Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Menno Henselmans on the Science of Sticking to Your Diet

Starting point is 00:00:00 For decades now, most doctors have recommended cardio over strength training because they believed it produced more health benefits, stressed the body less, and it was more popular among the public. We now know, though, that strength training has multiple major advantages over cardio, and if you had to pick just one kind of exercise, it should be strength training. That said, there are good reasons to include cardio in your exercise routine as well. First, as the term implies, cardio boosts the health and the function of your cardiovascular system. For instance, while cardio and strength training are about equally effective for reducing blood pressure, research shows that doing both reduces blood pressure the most. Additionally, cardio but not strength training helps keep your arteries

Starting point is 00:00:52 flexible and responsive to changes in blood flow. And that's why studies show that people who do the most cardio have these supplist arteries. And that is crucial for maintaining healthy blood pressure levels and minimizing stress on your heart and blood vessels. Another circulatory downside to aging is the reduction of the capillary health and density of your muscles and other tissues. And studies show that cardio can significantly increase capillary density, which is the number of capillaries in an area of the body, in muscle tissue in just a few weeks. Cardio also burns substantially more calories per unit of time than strength training does. And that of course can help you lose fat faster and help you keep it off more effectively. Cardio is great for body composition maintenance for that reason.

Starting point is 00:01:47 And when you combine strength training and cardio together, and when you combine them, especially in the way that I teach in my new book, Muscle for Life, which you can learn about at muscleforlifebook.com, muscleforlifebook.com, you can maximize fat loss without hindering muscle or strength gain. So the takeaway here is with moderate, sustainable, and effective doses of strength training and cardiovascular exercise, you can build a body that looks, feels, and functions like a well-oiled machine. And cardio is easier to incorporate into your fitness regimen than you may think to. In fact, in muscle for life, I share three simple principles that allow you to enjoy most of the benefits cardio has to offer with none of the potential downsides. And again, you can learn

Starting point is 00:02:40 all about that book as well as the, now it's over $13,000 of cool goodies, fitness goodies that I'm giving away to people who pre-order the book at muscleforlifebook.com. Hello, hello. I'm Mike Matthews and this is Muscle for Life. Thank you for joining me today. And if you haven't already, please do take a moment to subscribe to the show in whatever app you're listening to me in so you don't miss any new episodes. They will be queued up for you. And it helps me by boosting the ranking of the show in the various charts. So this episode was a fun one. This was one of the more stimulating conversations I've had recently. In it, I talk with my buddy Menno Henselmans again about a similar topic to our previous discussion, which is the science of self-control and willpower. But this time we talk about dieting in particular. The first discussion that we had, the part one, if you will, was more broadly about self-control and willpower because Menno recently released a book on the topic. And I

Starting point is 00:03:55 wanted to have him back on to dive into self-control and willpower with dieting. And this episode is chock full of practical tips for improving your diet adherence. This is not just academic theory. You are going to be a better dieter by the end of this episode, I promise you. And that means losing fat faster and more easily, maintaining your ideal body composition more easily, or even gaining muscle and strength faster and more easily because lean gaining can be similarly difficult to cutting. It's difficult in different ways, but many people struggle to successfully lean gain, mostly because they get sick of eating a lot of food and they have the opposite problem of when they are cutting. And all of that is something that Menno is an expert on, not only because he is a veteran evidence-based researcher and writer, and he is also a coach with a lot of experience working with normal everyday people, but Menno also recently released a book called The Science of Self-Control, which is an evidence-based handbook. I think that's the right term because

Starting point is 00:05:10 it's very practical. It has over 500 scientific citations, but it is not a dry, complicated textbook. Not that all textbooks are like that, but many textbooks are that give you a lot of theory and then leave it up to you to figure out what to do with all of it. Menno's book is not like that. Menno's book was written with an eye to application, which resonates with me because I try to do that in all of my work. I don't just want to teach people interesting facts. I want to teach people useful things that they can put into application and get good results with. And so in this interview, Menno is going to share a lot of the material that is in his book. He's going to talk about why dieting is inherently difficult, several simple science-based ways to make it

Starting point is 00:06:07 easier to stick to a diet, how macronutrient composition, meal timing, and consistency can help or hurt dietary adherence. He talks about cravings, the difference between satisfaction and satiety, tips for eating out and eating off plan, and a whole lot more. And in case you are not familiar with Menno, he has been on my podcast a number of times. He is a former business consultant turned international public speaker, educator, writer, published scientist, and physique coach who is passionate about helping serious athletes attain their ideal performance and physiques. Hey, Mano, it's good to see you again. Thanks for coming back and

Starting point is 00:06:53 taking your time. My pleasure. Always good to talk. Yeah. Yeah. So this, the idea here was to kind of make this a part two of our previous talk, which was about your newest book about self-control and discipline and willpower. And the first discussion for people listening, if you didn't listen to it, you don't have to listen to it, I suppose, for this discussion, but it will provide good context because in that talk, Menno gave some overarching principles that would apply to anything, not just fitness related things. And in this talk though, I thought it would make sense to get into diet, the context of diet in particular, and how we can use, I guess you could say, evidence-based strategies and tactics to help with dieting.

Starting point is 00:07:41 And a lot of that obviously comes down to compliance, but that can start with design because some diets are easier to stick to than others and are better in that regard. And so, yeah, that's the general topic for today's discussion. And Menno, I'll just give it to you because I know you have a lot to say on this. Sure. Yeah. I mean, in my book, I go into a lot of tips on how to improve diet adherence, focusing on willpower. And the first important thing probably to realize is that dieting in itself relies on willpower inherently because essentially it's an investment you are foregoing something now certain foods that you you may want or your more primitive brain your system one for those that followed previous talk once but you choose not to eat so if you didn't have hunger and you didn't

Starting point is 00:08:41 have these sensations that drives you to eat certain foods, then dieting would be as simple as simply making a choice. Unfortunately, that's not the case. We can't just say, okay, you know, I'm just going to eat broccoli and chicken. And that's it, because you're going to have cravings, you're going to be hungry, you're going to feel restrained and restricted. And interestingly, it's exactly that feeling of being restricted that is the primary problem with dieting. Because this is a serious red pill moment for those that haven't seen this research. But in research where people are unaware that they are in energy deficits, there are zero cognitive, behavioral, psychological, or sleep-related effects of the diet in fact a recent pretty recent math analysis found that the diet related symptoms or side effects so troubles with concentrating

Starting point is 00:09:35 fatigue those kind of things they were unrelated to the degree of weight loss completely unrelated meaning people that were not actually losing weight at all. So they were trying but failing. So they were actually at energy maintenance, not an energy deficit. And they still had the same number of side effects, the same problems. Whereas in, for example, military personnel, where they just have rations and they don't know how much they're eating, or in experiments where people eat modified gels so they have no idea of what what they're eating they just know it's a certain amount of gel that has a certain flavor and one group has basically maintenance energy intake and the other group consumes essentially zero calories and you can do that for several days and there are no

Starting point is 00:10:22 differences when you unleash a battery of psychological and cognitive testing on these people like they perform equally well on iq tests reaction times their mood states they also they can't tell in these kind of experiments whether they were in the diet group or not but if you contrast that with most people's experience with dieting it's a completely different world right because almost everyone that I've talked to thinks dieting has some negative effects on how they feel. So it's that feeling of restriction, knowing that you're dieting. That is a key part of the problem. And that is also the feeling of being restricted and having to give up certain things and making choices. That is the biggest

Starting point is 00:11:06 problem with dieting now may you know maybe in contest prep when you actually get near starvation levels lean then maybe we can talk physical effects but for most people people that just want like you know decent six-pack and not like crazy counter shape most of the effects of dieting are not physical effects of the dieting they're mental effects they're in the brain so that that is the foundation of of everything i think realizing that first that's interesting and you know that makes me think of the last little cut that i did which was during so it was maybe six months four four to six months of last year when the first round of lockdowns first began. And so I couldn't go to the gym and I was at home doing home workouts

Starting point is 00:11:53 and I wasn't driving to the office or to the gym. And so it's like, yeah, I'll just take that time and I'll just do some cardio and I'm not going to change anything about how I'm eating though. take that time and I'll just do some cardio and I'm not going to change anything about how I'm eating though. And it was, it was very easy. And I mean, I guess there's a caveat in that I can't say that I've ever had a particularly rough time of cutting, but I have had cuts where I do start to notice it. And, um, the, the end point of this previous cut, which did not feel like a diet at all. And of course I was eating the foods I like to eat, but, but, but that point of making no change to my diet probably helped make it even easier when all I did is just increase my activity level, eat exactly the same

Starting point is 00:12:36 in a calorie deficit, but had no, I wouldn't have known it. All I noticed is I just got a little bit leaner, a little bit leaner until eventually I was like, okay, I guess I'm pretty lean now and I'll just stop here. And that end point was comparable to previous cuts. I've gotten, I got pretty lean. Um, it's hard to say exactly, but maybe somewhere between eight and 10% where, uh, I think that's where most guys like to be for looking good. And, um, but in previous previous cuts where the the diet was a little bit more aggressive and i guess um the the perception of it was a little bit different it did it it did feel a bit harder yeah definitely and i think what what you have is most people should aspire to i think that is sort of the the idea of being successful at dieting,

Starting point is 00:13:26 is when you can diet ad libitum, you know, without necessarily tracking everything that you eat. You just know what kind of foods are good for you and you eat them until you're satiated. And then you automatically essentially lose fat and you just stop when you're happy with how you look in the mirror. That is, I think, the ideal endpoint for most people. When you get so good at dieting, and in particular, managing your appetite, that you can just get to that point. And then for many people, and myself too, cutting is actually easier than bulking. Because from bulking, you have to be more meticulous.

Starting point is 00:14:00 You can't just dream or bulk and eat whatever you want. You get fat. And if you eat your regular food choices, or at least probably for us regularly, you don't end up in energy surplus anymore. So you probably need more tracking. Or maybe the flip side is you just eat more of the stuff you normally eat. If I were to do that, I probably would. I like to eat oatmeal at night. So it's usually about a cup dry, cut it, put some nuts and fruit in it.

Starting point is 00:14:26 All right, fine. That turns into maybe two cups or that's probably the way I would. I haven't done a lean bulk in a while because I don't really see the purpose in it because I'm not going to really gain much of anything anyway. I'll just get fatter. But that's probably how I would approach it. Yeah. And that only works to a certain point, though, especially if you have an adaptive metabolism. Yeah. And that only works to a certain point though, especially if you have an adaptive metabolism. For me, when I end the cut at like 2000 calories and then for the bulk,

Starting point is 00:14:49 I have to go up to 4000 and above it very quickly. Well, I'm already eating a lot of food at that point at 2000 calories. So I definitely kind of doubled that. True. True. That is the last time I was lean gaining. I had to end, I was around maybe 4,300. And for me, probably similar to you, that feels, I was force feeding myself, basically. I mean, it was the final meal of the day in particular. I mean, it's fine, I did it, but I didn't enjoy it at all. Like I could have stopped eating probably at noon and would have been totally fine with that.

Starting point is 00:15:21 I wouldn't have gotten hungry again for the rest of the day. Yeah, me too. When I go over about 95 kilos, I'm force feeding. And would have been totally fine with that. I wouldn't have gotten hungry again for the rest of the day. Yeah, me too. When I go over about 95 kilos, I'm forfeiting. Now, I could easily do it if I started eating junk food. But I have a sort of mantra for myself to only eat healthy food or nutritious food that has no adverse health effects. Let me put it that way. And yeah, it's basically a luxury problem you know because of course it is it is a problem but on the other hand you can just stay leaner and then your

Starting point is 00:15:50 appetite's higher because the leaner you are the higher your appetite always naturally is because you have lower leptin levels so it's definitely the focus for almost everyone i think should be on how to get lean in a very sustainable, low-effort fashion. And then if you're one of the individuals that actually has the luxury problem of having difficulty with bulking, then you can use some of these tips in reverse. But mostly, for a lot of people, it's like, okay, you have 600 calories that you need to fill in. Eat a chocolate bar. Done. Peanut butter sandwiches, okay. Oh, you're still eating lean dairy? Well, let's make it full fat. Lean meat, let's make it full fat meat. I see egg whites in

Starting point is 00:16:38 there. We can use whole eggs. And also fruits and vegetables. Yeah, eat a lot less of that stuff. And also fruits and vegetables. Yeah, eat a lot less of that stuff. Yeah, yeah. You don't need that much of those. Yeah. And I want to get back to the planned topic. But you said something that I'm just curious and I want to hear your thoughts on regarding, you said it's a mantra of yours to stick to nutritious foods or foods that don't have any adverse health effects.

Starting point is 00:17:07 I'm curious what you mean exactly by that. Yeah, basically a diet that's- And why? I'm just, because it sounds like you are, just based on the comments you made, that I'm sure you're probably not against having some chocolate every day, for example, but it sounds like you will only allow so much of that, as opposed to some people are somewhere, maybe they're not full IIFYMs, so to speak. Uh, but, but, you know, and, and I've run across a lot of these people in the gym too, that they don't, they don't eat very much fruits and vegetables ever period, for example. Yeah. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:17:41 I talk about, I have, I have in the book as well, by the way, ifIT Fisher Macros. It's another interesting topic we can touch on. But for me, I basically optimize the health of my diet because I want optimal health. for me, is a way to make the best version of myself I can be. And health is a big part of that. And I'm also actually very sensitive to changes in diet. Because I, for example, for a period, I actually tried, what if I still eat mostly whole foods, but, for example, I don't pay attention to the fatty acid ratio of my diet. And that ended up me basically eating just fat and then my blood lipids actually skyrocketed they were really bad very quickly so ldl super high yeah ldl super high that in particular yeah hdl was low so i actually have to pay attention

Starting point is 00:18:39 to this and i also have um i think it's just hereditary factors. Like I have sort of WASP genes, if you will, which most people have a hereditary predisposition for high blood pressure and high cholesterol. That's definitely the case for me. So it's also relevant. And some clients I know can use more like the 80-20 rule, where it's like 20% relative junk in their diet, at least when they're bulking and it's

Starting point is 00:19:05 everything is completely fine but for me i actually see a difference in blood work so i definitely are on the side of uh just making everything as healthy as possible when you feel a difference because a lot of people don't get they don't get blood work done so they wouldn't they wouldn't know unless there's something that they notice like it could be worse uh digestion it could be worse sleep it could be brain fog yeah i think digestion is probably the thing that people notice first but there are a lot of adverse health effects that people don't readily notice yeah in fact if you if you take a bunch of people out of the population at random then almost all of them will have at least one micronutrient deficiency and it's hard to pinpoint for them like what causes it because it's it's

Starting point is 00:19:50 something that creeps up over time and occurs gradually and you just get used to feeling a certain way you don't know that that way is suboptimal that that's what is is so insidious about any non-optimum state whether it's a mental state or a physical state or being in a shitty relationship i mean is is just how easily we can adapt to shitty circumstances yeah yeah exactly and just go well this is the new normal now and then and then if if you are able to to break through and fix it then of course we've all had that experience where we look back and and then we realize how bad it was before and we then wonder how we ever put up with it it's just one of those it seems to be perennially human things that we

Starting point is 00:20:39 all have to struggle with definitely and with dieting sleep that's very very much the case like if you look back on you know your first diets like oh that was bad yeah it's true it's true so let's segue back to dieting so okay so we have this uh this framework here uh this mental framework which is is probably news to a lot of people listening because i know a lot of people they think that even even a mild calorie deficit within a week, you have all of these physiological things that start happening, metabolic adaptation, and it's a very slippery slope. And if you don't take a diet break every four weeks, you are just going to feel miserable, et cetera, et cetera. And so, let's just accept your,

Starting point is 00:21:23 I mean, obviously it's not your, but let's accept this proposition that you put forward, which is for a lot of people who are looking to go from out of shape to in shape, or probably even some people who are pretty in shape, who want to get really in shape, maybe something comparable to what I was talking about, my little COVID cut. And if most of the major obstacles are going to be, I guess maybe a word could be psychogenic or just it's more psychosomatic than it is actually physical. What are some things we can do to make that process easier to stop our mind from messing with us so much a lot of it comes down to well basically when you realize that the problems are the restriction and the the feelings associated with that and having to make choices you don't like your diet a big part of it other than realizing in the first place you're not actually becoming healthier you're actually becoming a lot healthier. Objectively, almost every health biomarker improves in energy deficit, even up to really, really lean levels. So other than that and realizing that,

Starting point is 00:22:32 there is a big part of successful dieting revolves around not feeling restricted and restrained. And you can do that, for example, with successful appetite management so that you can eat as much as you want. You're not hungry because you always feel restricted when you're hungry and you can't eat more. And reducing choices, not thinking about food. I think one of the biggest problems a lot of people have when they're dieting, and in particular people that are very serious about fitness, is that they obsess the crap out of their diet. And that only makes things worse.

Starting point is 00:23:08 Because dieting is like sleep. If you obsess too much over your sleep, you're only making it worse. And with dieting as well, you're not going to make your diet any better if every day anew you're trying to tinker things and trying to optimize things. Because there's a range of basically optimal. For most people, you can mix a lot of different diets that all result in similar effects both for your physique and health. So it's not like there's the one optimal magical number. Plus, there's actually a lot of research that shows that variation itself is detrimental,

Starting point is 00:23:41 not just for diet adherence, but also for our mood and our cognitive functioning. For example, researchers have looked at the effect of changing the size of a meal that people are used to at a certain time of day. For example, at lunch, you're used to a 500 calorie meal, and then some days they give them a thousand calorie meal, and the other group just eats 500. And they can also do it at breakfast, blah, blah, blah. And then they see if you eat a meal that's different, very different, not like 100 calories, but very different in size it's 500 and they can also do it at breakfast blah blah and then they see if you eat a meal that's different very different not like 100 calories but very different in size than you used to and also if that is different macronutrient composition like very different you go from keto

Starting point is 00:24:14 to high carb you actually have a worse mood typically and cognitively you perform worse so things like reaction time might deteriorate if you do a testing like iq testing you'll probably perform a bit worse on iq test after an unusual meal and in general one of the biggest predictors of successful dieting is consistency in everything people that are very consistent even if it's not necessarily optimal but they're doing things very consistently right those people are much much more successful than other people and if you realize that fully then you can also see why i'm not a big proponent of things like if it fits your macros in the sense of having a new meal plan every single day i like the principle worse on the fly every day thinking all right what do i want to eat for lunch

Starting point is 00:25:02 and then searching calories and macros oh that doesn't work okay maybe i can you know what about that all right what if i cut that in half and like that stuff yes definitely yeah and diet breaks also not a fan any any kind of very dramatic cycling or changes in the diet that do not have a very clear purpose you have to be very wary of because if you can just make things very simple and basically make the road to success the path of least resistance and make the path that you're on the default the best possible option. So for example, if you do meal planning and you have a fridge full of food and you already know, okay, lunchtime, I put this Tupperware box in the microwave. This is my meal. Like that's

Starting point is 00:25:45 the default. And then if you don't think at all, you don't make any choices, you just follow the plan, then you're going to be successful. Whereas if you don't have a meal plan, and you have to think, okay, what am I going to eat? And especially when you're hungry, the worst possible time to actually have to make those choices is much, much more difficult for yourself. to actually have to make those choices is much, much more difficult for yourself. Absolutely. And so what are some of these key points you mentioned? Consistency? What are some of the key aspects of consistency that matter the most? I can hear people wondering, well, is it consistency of meal time? Is that the key? Or is it it the calories or is it the macros is it the food choices or is it a bit of everything basically everything yeah it's uh it's remarkably uh or

Starting point is 00:26:32 it's remarkable how much consistency matters in like every single field like macronutrient composition of the diet the size of your habitual meals it's been found to play a role nutrient timing as in consistency of mealtimes, there was actually just a recent study that confirmed what I wrote also in the book, that if you have your meals at irregular times, the firmic effect of food is actually significantly lower. Like it's not hundreds of calories, but based on the estimates from the two best studies that we have,

Starting point is 00:27:02 you're looking at a 5% to 10% difference possibly in total daily energy intake in people that have their meals at the same time versus people that have different times every day. And that could be the difference between maintaining and being in a successful cut. And you mentioned that when we are getting leaner, we are getting healthier. I could see that as something that many people, they had to, wait, did he say, was that, did he mean the other way around? Because again, many people, especially if somebody is already looking fit, it's obvious if somebody's very overweight and they're going to a healthy body comp, let's say a guy at 15% body fat, to a healthy body comp let's say let's say a guy at 15 body fat that's totally fine he's going to look fine fit healthy but to go from 15 to 10 is it's in in women let's call it 25 to 20 that's

Starting point is 00:27:54 probably often considered uh not a healthy process and then and then i know some people will say even well being at 10 or 20 as a woman a woman is generally less healthy than 15 or 25. Yeah, that's definitely false. That's objectively false. So there is definitely an argument to be made when you're talking about 5% and 15% for men and women, respectively. I've never been to 5%. Maybe you have, but most people listening probably don't have to worry about that. I've had nutrients for my last contest. Then you definitely don't feel good.

Starting point is 00:28:35 But for most people, if you objectively look at their health biomarkers, and you can literally do this yourself. If you're 15% body fat as a guy 25 as a woman do your blood work don't change anything your diet in terms of general food choice and everything lose like five percent body fat go to the doctor again you'll find your resting heart rate's probably lower your cholesterol profile is probably better your level of insulin resistance is almost certainly lower the only thing that might deteriorate is your anabolic hormone levels. Do you think that'll be meaningful though? Yeah, that's what I was going to say.

Starting point is 00:29:13 As long as they don't go below the physiological range, which they might at some point in contest prep, but they shouldn't at like 10% body fat for a guy or 20% as a woman. It's actually debatable if that's really going to affect longevity because hormone replacement therapy, for example, in elderly individuals and post-menopausal women does not seem to affect all-cause mortality. It has some pros, it has some cons. So there might be slightly elevated risk of cancer and certain types of cardiovascular conditions, other types of cardiovascular conditions are less likely to occur so you know sex hormone levels seem to be they definitely increase well-being but they don't really seem

Starting point is 00:29:51 to affect longevity and all cause mortality in this and which means like your total risk of dying from anything basically and what are your thoughts about macronutrient composition in the context of dieting. Many people that reach out to me, they understand high protein. There's a little argument about that. But then I see a lot of people put a lot of attention on carb versus fat and what's the ideal. Should it be 40-40-20? Should it be 40-30-30? And so on? Yeah, that's an interesting thing with the whole flexible dieting range, where there has been a major de-emphasis on food choices, but a huge emphasis on macronutrients. And I think a lot of people are actually quite obsessed with their macronutrients.

Starting point is 00:30:38 And they think of their foods, you ask them, like, what are you going to eat? Like carbs. You don't eat carbs okay you eat a certain food you're eating like potatoes or rice it's like protein or fat you know because they're in there are huge differences in any kind of tasty tasty carbs what do you mean yeah 50 grams what do you want i mean if you say fat does that mean you're you're drinking oil or you're eating an avocado or you know there's a huge difference in effects. Yeah.

Starting point is 00:31:06 And exactly. Is fatty beef, is that protein or fat? Like, what about nuts? They're high in both carbs and fat and protein. Yeah, exactly. So in any case, that focus on macronutrients is definitely misplaced in the context of diet adherence. And in fact, in most contexts, actually.

Starting point is 00:31:26 Especially when you're talking minor differences, there really aren't any effects. And also in the book, I review the research on what kind of the optimal diet is. And you basically find, as long as you're consistent, it doesn't really matter. There are a few principles, like high protein works. But high protein means at least

Starting point is 00:31:45 1.6 gram per kilogram per day. Above that, you again, don't really see more effects. Super low fat and super low carb, but especially low fat does not work. Like zero fat diets. You see this a lot in competitors. Works fine for a couple of weeks, maybe even months. And then you completely burn out typically. Unless you're on gear, then it's not as bad because if you get your hormones from a needle, you don't need fat to make your body produce them itself. And super low carb like keto, carnivore, show some trends to be worse in the long run. But I think that's mostly because people have a very difficult time implementing them properly, especially in research. A lot of people think keto is drinking olive oil. Then no, it's more like eating avocado. You're still eating vegetables. Keto is also not about

Starting point is 00:32:35 minimizing carb intake. So I think that's more wrong implementation, getting micro-ritual deficiencies and the like, rather than really necessarily suffering from the lack of carbs. So the most important thing, again, is by far just getting the basics right of your diet and then being consistent. And other than that, food choices are actually far more predictive of long-term diet success than macronutrient composition of the diet. Like if someone's still eating ice cream and pizza, then you can fit those things into your diet if you're tracking your energy intake. But even that up to a point is simply not sustainable. Like if I want to eat a thousand calories of pizza or ice cream, and at some point in my diet, I have to go to 2000

Starting point is 00:33:17 calories a day, I'm going to be super, super hungry. And nobody gets successful long run being hungry every day. So it's theoretically viable, like, you know, in physical terms, as long as we're eating 2000 calories, you can fit some pizza in there. But behaviorally speaking, it's not. And you also get into the problem that if you eat a little bit of pizza, but you can't satiate yourself with pizza anymore, it can only result in further cravings. And that's why, for example, take ice cream for me. I eat ice cream if I'm maintaining, which that's what I've been doing for some time now. I like to have it once a week unless I'm going to be eating at a restaurant or something.

Starting point is 00:33:56 But I don't really like eating ice cream unless I eat a lot of it. For me, having 100, 200 calories of ice cream, it's just not enjoyable at all. I'd rather just not do it. I'd rather actually just eat some oatmeal with some nuts and fruit. So if I'm gonna eat ice cream, I want to eat the whole pint. And the brand I currently like is this brand called Jenny's and that's a thousand calories a pint. And so I'll do that once a week. But that's just, that's just once a week. I don't nibble on the ice cream every day. Cause I know that even if I have a good relationship with food and good discipline, I'm still going to want to eat more and it's just going to be annoying. So my little daily treat if I want to have something

Starting point is 00:34:35 is just some dark chocolate because I don't have to eat much of that at all. And I like it. I can have just a square or two and be like, oh, that's nice. Not the case with ice cream. So going to your point of food choices, I think if I'm hearing you right, people, they need to understand what works for them. That's not the case. I mean, I know people who they can eat five spoons of ice cream and feel, hey, that was great. They can put it away. That's not me, though. Yeah. And for a lot of people, it's not, even though they think it is.

Starting point is 00:35:06 A lot of people think, I just need a little bit of this and portion control in general seems to be short-term successful for some people, but long-term really does not do well. So all that stuff goes right out the window when people get really lean and muscular, which massively increases your appetite. And if you just eat a little bit, it just increases the craving. So I think that's one of the biggest myths also in terms of diet adherence, the idea that you satiate a craving and then it's gone. It does not work. And then there are numerous studies on this, like literally, I think at least a dozen, where they show that not eating a food reduces the craving for that food. And as long as you keep indulging in the food, you keep fueling the

Starting point is 00:35:48 craving. And it doesn't even matter how much you eat. So if you eat a little bit of ice cream, you fuel the craving just as much as if you eat a lot. In fact, in large portions, it can be better to eat a lot, especially if you get nauseous, because then you get a negative food association. So these are all things that work well when appetite really isn't a problem yet. But you see typically that when they get leaner, more muscular, those things don't work anymore.

Starting point is 00:36:14 And there's a lot of research showing that. There are some tricks that you can implement it, like ice cream, for example. There's research on chocolate cravings, which shows if you indulge in the craving a little bit after you're already satiated, it induces far fewer cravings than if you eat the chocolate first or on an empty stomach. Which makes sense, right? Because then if you eat it afterwards, you're basically already full and you just have a little bit purely for the taste. But if you eat it really to eat, to to satiate yourself then um you're

Starting point is 00:36:47 going to feel restricted because you can't eat the whole thing that's a great point and uh that's something that i've always done i didn't uh i didn't realize that that it's an evidence-based way to manage cravings but i've always tacked whatever little thing I want to have. It's always been, I mean, for me, it's, it's almost always after dinner, but it's not, it's not a meal unto itself. I'm not going to have a 3pm snack of just like half of a chocolate bar or something. Did you know that right now I am in the middle of a big book launch bonanza for my new fitness book for men and women of all ages and abilities, Muscle for Life, which is releasing on January 11th and is currently available for pre-order over at muscleforlifebook.com, muscleforlifebook.com. And why should

Starting point is 00:37:41 you pre-order? Well, to invoke an electrochemical response in your brain and stimulate something approximating joy, I am celebrating the release of this new book by giving away over $12,000 of glorious fitness goodies, including a Bowflex C6 bike, that's $1,000, a Hypervolt Go, that's $200, C6 bike, that's a thousand bucks. A Hypervolt Go, that's 200 bucks. An Instant Pot Duo Crisp air fryer, another 200 bucks. A Vitamix E310 blender, 350 bucks. A 30-minute Zoom call with yours unruly, and that is priceless, of course. And much, much more. Now, there are several ways to enter to win too. You can buy books, you can spread the word, you can follow me on social media and more. So again, to get all of the giveaway sauce, go over to muscleforlifebook.com, muscleforlifebook.com. Yeah, the order in which you eat foods actually has very significant effects on diet adherence and research.

Starting point is 00:38:51 And in my book, I use the analogy of eating sushi with traditional Japanese order. And there the order is that you start with the least flavorful or most sort of mundane kind of foods, like the miso soup, edamame, the white fish, and then you move up to more flavorful and more fatty kinds of fish and that the order is very successful uh for two reasons one is that if you start with the fatty stuff then you actually just induce the craving and then you switch the other stuff you don't want it anymore like you don't want soup anymore when you've just already started eating ice cream right but if you eat soup first when you hungry, you actually might like the soup. And then later on, you're going to be content with far less ice cream. And because you're basically filling up your appetite units with lean foods, you reduce the total energy intake of the meal a lot.

Starting point is 00:39:38 And there's also one thing that's, I think, very important to realize. Research very consistently finds that meal satisfaction is completely unrelated to energy intake like a lot of people think especially if they go to a buffet that they get the most satisfaction when they try the most things and they eat a lot but that's not true like satisfaction is a psychological phenomenon it's the brain registering satiety mostly like you have a certain emotion or in this case a feeling that which is mostly hunger and if you can satiate that emotion like let's say satiate yourself in this case of hunger then the brain creates positive emotions basically because it's it's mission accomplished but the brain does not have a system where it's like, oh, we need this amount of calories.

Starting point is 00:40:27 It's actually with dieting. There are a lot of things where the brain is not that smart, evolutionary speaking. Or it's even smarter if you look at the even bigger picture than we think. So there are a lot of ways you can manipulate and trick the brain into being satiated or satisfied in general much earlier with a certain type of meal. satiated or satisfied in general much earlier with a certain type of meal and and something that is probably worth mentioning just to just to carry that uh on is research showing that the amount of food volume that you eat has more to do with satiety than than the calories yes and that's i think a useful tip when i mean to that point i can eat a big vegetable dinner i just call it

Starting point is 00:41:05 vegetable slop that I've been eating forever. Talk about consistency. I think two years now, I basically have the same dinner every, call it Monday through Thursday, maybe Monday through Friday, or even on the weekends if my family's out of town or whatever. And it's just a bunch of vegetables, some meat, some, it's like a bastardized Frankenstein stir fry. And at one point, I probably worked out the calories just to have an understanding of my overall calorie intake. But it's certainly not a high calorie meal, but it's very filling and it's very satisfying even when I'm hungry, even though it is just really a bunch of vegetables. It's probably like five to six servings of vegetables just in one go with meat yeah it's perfect i mean i have a lot of things like that too a lot of soups that i really like soups are great i think a lot of people that are very successful with dieting if you look at what

Starting point is 00:41:55 they actually eat it's very consistent they i often joke that in large part the key to successful dieting is simply finding four keeper recipes. And if you found those, then you're basically set. For example, I had one client, which he did not realize, but he actually loved zucchini. And I gave him a zucchini soup recipe, and he made that. And he was like, this is amazing. And then he started implementing zucchini in everything. They made zoodles.

Starting point is 00:42:25 this is amazing. And then he started implementing zucchini and everything made zoodles. And that basically, that one thing was for him the difference between struggling massively with dieting. And since then, he literally said like a week later, I think I have permanently solved the dieting issue. Because he could just eat loads of zucchini. Whenever he wants to lose fat, just eat loads of zucchini. Done. That was it. The zucchini diet. Yeah, he loved it. Zucchini is super nutritious, super satiating. So he never had problems anymore with consuming fewer calories.

Starting point is 00:42:56 That was just it. That was like the one golden thing he needed. And I understand that. I mean, I'm trying to think. I guess I really like Brussels sprouts. I eat them every day. I eat zucchini as well. That goes into my slop. And everybody listening, I'm sure, can immediately think of some nutritious, relatively low-calorie food that you just really like, and especially if you find the right recipe, right? And there are so many different ways to prepare things. It's hard to not be able to find something like that. Like maybe the guy seems like he's a little bit lucky in that he just loves zucchini, he can just pound zucchini all day in five different ways and he loves it.

Starting point is 00:43:31 All right, fine. Maybe that doesn't work for a lot of people. But what about three things? And what about just three go-tos? And I think that's a great tip. Definitely, yeah. What about meal timing? Yeah, for diet deterrence, again, consistency is the most important thing.

Starting point is 00:43:49 Research on appetite generally finds, including a recent meta-analysis, that the sweet spot is typically around three or four meals. Most people do worse. Funny enough, the old bodybuilding idea was that you need six, it's better. But I think almost everyone has found for themselves, it's actually really hard when you get to low energy intakes to have six meals because you just have tiny, tiny meals and there isn't a single meal of the day that really satiates you.

Starting point is 00:44:16 So most people, I think, are best off with three or four. Two might actually be good for some people in terms of diet adherence, but it's most likely suboptimal for muscle growth slash retention. So I wouldn't experiment with that unless it's a lot easier for you diet adherence-wise and you don't care about maximizing muscle mass. And what about eating out? I know that's something I get asked about fairly often. Yeah, there are a lot of good things you can do

Starting point is 00:44:45 to minimize the damage there. The food order tip that we discussed, like starting with the least flavorful options, having your protein and fiber first in particular, that's really important because then you're also in a position to make much more rational choices. Another tip from recent studies

Starting point is 00:45:02 is that starting with something with an umami flavor and free glutamate, like mushrooms or tomatoes, actually increases self-control and lowers energy intake. Because the free glutamate seems to affect glutamate receptors in the mouth that subsequently enhance self-control and lower energy intake. One of those things that MSG in soups is what research actually originally started with. And I found that it works. It's actually a significant diet adherence booster to have an artificial flavor enhancer

Starting point is 00:45:36 in your food. That's ironic. Yeah, pretty crazy. But that's one of those tips that's like almost too good to be true, but it actually works. And another thing, I think the thing that most people do wrong

Starting point is 00:45:52 is they save up calories by basically starving themselves before they go out. And you should think of it as you're going to eat foods that have a higher energy density than the foods you normally eat. So you have a certain amount of appetite units. And if you're going to fill them with those foods, you're going to end up with a far higher energy intake than otherwise, which means that if you starve yourself, and then you're going to pig out on pizza and ice cream, you're going to do heinous damage. Whereas if you show up already satiated, which is actually what I recommend for a lot of people, actually at home, first eating a soup, for example, first eating a big bowl of tomato or zucchini soup,

Starting point is 00:46:32 and then you show up to the barbecue or wherever else you're going, then for one, you're not starving, so you can make much more rational decisions. And you can just eat the food for flavor rather than having to satiate yourself with those high energy density foods so it's much more effective to switch to very lean foods like just eating like your filler recipe with a lot of vegetables lean protein sources saving up calories but not starving yourself rather than just saying what a lot of people do in my experience is for example oh i'm going out to eat i'm going to i'm going to skip the meal beforehand and that is not only not effective it's actually directly counterproductive because you're going to have more appetite at the uh cheap meal

Starting point is 00:47:18 makes sense and and that's something a mistake i'm sure i've made many times in the past and what i found my way to and this is this is what I would say I have most recently recommended is I don't mind saving up calories, but to your point, I'm going to eat probably most of my protein for the day. I'm probably going to have some fruits and vegetables. I'm going to eat some, I'm not going to come into the meal having only eaten a couple hundred calories so I can like oh i have three thousand calories to eat in this meal i'm gonna i'm gonna come into it um not not any hungrier than i would

Starting point is 00:47:52 normally feel for let's call it a dinner right and i'm gonna eat enough food enough of the right foods to make sure that i feel more or less normal and And then I don't restrict myself at the meal, but also I've learned to not, and this is probably something that you might even have in the back of your mind to mention as well, that I've learned that you don't have to, I think of Thanksgiving, which is coming up where in the past, just for fun, basically, I would eat like seven plates of food to the point where it was actually painful. I'm on the couch, can't move, sweating. And it was kind of fun, you know, at like plate three. And then I kept going because yeah, it tasted good. But I have learned that you get most of the satisfaction just eating to the point of of satiety and no more hunger and i've tasted everything enough and then just stopping there you know yeah there's good research on this where

Starting point is 00:48:55 people have sort of a satiety sweet spot and i quote i often like to mention is from lewis ck where he says the meal is not over when i'm full the meal is over when i hit myself yes exactly that that that was my old thanksgiving uh routine yeah so i think for a lot of people it's really good to have this framework that society is happens on a continuum like there's certain points where you're starving and also good to realize for for dietence, by the way, if you're really hungry and someone's like, there's a saying in the Netherlands, actually, if you're really hungry, then raw beans will taste sweet to you.

Starting point is 00:49:34 So if you think like, I would love some beans right now, then you're actually hungry. But if you're like, no, I don't think I'll have beans. Ice cream though, I think I can go for some ice cream. They are not really hungry. Then you're just craving pleasure, basically. And that is a really important distinction also for yourself to note, because that's what I call the two S's of diet adherence. You have to be satiated and satisfied. And those things have different kind of things you can do for them. And with this simple test, you basically know

Starting point is 00:50:01 if your problem at the moment is actual satiety or satisfaction, which is more psychological. Where was I originally going? Well, we were talking about this idea of coming into a restaurant meal, for example, being satiated. Right, the satiety spectrum. So, yeah. So, I'm guessing what you're like, okay, you've kind of checked off the satiety so yeah so i guess i'm guessing what he's like okay you've kind of checked off the the satiety now you can you can go to that meal and just chase the satisfaction and not have to also try to get satiety from it right and with fullness on the other side of the spectrum there's also um a sweet spot that you should be aware of where like you say you can be a certain point

Starting point is 00:50:41 you're full and you don't need food anymore, but you can keep eating. And at certain points, if you keep eating, it actually makes you worse off. Like it's every single bite just hurts. It doesn't provide any more pleasure. You're already full. All it does is it causes pain. So it's really good to realize that the goal is not to eat as much as possible. And I myself, for sure, have made this mistake before, where if you just go into the meal with the idea of eating as much as you can

Starting point is 00:51:09 because you felt so deprived beforehand. And it really is not. The goal of the meal is to satiate yourself and to be happy and have a pleasurable experience. And there is a certain sweet spot there that you just need to cross and you don't need more than that. On the other hand, it's also very good to realize that you do need to be satiated because long-term hunger is not sustainable for anyone and research generally finds that men prefer to be a bit higher on the the continuum

Starting point is 00:51:35 than women women are generally a bit more okay with being you know just full but maybe still having some idea of i could eat, but I don't want to. Whereas men typically want to be more on the end of, I'm really full, I'm very completely satiated. I could eat more, but it would definitely not be pleasurable anymore. So it is good to realize that you do want to be full, right? Because a lot of people also think, oh, I just eat a little bit and I'll be hungry.

Starting point is 00:52:04 No, you definitely can't be hungry, but you also don't have to pig out and actually make it unpleasant so yeah i think it's a really important mindset to have and one other thing that you mention uh in the book is and i think this is this is a good tip is okay so you're going to have your your cheat meal or treat meal or, and you're going to go out for it. And okay, so you overdo it. And you would prefer that somebody overcompensates the following day as opposed to, or let's say they just know that what they're going to go eat, it's going to be a lot of calories. It just is what it is, right? You're going to go eat the 2000 calorie pizza, and you're gonna have some ice cream after, and that's what you want to do. Okay, fine. Um, you have two options. You could starve yourself leading up to it, right? Which we already talked about and why that's a bad idea.

Starting point is 00:52:52 Um, or, or you could even, let's say eat to satiety, go into it, but you still are going to eat what you're going to eat. It's going to happen then the following day is it okay uh to eat quite a bit less to get rid of maybe some of that previous day's surplus it can be like theoretically it is and if you're extra motivated at that point that's the reason i think it's better to compensate afterwards than beforehand because if you compensate beforehand to run into the problems that we just discussed yeah we just make you know the overeating worse if you compensate beforehand, you run into the problems that we just discussed. We just make the overeating worse. If you compensate afterwards, you're probably more motivated to do it. So that's good.

Starting point is 00:53:30 On the other hand, most research finds it's much more important to focus on the long run and to simply reflect on why did you overeat and was it worth it? That's a really, really important question to ask yourself. And also especially to do body composition measurements at the end of the week or even day if you overeat a lot and see was there a noticeable fat gain did i not lose fat compared to you know i was supposed to lose fat and then reflect on was this worth it and you can often quantify things as okay this was a week of dieting gone in a single meal and then you may think okay, maybe that was worth it, but maybe it was not. And it is good to actually make that reflection objectively based on data.

Starting point is 00:54:13 Now, other than that, it's much more important to focus on long-term habits and routines and just following your meal plan. Because if the next day you already had trouble with the diet and you have to change your meal plan to compensate for that one day of overeating, and you may end up hungry and you're going to obsess about food again, it's better to just stick with the plan and learn from the mistakes, if there were any, and continue as planned. Because really in the long term, those single events, those aren't going to make or break things. But habits, routines, and long-term sustainability, those definitely will. Makes sense. And something I will add to that just in my experiences, this is me, and it doesn't necessarily apply to everybody. I've found, again, I'm generally in maintenance

Starting point is 00:54:59 mode. Sometimes I do a little bit of cutting, but I'm generally in maintenance mode. And if I eat a lot and it was my plan to go eat a lot. And so I would say, is it worth it? Yeah, that's what I wanted to do. That was the plan. And I didn't go to the point of hating myself, but I was in a nice surplus for the day. What I've found is it's quite easy to eat a bit less the following day because I'm usually not very hungry. Like in the morning, if I eat a sizable dinner, quite a bit more than calories than I normally would in food I would normally eat, I am not very hungry in the morning at all. So I could just skip breakfast basically. And then that also then carries on really through the rest of the day where, and I totally agree with you, I could just not and not care at all and move on with my

Starting point is 00:55:50 life. That's totally fine. But because psychologically, physiologically, it's very easy for me to just eat less the next day. I just do that. All right, cool. And then move on with my life and get right back to my normal plan. Exactly. And that's basically the decision I think you should make. Like, is it very easy to do this? And am I motivated to do it? If so, okay, you can do it. Otherwise, just stick to the plan. Focus on that. Makes sense. Well, hey, that was all the questions I had for you and a great discussion, a lot of great, great practical advice. I know it's going to be very well received. And we've mentioned the book, the book, the book, but we have not mentioned the title yet.

Starting point is 00:56:25 And I will mention it in the intro, but a lot of people skip intros. So why don't you share the title and anything you want to say about that? And then let's tell people where they can find you and your work. And if there's anything else you want them to know about, let's wrap up with that.

Starting point is 00:56:40 Sure. It's called The Science of Self-Control. And you'll find it on our websites, you know, ensimals.com, along with Science of Self-Control. And you'll find it on my website, vanowensimals.com, along with all the other information on Amazon. You can read a preview of the book for free. And on my website, you'll find a lot more information

Starting point is 00:56:55 to see if you may want to purchase it. Or just probably also good that there's a free email course where you can just get all the free content and then decide if you want to purchase anything. Other than that, I just hope people enjoyed the call and look forward to talk to you again at some point in the future. Same. Thanks again.

Starting point is 00:57:18 Well, I hope you liked this episode. I hope you found it helpful. And if you did, subscribe to the show because it makes sure that you don't miss new episodes. And it also helps me because it increases the rankings of the show a little bit, which of course then makes it a little bit more easily found by other people who may like it just as much as you. And if you didn't like something about this episode or about the show in general, or if you have ideas or suggestions or just feedback to share, shoot me an email. Mike at muscle for life dot com muscle for life dot com. And let me know what I could do better or just what your thoughts are about maybe what you'd like to see me do in the future.

Starting point is 00:58:00 I read everything myself. I'm always looking for new ideas and constructive feedback. So thanks again for listening to this episode and I hope to hear from you soon.

Muscle for Life with Mike Matthews - Menno Henselmans on the Science of Sticking to Your Diet

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