What should you eat?

I get a lot of requests for diet information, on how to burn fat and 'cut-up'. And though I feel I provide a lot of information in my diet page, I think people want to know exactly what they should eat, i.e. how many calories, % fat, %carbs, %protein, etc.

The fact is, I can't tell you what % of calories should come from what, because everybody has different needs, and different lifestyles. Giving out one ratio to the general population like so many diets do, just doesn't work! Even with information about an individual, a dietician would be hard pressed to tell them exactly what to eat to achieve their goals.

Well, that makes it sound a lot more complicated than it is. The best thing you could do to determine what you should eat, is set up a diet, track exactly what you eat, how you train, how you feel, etc. And if it doesn't work, change it!! It's as simple as that.

I will give you a guideline, a starting point, and you have to fine tune it to find a diet that works for you! And like training, the body adapts to a diet, so you need to vary it to continue to make progress. I hesitate to make any generalizations, and state anything as fact. I have opinions, and will express them and support them with data, but I cannot claim to be 100% correct! Like I said, if you try a diet, you'll know if it works or not, and change it if necessary!

70/20/10 or 50/30/20 or 10/50/40...

These ratios, which you may be familiar with, are the proportions of the various macronutrients you should ingest, i.e. 70% carbs, 20% protein, 10% fat. The needs of the body vary person to person. For instance, endurance athletes are usually encourage to consume higher ratio of carbohydrates and fats than bodybuilders.

Fat intake should never be lower than 10% as you risk deficiencies that can cause serious problems. Besides, starving the body of fat only causes the body to hoard what it already has. Protein should not be neglected neither, as there are essential amino acids, and protein is critical to maintaining and building muscle mass.

Using those two guidelines, I think something around 70/20/10 should be the highest amount of carbs a person should eat, though this is just personal opinion. I'm sure people can function fine on 80/10/10, though muscle tissue might suffer. Also, either of these ratios would be inadequate for a bodybuilder in terms of protein content, and both could lead to hyperinsulinemia because of the high carb content (can lead to diabetes, heart disease, obesity, etc.)

A bodybuilder, or anyone trying to lose fat and build muscle, should definitely consume more protein, and less carbs. Endurance athletes have very high metabolisms that can easily process a large amount of carbohydrates, but for the rest of us, we have to be careful because excess carbs can be converted and stored as fat.

So for the rest of us, I believe a healthy ratio that is easy to live with is somewhere between 45/30/25, and 55/30/20 (even 40/40/20 would not be unreasonable, especially for fat loss, stay tuned for upcoming article!) For someone consuming about 2000 calories, that means about 150 grams of protein, which is great for people around 140-160 pounds. Some diets call for even less carbohydrates, cutting starches and sugars out completely, and can be quite beneficial as well. Remember, there is no such thing as an essential carbohydrate!

How to Achieve an Ideal Ratio

To set up a diet that follows such a ratio(50/30/20), it makes the most sense to split each meal up into those ratios. First, start off with a protein source, and include enough to get the required amount of protein. I.e. If you're aiming for 2000 calories/day, 150 grams protein/day, you should eat 6 meals with 150/6 = 25 grams of protein per meal.

Most protein sources also include some fat and/or carbohydrates. At 2000 calories a day, you want 250 grams of carbohydrates per day (~40 grams/meal), and 40-45 grams of fat/day (~7-8 grams/meal) After calculating how much of your protein source you have to eat to get 25 grams protein, you can calculate how much of the remaining macronutrients you still have to take in.

For 2000 calorie diet, each meal (of 6) should contain roughly: Just as an example, say you drink 3 cups (750 ml) of 1% milk, with 9g protein/cup = 27 grams of protein. This also contains a total of 7.5 grams of fat, and 34 grams of carbohydrates. All you'd still need is 6 grams of carbs, or a handful of grapes. Mind you, such a large quantity of milk you make you feel ill and bloated, it was only an example!!

A more practical example might include eggs (don't know why I'm doing breakfast foods, just am). A whole egg has about 6 grams protein, 5 grams fat. An egg white has 3.5 grams of protein. So you'd have to eat about 5 egg whites, and one whole egg to get 25 grams protein, 5 grams of fat, though I would rather eat just 2 egg whites, 1 whole egg, and a glass of 1% milk plus an apple.

Use the USDA resource on the web to calculate the macronutrients in various foods. The next section here will give you an idea of which foods to aim for, and which to avoid.

Which Foods Should you Avoid, Which Should you Seek out?

I should become quickly apparent that 40 grams of carbohydrates per meal is not a lot. One can of non-diet pop contains 40 grams of carbohydrates, already filling your carb quota!! Same goes for bagels, breads, potatoes, pasta and rice. Avoid them, or at least cut down your portions. Look for protein enriched, and minimally processed if you must have them!

Carbohydrate sources that you should use instead include:

Here's a quick list of protein sources as well:

Here's a list of foods to avoid, and where to cut back on carbs(small portions are OK):

Here is an example of what my day looks like, when I'm doing cardio 3-4 times a week with light training, in an effort to burn off unwanted fat: This is just one example of a day during my most recent diet, though I try a new one every other week! This worked quite well for me, I'd say I lost at least 3 pounds of fat in 2 weeks. My next diet I'll try cutting more carbs, probably down to 10%, just to see how it works. Keep your eye out for a future article!

Conclusion

It's pretty easy to learn which foods are good and which are bad, and it's pretty easy to incorporate many of the good foods into your diet. What's less easy is being able to say no to free cookies or donuts when they are presented to you. That's not to say you can't ever enjoy some of the finer things in life, just make conscious decisions.

Also, don't forget about what I said about tracking what you eat. I may have listed some numbers here, but they may or may not work for you. Don't rely on them to work, you have to recognize whether or not your diet is working, and if not, make changes.

Here is a quick list of alterations you can make to your diet:

Lastly, I'd like to say that a diet can be even more refined than just a good ratio of macronutrients. Though many aspects of metabolism, nutrient absorption, utilization, and storage are not fully understood, see my diets page, and macro-nutrients page for discussions of these important topics.

Coming up with a good diet is the easy part, the hard part is sticking to it!!