiar? You're standing in front of a full length mirror scrutinizing your stomach, hips
or thighs and whispering to yourself about how much fat you need to lose ASAP. You are certainly not
alone. We have all been there at some point or another in our lives.
We see people with perfect jobs, perfect families, perfect lives, and yes, perfect bodies, all over
television, on the internet, and on the covers of magazines. Our sense of realistic, healthy body image
has been altered tremendously over the course of the past few decades.

What is body image?

How we perceive our bodies visually;

How we feel about our physical appearance (how we think and talk to ourselves about our
bodies); and

The sense of how others view our bodies.

Even our athletic idols contribute to the feeling that we just dont look good enough to achieve our goals
or be the people we want to be. Indeed, the top competitors in many weight-classed sports maintain
very lean physiques year-round to maximize their strength-to-weight ratio and this leads us to believe
that we too must have six pack abs if we want to perform as well as they do.
Its a bitter pill to swallow but you have to take a few things into consideration when you look at the
physiques of celebrated people and athletes:

Genetics play a huge role in how you look. Everything from your bone structure to muscle
length and insertion, even fat distribution patterns and the density of fat tissue, is determined
by your genetics. That doesnt mean that you cant look and perform your best, but you need
to accept what your parents gave you; youll always have unique traits and thats wonderful.
Dwelling on things you cant change, like the shape of a specific muscle in your legs, or how
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much fat you hold around your belly button vs. another person, will set you up for
disappointment because you cannot realistically change those physical characteristics through
diet and exercise alone.

Athletes do not starve themselves to look that way. I think this is one of the most pervasive
misunderstandings surrounding the physiques of professional athletes. These people spend
more time training in an average week than most of us do at our jobs. They burn through so
many Calories that their food choices are often surprisingly unhealthy by your average persons
standards. The physique is a natural consequence of incredibly high demands for energy met
with massive caloric intakes. Theyre NOT on restrictive diets!
The good thing about understanding this fact is that if you eat and train like an athlete for long
enough, youll eventually wind up looking like one.

Maintaining an idealized physique is a full-time job. This goes hand-in-hand with the last
point. Movie stars, physique competitors, and fitness models make a living at photo shoots.
Their marketability depends upon their appearance. Most of us dont have the time to train 20
hours a week on top of our jobs, nor do we have the disposable income available to hire chefs,
personal trainers, and nutritionists. Its unrealistic, unfair, and unhealthy to compare ourselves
to people who do.

A lot of the images we see are misrepresentations or altogether fake. Yep. This is perhaps the
most damaging element of the way we perceive our physique idols. Very few people maintain
extreme levels of leanness year-round. Typically, a person will achieve a certain condition and
maintain it only for a day or two to take pictures, attend an event, or film a scene. In addition,
thanks to digital photo manipulation, weve lost touch with how a real human being looks:
highlights and shadows are tweaked, pores and imperfections are scrubbed away, limbs are
resized or replaced, and proportions are altered. If it looks too good to be true, it probably is.
Dont be fooled.

The fact is, constantly obsessing over our flaws, imperfections, and constant dieting are hindering you
from making body composition progress. Being in an energy deficit constantly does not give your body a
break to reset hormones and regulate itself. Everyone needs a vacation every now and then, and so
does your body. Focusing on your flaws is going to keep you in that "I need to diet to lose fat" mindset
indefinitely. Improving your body image will go a long way here. Poor body image increases the risk for
extreme diet/body control behaviors.
Here are just a few things you can do to improve how you see yourself:

Focus on your inner qualities. Rather than telling yourself you need to lose your abdominal fat
or tone up your legs, reflect upon how awesome of a friend, mother, or father you are. You can
love unconditionally. You may be a good listener, or perhaps youre very inspirational to others
and youre not even aware of it. These things (and many more) are all positive qualities that we
should acknowledge on a daily basis.

Focus on your positive physical qualities and accomplishments. I dont know about you, but
whenever I pull a heavy deadlift off the floor, Im not thinking about what I need to do to get
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better abs or a better butt. Instead, Im thinking about how strong and accomplished I feel for
achieving that. For most people, negative self-talk is silenced by the overwhelming joy of
physical accomplishment. It feels incredible to move! Instead of worrying about abs, focus on
your performance. For example, do you think someone whos just completed their first 5k or
marathon is worried about their body fat percentage? No. They are thinking about their
achievement and all of the time and hard work they put into it.

Utilize positive affirmations. For every negative thing I see or say about myself, I immediately
follow it up with two positive things. For example, if I am standing in front of that full-length
mirror criticizing my hips, I immediately tell myself two positive things in return like My hair
looks really awesome today! or My biceps have finally started growing! Simple efforts like
this can make a huge difference in how you feel about yourself.

Naughty and Nice Food Lists

How many times have you been on a diet and restricted yourself from chocolate or ice-cream when
these are the foods that you enjoy the most in life? Likely too many. The reality of it, is that when we
eliminate foods thinking they are "off limits" to achieve success in our diet is when we are singlehandedly setting ourselves up for failure. Granted, food allergies or intolerances are the exception here
as allowing these foods can cause a negative impact on your health or make you sick.
Many years ago, I was on a diet and decided that I loved chocolate too much to allow it into my daily
diet. I once went a few months without a single piece of chocolate. One of my colleagues came to me
one day with a gift that included one of my favorite things in life: a bag of chocolate truffles. I hurried up
and put them away in my desk drawer out of sight. Because I knew they were there, that was all that I
thought about. All I could think of was the creamy, luscious taste of chocolate that I had not had in so
long. So, what ended up happening? I ate the entire bag in one sitting. Why did I do that? Because I had
deprived myself of my utmost favorite food because I thought it was going to ruin my diet. I had
convinced myself that by giving up something I enjoyed so much, I could achieve the body that I had
dreamed of. I realize now, that this single act was setting myself up for failure. Rather than depriving
myself of foods that I enjoy or want, I know that fitting them into my diet on a regular basis in
moderation will allow me to not go crazy and overeat them later. This also helps me maintain a level of
sanity that I need. Food restriction without a necessary dietary intolerance or allergy almost always
leads to a binge. This unhealthy behavior is an evil cycle that repeats itself until you find a solution. A
simple solution would be to eat the foods you enjoy in moderation and not stress or worry yourself over
them.

Over-Emphasis on Scale Weight

Most of us have a love/hate relationship with the scale. We dread getting on it and it loves to fluctuate
without our control. Its imperative to understand that scale weight is JUST A NUMBER that reflects our
bodys relationship with gravity. It cannot measure beauty, talent, purpose, possibility, strength, or
love.
Developing a healthy relationship with the scale and using it as a tool, not a measure of success, is very
beneficial. Looking at the scale as a guide and not allowing it to influence our self-image is the best
13

outlook to have. Our body weight will fluctuate day-to-day based on so many factorssodium intake,
fiber levels, hormone cycles, exercise, and more. It is very healthy for the scale to move up and down.
This is a positive sign that our bodies are functioning well and that our cells are efficiently processing the
nutrients we feed them. We can learn to use the scale as just a number to measure progress or go down
the dark road and allow it to control us.
For years, I lived my life according to that number on the scale: I let it define me. That said, when I
started weight training, I knew the likelihood of me putting on a few pounds waswelllikely. To say
that I was okay with the idea then of a few added pounds would be a flat out lie; it scared me but I knew
I had to trust the process and stop placing so much emphasis on weighing a certain amount.
Rather than focusing on scale weight alone, focus on making progress with your training
and gradually losing body fat. You may likely achieve your ideal body composition at 15 pounds heavier
on the scale than what your original "goal number" was. Even for myself, I am currently sitting less than
10 pounds at my heaviest weight yet wear three sizes smaller than the last time I weighed this
number." Don't be a slave to the scale. Use it as a tool to monitor normal fluctuations and gauge
progress. Measure your waist, legs, arms, and chest with a tape measure to monitor changes in the
circumference of these areas. Take progress pictures every few weeks. You can also take a look in the
mirror. If you like what you see, the scale doesnt matter. Dont let numbers control or define you!

14

Dieting Doesnt Have to be so Hard

While you have to be in a Calorie deficit to lose weight, you dont need to do it all at once. In fact, it
might be healthier and more relaxing to only diet for intermittent periods. Dieting is hard on your body,
and it needs time to recover.
Perhaps even more importantly, you also need a mental break. Prolonged dieting is stressful and
demoralizing, so its good to give yourself time off.
Instead of focusing on your scale weight 24/7, its better to focus on developing the right habits. These
habits will help you get lean no matter what kind of diet youre on, no matter what you weigh, or how
motivated you are. You can also work on these habits all of the time, unlike weight loss, which you
shouldnt pursue year round.
Keep reading to learn how to develop more of the right habits and break free from restrictive eating
behavior.

Think about adding, rather than restricting or eliminating

Whenever people start dieting, they think about what they cant eat, what foods they should avoid, and
what they have to give up.
When youre coming off a long period of dieting, it can be hard to shake this mindset.
I want you to look at your new approach from the opposite perspective. Think of adding healthy foods
to your diet instead of avoiding treats and other processed foods. Think about how you enjoy exercise,
rather than the time you have to give up to get it done.

Focus on Your Habits Instead of Your Weight

Habits are the foundation of every successful dieters repertoire. If you have to rely on willpower 24/7
to stay on your diet, its not going to work in the long-term. Instead, you should rely on habits.
Habits are automatic behaviors that youve practiced enough times that they require less self-control to
execute.
The people who stay lean year round, or lose weight without thinking about it, are the ones who rely on
habits instead of raw willpower. As an example, people think someone like Dr. Spencer must be so
disciplined and have such great willpower, but really its because hes been living this way for 20 + years
and the habits have been ingrained.
The other benefit of relying on habits is that you can work on them all of the time. When you start trying
to lose weight, its easy to feel demoralized because you dont look the part. Youre working hard,

15

eating right, and exercising, yet your body is changing very slowly. But if you focus on habits, you dont
need to rely on the scale for gratification. Just completing the right habits becomes an accomplishment
in itself.
Lets say you go on a cruise. Like most people, youre worried that youll gain weight. Instead of focusing
on the scale, focus on your habits. Sure, you may eat more than you would have liked, but if you stick to
the right habits, youll still come back to shore feeling good about yourself.
Finally, habits are with you all of the time. You dont need a scale, a diet book, a points system, or
anything else to stick to your habits; that is, assuming you chose the right habits to stay lean.

Results-Oriented Behavioral Modifications

If you cant focus on the scale, what should you focus on? Mindful eating habits. Think of your new
approach to nutrition as a self-taught course on developing better eating behaviors.
Some habits help you stay lean, and others make it almost impossible. Instead of focusing on how to get
rid of bad habits, were going to focus on some of the most important habits for staying lean.

1.

Eat when youre hungry and stop eating when youre full.

Assuming youre eating a fairly healthy diet, this one simple trick is often the only habit people need to
stay lean.
Most people eat a large number of Calories when they arent hungry. (Wansink) Thats not all bad: food
is for more than just keeping yourself full. We often eat to celebrate, feel certain emotions, and try new
foods, but that shouldnt be the case all of the time. Instead, become slightly more mindful of when
youre eating without feeling hungry.

2.

Spend the first minute of your meal only thinking about your food

People eat more when theyre distracted.

In some cases, they can forget how much and what theyve eaten just 10 minutes after their meal.
(Wansink, 2010)
The more people you eat with, the more distracted you become, and the more Calories you consume.
To fight distracted, or mindless eating, as Dr. Brian Wansink calls it, focus on your food for the first
minute of your meal. This is harder than you think. Then, as you learn the habit, increase the amount of
time you spend thinking about your meal. Once youre able to focus on nothing but your food for an
entire meal, you can become a little more relaxed. This exercise helps you become more aware of how
distractions affect your eating behavior.

16

3.

Eat with people you want to look like

Whether we like to admit it or not, we tend to become increasingly more like the people we spend time
around. The people we spend the most time around rub off on us in many ways, some of which are
good, and others bad.
If you eat every meal with other chronic dieters, its going to feel uncomfortable eating larger meals. If
you eat around people who dont care at all about their health, youre more likely to eat like they do.
If you want to develop healthy eating habits, try to find someone whos already practicing these
behaviors. Try to find a role model.
These habits will help you stay lean for the rest of your life. Theyll put you in the proper position to
consistently lose fat when you start dieting again, without developing disordered eating behaviors or
sabotaging your progress.

17

Flexible Eating Case Study: Spencer

After I finished wrestling in college as a heavyweight wrestler, I decided to lean down a bit. I was always
into nutrition science and fitness (exercise science was my college degree) and at the time it seemed the
best way to get leaner was to cut out starchy/sugary carbs and stick with meat, vegetables, and fruit.
This strategy was pretty effective but it cut out a lot of my favorite foods and took a toll on my
workouts. Luckily, I wasnt going through the strenuous wrestling practices, otherwise I would have
never made it. I was also now sitting for a lot of the day because thats how medical school is in the
beginning, which didnt take a toll on my energy.
After about six years of doing this with okay results, I decided to employ a more flexible way of
eating. Instead of just eating what are considered healthy foods only, I started to actually track my
intake of food while measuring everything. When I had my baseline Calories I was eating daily, I decided
to shift a lot of the Calories I was getting from fat towards carbohydrate-rich foods that I was previously
restricting. Because of this shift, I was then able to enjoy many of the foods I once previously shunned.
Just as significant as now enjoying new meals, my body fat started to decrease and my performance in
the gym started to INCREASE. The carbohydrates allowed me to go harder and longer (if need be) in the
gym. Now, I enjoy an easy, flexible approach to food.

18

Part II: The Nitty Gritty

Part II of this eBook gets a little bit more technical. First, we go over energy balance and why you need
to base your new nutrition pyramid around manipulation of energy homeostasis aka calories
in/calories out. From there, well get down to brass tacks and detail how to go from dieting and making
no progress to healing your metabolism, clearing your head, and preparing to embark on a new fat loss
journey armed with a basic understand of what you really need to do to lose body fat and build muscle.
Without further delay, lets get moving!

19

Energy Balance: An Introduction

Despite what you may have heard from so-called nutrition gurus looking to make a buck by distributing
misinformation and perpetuating the diet mindset, energy balance or Calories in/Calories out is one of
the most important factors to consider when youre trying to lose or gain weight. Nutrition strategies
that place more emphasis on food choices attempt to simplify the energy balance equation by
restricting energy-dense foods so that weight loss is inevitable. Diets that focus on nutrient timing or
meal frequency (more on that later) effectively make it impossible to overeat by restricting specific
foods or macronutrients to certain parts of the day. You can only eat so much in an hour window.
Combine the two approaches, as many people often do, and youve opened up a can of worms that for
many people leads to disordered eating patterns. Barring that, the two major issues with these
methods is that they arent specific enough to work for every person and every goal, and they dont
leave much room for working outside the constraints of either food choices or meal frequency/nutrient
timing.
You have to be specific. That is to say, you should eat towards a daily Calorie/macronutrient goal rather
than winging it in the hopes that you accomplish the desired outcome.

Energy Homeostasis
Body weight is regulated by energy homeostasis. Every second youre alive, your body is struggling to
maintain homeostasis by altering the way it functions and when that balance is disrupted for several
weeks, months, or years, your weight will go up or down as the system adapts to account for the change
in energy availability. When youre in a neutral energy balance or youre eating at maintenance youre
providing your body with roughly what it needs to maintain body mass: both fat-free mass (mostly
muscle, bone, vital organs, anything that isnt body fat) and fat mass (body fat).
When you put on weight, youre essentially just telling your body to store energy and grow. As an
example, if your diet has consisted almost entirely of energy-dense, processed foods for years and
youve gained a considerable amount of weight, you can be reasonably certain that youre in a chronic
state of energy surplus. Losing weight happens for exactly the opposite reason. If you begin eating just
meats and veggies, there isnt any magic going on but youre pretty much guaranteed to see the scale
drop. Why? The meats and veggies do the trick simply because they are less energy dense; you reduced
your energy intake, entered into a state of chronic energy deficit, and that caused the weight loss.
Its true that you could achieve an energy deficit eating practically anything but a bagel and coffee for
breakfast, followed by a sandwich, chips, and a soda for lunch will leave you starving whereas meat and
veggies will fill you up (well come back to this example in a bit.) That sounds like the ultimate duh
statement but most people dont put a whole lot of consideration into the way they eat. Its not that
any one of those things is inherently bad on occasion; its that they dont really address why we need
food.

20

Thermogenesis and macronutrients

At a basic level, food is comprised of protein, carbohydrate, and fat. We refer to protein, carbs, and fat
collectively as macronutrients, or macros for short. Each macro serves many functions within the
human body; from energy production to maintaining cellular integrity, balancing these three
constituents among one another is the deciding factor in losing, gaining, or maintaining weight. The way
this works is very complicated and would require an entire textbook to explore in full, but a brief
explanation will suffice for now.
Essentially, protein, fat, and carbohydrate are transformed into cellular energy through metabolism.
The way we ultimately measure the energy each macronutrient will provide our bodies with at the front
end of our metabolism is called a Calorie. (We should be in familiar territory now.) The caloric value of
a given macro or food is determined by literally burning it in a sealed chamber with water and
measuring the difference in the temperature of the water afterwards. Protein provides four Calories,
and so does carbohydrate. Fat, on the other hand, provides us with nine Calories. The number of
Calories you provide your body with throughout a given period of time is thus referred to as your energy
intake.
Metabolizing food requires energy in and of itself and through a phenomenon called diet-induced
thermogenesis (DIT), heat energy is expended. Along with DIT, there are three other major types of
thermogenesis or heat generation that occur within the human body. Energy lost during everyday
activities like walking to the bathroom, doing laundry, performing physical tasks at work, or picking your
kids up from school is called non-exercise associated thermogenesis (NEAT). Exercise-associated
thermogenesis (EAT) refers to (not surprisingly) energy lost during exercise or vigorous physical activity.
Believe it or not however, most of our energy is lost simply keeping our vital organs (including our
muscles) functioning at rest. This is called basal metabolic rate (BMR) and it has the greatest influence
on the number of total Calories you burn.
When you add up all of the thermogenic activity occurring in your body (BMR, DIT, EAT, and NEAT) over
a 24-hour period, you get a number expressed in Calories called total daily energy expenditure or TDEE.
As I mentioned earlier, weight loss occurs when you eat fewer Calories than your TDEE and weight gain
occurs when you eat more Calories than your TDEE. For that reason, knowing your TDEE is literally one
of the most useful bits of information you can have in relation to losing weight.
While you cant estimate energy expenditure with 100% accuracy at home, you can come pretty dang
close using a simple online calculator. I know youre curious, so check out the Eat To Perform
BMR/TDEE calculator and see what you come up with. Later on in this eBook, youll get an explanation
of exactly how to utilize the numbers youre presented with.

Why we need food

Now that weve gone over a basic primer on energy balance and the role food plays in regulating body
weight, we need to go over the other functions that food serves in your body.
To begin, well take a brief look at protein. Every day, we build up and break down the structures of our
bodies. Its very important that we include enough protein in our diets to replace what has been broken
down, especially when it comes to our health and body composition. While protein can also be
21

transformed into glucose and used for energy production, the process is fairly slow and costly, resulting
in a significant loss of energy.
The thermic effect of food (TEF) is essentially a tax the body pays to break down and store food. Of all
three macronutrients, protein comes with the greatest tax. What that means is that some of the energy
we derive from food is lost as heat when its metabolized (remember DIT) and that promotes weight loss
through increased energy expenditure. A protein-rich diet can be very helpful during weight loss to
maintain lean mass as well. (Paddon-Jones)
Protein is also highly satiating; it fills you up and effectively turns down the signal to your brain that
compels you to eat more. This can be very useful when you want to lose weight! Well go deeper into
the role satiety plays in your diet later.
When developing a way of eating, protein should always be the base of your nutritional pyramid. A
good place to start is at about 0.8g of protein per pound of body weight and some people may benefit
from as much as 1g per pound of body weight or more. (Helms, Zinn, Rowlands, & Brown) Later, well
go into greater detail regarding who exactly benefits from eating more protein but for now, keep those
numbers in mind.
The next two macros, fat and carbohydrates, represent the bulk of the energy in your diet. Many diets
are based on either eating fats or eating carbs as the primary fuel source, usually in a mutually exclusive
fashion. Recall the bagel and soda example from earlier and you have one of the primary reasons most
people fail on low fat diets; Calorie-for-Calorie, carbohydrates just arent as satiating as fat and protein.
Diets focused on limiting dietary fat in favor of carbs leave the person hungry, which leads to snacking,
and perhaps binging. Once you open the floodgates, its game over. I know this because that was my
life for years; I got to five oclock and I was starving and I certainly didnt make the best choices for
myself.
On the opposite end of the spectrum, you could choose to eat fat as your primary source of energy.
Most people argue that fats keep you full longer and are your bodys preferred fuel source at rest. Fats
should be part of the equation but suggesting that you need to eliminate carbs misses the point and
often leads to either over eating fats (which can store as fat without the presence of insulin) or
drastically under-eating. Certainly a diet that consists of proteins, fats and fibrous veggies is a good
thing but its unnecessary to leave out the starchy carbs and I will explain why.

Keeping the carbohydrates: why a balanced approach is better

Low-carb advocates often point to inflammation as one of the biggest reasons people should avoid
carbs. However, in healthy human beings, there isnt much of a difference in the increase of
inflammatory markers whether you eat a high carb or high fat meal, although there is an increase in
oxidative stress. Increases in pro-inflammatory markers seem to be correlated with a higher body mass
index or BMI and many people who fall into the obese category of BMI have issues with Type II diabetes
or insulin resistance, but it would be wrong to conclude that it was simply an excess of carbohydrate
that caused these states. Inflammation and the impact it has on health is a very misunderstood topic
that seems to be influenced by lifestyle factors beyond just diet. (Gregersen, Samocha-Bonet, Heilbronn,
& Campbell)

22

Why then do carbohydrates get a bad rap for being inflammatory? The primary reason is that since
carbs require water to be stored, they do come with a certain water tax, somewhere around 2g of
water for every 1g of glucose. That means that carbohydrates add water weight to your body, which
can make you feel bloated, sluggish, and inflamed. Again, theres a lot more going on here and lifestyle
factors ultimately influence how carrying extra water weight makes you look and feel.
From a perspective of losing body fat, cutting carbs to inhibit water retention is a bit of fools gold.
Rapid weight loss associated with a low carb diet gives you the impression you are making more
progress than you are but when you actually test body composition, what you see is that ultimately you
arent addressing sustainable fat loss over time.
Another argument against dietary carbs is that they arent technically necessary for your body to
function, which is based in truth but misconstrued as it applies in the real world. Remember that
protein can be used to create glucose through a process called gluconeogensis. The problem is that
when you limit dietary carbohydrates and force your body to make glucose, you effectively increases
your protein requirements since a large portion of your protein intake will be used for energy
production rather than repair and growth. The bottom line: when you restrict carbohydrates, youll
likely end up restricting total Calories as well. Under those circumstances, you arent allowing your body
and muscles full recovery and for athletic people that is a really big deal.
If you look at that last paragraph and think to yourself Phew! He isnt talking about me. Im not an
athlete! Well, I have news for you. On the contrary, even sedentary people need carbohydrates
(provided there isnt medical issue like diabetes at play)! You learned earlier that your basal metabolic
rate is essentially just a way to quantify the amount of energy it takes to keep your vital organs
functioning at rest. An interesting fact is that around 25% of that energy goes towards fueling your
brain, which runs almost entirely on glucose. Thats right: even at rest, your brain needs a continuous
stream of carbohydrates to function, about 50g each day for a 150 lb. woman!
Even if you do achieve a certain level of success with a low-carb diet, eventually youll add back in the
carbs with disastrous results. A lot of the impact is mental. When you deny yourself something, it can
often lead to binging when its reintroduced. The solution to this conundrum is a balanced approach to
nutrition called flexible eating.

23

Flexible Eating Case Study: April

First, let me start out by saying that for as long as I have known what a true carb is, I have always (I
guess not technically always) had a sort of fear of them. Within the past 2 years, the light bulb finally
went off in my head and I had that much-needed Ah-ha! moment. This has truly got to be the best
thing, both physically and mentally, to have ever happened to me.
I want to rewind to when this amazing experience first occurred. In August 2012, a group I was part of
decided to have a friendly sixteen week competition where guys and gals were separated into categories
of cutting and bulking. At the time, I honestly did not have a lot of so-called weight or fat to drop, but I
had bulked over the summer and put on some extra fat that I wasnt feeling comfortable with. I decided
to be a good sport and join in, to help keep the others in the group motivated. My initial plan (in my
mind) was easy: I thought, Well crap, Ill just go low carb with a once-a-week refeed, drop a bunch of
fat and breeze through this!! Well, that was a nightmare; a freaking nightmare. If you look up freaking
nightmare in the dictionary, it will reference a picture of me. I was still continuing to lift heavy at the
gym three days a week. The first couple of days were fine, but then my workouts started to suffer.
Actually, they sucked. I was so weak that my body would tremble with simple movements like dumbbell
bench press. My main lifts, like deadlift, squat and bench press, were even worse. My pulse would race
to the point that I felt like I was going to have a heart attack, but I kept up with it for six weeks. At the
end of the six weeks, the scale had only moved a whopping 3lbs. Only 3lbs???!! What?? I wanted to
eat my sweet potatoes, kabocha squash, and Brussels sprouts more than once a week!! So, I sat and
thought it out and said, There has to be a better way.

24

Abandoning Low Carb was scary

I immediately stopped the low carb method and started on more of a moderate carb cycling approach.
The new plan consisted of low carbs on rest days, two medium carb training days, and one high carb on
my heaviest training day. What happened? I started slowly dropping fat and at the end of the 16 weeks,
I was down 14lbs. After the competition, I knew I had to reverse out of my diet and reset my body and
hormones. At this point, my body was screaming at me. What the heck are you trying to do to me!!!?
I had consistently eaten at a deficit for sixteen weeks. It was time to start back increasing my Calories
and carbs, and yes, I was nervous; I think it is natural to have that feeling. I knew to expect an increase in
water weight, mainly for the simple fact that carbs hold more water.
First week: I increased all my days by an extra 25g of carbs compared to what I was eating at before. I
did that for two weeks, increased again and continued til I reached my highest level yet. I am now at
225g on rest days and 350-375g on training daysYAY!! Time for happy dance! I get to eat carbs every
day now, not just the days where I slam some heavy weight around at the gym!

Now Performance is the driver

Fast-forward to where I am now: I have been eating higher carbs since November of 2012. My strength
has blown up in this time. I hit a new deadlift best of 255 lbs. for 2 reps a few weeks ago. Something
magical has happened; I stopped caring about the scale and losing weight, started focusing only on my
lifts, and Im getting leaner! I officially weigh 15 lbs. more now than in November, 2012. My abs look
good, my arms are getting vascular, and my butt is growing (butts are the thing you know).

Strategic Carbs within reason

Now, what and when I eat is probably the next question. I eat protein and carbs around my workouts in
the form of starchy carbs. I eat a LOT (and I mean a LOT) of white rice, GF oats, grits and sweet potatoes.
I love yams; Japanese and Okinawan varieties are the best. I have a natural sweet tooth. My absolute
favorite food source is kabocha squash; I could seriously eat this every single day. It is not as starchy as
rice or potatoes, therefore I limit these to my rest days only.
When that Ah-ha! moment occurred to me, things changed. I finally stopped obsessing, and started
seeing results. The moment when I realized that less it not always good, and more is better, is when the
magic happened. As I tell my friends now, Dont be scared of the carbs. They are truly magical.

25

What is Flexible Eating?

In the most basic sense, flexible eating is a low-stress, open-minded approach to nutrition that includes
foods based upon context, not upon labels like clean, dirty, good, or bad. Whether it be for fat
loss, lean mass gain, or to fuel high-intensity exercise, this method looks at the intrinsic value of food
choices and emphasizes the big picture rather than assigning foods to a naughty or nice list
irrespective of their effect on your progress. The positive effects of eating a food are weighed with
equal importance to the potential negative effects.
What this means in the real world is that you dont avoid white rice because its not on the list; you
eat sweet potatoes because they fill you up more. You dont shy away from going out for pizza with
your family on Saturday night because its not healthy. Instead, you have a slice of pizza and enjoy
yourself because you understand that going over your Calories for one day isnt a big deal and you can
get back on schedule the next day without hurting your progress.
Indeed, with a flexible approach to eating, you wont have to rationalize your behavior based upon
anything except how food makes you feel, as well how it fits into your daily macronutrient goals. While
you might develop a list of foods to eat and a list of foods to avoid, it will be based upon your needs and
preferences vs. an out of box list.
Nutrition requirements are largely individual. Lets address that statement with a discussion about
how to decide whether or not a food fits your unique requirements.

What Makes a Food Naughty or Nice?

Flexible eating encourages us to look at the physiological value of food - the macro and micronutrient
profile - as well as to determine whether or not it could potentially aggravate an existing health problem
(whether diagnosed or undiagnosed). In other words: if a food doesnt hurt, its not off-limits.
Another way to look at this concept is to analyze how useful or helpful a food will be to us on the quest
to accomplish a particular goal.

Food allergies and sensitivities

The first thing you need to consider when making a food a part of your plan is whether or not eating it is
going to result to a trip to the doctor somewhere along the line. Obviously, if youve been diagnosed
with a peanut allergy, youre going to stay away from foods that contain peanuts, even in trace
amounts; you could very well die under the circumstances that you consume peanuts if you have an
allergy. The same applies for a person diagnosed with celiac disease; gluten will literally kill you if you
eat it, so you must avoid it. Lactose intolerance is fairly common, and so once more: if you get sick
when you drink milk or consume foods containing lactose or milk protein, you have every reason to
avoid said foods.
26

If you think you might have a food allergy or sensitivity, I urge you to consult a physician before you add
a questionable food into your plan. Even if you dont have a diagnosable allergy, you should work with
your doctor to understand why you respond negatively to the food. You might be avoiding something
unnecessarily, or you might be avoiding the wrong food without realizing it. This can save you months
(if not years) of discomfort and frustration.
If you havent been diagnosed with an allergy, but suspect you may be sensitive to or intolerant of a
food, you should certainly remove it from your diet but you should consider the impact it will have on
your overall nutrition. Removing a major food group can result in a nutrient deficiency, so you should
replace the potentially aggravating foods with other sources that provide similar benefits without the
negative side-effects youre experiencing.
For instance, if you remove whole wheat from your diet to avoid gluten, youll reduce carbohydrate and
fiber intake. To account for this modification, you should replace wheat with brown rice. Another
alternative would be white potatoes (for the carbs) and broccoli (for the fiber).
Just as the removal of a food from your plan may necessitate replacing it with something else to prevent
nutrient deficiencies, if you are considering reincorporating a previously off-limits food and you want to
experiment, youd do well to have a plan. Start off by slowly eating more of the reintroduced food to
gauge your response.
Lets say you havent eaten bread in three years because the last time you ate it, it made you feel
bloated and you were convinced you had a gluten sensitivity. Now, after over a year, youre not so sure
and youre ready to give it another try. Please dont immediately jump into eating bread twice a day for
the next week! Instead, begin reintroducing gluten with half a slice of toast or something to that effect.
Dont go overboard.

Palatability and Food Reward

As you explore the topic, youll see more and more that nutrition is very cerebral. The mental
implications of changing your approach are far reaching and they affect your quality of life far beyond
that of your body composition and athletic performance. If you develop a greater understanding of how
certain foods impact your mentality, you can more effectively stick to modifications that you make.

Hunger/satiety
One of the least considered factors in setting up an effective nutrition plan is how certain foods affect
your hunger levels. The satiating effect of whole foods is a major contributory factor in why people tend
to lose weight when they opt for a nutrition strategy based around altering food options. Indeed, many
highly processed foods have a minimal effect on hunger levels while whole foods are often highly
satiating. For instance, when selecting starchy carbohydrate sources, you want to consider things like
fiber, the amount of water present in the food, as well as the total weight/volume of food consumed.
Compare two slices of toasted white bread (processed food) to a small sweet potato (whole food). Both
foods will provide roughly the same amount of energy, and most of it will come in the form of glucose.
The major functional difference between these two selections is that the toast isnt going to fill you up;
27

there isnt much substance to it as its dry and barely weighs anything, while the sweet potato, which
has more fiber, water, and weighs twice what the toast does, will effectively satisfy your hunger. In this
way, you may actually be influenced to eat less if you eat the sweet potato, even though it provides the
same ballpark number of Calories as the toast.
If youre attempting to lose weight, highly satiating foods can become your best friend, especially when
you have a very specific fat loss goal in mind. When Calories are set low, hunger signals will be
increased and choosing foods that make you feel full may prevent you from overshooting your daily
Calorie/macro goals without the negative mental effects of eating a hypocaloric diet. On the flip side,
Calorie-dense, low satiety foods may be conducive to gaining weight and they can be useful for fueling
extremely high energy demands. If your daily Calorie goals are set high (as they are for many athletes)
the opposite can occur and its very easy to undershoot if you eat highly satiating foods. In this instance,
foods that provide more Calories without the impact on hunger can make the task of eating what may
seem like an insurmountable number of Calories much more easily attainable.
From the standpoint of hunger signaling VOLUME MATTERS. A Snickers might satisfy your hunger
temporarily but the Greek yogurt does the trick for much longer, which is why diets that emphasize real
foods like this have good success rates. Fibrous veggies are pretty important whether you are trying to
expand your caloric needs or trying to restrict them. Youll find overall that when youre trying to
increase your energy intake youll need to be less reliant on fibrous veggies and when you are restricting
your energy intake, you will be more reliant on them. Veggies take up a lot of room in your stomach and
have very little useable energy. For that reason, you dont really want to go overboard with them at any
point. A few servings a day is perfect.

Why Eating Real Food Is Important

Eating real, whole food is important for a number of reasons. Not only is it more satisfying overall, but it
comes packed with the vitamins, minerals, and other constituents that you need to function properly. If
It Fits Your Macros or IIFYM is a popular concept that I believe disregards the importance of being
healthy and never really addresses the big picture. Does that mean you should never have processed
foods like ice cream or utilize protein shakes in your diet to hit your macros? Absolutely not. Just
understand this: theres a big difference between eating a Snickers vs. a bowl of Greek yogurt with
strawberries and honey. It goes way beyond whats natural or healthy. Things like the volume of
the food you eat do matter. If you havent seen a Snickers lately, they are getting smaller and smaller
so most people end up just buying the bigger version which is pretty much the caloric equivalent of a
meal.

28

Doesnt look that different right?

Well the devil is in the details. The
3.3 oz. Snickers bars arent a lot

(2) Snickers 2 to
Go:

Calories: Fat: 20g Carbs: 58g

440

Protein: 8g

of food when it comes down to it.

Youre also missing a great
Whole Fat Yogurt
Calories: Fat: 15g Carbs: 50g Protein: 28g
opportunity to meet your protein
with Strawberries
424
and Honey
requirements if you go for that
option. Compare that to 10 oz. of
Whole Greek yogurt, one cup of strawberries, and 1 tablespoons of raw honey. In case you dont
know, that is a pretty big bowl of food. That kind of volume is like throwing a log onto the fire and
whether or not you consider it a meal or a snack is up to you (for me it would be a snack) but the more
you neglect your macro needs in terms of protein in this instance the more you need to rely on
supplements to make up the difference. I dont have any problem with that from the standpoint of
convenience and overall well-being, as sometimes you have to do what you have to do to meet your
needs but once again you are sacrificing volume.

Eat lots of protein and vegetables

Protein is more satiating than fat or carbohydrate, (Halton) so its important to eat enough to keep your
hunger under control. Its also essential for maintaining and building muscle mass.
Vegetables contain fiber, water, and many nutrients which help you stay healthy and satisfied on few
Calories. (Clark & Slavin) As a general rule, try to include vegetables and protein at every meal.

Add fat and starch as needed

Everyone needs a certain amount of fat to stay satisfied, healthy, and happy. Fat helps transport fat
soluble vitamins into your cells, it helps form your cell membranes and hormones, and it helps transport
flavors so your food tastes better. But many people consume more fat than they need, (Blundell &
MacDiarmid) so be mindful of how much youre consuming. In general, its smart to have a small portion
of fat with every meal.
When it comes to starch and more carbohydrate-dense foods, how much you need depends on your
activity levels. If youre exercising every day, its best to consume more carbohydrate. (Burke, Hawley,
Wong, & Jeukendrup) If youre sedentary, you dont need as much.

How exercise affects hunger

This book is technically about diet, but exercise has a large impact on your appetite. (King, et al.)
When people exercise, they tend to do a better job of matching their food intake to their true Calorie
needs. (King, et al.) Some evidence has also found that high intensity exercise can act as an appetite
suppressant. (King, Burley, & Blundell)
In general, this means that exercise helps prevent overeating.

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I recommend you exercise every day during your diet break. Its important to maintain the habit of
regular exercise, so it wont be hard to become more active when its time to lose weight. This also helps
you understand that exercise is about more than burning Calories. If youre trying to maintain your
weight, you need to find other sources of motivation to exercise, such as enjoying being outside.
When people exercise, they also generally feel more motivated to eat well and feel more in control.
You dont need to do hard workouts every day, but you should stay active.

STOP exercising to earn your food!

I often hear things like Honestly I just go to the gym so I can eat in a less restricted way. Becoming a
better athlete/getting stronger/building muscle isnt that important to me. This makes about as much
sense as someone eating without regard for maintaining or improving their health or body composition.
Nutrition and exercise go hand-in-hand! Sure, you can go to the gym to earn food but youre missing
a great opportunity to make yourself better and expand your capabilities. The simple fact is if you arent
getting better at what you do, you are getting worse. Just showing up doesnt quite get you to where
you want to be. You need to fuel your workouts and spend most of your time building an improved
work capacity.
Similarly, showing up all the time without recovering is also fools gold. Your body needs to adapt to the
stress you are putting it through. With little-to-no downtime, you are basically just piling stress upon
stress upon stress and that takes its toll over time. Eventually youre going to hit a wall, get sick/injured,
and have to stop. Again, exercising to burn Calories is a terrible idea! The best way to approach this is
to have a progressive plan, but that doesnt mean you dont address a broad spectrum of deficiencies.
In fact I think that is a positive thing overall. In addition to work capacity, you should be progressively
working to get stronger rather than randomly lifting weights and building muscle. Yes, this allows you to
eat more food - a plus if you like to eat - but its also favorable for maintaining a lean physique! It really
doesnt take much more energy than just showing up and going through the motions but it might
require some extra help.

30

Flexible Eating Case Study: James

150 lbs. To 173 lbs.

In May of 2011, I had the privilege of witnessing my younger sister Elizabeth graduate from the
University of South Florida with her Bachelors degree. All along shes told me that she pursued her
degree not for herself, but for her family; for me. Her accomplishment inspired me to take a look deep
inside myself and reflect upon my own life. I asked myself what I was doing with the time Id been
given, what my ancestors would think of me, as well as where I was going to end up if I continued on the
path Id set out upon.
I had given up on my life-long goal of becoming a successful musician and started work as a line cook at
a local barbecue restaurant; I had never made so little money for so much work but it was all I could
find. My social life had dwindled to nothing, my girlfriend was constantly at my throatmy self-esteem
had hit rock bottom. Not only was I poor, uneducated, and demotivated, but I was also fat, weak, and
chronically ill. I contemplated ending everything practically every day, but I thought to myself, I cannot
let my sister down. I have to get better. If not for myself, I have to do it for her. I made a promise to
her that I wouldnt carry on that way any longer.
Fast-forward to now: Im writing and editing this eBook, Im an NASM certified personal trainer and
nutrition coach, Im a state record-holding powerlifter, I run at least 5 kilometers every week, and I can
pull a 2.5x bodyweight deadlift any day of the week. I make enough money to provide for myself and
my family and I have a new car after eight years of riding a bike to work!
Its absolutely astonishing how things can change if you keep an open mind and take advantage of the
incredible fountain of information we commonly refer to as the Internet. I lost over 50lbs, added
45lbs of muscle to my frame, and (most importantly) found new respect for myself and my body. It
wasnt easy; I wasted a lot of time (and muscle), drove myself crazy on a few occasions and endured
countless paradigm shifts, but I made it.

My low carb Perma-cut and how I snapped out of It

Without a doubt, one of the greatest changes in my life has been how I approach eating. I spent the
first year of my transformation (if you can call it that) following a strict low carb/ketogenic (under 30g

31

a day) paleo diet. Marks Daily Apple became my Bible and I almost bought a pair of Vibram FiveFingers. I sprinted, played, did a ton of pushups, synthesized a ton of vitamin D, and within six months
Id dropped from 56 180lbs to 130lbs. I got a gym membership and started doing some HIIT training
on machines (think Arthur Jones), but as 2012 rolled around, low carb perma cutting had rendered me
a spry 120lbs.
After posting a progress picture on my favorite Facebook group (which Paul happens to have created) it
hit me: I was emaciated, and I wasnt all that lean. I thought to myself, Oh my God. How did this
happen!? I had struggled with bulimia and self-abuse in high school, so I was surprised that it took me
so long to see what I was doing to myself. I knew that there had to be a better way, so I fired up the
Google, did some research and took the plunge; I started training and eating like a powerlifter.
The cornerstone of my new lifestyle was eating a ton of food and heavy barbell lifts to the tune of the
Westside conjugate method. When I began training in February (30 months ago as of this writing), I was
benching 95lbs for two reps, I couldnt squat the bar, and deadlifting actually gave me an upper
respiratory tract infection the first time I tried it. Im not kidding. It was THAT bad.
Now, Ive never been a very athletic person; I was born with clubbed feet, my shoulders and hips
dislocate at will, and the only sport I ever liked was hockey (GO RED WINGS!) so although my numbers
arent fantastic, Im proud of what Ive accomplished. Im a competitive powerlifter and I hold a Florida
state record in the United States Powerlifting Association. My best lifts in competition are a 369 lb.
squat, 203 lb. bench press, and 435 lb. deadlift. I went from a bodyweight of 122 lbs. to 173 lbs. and
maintained a relatively lean physique. I attribute the bulk (pun intended) of my strength and muscle
gains to how I ate over the course of this period.

How I Fixed Myself

Following the approach we teach here at Eat To Perform allowed me to literally pig out every single
night and gain 20 lbs. without getting fat. You may not be surprised, considering how tiny I was, but the
key to getting where I knew I wanted to be really WAS (as weve written about countless times now) to
ditch the clean eating mindset, feed my body based upon my activity levels and Eat To
Perform. Rather than trying to appease the imaginary, unseen panel of judges that care about how my
abs looked, I paid attention to my deadlift and how my body felt.
I let the ice cream/doughnuts/beer back into my life. That doesnt necessarily mean that I gorged on a
ton of junk food, but lets just say theres a video on my YouTube channel of me eating a dozen Krispy
Kreme doughnuts in 4 minutes. Gaining weight was actually really hard at first. Its almost unbelievable,
but thats why I had to write this essay.
A lot of us dont want to hear it, but it may be time to face the facts; if you live an active lifestyle, low
carbing and (especially) clean eating might be screwing you over big time. Big goals require big
eating. This goes double (maybe triple) for young people with raging metabolic fires. I hope I can serve
as a real-world example of how detrimental it can be to put all your faith into a single method or
program, especially when it teaches you to avoid foods you love for the sake of keeping off a few
pounds of water weight.

32

Eat To Perform and Met Flex are part of a toolkit into which Ive reached and pulled out a viable method
of continuously getting stronger and gaining weight, of healing the metabolic and psychological damage
that dieting can cause in those whore susceptible. My mind has been liberated, my world
reconstructed, and I have a much healthier relationship with eating; for the first time in my adult life,
food and physical activity are my best friends. Im proud of myself and I feel like Im finally living up to
the promise I made to my sister.

33

Designing an Approach to Nutrition

At this point, youve read a lot about why a flexible approach to nutrition is effective, sustainable, and
healthy; this information will be vital in your application of the concept. It should be clear to you now
that while its important to base your diet on minimally processed foods, theres no need to apply
concepts such as good or bad to what you eat; instead, effectiveness should be your barometer! You
should judge foods based on how they impact your progress and you should consider not only food
quality but also energy balance, macronutrient ratio, and satiety. We need to be mindful of how food
affects our thought processes and how those thoughts influence our success, as well as our long-term
relationship with food.
Although weve extensively covered why you should be eating flexibly, we havent said much in the way
of how to begin utilizing these concepts to establish a plan of action. You need to have a clear goal in
mind, a timeline of how long itll take you to achieve it, and a strategy to account for any hurdles you
may encounter along the way.
Before we go deeper, heres a glance at what separates an effective nutrition plan from an ineffective
one.
An ineffective nutrition plan:
1. May fail to provide you with an appropriate amount of Calories: either too few or too many.
This can make losing fat or building muscle IMPOSSIBLE.
2. Can conflict with your personal preferences and natural approach to eating, making it incredibly
difficult to adhere to long-term.
3. Might place restrictions on energy-dense food sources and UNINTENTIONALLY cause undereating.
4. May INTENTIONALLY limit carbohydrate intake, resulting in premature fatigue during exercise
and other activities.
In contrast, an effective nutrition plan:
1. Will provide an appropriate amount of Calories based upon the goals of the individual.
2. Will fit into the lifestyle and personal preferences of the individual.
3. Will emphasize energy-dense whole foods in order to maintain proper energy balance.
4. Will provide a balanced approach to carbohydrates that optimizes performance during exercise.

34

START HERE: Establishing TDEE and Transitioning into Maintenance

To begin, well take a look at an approach for transitioning from a long period of dieting into
maintenance. Get ready and listen up because if you walk away from this eBook having learned one
thing, its the concept Im about to introduce.
The main reason diets work is not because of the diet, its because of the time spent outside of the diet.
Thats right: the secret to getting and staying lean is to stop dieting all the time!

Eating at maintenance should be the norm and dieting the exception

About 20% of the U.S. population is on a diet of some kind. (NPD Group, 2013)
If you ask 10 of your friends if theyre on a diet, its likely at least two of them will say yes.
Many people have tried to lose weight, and many people have failed. As a result, people assume that it
must be extremely hard to get lean, and they resort to extreme behaviors that ultimately result in all
kinds of dysfunction.
Thats not the best plan. For your health, sanity, and body composition, its better to spend more of your
time at maintenance.
Whether youre coming from a background of chronic under-eating, or youre over-eating and want to
start improving your body composition, you need to know what it takes to keep things how they are
before you can begin to understand what it takes to enact a plan to change things and achieve a specific
goal.
There are two steps to this process. First, you need to do a bit of food logging to see what youre
currently eating. Next, youll use a simple calculator to determine your ideal maintenance Calories or
TDEE.

Step 1: Log Food

I know what youre thinking: logging food stinks. Indeed, one of the reasons why people are so
attracted to boxed diets that give you a food list (and not much else) is because you dont have to
track. Lets face it though: if that worked, you wouldnt be reading this eBook. You have a specific result
in mind: to lose fat or build muscle. To get there, youre going to need to do some tracking!
The good news? You dont need to track every day for the rest of your life! Initially, a short, one-week
period will give you most of the information you need to see where your Calories and macros are. Even
better, logging food has become very convenient thanks to advances in technology. There are a number
of smart phone applications and websites available to make the process easier but our recommendation
is to use MyFitnessPal. If youd prefer to go old-school and use a logbook, be my guest; some people
have an easier time remaining accountable if they keep physical records.

35

What were ultimately looking for is a seven-day average of total Calories consumed, protein,
carbohydrates, and fat.
For example:
Monday

Carbs: 230g

Fat: 110g

Protein: 145g

Calories: 2490

Tuesday

Carbs: 145g

Fat: 130g

Protein: 100g

Calories: 2150

Wednesday

Carbs: 220g

Fat: 100g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 2380

Thursday

Carbs: 160g

Fat: 110g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 2230

Friday

Carbs: 230g

Fat: 90g

Protein: 115g

Calories: 2190

Saturday

Carbs: 280g

Fat: 135g

Protein: 170g

Calories: 3015

Sunday

Carbs: 340g

Fat: 135g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 3170

Average

Carbs: 229g

Fat: 115g

Protein: 140g

Calories: 2517

Here are some general rules to follow for the initial one week tracking period:

Report accurately. Youre logging your food to collect data so you know how to make
modifications that will put you closer to your goals. That means weighing your food when
possible and being honest about portion sizes.

Try to be consistent. Dont log Monday but skip Tuesday unless you have to. Dont fill out
Wednesday halfway because you couldnt find a couple minutes to log your dinner. The more
consistent you are, the more accurate your data will be!

Dont stress. If you do miss a day or you cant weigh and measure your food, do your best but
dont beat yourself up over anything. Get a good picture of what a busy day where you dont
have much time to eat looks like as well as a day where you eat for joy and dont pay much
attention to your food choices and call it well enough.

Step 2: Establish your TDEE

There are two ways you can establish your TDEE.
1. Use the Eat To Perform Calculator
2. Use the Harris-Benedict equation

Using the ETP Calculator

Without a doubt, the easiest way to get a rough estimate of your ideal TDEE is to use our very own Eat
To Perform Calculator. You plug in some numbers and it spits out a number that should come pretty
close to what it will take for you to maintain your weight. Heres a primer on using the calculator and a
36

description of its functions. The height, weight, and age fields are fairly self-explanatory but the
rest of the options may require some explanation.
Activity
This is the money spot right here. If you work out, Moderately Active probably represents the activity
level of a guy/gal who trains 2-3 times a week and works a relatively inactive job. Very Active people
work out 4-5 times a week. Extra Active correlates with someone who exercises with intensity and
works a pretty active job, or does two-a-days in the gym.
The next two fields, gender and units are also self-explanatory; youre either a male or female. If
you live in the United States, select Imperial. If you live anywhere else and you measure in grams,
liters and meters, you will want to switch to Metric.
Results
There are two options here but for our purposes, you want to select TDEE (total daily energy
expenditure) and ignore the -10% option.
Protein Calculation
This provides you with two settings: 1 gram per lb. and LBM. LBM or Lean Body Mass is based off of
the body fat percentage that you input in the next field. If you dont know your body fat percentage,
either select the first option or make a guess; you dont need to be 100% accurate.
Fats
The calculator can also solve for carbs based upon how much fat youre going to eat. When solving for
fat, you should go for roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight.
Carbs
This gives you a drop-down menu where you choose your theoretical carb intake for a day. That
number combined with your protein number allows the calculator to come up with a suggestion for how
many grams of fat (not carbs) you need to eat to reach your TDEE goal. Carbs should be set at roughly
35-45% of your daily Calories or 1.3-1.8 grams per pound of body weight.
With everything plugged in, you can hit the calculate button and get a fairly accurate estimate of your
ideal TDEE! Hooray!

Using the Harris-Benedict Equation

Although the ETP Calculator is easy to use, were aware that there are people who like to do the math
themselves. The formula that our calculator uses to estimate TDEE is known as the Harris-Benedict
method. This century-old equation allows you to estimate your BMR, then apply an activity modifier to
estimate your TDEE. (Harris & Benedict)

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Basal Metabolic Rate

Women BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Men

BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in years )

Its important to note that variations in body composition can affect your BMR significantly. People
whore either very lean or carrying around a lot of body fat may find that the resultant numbers dont
line up with data obtained from other methods of estimating BMR, like scales or body fat tests. This is
OK. There will always be some level of trial and error involved in applying calorimetry to real-world
scenarios. The potential for slight inaccuracy does not render the equation useless.
After youve estimated your BMR, you simply multiply it by an activity factor to determine TDEE.
Activity Multiplier
Sedentary (little or no exercise)

BMR x 1.2

Lightly active (light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week)

BMR x 1.375

Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 3-5

days/week)

BMR x 1.55

Very active (hard exercise/sports 6-7 days a week)

BMR x 1.725

Extra active (very hard exercise/sports & physical job

or 2x training)

BMR x 1.9

Again, because of variations in body composition, training intensity, duration, and a host of other
factors, this number is only an educated guess (albeit a very well-educated guess).
Now that youve done a bit of math, youre ready to begin putting it to use to develop a new approach
to nutrition that will stick with you for the rest of your life.

Step 3: Un-dieting
At this point, youre left with two sets of numbers: one set represents what youre currently eating, and
the other set represents what you should be eating. The difference may be staggering, and you may
feel confused. If youre a highly active person youre probably under-eating quite significantly and you
know that needs to change. So what the heck do you do?
The answer is to gradually add in more food over the course of a few weeks (or even months) until
youre hitting your TDEE on a consistent basis. Many people refer to this as reverse dieting or a diet
break, but wed like you to think of it as un-dieting. Youre simply moving towards giving your body
what it needs to function properly so you can move on to effective and sustainable weight loss.
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How un-dieting works

When you diet, your metabolic rate slows. Its not enough to completely stop weight loss, but it does
make it much, much slower. (Camps, Verhoef , & Westerterp)
In addition, your body becomes lighter as you lose weight, which means you burn fewer Calories for the
same amount of movement. (Goele, Bosy-Westphal, Rumcker, Lagerpusch, & Mueller)
As you know, dieting can also be stressful. Being constantly vigilant of your food intake 24/7 can wreak
havoc on your sanity. As weve already mentioned, if you maintain it too long, it can even push you to
the point of developing an eating disorder. (Polivy & Herman) During his cut for his bodybuilding show,
Spencer found himself bingeing at night, which is something hes NEVER had a problem with before.
That is not a healthy habit.
Un-dieting works by letting you recover from all of these negative adaptations. You allow your body
time to get back to baseline so you can focus on fat loss later. (Trexler, Smith-Ryan, & Norton )
During the initial stages of this phase, you generally increase your Calories, and stop actively pursuing fat
loss. The goal isnt to bulk up. The goal is to let your body recover from dieting. Its also best to place
as few restrictions on your diet as possible, to give yourself a chance to recover psychologically.
During this period, try to be as flexible as possible about your diet. Even if you dont consider yourself a
rigid dieter, most people become more strict about what they eat whenever they cut Calories. Youll
have more wiggle room for treats during your diet break, so dont sweat small indulgences.
This doesnt mean you should pig out on junk food or eat well above maintenance. This is about
establishing normal, healthy eating behaviors.
Lets talk about exactly how to do this.

Gradually increase your calorie intake

There are generally two camps when it comes to un-dieting. One side says you should immediately raise
your Calories back to maintenance. The other group says you should gradually increase your Calorie
intake over a period of weeks or months.
Theres not much scientific evidence thats true, but there are other benefits to gradually increasing
your Calorie intake.
Many people take a black or white approach to dieting. When they arent trying to lose fat any more,
they go overboard and eat too much. By gradually increasing your Calorie intake, you can maintain a
sense of control over your diet and adapt to your new eating behaviors.
This gives you a smoother transition to eating at maintenance. Or in other words, it reduces the chance
youll binge or restrict during your diet break.

39

How Many Calories to Add

To start, eat about 100-200 more Calories per week. Continue on that rate until you start to gain more
than about 3-5 pounds. That initial weight gain is just going to be water and glycogen. When you start to
gain more than that, cut back about 100-200 Calories. Thats your new maintenance intake. In theory,
this should help minimize fat gain while allowing you to build muscle and burn more Calories.
Women can gain even more than this due to changes in their hormone levels. (Watson & Robinson)
Some females can gain over ten pounds in just a few days around their menstrual cycle. Its almost all
water. After this initial increase, your weight gain will slow. Youll still probably gain some muscle as you
eat at maintenance, but the rate will be drop, maybe a quarter to a half pound per month.
Your goal during a diet break isnt to lose weight, or to strictly control your weight, so dont worry about
the scale. If you want to, weigh yourself once per week, but no more than that. It messes with your head
if you do it too often.

Eat more of the same foods at first

When some people go on a diet break, their first inclination is to eat all of the foods theyve denied
themselves during their diet. Thats generally not a good idea. Instead, increase the size of the meals
youre already eating.
This reduces your risk of binge eating. You absolutely should eat some of the foods youve avoided, but
do so in a controlled way. Theres no rush. Increase your Calorie intake first so you arent as hungry, and
then include some of the treats youve been craving.
Eating more of the same foods also makes it easier to gauge portion sizes and find your true Calorie
needs. If you introduce a lot of new foods at once, it can be easy to under- or overshoot your
maintenance needs. For example, after dieting for his bodybuilding competition where his Calories
ended up very low, Dr. Spencer added back a bit of rice that he was withholding along with more
chicken (or beef) on a daily basis. He went up from there.

Wont I gain weight?

If youre chronically underfed, you will gain a bit of weight while you un-diet. Commonly, you can
expect to gain 3-5 lbs. and it may come on very quickly: almost overnight for some folks. Youre NOT
putting on 3-5 lbs. of fat overnight; thats a physical impossibility. Still, you may gain a little fat, and if
youre lifting weights, youll probably gain muscle. As mentioned before, many folks who start using the
Eat to Perform guidelines gain some good muscle AND strength.
The weight gain will be predominately water weight and stomach contents as you rehydrate your body
and put more fuel in your proverbial gas tank. This is a good thing. If you dont gain some weight
during this phase, you likely arent eating more, and you arent reaping the benefits. Youll gain the most
weight immediately after you start your diet break. Your muscles will absorb carbohydrates and store
them as glycogen. As we mentioned earlier, glycogen stores with water. Plus youll have more food in

40

your digestive system throughout the day. In general, this will make you gain about 3-5 pounds in the
first week or so.
Youll find that you have more energy as your body recovers from the stress of undereating and you
might notice a more full look in the mirror.

41

Part III: Flexible Eating for Different Goals

Earlier in this eBook, we went over how energy balance is ultimately the deciding factor in whether or
not you maintain, lose, or gain body mass. The food you eat impacts not only energy balance, whether
youre in a neutral, positive, or negative balance, but also how hungry you are, how much energy you
have available for exercise, and more. In this section, youll learn strategies that apply simple math as
well as behavioral modifications to achieve a desired result: weight maintenance, fat loss, or lean mass
gain. While there is some overlap, a unique approach is required for each goal. Well look at nutrition
as well as some guidelines for exercise.

A word regarding high intensity exercise

Throughout this section, youll read suggestions that apply to a wide range of people. To be clear, we
are huge proponents of high intensity exercise across broad time and modal domains no matter what
your body composition goals. Your average WOD or workout of the day mixes a wide variety strength
and conditioning elements into one workout and its a very efficient use of time. Furthermore,
becoming a balanced athlete strong, fast, durable and flexible is one of the best ways to build
muscle, lose fat, improve your health and have fun.
That said, when your Calories are stable and youre maintaining, or youre increasing them in an attempt
to build lean mass, youre going to have plenty of energy to exercise for longer periods of time and with
greater levels of intensity. During these periods, you can really push the envelope. However, when your
goals shift towards fat loss, you will inevitably hit a wall if you dont respect the fact that youre simply
not eating enough to support vigorous activity every day.
During periods where your Calories are lower, its best to give yourself room to breathe. Take more rest
days, and dont run yourself into the ground when you WOD. Emphasize strength during your strength
sessions lift heavy! When it comes time to metcon (metabolic conditioning), focus on getting a good
time over trying to Rx the workout.

Guidelines and Strategies for Maintenance

Maintaining weight can be a challenge. As you learned earlier, most people who go on diets regain the
weight theyve lost plus interest because they dont have an exit strategy like un-dieting. They dont
know their TDEE, they dont know how much theyre eating, and they freak out as soon as the scale goes
up a few pounds. At this point, you understand that when you enter into a period of maintenance, your
weight may go up a few lbs. due to water retention. You also understand that gradually increasing your

42

Calories over the course of several weeks will allow you time to adapt and potentially minimize any fat
gain. You realize the value of eating at maintenance and taking breaks for both your mind and body.
Keeping all of that in mind, here are a few tips you can employ to keep your weight relatively stable
once youve gone through the un-dieting process.
1. Eat the same foods most of the time. While you should eat a wide variety of foods, you dont
want to eat randomly. Develop several standard daily meal plans that fit your TDEE and adopt
an 80/20 rule so you dont go overboard or restrict your food intake. For example, if you eat a
couple fried eggs and a small bowl of oatmeal each morning but you forget to buy oatmeal, its
OK to substitute with fruit or maybe even a bagel as long as you arent allergic or sensitive to the
substitute.
2. Continually self-monitor. As weve explained at several points throughout this eBook,
developing habits that help you accomplish your goals is key to managing your nutrition. You
dont want to constantly track food and weigh yourselfyou want to live your life, be healthy,
and look good! That said, it can be very helpful to occasionally revisit the process of logging
your food to make sure you arent dramatically under or overshooting your food intake. For
more examples of habits that can help you stay on the right track, revisit the section Dieting
Doesnt Have to be so Hard from earlier in this eBook.
3. Remain active. I know this isnt a problem for everyone wholl read through these pages, but it
has to be noted that most people who maintain weight easily are active at least a couple times a
week. Diet and exercise in combination are the key to weight management! If you arent
already exercising, you should start as soon as possible. Weight training and aerobic work like
walking, running, and cycling are all valuable tools to bring along on the quest for health. If you
do high intensity exercise, youve already got this part covered.

Calorie/Carb Cycling for Recomposition: Loading and Control Days

While we commonly associate fat loss with weight loss and muscle gain with increased body weight, you
can absolutely build muscle and lose fat while maintaining weight it just happens slowly. This is called
recomposition. In a nutshell, recomposition is what happens when you stay the same weight but
increase your muscle mass, resulting in an overall decrease in body fat.
One of the most common and effective strategies available to accomplish body recomposition during
weight maintenance is Calorie cycling. What this entails is keeping Calories at maintenance most of the
time, while taking brief periods to eat at a slight Calorie deficit. Calorie cycling can be done day-to-day,
week-to-week, or even month-to-month depending upon your goals.

43

At Eat To Perform, we typically suggest that new people work up to their maintenance Calories from
wherever is theyre at when they arrive at our digital doorstep. Once theyre eating at TDEE on a
consistent basis, we like them to cycle Calories between higher carb days and lower carb days based
upon their activity levels, referred to colloquially as loading and control days.
Heres an example of what that loading and control days might look like throughout a week.
Daily TDEE: 2155 Calories

Average Calories: 2,100

Monday (workout)

Carbs: 225g

Fat: 75g

Protein: 145g

Calories: 2,155

Tuesday (workout)

Carbs: 230g

Fat: 75g

Protein: 145g

Calories: 2,175

Wednesday (rest)

Carbs: 100g

Fat: 85g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 1,765

Thursday (workout)

Carbs: 225g

Fat: 80g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 2,220

Friday (workout)

Carbs: 220g

Fat: 80g

Protein: 145g

Calories: 2,180

Saturday (rest)

Carbs: 115g

Fat: 75g

Protein: 140g

Calories: 1,695

Sunday (rest)

Carbs: 100g

Fat: 90g

Protein: 150g

Calories: 1,810

Weekly TDEE: 1,5085 Calories

Weekly Calorie Deficit: 1,195 Calories

What happens, naturally, is that the more rest days you have each week, the greater the Calorie deficit
you create. This allows you to keep your average Calorie intake at just below TDEE so that you
essentially maintain body weight, but give your body the chance to utilize the principles of Metabolic
Flexibility you run on mostly fat during your rest days, and rely more upon carbohydrates when you
need them the most.
Well go over a few more examples of how to use Calorie cycling for different goals in the next few
sections so keep this fresh in your mind.

Nutrition/Exercise Guidelines for Maintenance

Calories: Equal to established TDEE with control and loading days based upon activity levels

Protein: Roughly 25% of your daily Calories or 1 gram per pound of body weight

Fat: Roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight

Carbs: Roughly 35 to 45% of your daily Calories or 1.3-1.8 grams per pound of body weight,
adjusted between loading and control days

Weight Training: Moderate volume, moderate-heavy weight, moderate frequency

Conditioning: Moderate exertion, moderate volume, moderate frequency

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Guidelines and Strategies for Weight Loss

This is the section I know youve been waiting for. Youve probably spent at least some part of your life
at this point trying to lose fat and keep it off. Theres also the possibility that youre already lean, but
you cant quite seem to get any leaner. Whatever the reason, you need to understand right from the
get-go that for you to make the most of your attempts to lose fat, you need to move slowly.
Furthermore, you may not be able to approach things in a linear fashion; youre going to have to take
diet breaks if you want to lose a significant amount of fat.

Calorie deficits and weight loss timelines

For most people, we recommend one pound of weight loss a week or a 3,500 Calorie weekly deficit.
Thats about a 500 Calorie deficit each day. If you have more fat to lose, you may lose weight slower
with these numbers. Conversely, if youre leaner, you may lose weight faster on the same Calorie
deficit. (Hall D., 2008)
The bulk of your energy deficit should be created by reducing dietary carbohydrates and fat. For most
people, that means dropping about 75g of carbs and about 20g of fat. This of course assumes that you
are coming from a period of energy maintenance or surplus. If youre in a negative energy balance to
begin with, that one pound a week plan needs to be delayed while you get your Calories up to an
acceptable level. It varies from person to person but if youve been dieting hard for the last five years,
you would probably be best served to take three to six months to just reset everything and focus on
maintaining your weight. Once you work the math a bit better in your favor, its much easier to take
eight to 12 weeks to address fat loss goals. (Dulloo & Jacquet J)
The timeline over the course of a year might look something like this:

Three months maintaining

2 months eating for a one-pound-a-week decrease

Three months maintaining

2 months eating for a one-pound-a-week decrease

Calorie Cycling for Fat Loss

Building upon the timeline presented above, when youre ready to focus on fat loss, you can utilize
Calorie cycling just like you would to achieve a recomposition effect during maintenance; the only
difference is that youre working with monthly deficits, not weekly deficits.

45

Heres an example of what your average monthly Calories might look like over the course of an 8 month
period:
Starting Weight: 151
lbs.

Starting TDEE: 2500 Calories

January

February

March

56,000
Calories

56,000
Calories

4 lbs.
weight
loss

8 lbs.
weight
loss

500 Calories
April

Ending TDEE: 2380

Calories

Average TDEE: 2440

Calories

May

June

July

August

54,000
Calories

54,000
Calories

66,000
Calories

12 lbs.
weight
loss

16 lbs.
weight
loss

Maintenance
at 135 lbs.

68,000 Calories

Maintenance at 143 lbs.

If this seems to you like this is a slow rate of weight loss, if it appears as though youre taking a long time
to lose only 16 lbs. of fatThen youre right. This IS a slow approach, but there are two very important
benefits to taking it slow rather than trying to lose weight as fast as possible.
First of all, this rate of weight loss will spare lean mass. Whether youre losing weight to look better, or
youre doing it to improve your strength:weight ratio and enter a lower weight class for competitive
reasons, maintaining as much lean mass as possible is vital. If you lose too much lean mass as you lose
weight, youll just look like a smaller version of your former self, and youll see a significant decrease in
athletic performance. Thats not good!
Second, losing only 1 lb. of weight each week and taking long breaks to un-diet is sustainable. In Part I
of this eBook, you learned all about (and have very likely personally experienced) the dreaded weight
loss stall. With a slow and steady approach, stalls will occur less frequently because youre allowing
your body to recover during the periods of maintenance. Equally beneficial is the fact that youll be
focused on achieving several small goals throughout the year. Biting off small chunks to achieve a
greater goal will keep your head clear and youll be able to stick to your guns as you lose fat because
youre only eating slightly less than normal.

Exercise during weight loss

The standard advice given to most people when they begin a weight loss plan is to exercise as much as
possible, and to do excessive amounts of cardiovascular training. As far as weight training is concerned,
youll see people switching from heavy weights for low repetitions and a moderate amount of sets to
the complete opposite end of the spectrum; tons of reps, tons of sets, and very light weight. The fact of
the matter is that whatever you were doing for exercise during your maintenance phase should stay
relatively static during a weight loss phase, save a few differences.

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1. Intensity and strength should remain the same or increase. If you were (for example)
overhead pressing a 50 lb. barbell for 5 repetitions during maintenance, you should strive to
increase or at the very least maintain the weight on the bar for the same number of repetitions.
In the same vein, if youre running an 8:00 mile, you should try to improve or at least maintain
your speed. In other words, dont lift lighter and dont slow down just because youre eating
less. Keeping the intensity up will go a long way to preserve lean mass as you lose weight.
2. Volume should decrease slightly. When intensity is high, volume should be low. In response to
decreased energy input, energy output should naturally decrease. Dont eat less/do more or
youll just create an unnecessarily large Calorie deficit, which is not favorable as far as sparing
lean mass is concerned. You want to do the smallest amount of the most effective work to
maintain lean mass in an energy deficit. That might mean dropping some assistance exercises or
doing fewer sets on days youre just not feeling it. Do not sacrifice intensity for volume stick to
the basics. Get in, get out!
3. Frequency should remain about the same. You dont need to be in the gym lifting weights or
plodding away on a treadmill every day while you lose weight. If youve found success doing
resistance training and cardio 3x a week on maintenance Calories, just keep things how they are
so that you dont unwittingly increase volume, which will necessitate a concomitant decrease in
intensity.

Tips for eating at a deficit

One of the most difficult aspects of eating at a deficit is the fact that youWellHave to eat less!
Weve already touched on hunger and how certain characteristics of food impact cravings and satiety
but there are a few behaviors you can put into action that apply specifically to weight loss.
1. Emphasize high-satiety, low-Calorie whole foods. The bottom line is that when you have a
limited number of Calories to eat, you need to eat foods that fill you up to keep hunger at bay.
Increase your intake of fibrous vegetables and keep hyper-palatable foods at arms length.
Hyper-palatable foods are foods that tend to make people hungry when they eat them. Theyre
usually sweet, salty, or fatty, and theyre almost always energy-dense; you know what Im
talking about.
Contrast that with a food thats bland and dry. Palatable, energy-dense foods can be worked
into your plan but without a certain level of awareness and tracking, they may contribute to
overeating which will absolutely sabotage fat loss. Bland and dry arent exactly terms that
bring to mind the pleasure of eating, so these foods become a valuable asset in the war on
hunger.

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2. Eat most of your carbs before your workouts. Carbohydrates are the preferred energy source
of the human body. In Keeping the carbohydrates: why a balanced approach is better, you
learned that your brain and nervous tissues use a considerable amount of glucose each day,
even at rest. Another tissue that needs a lot of glucose to operate at peak capacity is skeletal
muscle. Unfortunately, carbohydrate intake will, under most circumstances, have to drop
during a fat loss plan to facilitate an energy deficit; Calories from fat can only drop so low
because theyre necessary for basic functions like absorption of vitamins and production of cell
membranes.
Since glucose will be scarce and Calories from carbohydrates will be lower, its important to pay
a bit of attention to nutrient timing and make sure that you get in a good amount of
carbohydrates before you exercise so that you can keep your energy up. Remember that
intensity of exercise needs to be either preserved or improved upon during a weight loss phase.
To ensure that you maintain a high level of performance, eat up to 50% of your daily carbs in
your pre-workout meal. The exact amount will vary based upon how you respond so you need
to experiment with this to hit the nail on the head.
3. Allow room to eat for joy. While you do want to emphasize high-satiety foods on a fat loss
diet, theres no reason to completely exclude foods you love when the opportunity presents
itself. Remember that fat loss takes place over the course of many weeks and months, not
overnight. A night out at the movies with your family that involves ice cream or pizza wont
hurt if you plan for it and refrain from using it as an excuse to binge for the next week. When
you do eat for joy, make it count dont feel guilty for messing up your diet. Instead, enjoy
yourself and eat mindfully. Think about how good the particular food tastes, and how awesome
it is that you can still have foods you enjoy while you lose weight.

What if my weight loss stalls?

Almost inevitably, youll hit a point during your fat loss plan where you expect to lose weight, yet you do
not. Provided everything is on point, there are a few ways to approach to situation.
First, understand that weight loss is not always linear. You may be within a few days of experiencing a
sudden decrease in scale weight often referred to as a woosh so dont jump to conclusions. Wait
things out for another week or so and see what happens to your weight. As long as the scale is trending
down, youre probably on the right track.
If you give your body time to catch up but your weight doesnt go down, its probably time to reconsider
your approach. Consider taking a few days to drop your Calories a bit lower (2-300 Calories less) and
observe your results.

48

If a larger Calorie deficit doesnt get your weight moving downward, youre probably at the point where
you need to head back to maintenance for a few weeks before you recommence losing weight. Its
really that simple.

Nutrition/Exercise Guidelines for Fat Loss

Calories: 10-15% (200-500 Calories) or more below established TDEE, mostly by reducing
carbohydrates

Protein: 25-30% of your daily Calories or 1-1.2 grams per pound of body weight (depending
upon how lean you are)

Fat: 40% of your daily Calories or 0.7 grams per pound of body weight

Carbs: 35% of your daily Calories or 1.3 grams per pound of body weight

Weight Training: Moderate volume, heavy weight, low-moderate frequency

Conditioning: Low exertion, moderate volume, moderate frequency

Guidelines and Strategies for Lean Mass Gain

Now that weve covered maintaining and losing weight, understand how to gain weight will be easy.
Gaining weight is essentially the same process as losing weight, except youre increasing Calories rather
than reducing them. Thats it!
Of course, its not really that simple. There are some issues you can run into when gaining weight, and
there are also ways to make the most of the process.

Calorie surplus to gain weight

Just as we need to create a Calorie deficit to lose weight, we need to create a Calorie surplus to gain
weight. The major difference with the math here is that as body weight increases, a greater energy
suplus is required to cause weight gain. Thus, lighter people may gain as much as 1 lb. a week on as low
as 500 Calories above maintenance TDEE/3,500 weekly Calories, but heavier folks may need to go up to
and beyond a 1,000 Calorie daily surplus/as much as 7,000 Calories over TDEE.
Remember how we suggested that you take a diet break every two months while losing weight? The
same goes for gaining weight. Taking a diet break will help your body and mind reset and take a load off
from all the eating youre going to have to do to successfully gain a significant amount of weight. Again,
youre going for short-term bursts towards goals, then maintenance, before you attack weight gain
head-on again for another couple months. Not only does this make the job easier, but it also helps keep
some of the fat off.

49

As an example, someone whos set aside a solid 8 months to gain weight might have to gradually build
up to eating 28,000 Calories over maintenance to gain even 7 lbs. of solid body weight.
Starting Weight: 151
lbs.

Starting TDEE: 2,500

Calories + 500-1,000 Calories

Ending TDEE: 2,875

Calories

Average TDEE: 2,670

Calories

January

February

March

May

June

July

August

84,000
Calories

89,600
Calories

93,800
Calories

98,000
Calories

80,500
Calories

April

78,000 Calories

5-10 lbs. weight gain

2-5 lbs. weight gain

Maintenance at 160 lbs.

Maintenance
at 165 lbs.

Do hard gainers really exist? Exercise and food logging

Hard gainers are people who just cant seem to gain weight no matter how much they eat...or so they
think. Compare the figures in the above table to the table from the previous section on weight loss. It
should be immediately apparent to you that fueling weight gain even 5 lbs. over the course of two
months requires a dramatic departure from the normal eating habits of your average person. While
there are considerations to be made for people who have legitimate issues with hormone function,
particularly those with hyperthyroidism, hard gainers are more often than not simply overestimating
how much theyre eating, or just not eating enough to gain weight.
There are also certain behaviors that make eating enough to gain weight more difficult; remember that
non-exercise associated thermogenesis contributes significantly to TDEE. A person whos constantly
busy may have a higher TDEE than theyve estimated. Someone who likes to perform a lot of long, slow
cardiovascular exercise each week may also run into the same problem.
If the above description fits you like a glove, the only way to really get around this is to eat as much as
you can while reducing your training volume to a bare minimum. That doesnt mean you should stop
doing cardio (in fact its very important for your health as you put on mass), and you certainly shouldnt
stop lifting weights, but you need to make everything you do count. Over time, try to gradually increase
your Calorie intake as well as your training load. The ideal scenario is the one where youre doing a
tremendous amount of work and eating to fuel it.

Tips for eating at a surplus

1. Emphasize energy-dense, low-satiety foods. This is pretty much the oppposite strategy you
would use to lose weight. When youre looking at packing away an extra 1,000 Calories each
day to gain weight, youre ideally going to want to eat foods that dont fill you up; foods that
make you MORE hungry when you eat them! Those same hyper-palatable choices that are your
50

enemy when youre trying to lose body fat become your most valuable tools when youre trying
to pack on lean mass.
All things considered, that doesnt mean you want to live on fast food and baked goods. You
should instead think about building upon the foods both in terms of volume and selection
that you would eat to maintain your weight.
2. Log your food dilligently to avoid under-eating. Again, self-monitoring of food intake is key to
achieving your desired result. You may feel like youre eating a lot...you may be eating some
pretty huge meals...but the fact of the matter is that most people inaccurately report how much
theyre eating! They undershoot when theyre trying to gain weight, and they overshoot when
theyre trying to lose weight! Dont let that happen to you take the time to log your meals and
remain accountable.
3. Get the bulk of your surplus Calories from carbohydrates. Carbs are highly thermogenic in an
active body especially when the majority of your activity involves heavy resistance training.
(Denzer & Young) What that means is that a considerable amount of energy is lost just
processing carbs after training. Because of this effect, you can potentially stay leaner on a high
carbohydrate weight gain diet than you would on a high fat weight gain diet. In addition,
increased carbohydrate consumption will ensure that you have plenty of fuel for your workouts,
enabling you to push your workload higher and higher.
4. Eat for joy on a regular basis. Again, weve reached a stark contrast among the strategies to
gain and lose weight. Whereas eating out with your friends and family can put you at a
detriment when your goal is to lose weight, gaining weight is another story. You shouldnt go
nuts and order 3 sundaes for yourself on date night, but you should very seldom turn down the
opportunity to get some extra Calories in...especially when its a food you love. Remember to
exercise moderation and get the majority of your Calories from whole foods while taking
advantage of the fact that any bit of extra energy you can put in your body will probably be
useful.

51

Nutrition/Exercise Guidelines for Lean Mass Gain

Calories: 15-30% (500-1000 Calories) or greater above established TDEE, mostly from
carbohydrates

Protein: Roughly 20% of your daily Calories or 0.8 grams per pound of body weight

Fat: Roughly 30% of your daily Calories or 0.6 grams per pound of body weight

Carbs: Roughly 50% of your daily Calories or 2 grams per pound of body weight

Weight Training: IDEALLY high volume, heavy weight, high frequency but only if the Calories
are there to support the workload

Conditioning: IDEALLY moderate exertion, low volume, moderate frequency but only if Calories
are there to support the workload

52

Flexible Eating Case Study: Paul

My name is Paul Nobles. I am the founder of Eat To Perform. I am both a Level One and Kids certified
coach and I have a BA in Liberal Arts from Metropolitan State University.
Like a lot of people, my dieting history was complex. The standard advice to eat less and do more never
made sense to me but I tried that route for what amounted to roughly 10 years. Basically every other
Thanksgiving I would either show up as a smaller or bigger version of myself. The problem with the eat
less/do more approach is that its an attempt to defy physics. Food is energy so denying yourself food
and then asking your body to perform more work might work initially but you are essentially playing a
rigged game.
Dieting, for me, like with most people, just left me fat and out of shape. At my worst, I weighed 225 lbs.
and I wasnt motivated to do anything. Logic would have me burning the candle at both ends to lose
weight but what works best is something less taxing to my system. For me, things started with exercise
but I quickly realized that food needed to be part of the equation as well. The only thing that came from
working out excessively did was pain and sickness. From 225 lbs. I was able to get down to 185 just by
improving my nutrition. After that my approach had to be refined and a lot of things I thought Id never
give up had to go. I eliminated them one at a time. Here are a couple short examples of what was
wrong and what I did to change things:
1. Coming from a mostly glucose-dependent way of eating, I often filled up with carbs which didnt
leave a lot of want for protein. I switched that around, focused on eating more protein, and things
changed drastically. Not only is protein favorable for hunger signaling but it also aids in the
maintenance and repair of muscle. The two single greatest things you can do for fat loss are to eat
53

adequate amounts of protein combined with a resistance training program (lifting weights or body
weight movements).
2. I lived for coffee with cream and sugar. Honestly, just writing that is laughable now because its been
so many years since I have drank it that way. What I found was that iced coffee was more palatable
black, so I started drinking that. Eventually (like most people) I just let my coffee cool a bit and I learned
I liked it better than iced coffee. Now I drink my coffee black. That was 200 Calories a day that could
either be eliminated or replaced with better nutrients.
That, however, is only half of my story. I eventually got down to 149 lbs. and 9% body fat. When youre
overweight, you sort of envision things a certain way but the dream is different than reality. Sure, it was
nice to have veiny abs and a well-defined 4-pack but once all the fat was gone I look emaciated, not like
the muscular person Id envisioned. I also wasnt phenomenal at exercise; body weight movements
were great but not vastly better than they are now that Im heavier. Certainly I couldnt lift what I can
now. I was just looking back at my journal; since that time I have put almost 200 pounds on my deadlift
and just over 100 pounds on my squat. Thats the problem with fat loss: it sort of robs you of a lot of
things that you might not realize are important. Once I lost my obsession with body fat percentage my
performance took off. I also gained a lot more muscle.
That probably sounds great to the guys reading this but its likely not what most women want to
happen. Take my word though: after years of working with clients, most women pursuing fat loss
would be much better off with a strategy that emphasizes building muscle. Setting arbitrary aesthetic
goals based upon how much you weighed at some point in the past is pointless. Here are two examples
to illustrate my point:
Its pretty well known that we work with Games athlete Dani Horan. At this point Dani is on cruise
control and Im grateful to have contributed to her success, however minuscule our role may have been.
I was talking to a friends wife who told me she was 10 pounds over weight and I asked her How do you
know? She said Trust me I know. So I pulled up a recent picture of Dani and asked the gal how much
she thought Dani weighed. She guessed 105 lbs. I posed the same question to a number of women and
not one guessed over 125 lbs. which is why they were all astounded to find out that Dani in fact weighed
150 lbs! The problem for these ladies is that they have bought the starve and move mantra. Theyre
constantly putting their bodies in a state that isnt conducive to maintaining and building muscle. They
were all runners and none them lifted weights regularly so they are literally on the treadmill for life,
even though they have a shining example of the value of muscle right in front of them. I understand; we
all want abs but abs are muscles! If you arent building and preserving lean mass with regular resistance
training, its extremely hard to get defined abdominals.
For my second example, Id like to talk about another client who felt like she had some fat to lose. She
was 160 pounds. and 20% body fat but had been 15% at one point. She was also a doctor. When she
was leaner, she weighed 143 lbs. so she was under the impression that she had to get back there to get
to 15%. The major difference was that she had gained 9 pounds of muscle between those two weights.
So basically what that means is that her ideal number was adjusted to 152 pounds because of the
muscle. Mentally, that was a gigantic relief and what seemed daunting now became much more
realistic. The eight pounds came off easy.

54

The point of these examples is that our perceptions often cloud reality. I am not saying that there wont
be hard work along the way but its much easier when you have good information and understanding in
front of you.
To end my story, I just felt too small at 9% body fat so I have spent the last three to four years just
enjoying my journey. I find that I like what I can do and feel better at about 15%. Thats one of the
enduring messages I hope we can get out there to people. While you certainly dont want to be obese,
most of the people we talk to on a daily basis arent. Unless there is a health issue, body fat is not an
accurate predictor of health so lets quit pretending it is. Its well-known that extreme dieting is more
detrimental to your well-being than a moderate approach. The obsession with maintaining uber-low
body fat isnt something I am a proponent of. Most athletes who maintain very low body fat
percentages do so because theyve built a significant amount of muscle, not because they dieted all the
time. You get that way from eating adequate amounts of food. I was personally stuck at 20% body fat
for a long time until I started eating enough food and lifting heavy weights. Adding 15 pounds of muscle
is what got me to 9%. This is why we dont want people to ignore muscle. We want people to know
that if your body needs 2300 Calories a day with adequate amount of proteins, fats, and (yes) carbs but
you are giving it 1500 Calories, you arent building muscle. End of story. That is the biggest argument
for not dieting most of the time, in my opinion.

55

Conclusion: The Five Tenets of Flexible Eating

1. Understand that nutrition requirements are largely individual. Your plan will look different
than someone elses plan. Everything from your food preferences, as well as how your body
responds to changes in energy balance, macronutrient splits, how often you eat, even the kind
of job you work must be considered when setting up a new approach to nutrition.
Customization is very powerful.
2. You need to be specific. Its very difficult to get your body to respond to more than one
stimulus at a time. You need to be specific about what you want to accomplish over the course
of several weeks and months; set realistic goals and dont try to do everything at once. If you
want to lose body fat, make it a concrete goal: lose 10 lbs. of fat in 10 weeks. Want to gain
muscle? Dedicate the next six months to gaining 10 lbs. of lean mass. Once you accomplish a
goal, move on to the next one.
3. The sum is more important than the whole. Dont view foods in isolation. Everything you eat
has a synergistic effect on your results so its important that you dont miss the forest for the
trees. A balanced approach is more often than not the best path forward. There only a handful
of scenarios where you shouldnt allow some flub factor so life can proceed as normal. Dont
throw the baby out with the bathwater; take each day as it comes.
4. Self-monitoring is a must. This goes beyond listening to your body, which is OK once you
settle into a routine but leaves something to be desired when that routine changes. Whether
youre adding/removing a food from your plan, increasing/decreasing your Calories, tweaking
your macros, experimenting with peri-workout nutrition, or taking a new supplement, you need
to monitor how it affects you. Utilize the tools at your disposal: food logging, performance
assessments, and body composition tests, to track progress and modify behaviors
systematically.
5. There are no shortcuts. Changes take weeks, months, even years to show up. Nothing
happens overnight, so approach every new journey with the intent to finish; make this a lifelong
commitment. Resist the urge to completely change your routine when things dont seem to be
working; instead, make small, gradual changes over time to allow your body to adapt.

56

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