NUTRITION IS BORING

NUTRITION IS BORING

By Shane Robert

 

I don’t write a lot about nutrition. It’s not because it isn’t important; far from it. As the saying goes, “abs are made in the kitchen.” That is to say, if you want to lose fat, the only real way to do it is by changing your eating. Trying to use exercise to do it is a war that you will not win. It is much easier to eat less than it is to burn those calories through exercise, which sadly, just isn’t as energy costly as we like to imagine. Exercise matters for a whole host of other reasons so don’t take this to mean that it isn’t important. After all, if you want the food you eat to turn into muscle you will have to lift (or become a lumberjack or something). Realize instead that nutrition matters far less than we give it credit for fat loss. Simply, I don’t write about nutrition often because it’s boring.

 

Getting into the nitty gritty of a training program is something that I can nerd out on all day, every day. Sets, reps, tonnage, frequency, weak points, I love it all. There are so many dials that can be adjusted to see what effect it has. It’s not really the case with nutrition. I will grant you that there are aspects of nutritional biochemistry that are interesting and seeing what effect they have on an organism is science that I find fascinating. As much as that may be the case, how certain nutrients interact with certain genes, etc., doesn’t really matter in the long run of fat loss or weight gain.

 

EATING PLAN RULES

 

As I have written in the past, any eating plan really boils down to this list of rule, in order of priority:

 

1. Total calories– more than you burn for weight/muscle gain; less than you burn for fat loss; an equal amount for maintenance. 

2. Protein– enough to support metabolism and muscle maintenance/gain, probably 1.2g per kg of bodyweight is more than enough, but a good number to shoot for

3. Fat– enough to keep proper hormone production, probably around 0.5 grams per kg as minimum

 

After that, nothing else really matters.  We can argue the importance of fiber or certain micronutrients, blah, blah, blah. The fact of the matter is none of those things will change how much weight you lose. They may affect your health, certainly true for fiber, or satiety levels, but none of that changes the need for rule #1, total calories. People can, and have, lost significant amounts of weight/fat literally eating Slim Jim’s and Twinkies as their main diet.

 

Despite how straightforward and boring nutrition stuff is, I am routinely asked what my own eating looks like. People seem to think that I have some magical secret food or combination of macronutrients that I eat to stay a lean, mean, fighting machine. I’m afraid to say that I don’t and my eating is even more boring than writing about nutrition.

 

Here is my Monday–Thursday eating schedule:

MEAL 1 – 1456 cals 70p 255c 20f

 

170g 0% Greek yogurt

85g blueberries and raspberries

2 slices Ezekiel Bread

1 banana (150g or so)

1 apple (100 g or so)

30 almonds

1 scoop whey protein

180g (dry) Jasmine rice

MEAL 2 – 1000 cal 46p 147c 21f

 

180g (dry) Jasmine rice

150g 93/7 grass fed ground beef

50g spinach

50g mixed bell pepper

60g Kimchi

15g Extra virgin olive oil

MEAL 3 – 1000 cal 46p 147c 21f

 

180g (dry) Jasmine rice

150g chicken breast

50g spinach

50g mixed bell pepper

60g Sauerkraut

15g Extra virgin olive oil

MEAL 4 – 710 cals 38p 96c 21f

 

2 slices Ezekiel Bread

1 banana (150g or so)

1 cup whole milk

½ cup low fat kefir

2 large eggs

150g carrots

1 orange (160 grams or so)

MEAL 5 - 400 cals 27p 41c 10f

 

½ cup 100% cranberry juice

⅓ serving of Trader Joe’s Hold the Cone mini ice cream cones

1 orange (135 grams or so)

15g collagen

1 scoop whey protein

1 serving 86% Dark Cacao

 

On Friday, the only difference is that I save many of the carbs and fats for pizza at the end of the day. Since I make my pizza, I know the calories and macros and can plan for that.

 

Saturday and Sunday are essentially the same as Monday–Thursday, but I cut out about half of the rice, a quarter of the protein, and about ⅓ of the fat [usually by dropping eggs, beef and 1 tablespoon of extra virgin olive oil (evoo)] so that I can eat with my wife and daughter, possibly at a restaurant or, if we are being lazy, a burrito place (we are in San Francisco, after all, the birthplace of the burrito). Either way, I make sure to hit the calories that I am supposed to, which, if you did the math, is about 4500 calories per day.

 

This meal plan is what I do at the moment when roughly maintaining my weight. If I want to gain weight, I increase the rice or evoo, maybe throw in some sweet potato, or some combination thereof. If I want to lose weight, I cut the rice down. At a certain point of trying to get really lean, I need to start cutting the fat some. At the end of my last diet, everything looked the same except:

 

• rice was down to 100g 3 times per day, 

• olive oil was down to 10g

• beef was replaced with chicken breast  

• whole milk was replaced with 2%

These cuts amount to around 1200 calories per day from my usual maintenance. The drops happen slowly over many weeks and there are no drastic changes to what or the way I eat.

 

When I share this with clients, they tend to be shocked at 1) How many calories I eat, and 2) That I eat the same thing every day. The fact is, it’s easy to do this and I can prepare my food ahead of time in bulk, except the rice which I make each night. It helps that I like the food I eat and can change the flavor with the shake of a seasoning jar so I don’t get bored. I also give myself the break of ‘Pizza Friday’ and some weekend differences.

 

Eating like this works for me. Some people would rather be strung up by their toes with electrodes attached to their genitals than eat like this. For those people, having a looser plan that simply tracks calories or macros is a good option. Whatever your preference is, the key is to find what works and stay with it consistently. When the time comes to gain or lose weight, it takes some very small changes to see progress.

 

Nutrition is so simple that it’s boring to write about. We love to overcomplicate things and tend to lose our way when we do. Finding the eating style that clicks with you and allows for consistency is what will allow you to make the most progress through small changes and prevents those overcomplications. If you find you’re not making the progress that you want, refer to Rule #1.