Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Diet and Meal Planning

Episode Date: July 10, 2015

In this episode I talk about the pros and cons of various fad diets like Paleo, gluten-free, and low-carb (1:33) as well as how to create effective meal plans (29:38). ARTICLES RELATED TO THIS VIDEO: The Definitive Guide to the Paleo Diet: http://www.muscleforlife.com/the-definitive-guide-to-the-paleo-diet/ The Definitive Guide to Effective Meal Planning: http://www.muscleforlife.com/healthy-meal-planning-tips/ Which Weight Loss Pills Actually Work? http://www.muscleforlife.com/which-weight-loss-pills-actually-work/ Why Gluten Free? A Balanced Look at the Benefits and Drawbacks: https://legionathletics.com/why-gluten-free/ How to Get the Body You Want With Flexible Dieting: https://legionathletics.com/flexible-dieting/ The Definitive Guide to Pre-Workout Nutrition: http://www.muscleforlife.com/pre-workout-nutrition/ The Definitive Guide to Post-Workout Nutrition: http://www.muscleforlife.com/guide-to-post-workout-nutrition/ Want to get my best advice on how to gain muscle and strength and lose fat faster? Sign up for my free newsletter! Click here: https://www.muscleforlife.com/signup/

Hey, it's Mike, and I just want to say thanks for checking out my podcast. I hope you like what I have to say. And if you do like what I have to say in the podcast, then I guarantee you're going to like my books. Now, I have several books, but the place to start is Bigger Leaner Stronger If You're a Guy and Thinner Leaner Stronger If You're a Girl. I mean, these books, they're basically going to teach you everything you need to know about dieting, training, and supplementation to build muscle, lose fat, and look and feel great without having to give up all the foods you love or live

in the gym grinding through workouts that you hate. Now, you can find these books everywhere. You can buy them online, you know, Amazon, Audible, iBooks, Google Play, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and so forth. And if you're into audio books like me, you can actually get one of them for free with a 30-day free trial of Audible. To do that, go to www.muscleforlife.com forward slash audio books and you can see how to do that there. I make my living primarily as a writer, so as you can imagine, every book sold helps. So please do check out my books if you haven't already. Now also, if you like my work in general, then I think you're going to really like what I'm doing with my supplement company, Legion. As you may know, I'm really not a fan of the supplement industry. I've wasted who knows how much money over the

years on worthless junk supplements and have always had trouble finding products that I actually liked and felt were worth buying. And that's why I finally decided to just make my own. Now, a few of the things that make my supplements unique are, one, they're 100% naturally sweetened and flavored. Two, all ingredients are backed by peer-reviewed scientific research that you can verify for yourself because we explain why we've chosen each ingredient and we cite all supporting studies on our website,

which means you can dive in and go validate everything that we say. Three, all ingredients are also included at clinically effective dosages, which are the exact dosages used in the studies proving their effectiveness. And four, there are no proprietary blends, which means that you know exactly what you're buying. Our formulations are 100% transparent. So if that sounds interesting to you, then head over to legionathletics.com. That's L-E-G-I-O-N athletics.com. And you can learn a bit more about the supplements that I have as well as my mission for the company, because I want to accomplish more than just sell supplements. I really want to try to make a change for the better in the supplement industry because I think it's long

overdue. And ultimately, if you like what you see and you want to buy something, then you can use the coupon code podcast, P-O-D-C-A-S-T, and you'll save 10% on your first order. So thanks again for taking the time to listen to my podcast and let's get to the show. Hello, hello. Welcome to another episode of the podcast. In this episode, I want to talk a bit about dieting. This one, this isn't necessarily coming from the Q&A that I'm running or the Google Moderator or anything like that. But, of course, I get a lot of questions related to diet. And there's just a lot of bad information out there. So specifically, I want to talk about a couple popular diets like paleo and gluten-free is pretty popular right now.

Low-carb in general is pretty popular. And some of the pros and cons. And then also talk a bit about flexible dieting, which is what I recommend everybody do unless you have a good reason, like a real food allergy or some sort of problem, some reason why you can't. But then again, flexible diet doesn't mean you can't do flexible dieting. It just means your diet is not going to be as flexible as other people's. And then how to set properly, if you already know about energy balance and macronutrient balance, and you know that it's not the foods that you eat that matter so much, it's how much you eat and all that, then you're still going to enjoy the meal planning part of it

because there are right and wrong ways to set up your meal plans. Even if you know that you can eat whatever foods you want, in terms of how you go about it, you can make it easier or harder to reach your goals. So first let's talk a bit about diets. So let's just take paleo first because it's very, very popular. Probably, you know, kind of rides on the coattails of CrossFit. So you have a lot of interest in it. People, a lot of people doing it and you know, a lot of books being sold about it and it's just out there. And the ironic thing about the paleo diet is that it's not, uh, inherently a bad diet. It's

not necessarily an unhealthy diet. Um, I think the saturated fat intake is a bit high and, you know, I know that there's, you have two conflicting schools of thought right now about saturated fat. One is saying that the old research that, you know, the research that was done decades ago, um, that was used to, to justify the current recommendations of no more than 10% of your daily calories coming from saturated fat, you know, uh, because of heart health and so forth, there are people and you know, there are such as people, but there are scientists, uh, experts,, experts that basically point out the flaws in that research and show more recent research or reference more recent research. In some cases,

are the people doing the more recent research showing that it might not be as big of a problem as we once thought. But there is another school of thought of people that are equally qualified to be talking about it, other researchers, other scientists, that are saying, well, hold on. Before we just say that, yes, basically acknowledging there were flaws in the research that these original recommendations were based on, but saying that just because that research has some flaws doesn't necessarily mean that we can just eat all the saturated fat that we want and it's going to cause no problems. So in, in looking at everything myself and just based on, on the information that I have and the knowledge that I have, I tend to side more with the group saying, well, yes, saturated fat may not be as big of an issue as we once thought, but that doesn't necessarily mean that we should be getting 30% of our daily calories from saturated fat because that still might cause issues, mainly related to heart health.

So I think it's better to play it safe in that regard. Like personally, I don't get more than 10 or 15% of my daily calories from saturated fat. And I also make sure to get some unsaturated fat in my diet as well. And I think that's the safe play and it's the smart play. And you know, is it really necessary to eat huge amounts of saturated fat every day? I don't think so. Uh, unless you just, you know, love bacon and love butter and love other meats and love, uh, you know, coconut oil and stuff like that. Every time, you know, on the other hand, if you are going to have a couple of pieces of bacon or you're gonna put some butter on this, or you're gonna use some, uh, some coconut oil when you cook or whatever,

you can know that you can, you can have a decent amount of it. Um, like for instance, if you're eating 2,500 calories a day, the standard recommendation right now would be that no more than 250 of those calories should come saturated fat, 250 calories of saturated fat. That's a fair amount. That's a couple of, you know, two and a half tablespoons. Um, so, you know, that means you could do your, if you do the coffee, the bulletproof coffee thing, which I should write an article on cause it's kind of stupid and silly. Um, anyways, you can, you can, I think, I mean, would you want more than two to three tablespoons of saturated fat a day? Maybe. Um, so back to paleo, that's maybe my one critique with, with the, what's being, uh, prescribed,

uh, in terms of foods. But what is silly about paleo is what is being proscribed, what is being, you know, forbidden. And, uh, like they're, they're just the, the science is that's where it kind of just veers off and kind of falls off a cliff. And in that, what is the paleo diet, the standard no grains, uh, you know, I think it depends how, like how hardcore you want to be with it. There's the, there's the, I think, what is it? Mark Sisson's thing primal, which is kind of a flex, more flexible type of paleo where you can eat like sweet potatoes and you know, and then he's kind of come around and basically said like, yeah, if you want to have some grains here and there, it's not really a problem because when you start looking at the research, uh, which I'm actually a Lincoln

article down below on paleo. Um, or if you're listening to this, you can just go to muscleforlife.com and search for paleo. If you really want to dive into it, because I don't want to spend 20 minutes talking, breaking down from a scientific angle, paleo diet. I just want to talk about it kind of broadly. But basically the bottom line is the restrictions of no grains, of if you're going real hardcore, I think it's no sweet potatoes, right? Definitely no white potato. Yeah, I think legumes are also off the list. And so basically a lot of the foods that you're told you can't eat, there's no good reason why you shouldn't be eating them because they are nutritious foods. Now, if your body just doesn't do well with them, then that's another thing. And you would know that though, like a very simple way to determine what foods you should and shouldn't eat are in one camp,

you have just junk shit food that obviously you, you shouldn't be eating much of like just worthless calories, candy, pop tarts, uh, packaged baked goods, you know, the packaged donuts and fucking chips and shit. I mean, but that's, that's obvious. I mean, if you're getting a lot of your daily calories from foods like that, you are going to have health problems one day and that's not surprising. Um, but so that, that, those are the foods that you really should just be generally avoiding foods with trans fat, you know, breakfast, crap, breakfast cereals, and just stuff like that. Uh, microwavable dinners, whatever you get the idea. And then you have a bunch of foods though, that you can be, you know, you can choose from that, that are nutritious, like of course,

fruits and vegetables and whole grains and high quality proteins, including red meat and, and, and legumes and you know, potatoes, sweet potatoes, yams, just a long, long list of, of, of foods that are provide a lot of nutritional value and are also good for, you know, fitting your macronutrient needs. Um, and you should be able to eat from pick from, from that list. So long as you know what you're doing with your, with your intake and with your numbers. But if certain foods cause gastro GI issues, like cause GI issues, like every time you eat something, you just don't feel good or your stomach gets bloated or you get gassy or whatever, stop eating it.

It's really that simple. And that's really the only way. When we talk about food intolerance testing, like all-cat testing, the problem with that is you're going to get a lot of false positives. And this has been shown in research. And my mom is super into it. She goes and sees some doctor guy that takes all of it. Has her do interesting things that don't really work.

And so, you know, you get this long list of foods, all these things that she's not supposed to eat. And there's just no way that your body is intolerant to like 42 different foods. Bullshit. Especially a lot of the foods like that she would eat those foods and feel nothing. There'd be no issues. Whereas certain foods on the list actually would cause issues like cert, like if she eats too much wheat, then her stomach does get bloated and she gets gassy and stuff. So she, but you know, she knew that before she ever got tested or before gluten-free or wheat free or any of that ever became popular. She just knew that, you know, certain types of wheat products or, or if she ate too much wheat, it would upset her stomach. And then there's other foods on the, on her,

like don't eat list that, that are valid. But there are a lot of foods that she's like, well, I've, I've eaten that food for years and never had any issues, but then she just follows it just cause. But anyway, so the point is the only real way to, uh, determine food intolerances is to, uh, eliminate foods and then challenge with. So, you know, if you were having a lot of GI issues, if you were having like IBS type symptoms and stuff, you'd want to be cutting out a lot of different types of foods and pairing down to very gut-neutral-type foods that are not associated with any sort of gastrointestinal distress. And then you get that as a baseline where your symptoms are down, you're, you're feeling good. And then you'd add a food in, see and see, you know, how, how does it, how does it make you feel? And if you're fine, add another food in, add another food up that,

that food makes you feel bad, kick it out. And, uh, that, you know, it takes time and it takes obviously documenting what's going on. Um, but if there are people that need to do that just because, you know, their, uh, bodies just, they, they can't handle anything. Um, so anyways, my point is, uh, that there, it's a very personalized approach. So when, when you have diets that just broadly restrict food of any kind, really even, even complete shit food, like, uh, candy and all that stuff. If, if you like to eat that stuff and you want to have it, you know, occasionally have it. It's not like having, you know, if, if 80% of your, I wouldn't, well, I mean, I wouldn't say I wouldn't use the 80 20 for just crap. But if you look at it this way, let's say, you know, during the week,

um, every day, the majority of your calories come from nutritious foods. Uh, you look at it this way, let's say, you know, during the week, um, every day, the majority of your calories come from nutritious foods. Uh, you're exercising, you're, you're maybe even supplementing with, with some things that improve your health. And so you're doing all that stuff, right? And then one day a week, you want to have, let's say a thousand calories of something that's shit. Is that really going to harm you? Probably not. Um, I mean, you'd have to really try hard. It'd have to be like a thousand calories of pure trans fat to really mess you up. So, you know, that it's just, so when diets broadly restrict foods that, where it doesn't

quite make sense, like why should you not have, why should you not be able to eat a white potato? It's one of the most nutritious, if not the most nutrient dense food actually out there. Um, it's very, it's, it's very satiating. It's very filling. It's good when you're dieting for that reason. Um, although it is kind of calorie dense, but there's just no good reason to not be able to eat a potato or white rice. There's no good reason. Like sure, brown rice has a bit more nutrition and I prefer the taste of brown rice generally. But if you want to have some white rice, why should you not be able to eat white rice? And you know, there are different arguments. They all will, you know, the anti-nutrients and stuff. Yeah. That's not, that's just taking one

little thing and playing it up. Like it's this big menacing problem when it's not. And when there's research that shows that it's not, there's just not a problem, especially if you cook like beans and stuff, you're cooking correctly and your body can, can digest and absorb them just fine. So it's kind of like there, it's kind of like there in the scientific evolution of things, you have theories based on isolated types of research. And then those theories get tested later and in a,

you know, in a real life with a live person type setting, and sometimes they don't play out, where theoretically maybe these anti-nutrients should be a problem. But then when they actually go and test it with people, they find out that the bodies have ways to work around these problems, or with how food is cooked, it gets rid of the problem. you know, with how, with how food is cooked, it gets rid of the problem. And, uh, so, you know, that theory, but then what some people will do is they'll still, they'll just ignore that, uh, you know, the actual clinical trial type research. And they'll just go to the, to the theoretical research or the epidemiological research and just kind of focus in on that and use that to sell you on something. Um, so with paleo, uh, there, if, if you really like eating that way, sure. I mean, do it, but don't think that, you know, you're going to be harming your health by eating

some whole grains or eating some potato or eating some legumes or eating really any of the foods that paleo says you, you know, the paleo doctrine says that you can't eat because that's where that diet just kind of goes off the deep end. Another thing about it is in terms of weight gain or weight loss. A lot of people, the reason why they are adopting a certain diet is to change their body composition. There's health, of course, and certain people, they're jumping into diets for health reasons, but a lot of people are looking for diet advice or diets to follow because they want to build muscle or lose fat. And that's where diets like the paleo diet and gluten-free and low-carb in general and stuff, they just can't reliably live up to their promises.

And the reason why is when you boil it all down, as you probably know, if you follow my work at all or are just well-informed, if you're going to lose weight, it's going to be because you're eating less energy than you're burning. If you're going to gain weight, it's because you're eating more energy than you're burning. And that's really the bottom line is you have energy balance. Of course, it does matter in terms of macronutrients and where do those calories come from? Are you eating a low protein diet, a high protein diet, where your carbs at, where your fats at, those things do matter. But first and foremost is energy balance. Now, when you have a diet that restricts a lot of calorie dense foods that people

like to eat, like low carb dieting, for instance, there's a good chance that a person is going to place themselves in a calorie deficit. They don't know what's going on. They don't realize that it's a calorie deficit that causes the weight loss. They think it's the fact that they cut out that bowl of pasta they were eating at lunch every day or something like that. They think that, oh, so the carbs were keeping me fat. No, the calories were keeping them fat. And by cutting out the calories, wow, they're losing weight. Big surprise.

So this is just a mistake of causation, what's actually causing the weight loss. It's not the elimination of the specific food. It's the reduction of the calories. And that's why a lot of mainstream diets, uh, they, they stay away from numbers. They don't want, cause they know that people don't really like to plan or track numbers, calories, macronutrients. They don't want to think like that. They just want to have a, you know, I can eat these foods and I can't eat those foods. These are the meals I can have for losing weight. These are the meals I can have for gain muscle. And they want to, they want it, you know, real, real simple like that. And that's fine. Uh, but the problem, there's just a lot of ways that can go wrong because for instance, if you, uh, you know, let's say you start doing a

paleo diet and you cut out some of the more calorie dense types of carbs that you've been eating and you don't replace them with very calorie dense fats, which people do. And we'll talk about in a second. Um, and you place yourself in a calorie deficit. Good. You're going to lose weight. You're going to lose fat. And if you are doing some weightlifting, you're in, you're eating enough protein. There's a good chance that you're not going to lose muscle and that's good. Uh, but that calorie deficit may be too large. Who knows? You don't know how, how big it is. Cause you don't, if you don't know how much energy you're burning, you don't know how much energy you're eating. You might be in a 1000 calorie deficit, you know, every day. And that's not good for the body that causes a bit

more of the metabolic adaptation. If you've heard of that, where your metabolism slows down, your body just adjusts to, to reduce its energy expenditure, the less food you feed it, which just makes sense. I mean, even just, you know, from a biological standpoint, it, uh, it's trying to balance out input with output, but there are, uh, hormonal changes that can occur that are, that are non-optimum and a large calorie deficit, especially if you're exercising a lot, especially if you're doing a lot of cardio, uh, is one of the things that causes like pretty, it can be pretty dramatic in terms of muscle loss. So you really want to be in a moderate, moderately aggressive calorie deficit

of about 20 to 25%. Meaning if you want to lose fat, you should be eating about 75 to 80% of the calories you're burning every day. If you can stay in that range and you can eat enough protein and not do too much exercise and make sure you're doing some resistance training, especially some heavy resistance training, then you're going to be golden. You're going to lose fat. You're going to preserve muscle. It's very easy. It's not, it's, it's, it can even just be enjoyable. I mean, dieting does not have to be grueling at all. So that's on the, okay, too big of a deficit. But what if following the rules of the diet, paleo, whatever, places you in a very small deficit? So then weight loss is very slow because you're only in a 5% or 10% deficit. And the downside there is it can just be frustrating. So, like, you know, you're only losing a half pound a week in the beginning. Let's say you're quite overweight and you should be able to comfortably lose one to two pounds of fat a week and you're losing a quarter to a half pound a week. Okay. That means

you just have to endure it longer. Um, and you know, there's also the longer you're dieting, the more things can go wrong, the more likely you are to get frustrated and give up or life gets in the way. And, um, so like when I'm dieting for, to lose fat, my goal is to basically lose the fat as quickly as possible. I want to use, like I said, a moderately aggressive calorie deficit. I want to use any supplements I can that are natural, safe and that work to speed up fat loss. I want to do as much exercise as I can without causing problems because the more exercise you do, the more calories you're going to burn, which helps you lose fat faster. And so my goal is to lose that fat as quickly as possible so I can come out of the calorie deficit and enjoy my training again and just not have to be in a deficit. Because after being in a deficit for, it actually varies from person

to person, I start to feel it about six weeks in is when I start to feel it. When my energy levels are a bit lower, my workouts are, are, are, you know, I'll lose a couple reps and they're just tougher and everything feels heavy. And it's nice to get that over with basically. Um, so that when you don't, without really knowing your numbers, you see there's just a lot up in the air and especially, I mean, who knows, you may be eating enough protein. You may not be eating enough protein. You may be eating a ton of saturated fat. This is more on the paleo side of things. You're not going to be eating too little fat if you're on that diet. But I think it's much smarter to know your numbers and go by numbers so you can just know for sure your guaranteed

results in that way, essentially, as opposed to following a long list of rules of what you can eat, can't eat, eat at this time, don't eat at that time, blah, blah, blah. And then just hoping that basically that you're in a calorie deficit in the end. All that shit is just to put you in a calorie deficit and try to make it as painless as possible. Um, and a problem that also, you know, especially low carbon paleo and just people I know personally and people I've heard from, um, they run into where they think that they don't, because they don't have a concept of energy balance and how it really works. So they cut out some, some, some calories from the carbs and stuff they're eating. Then they add very calorie dense, fatty type, you know, whether you, I don't care if they're healthy fats, avocado and blah, blah, and butter is, I mean, obviously to a, to a, to a point going back to

that saturated fat point, olive oil, et cetera, et cetera, nuts and stuff. Um, yes, those are all great foods and you should be able to eat them. But if you're not, if you don't understand the numbers of it all, then what, what happens is people will cut out the carbs, which reduces their calorie intake, and then they add in way too many fats, and that brings their calorie intake back up to where it was before. Or in many cases, they start eating more calories than they were before they went on the diet, and they gain weight. I've heard from quite a few women in particular that went to the paleo diet to try to lose weight and ended up gaining weight and didn't understand

why. And when I dug into their diet a little bit, so they were eating all kinds of like paleo approved, mainly desserties dessert type stuff, or like maybe not dessert, but you know, like breads and muffins and that's kind of dessert and, uh, pasta and stuff that normally like they don't, because they didn't have a concept of, of calories. They thought, well, it's a, it's on my diet so I can eat it. And, uh, one of the problems with very fatty foods that just have a lot of fat in them is you're going to get a lot of calories and not necessarily a lot of satiety. You're not necessarily going to get very full from a very fatty meal, whereas a high carb meal is more likely to fill you up. One of the reasons for this is simply volume. So, you know, if you eat a big bowl of pasta,

for instance, that there's a lot going into your stomach. But if you're eating a paleo muffin that has a lot of butter in it, the calories, you know, again, let's say two muffins, right. To make the calories a little bit more, uh, comparable, but the point is, you know, two smaller muffins, it just is not going to fill you up nearly as much as, uh, you know, a larger amount of pasta or pasta is pretty calorie dense. So maybe it's not the best example, but, uh, you know, you could take rice or you could take quinoa or things like that that are fairly carb-dense, fairly calorie-dense, but they fill you up. Or going back to the potato, take potato. Match that calorie for calorie to something like a fatty type of paleo-approved food, and the potato is going to keep you fuller quite a bit longer.

So that's kind of the bigger picture on just diets in general, whether it be paleo, whether it be low-carb or gluten-free. Gluten-free is obviously super popular right now. I'll link an article down below. I don't want to go into another 15-minute diatribe on gluten-free, but there's no reason, basically no reason. It's very unlikely that you have a reason to follow a gluten-free, but there's no reason, basically no reason, very unlikely. It's very unlikely that you have a reason to follow a gluten-free diet. Basically it's for people with celiac disease. It's the long story short. And again, and I talk about this in the article, so you can go read it. If personally, like to really play it safe, it's probably best to not eat a ton of gluten every day. There's some's, there's some

research and there's some good arguments that can be made for that. But should you fear gluten? And should you avoid gluten containing foods altogether? No, there's no good reason to do that. Again, unless you have celiac disease, uh, then you have to, or you're going to end up dying one day. Essentially celiac can be that bad. If you't, if you don't, uh, diagnose it and you keep on beating the shit out of your small intestines until they can't absorb nutrients anymore, essentially. And you can get some serious diseases. There's a lot of comorbidity when you, when you're looking at, uh, at celiac, meaning that celiac, if it's untreated and if there's enough time that has, that has gone on and enough damage that has been done to the small intestines, uh, other diseases can now enter the picture, serious diseases, fatal diseases.

So, again, a lot of people turn to gluten-free not because they're afraid of what might happen to their small intestines, but because they're trying to lose weight. trying to lose weight and gluten-free for losing weight. Again, ironically, a lot of gluten-free foods have more calories in their gluten containing counterparts, um, and are less nutritious. Uh, and these are more like prepackaged type gluten-free foods. Um, you know, my diet incidentally is, is fairly gluten-free just because I, the foods I eat, uh, is well, no, these days, I guess that's not true because I have a lot of oatmeal. That's what I really really like. I'm doing these baked oatmeal dishes. I'm such a robot. I'll just eat, like, I'll find something I like that sits well with my body and tastes good. And I'll just eat it for months on end. And it tastes delicious to me every time. So it's like, it's a gift. I'm glad it makes it simple. I don't have to think about what I'm going to be eating. So I just eat the

same foods every day. I'm not even, I'm not even cutting. I could be eating a larger variety of foods, but honestly, I don't even want to think about it. I don't want to think about the clothes I wear every day. I don't want to think about the food that I'm going to be eating because I have too many other things to think about and too many other decisions to make. I just go in robo mode, but I enjoy it. but I enjoy it. So, um, before though, before I was doing the, uh, like I'm getting a lot of carbs from oatmeal right now. Cause I'm doing all these like baked oatmeal dishes at night, at night. They're super good. Um, where if you want to try it, like try, I do about a cup and a cup and a half or a cup to three quarters of a cup of oatmeal. I cut up various types of fruit, like bananas or peaches. Plums are really good. Strawberries bake really well. Um, even green grapes. I really, I love green grapes. So they don't bake the best,ums are really good. Strawberries bake really well. Even green grapes. I love green grapes. They don't bake the best, but they taste good. Whatever fruits you like, raspberries and stuff. I'll do about maybe 50, 75 carbs of fruit. You have a cup and a half to a cup and three

quarters of oatmeal. I like to mix instant oatmeal and the heavier oatmeal just for mouth feel. Some applesauce to give it a, in terms of applesauce, how much is it? Probably about a quarter to about a half a cup of applesauce, which gives it a, it just improves mouth feel. It doesn't change the taste so much that I can tell, but it gives it a, uh, chewier, better mouthfeel. Um, and I put about, I like cinnamon. So I put a fair amount of probably put about a tease, two teaspoons. I, at this point, I'm just kind of, but it's probably about two teaspoons of cinnamon, some nutmeg, some cacao powder. Um, I think that's how you pronounce it. Or is it cocoa powder, which is cacao and cocoa? I don't know. It's the, the chocolatey powder that has no, it's, there's nothing in it. It's just powder. It's like, but I like dark chocolate. So it's how you pronounce it or is it cocoa powder which is cacao and cocoa i don't know it's the the chocolatey powder that has no it's there's nothing in it it's just powder it's like but i

like dark chocolate so it's that bitter type of chocolate flavor and um some vanilla extract some almond extract some maple extract and i've tried also some banana extract you have to go you have to go easy on that stuff though i found out the hard way you put too much of that and it tastes weird. Um, and what else? I'm forgetting something. Oh, some Stevia, um, about a teaspoon for sweetness and usually about a tablespoon to two tablespoons of maple syrup. So for, for sweetness. Um, so it's a lot of carbs and my body does well with carbs. I don't know. I'll eat it all and I'll just be like, all right, cool. And just go on with working basically. Um, so my diet right now actually has a, has, I'm not using gluten-free oats, but, uh, that was such a random tangent, but my point was like before doing the email,

the oatmeal, uh, and again, I'm not even actually sure how much gluten is in oatmeal compared to something like bread, but, or pasta. Um, but on a day-to-day basis, the amount of gluten that I would eat is just not very high just because the foods that I'm eating doesn't require it. It doesn't require bread or doesn't require pasta. I'll do pasta. I usually do pasta once a week on the weekend. I'll make some sort of pasta and make a massive bowl of like, you know, 10 to 15, not 15, 10 to 12 ounces of pasta and, and just go hard and enjoy it. Save, you know, a good chunk of my daily calories and carbs for that meal. Um, but I'll notice sometimes when I do that, I mean, that's a lot of pasta. So it's not surprising that sometimes my stomach gets a little bit like, I'll just feel a little

bit, it feels a little bit off. I don't know. Um, but that's probably just because I'm eating so much pasta. It's ridiculous. Um, but my point is, is if you are eating the right foods, uh, if the majority of your calories are coming from the right foods, your diet is probably going to be relatively low in gluten. Um, because you're not just going to getting all your carbs from gluten containing foods, but there's no reason why you shouldn't be able to eat some bread if you like bread or eat some, uh, I'm not, I'm not even like, what are the common, obviously there's pasta, the oatmeal has some gluten. I guess there are trace amounts of gluten, a lot of different things, and you shouldn't have, you just don't have to worry about it. Um, unless, unless you notice it upsets your stomach. Like if my stomach got upset from eating all that pasta, I wouldn't do it. It doesn't get upset. I just can feel,

sometimes it'd be a little bit constipated the next day or sometimes it's just, you know, I don't, I wouldn't do that every day. I wouldn't eat a ton of pasta every day. Cause that would eventually upset my stomach. Um, I think it's when I, if I did it, like sometimes I'll do it two days in a row and then I'll feel a little bit off. So, so I only do it, you know, once a week and, um, I think it's when I, if I did it, like sometimes I'll do it two days in a row and then I'll feel a little bit off. So, so I only do it, you know, once a week and, um, and it doesn't bother me. Um, so that's all the dieting stuff. Let's now transition over to flexible dieting, which is what I'm a big proponent of. I'll link an article down below if you want to learn a bit more about flexible dieting.

Um, and for, for those listening, you can just go on, uh, you can go on, I wrote about it just recently, actually on, on my blog over at Legion, which is Legion athletics.com L E G I O N athletics.com. If you go to blog, um, we don't have a search function yet, which is stupid. Uh, but we had to fire our web dev team cause they're terrible and we're bringing a new company on. And so it's, it's on the list. We're going to have a search function on the blog,

but I think it's on like page two right now. If you go and find there's a, there's an article on flexible dining. Um, and what was, there was an article I mentioned just, uh, Oh,

on, on gluten free. Yeah. There's also the gluten free article over at Legion on the blog as well. You'll find that. I think it's on page two. Who knows about the time you get to hear this, the search function may be fixed. But flexible dieting is basically you have certain macronutrient needs. So protein, carbohydrates, fat, and the foods that you eat to get there are of your

choosing. So get the majority of your calories from nutritious foods. Don't use it as an excuse to just eat junk all day or you will have problems. It will catch up with you. So that means food that you're preparing yourself, a few servings of fruit and vegetables a day, whole grains, blah, blah, blah. You've heard this before. And if not, you can just check out the article. So let's talk about meal planning though. So I'm a big proponent of meal planning. If you, while there are meal planning

is great for, especially great for fat loss because it guarantees results. If you're going, if you're trying to lose fat, I highly recommend you just make yourself a meal plan and stick to it. Eat the same foods every day until you get sick of something and then swap that food out for something else. Eat that every day. It is the easiest way to guarantee results. Uh, if that sounds like hell to you, um, okay, then I don't know. I mean, I guess you can, you can try to wing it, which is what I was talking about before where, okay, you're just going to try to cut out certain foods and you don't know where your intake is. And you don't know if you're in a big deficit or a little deficit, and you're kind of just going to let the mirror and let the scale. And you know, if you're taking any sort of measurements to kind of guide you and tell you

if you're doing it right or wrong, if that sounds okay to you do that, but that sounds stupid to me. I would rather just do something that I know is going to work and get it over with and move on with my life. Um, so that's where meal planning comes in. And what meal planning is of course, is you plan out your meals. So you go, okay, at this time, I'm going to be eating these foods. Go over to calorieking.com, work out the numbers. Well, first you start with your numbers. So if you want to lose fat, you're determining how much energy you're burning every day. You're eating, let's say you're going to eat 75% of that.

So there's your calorie number. You're going to break that down into protein, carbs, and fat. So protein, if you're dieting to lose fat i recommend a bit higher intake about one gram per pound is fine or if you're leaner if you're a guy at about 10 11 12 percent you want to get really lean i'd bump that up to 1.2 grams per pound if you're a girl at 20 ish percent you want to get really lean i would you know bump it up to 1.. And your fats don't need to be higher than 0.2 or 0.25 grams per pound. And the rest of your calories can come from carbohydrate. So there are your numbers. You take those numbers. Now you go, okay. So for me, for instance, if I were to cut right now,

I would start at probably about 200. I'm about 190 pounds. So I'd probably start at like 210 protein, maybe 200 carb and like 50 fat just to keep it real simple. And, uh, and, and then I would just go, I would go make a meal plan out of that. And, uh, so I'd take those numbers and go, okay, so the first thing you have to look at is, uh, you know, your, your meal frequency, how frequently do you like to eat? And that kind of determines like, that's determined by how large do you like your meals to be? I like to eat every few hours because that's just what I enjoy. Like I work out early in the morning. I like to come here, have a shake, have the, like my post-workout meal is just a shake.

It's also my breakfast. Then I like to eat about, you know, 12 o'clock, have a salad with some chicken. That's what I've been eating these days. And it's good. And some vegetables in there and stuff. And then I like to have some protein again in the afternoon about 3 PM. And then I like to eat dinner about six or six 30. My dinner's a bit bigger. And then I liked I'm doing this oatmeal thing at like maybe nine 30 or 10 or so. That's just the way that I like to eat. Um, but, uh, a lot of other people, they, you know, that works for me also. I just, I don't really get hungry.

So I don't have to deal with that for whatever reason. Like I can feel that I need food or that my energy is a bit lower, but I don't get hunger issues. I just don't. So I, I just eat on whatever, whatever fits my, my work schedule best. And that's basically, I don't want to be spending time prepping food, cooking food in the day, going out to lunches and stuff. I just want to work. Um, so I'll spend a little bit more time eating at night, even though I'm working at night, but Hey, got to, got to take some time to eat. Um, so that's for me. But if you like to do a bigger breakfast, you might structure it totally differently. You might come and eat a big breakfast and then eat a smaller lunch and then go, go from lunch to dinner where maybe you have a big dinner again, or you have a smaller dinner, and then you don't like eating after dinner, totally fine. Where you time your meals means

nothing. The only exception I'd say, or the only caveat, is that it's probably a good idea, and you look at the bulk of the research available, to have some protein before and after you train, or if you're training fasted, have some protein after you train. Um, and, and some carbs as well. If you're trying to maximize muscle, if you're trying to build muscle and strength, you want to have some carbs after you train as well. And in general, you want to, you want your carb intake to be, uh, as high as you can go essentially without eating too little fats that, you know, impairs your health. Um, or basically, so you have to have your protein set at about, let's say a gram per pound. If your fat set it, you know, maybe if you were trying to gain muscle and strength,

you're a little bit higher, maybe 0.3 grams per pound. And then the rest of your calories from carbohydrates, that's the best setup for, for gaining muscle and strength, because it's going to give you your best workouts. You're going to be strong in the gym. Also higher, higher insulin levels throughout the day is, is, uh, means that there's less protein breakdown that's occurring. Um, and I've spoken about these things in different, you know, different podcasts written about it quite a bit, quite a bit of research on this. Um, anyway, the point is, so you have your pre and post workout meals or no pre-workout meal and a post-workout meal. Otherwise it's really up to you. Your body can absorb large amounts of protein in every meal. So, you know, to be safe, um, if you are a guy, 150 pounds or,

or, or higher, um, or heavier, you know, you can eat upwards of 70, 80, 90, a hundred grams of protein in a meal and your body will be able to use it. If you're, uh, so as you get heavier, you know, it's just, and who wants to eat more than that in one meal? Like for me, I like eating about 50 grams of protein in a meal. That's enough for me, 30 to 50. Um, it keeps me full. I enjoy, you know, different types of protein that I eat. I like it comes from like Greek yogurt or meats of different kinds, chicken, pork, sometimes red meat, uh, you know, sometimes turkey bacon, blah, blah, blah, whatever. Um, also like my, my dinner, there's beans, there's vegetables, some protein there. Uh, so you, uh, you can lay it out really however you

want is, is, is the point. Now there are a couple of things that you should keep in mind though. If you are cutting, if you're dieting for fat loss, you're going to want to stick to foods that are going to keep you full because most people, the problem, biggest problems they run into, uh, with diet, with trying to lose fat are hunger and cravings. So, and, and those just derail you because if you, you know, if you, every day that you overeat, you just set yourself back a little bit, a little bit, a little bit, um, where are you going to lose a little bit less fat that day? Or maybe you ate way too much and you gain some fat that day. And the best diet is that you can stick to, right? That, you know, that cliched statement, uh, has some truth in it though. Um, so that means that you should definitely be sticking to foods that you like.

Don't, don't, don't restrict all the foods that you enjoy eating when you're, when you're dieting trust in the, in the numbers basically. And if that enjoy eating when you're dieting. Trust in the numbers, basically. And if that means like when I'm dieting, I really like chocolate. That's like my dessert, basically. I mean, I guess the oatmeal kind of is a dessert, but not really because it's nutritious. There's a lot of nutrients in there. There's several servings of fruit. There's the oatmeal.

There's, oh, I forgot on the, going back on the recipe, um, where, where all those, like the extracts and all the, all that stuff, I put it in about a cup and a half of skim milk is the base. And then all the cinnamon and all the spices and extracts and stuff mix into that. And then pour the whole mixture in. Also, I do one egg as well, pour the whole mixture into the oatmeal, mix all up and then bake it. I bake it at 400 for about like 20 minutes, I think, and it's done.

So that, you know, it's not really dessert. It's very nutritious. But my dessert, I just like chocolate a lot. But even if I were cutting, I still would save some calories for chocolate. I save maybe 150, 200 calories a day for chocolate. And don't feel bad. Don't feel that, you know, I saved maybe 150, 200 calories a day for chocolate and, uh, don't feel bad. Don't feel that, you know, there it's just numbers. So if you're, if you don't like chocolate, but you like some, some ice cream and you want to have, you know, I don't know, a quarter of a

pint of ice cream after every dinner, because that's what you enjoy the most, do it, fit it into your numbers. As long as you're getting the majority of your calories from nutritious foods, it's totally fine. And back to meal planning, those little things are important, including something that even if it's just psychological, that's great. There's, you know, for a lot of people, dieting is just as much of a psychological burden as a physical burden. So do what you can to mitigate that. Also in your meal timing, coming back to when do you like to eat? When do you generally get hungry? Are you at your hungriest in the afternoons? Well, then you might want to work some, you might want to think with that.

So you might want to eat a bigger lunch. You might want to save more of those calories for lunch. So then you can, you know, avoid the mid-afternoon snacking. Is nighttime, like let's say, you know, for whatever reason, you tend to overeat at night. Okay, so maybe you should do something like what I'm doing, where you're, you're saving a lot of your calories for dinner. And maybe, I mean, I, you could, I could eat them all at dinner, but that's a lot of food like that. It gets, makes me a little bit tired just from the, I forget the name of the hormone. There's a hormone in your body releases when you eat a lot of food, the more food you eat, the more it gets released and it induces sleepiness. And that'll hit me sometimes. And I have to work at night. So I don't like that. I'm usually

writing at night. So I need to be mentally like, I don't want to feel sluggish at all. Um, but maybe you want to just eat a big, big dinner. You want to eat, I don't care, 1500 calories for your dinner, save it fine. Um, or maybe you want to do really what I'm doing where you're my dinner is probably about 50 carb, 10 fat, maybe 15 fat. Um, and about 50, 40 to 50 protein. That's my dinner. Uh, so, and then I'll have, you know, the, the, the oatmeal, which is a lot of carbs. Um, it depends on like what I'm putting in there, but it's probably about 200 ish, maybe a little bit more carbs. um, and you know, another 10 fat, uh, and you know, a bit of protein. Uh, I have it with Greek yogurt as well. That's what I eat it with. And it's like super delicious. Um, so the Greek yard, I'm getting, you know, maybe another 50 protein in the whole

thing. Um, so that's just knowing your body though. And that's just knowing your, your, your personal preferences. Um, now when you're, when you're dieting phallus, like I was saying, you want to stick to foods that are going to fill you up. So this is where what you eat, there are no foods that are good or bad for weight loss per se. There are no foods that directly, you know, cause you to gain weight or get in the way of losing weight, but there are foods that are more conducive to it, uh, both gaining weight and losing weight. Obviously foods that are conducive to losing weight are foods that are more conducive to it, both gaining weight and losing weight. Obviously, foods that are conducive to losing weight are foods that are going to fill you up. High fiber type foods, foods with volume.

That's really the key that you want to go for. When you want to be full, you want to go for volume. That's what matters most, meaning the amount of food that you're putting in your stomach, the actual physical weight of it and the space it takes up, that is more important than the calories. And that's why calorie dense foods going back stuff like paleo, like the very fatty type of foods, they suck because they eat. So they eat up so much of your, so many of your calories, but they don't provide the amount of fullness, which then means that like, you know, there's a big difference between being full for three hours and being full for two hours and having to battle through hunger for an hour, you know, several

times a day that is going to either just wear on you mentally, but you're going to stay strong and not give in and not eat, or it's just going to cause you to overeat. And then you're going to be dragging the whole thing out or maybe never even reaching your goal. So you want to be sticking to foods that are lower in calories and higher in satiety coming back to, uh, this is fibrous type of stuff. Well, first, before we talk about fibers, let's talk about protein. That's protein is very filling as you've probably experienced, but there's also of course research on it. So that's why one, a high protein diet is crucial for losing fat and preserving muscle, um, for many different reasons. But this is one of the reasons

that it's going to keep you full. If you're eating protein every few hours, it's unlikely. Well, I wouldn't say it's unlikely. It's just less likely that you're going to have hunger issues. Again, you don't have to eat every few hours. I do like it, but if you don't, or it doesn't work for you, then who cares? Eat on the schedule that you need to eat on. But do eat protein with each meal because it's going to help. And in terms of what to eat, of course, you want to stick with leaner cuts of meat like chicken, low-fat red meats, low-fat ground turkey. There's even turkey bacon, for instance, is good. I've been getting this other bacon too. I think it's called Sunday bacon where it's basically the same macros of turkey bacon. It just tastes too. I think it's called like Sunday bacon where it's like basically the same macros of, of Turkey bacon. It just tastes better.

I think it's like one gram of fat per, per slice. Um, and you know, low fat dairy. And so just fats make things taste better. Yes, they do, but they're very calorie dense and you just can't afford it when you're dieting for fat loss. If you're also going to keep your carb rate, carbohydrate intake relatively high, which you want to do. If you're, if you are a weightlifter, you want to do that. Trust me, it is way better. Other foods are whole grain foods like wheat, brown rice, barley. Those are, those are filling and yes, they're, they're fairly carb dense, but they're a good, you know, it's a, in a good source of nutrition and they are going to keep you fuller than the more refined types of grains. And of course you have vegetables and my vegetables that what I like the most is I really like green beans. Green beans are quite filling.

Um, and you can prepare them in a lot of different ways. They're lower in calories. Um, I like peas a lot, but higher in calories, uh, but they're, they're good. I like cruciferous vegetables a lot. I mean, I like pretty much all vegetables, so you can kind of go with what you like. I like to eat a variety of vegetables because of course they have different micronutritional, uh, values. So I like to, you know, I, I need a fair amount of cruciferous vegetables just like my body does. I took this DNA test a bit ago and that was one of the things is that I just, my body has an elevated need for cruciferous vegetables.

So I try to eat, um, pretty regularly like broccoli or cauliflower are my choices there. But, uh, so, but vegetables in general, that's one of the reasons why they're considered good for like good diet foods is because they're low in calories and they're going to fill you up. You can eat a lot of them. You can stuff your stomach full of vegetables and you know, for like 50 carbs, you can be really, really full of 50 carbs of vegetables is like, you are not going to be hungry for a bit. Plus some protein. That's, that's a good, at least three or four hours before you're going to even feel like you could eat again.

Uh, legumes, uh, you know, I like beans and I just stick, I stick to all kinds of varieties of beans. Again, a bit more calorie dense, but they're nutritious and pretty filling. Tubers, like I was talking about earlier. So white potato is great, very filling. Sweet potatoes are good, of course. I like yams as well. I like sweet potatoes more. So those are the types of foods that you want to be sticking to. And each meal, when you are cutting, when you're dieting for fat loss has to have some protein and something else that's going to be filling. So it's going to be a whole grain. It's going to be a vegetable. Uh, you know, there, there are, uh, fruits. What are the, what are the more fibrous fruits? I know apples are filling. Um, I don't know. I'm such like, I only, I don't eat a wide variety of fruits usually, although these days I've been baking

with them, but it's been a while since I've just, although these days I've been baking with them. But it's been a while since I've just had a protein shake with a piece of fruit. And apples, what came to mind, I'd always eat apples when I was cutting and I would have fruit for snacks. I'd stick to apples because I think they're really good and they're filling for the calories. They're a bit lower calorie than something like a banana for the amount of, uh, volume that you get out of it. Um, but more fibrous fruits, uh, are, are good as well. So each meal, that's what you want. You want some protein and you want something else that's going to be filling. And that's, that's the best way to, to stay as full as possible for as long as possible. Now, on the other hand,

let's say you're, you're trying to gain weight. And weight, and so you need to be eating quite a bit more calories. You need to be in a calorie surplus. And some guys, they run into the problem where they have to eat so much food, it actually is uncomfortable to them. I've spoken with a lot of guys that are 150, 60, 170-pound guys that have to eat anywhere from 4,000 to 5,000 calories a day just to gain maybe a half a pound a week. And that might sound cool, but that's really annoying.

I know I've spoken about that before. That gets really old really fast. And one of the problems that they run into is they don't have the appetite to, well, they think they don't have the appetite, but more it's the foods that they're eating. Like they're eating, they're building their meal plans as if they were cutting. They're trying to fill a lot of their calories with vegetables, with fruit, with whole grains, not drinking any calories, no fruit juice. That's another thing when you're

cutting, do not drink calories. It's a really bad idea. It's that you're, you're eating up calories and with no satiety, you can drink a cup of orange juice. It's like a hundred calories and you're, it's not going to do anything to make you feel full. Um, so what they'll, they'll have low fat dairy products, these guys that are trying to gain weight or girls. So that's, that strategy is great for when you're losing weight, but when you're gaining weight, when you want to gain weight and you're having trouble hitting your, your calorie requirements, that's where you flip to the whole fat. You flip to the fattier meats, maybe it's chicken thighs or fattier, you know, fattier types of red meat and whole fat dairy.

And you don't have to go with refined grains. There's no necessary reason to do it. I would probably still stick with whole grains, but I would stick with more. I'd do like whole grain pasta or, you know, there are certain types of whole grain breads that are quite calorie dense. I would be doing also with that. So if I'm going to be doing a snack, let's say I'm going to do a sandwich. It's going to be like some calorie dense. I would be doing also with that. So if I'm going to be doing a snack, let's say I'm gonna do a sandwich. It's going to be like some, some, some calorie dense bread. It's going to be, um, in terms of protein, I mean, I don't do sandwiches, but I don't know, I guess the

same thing would be like deli meat or right, whatever you're gonna do for protein. Um, but I'd probably use like whole fat mayo or butter, the bread, like you need to add calories without adding a bunch of volume. That's the key. And to do that, you have to really think about the foods that you're eating and choose higher calorie options. Yes, you should be eating a few servings of fruits and vegetables every day, but you don't need to be eating 10. You know what I mean? And many guys, they find that even when they do it right, so they're like really building out each meal to stuff calories in there that they have to drink calories on top of that just to get to, you know, where they can gain weight. And for that, you can get a weight gainer type of product. I'm not a

real fan of what's out there because they just contain a lot of shit ingredients. And I'm going to end up making my own, uh, probably with Legion, um, and, and just do a better one. But, uh, you know, for now what I recommend is that guys like drink, drink fruit juice or do smoothies that, you know, where you blend up a bunch of fruit and you can put also, you know, um, you know, you can put something like, if you like coconut oil, you can put some of that. And they're like, it's easy to add calories. It's easy. It's much easier to drink calories when it comes to fruits, uh, than, than it is to eat it when, when, when you are constantly feeling full and sick of eating. Um, so those are really the main points to keep in mind in terms of like,

you probably have, if you, if you caught that I'm eating, I'm eating this oatmeal dish, a lot of carbs, 200, 250 carbs late at night. So later, whatever, 10 o'clock, nine 30. And just to reiterate, that doesn't matter. It's numbers. You can eat all the carbs you want. I used to think there was like going back to even the thing I was talking about earlier, where there was like a theory that maybe that was bad. Maybe it was bad to spike your insulin levels because they could interfere with growth hormone production. And you, you get your biggest spike of growth hormone production when you're sleeping and, uh, and you do would, would eating a bunch of carbohydrates before that, you know, mess that

up. There's a theory on that, which is why I used to recommend people like basically I'd say like, we don't really know, but it's probably a better idea to not. Um, but now there's just more research that's come out that, um, is used to sell different types of diets. Ironically, that just shows that it doesn't matter. Your body figures it out, works around it. So you can eat as much carbohydrate, eat as much as you want, as late as you want, so long as when your head hits the pillow at night, you're within your numbers. And within your numbers means if you're cutting, I would say be within 50 calories of your target.

And if you're bulking, I would say be within 100 calories of your target. I mean, ideally bulking, uh, I would say be within a hundred calories of your target. I mean, ideally I try to stay within 50 regardless, but, um, it's more important when you're, when you're cutting, I think, uh, to be, you know, really, really on target with your, with your intake. So you can get it over with as quickly as possible, essentially, and not give yourself that leeway. Um, so that's, that's the most important thing. You can eat a lot of protein in each meal. You can eat a little protein, break it up throughout the day. It doesn't really matter. Um, there is a bit of research on protein timing that shows that eating protein every few hours may be a bit more anabolic

over time. We're not quite sure yet. Again, that's one of those things that to play it safe. I like to eat protein every few hours, but I'm not, hours, but I don't think that's going to make a huge difference. So I think that covers everything. Of course, I've written a lot about this and you can check out the articles that I'm linking down below and find out more if you'd like, but hope that helps and happy dieting. Hey, it's Mike again. Hope you liked the podcast. If you did go ahead and subscribe. I put out new episodes every week or two where I talk about all kinds of things related to health and fitness and general wellness. Also, head over to my website at www.muscleforlife.com where you'll find not only past episodes of the podcast, but you'll also find a bunch of different articles that I've written.

I release a new one almost every day, actually. I release kind of four to six new articles a week. And you can also find my books and everything else that I'm involved in over at muscleforlife.com. All right. Thanks again. Bye.