The 4 Most Important Things You Need

to Know About Flexible Dieting

70,972 people have read this article.

Letting yourself enjoy your favorite foods in moderation, like my

Boston Cream Pie Cupcakes, will help you reach your long-term fat
loss goals.
Youre willing to suffer.
You want to be lean yesterday, and youre willing to do whatever it
takes to get there.
You cut calories, eliminate as many foods as you can, and deal with
being miserable because you know it will pay off.
It will, in the short-term.
It wont, in the long-term.

When you cant maintain your diet any longer, and you dont know
how to stay lean without it, youll lose all of your hard earned
progress.
The truth is that youll lose more fat, faster, with less trouble, and
keep it off in the long-run, by giving yourself a break.
In this article, youll learn the general principles behind a concept
called flexible dieting. As youll see, this is a system that helps you
direct your dieting efforts in a way that gives you the results you
want, without driving you insane.
This article is mostly about fat loss, but the same principles are just
as important for muscle gain, weight maintenance, and general
health.
A Simple Introduction to Flexible Dieting

Be less strict about your diet.

Thats the essence of flexible dieting.
Instead of forcing yourself to follow a set of rigid, unsustainable
rules to lose fat or stay healthy, you take a more relaxed and longterm perspective on your diet.
The term flexible dieting has gotten popular for a reason it
works. Whats confusing, however, is that there isnt an objective
definition of flexible dieting. It means different things depending on
who you ask. Youre about to learn the fundamental concepts
behind flexible dieting, why it works, and how to start using it.
Lyle McDonald was probably the first person to popularize the
concept of flexible dieting. In fact, he wrote the book on the topic in
2005 called A Guide to Flexible Dieting.
McDonald lays out what he believes are the two main reasons
dieters fail:

1. Being too absolute and expecting perfection.

2. Focusing only on the short-term.
Flexible dieting is basically the opposite not being as absolute
and focusing on the long-term as well as the short-term.
Lets take a closer look at what flexible dieting is and isnt.
The 4 Essential Elements of Flexible Dieting

Flexible dieting has several different interpretations, but were going

to define it with the following four criteria:
1. Modifying your diet based on your preferences, goals, and
tolerances.
2. Letting yourself enjoy your favorite foods in moderation without
feeling guilty or deprived.
3. Staying calm and sticking to your diet if you do overeat, or
have something thats not on your diet.
4. Focusing just as much on maintaining fat loss as on achieving
it.
Lets take a closer look at each of these principles and why they
work.
1/. Modify your diet based on your preferences, goals, and tolerances.

You should eat foods that you enjoy.

You should enjoy both healthy and unhealthy foods.
There are no specific foods you need to eat to be healthy or lose fat.
Food isnt bad, good, healthy, unhealthy, super, or anything
else. Its just food. You should eat a well rounded overall healthy
diet, but you should enjoy all of the foods you eat within that diet.

Your diet should also support your goals. If youre trying to lose
fat, you need to eat fewer calories. If youre trying to gain weight,
you need to eat more calories. If youre training hard, you might
want to eat more carbohydrate or protein.
Its fine to place restrictions on yourself to make it easier to reach
your goals. If you enjoy higher fat foods and its easier for you to
control your calorie intake by eating a low-carb diet, then do it. If
eating paleo avoiding grains, legumes, dairy (and other stuff,
depending on who you ask) helps you eat less, then go for it. Just
remember why youre eating that way. Your diet isnt magical; its
just easier for you to follow.
You should also consider any medical reasons for avoiding certain
foods. If youre less insulin sensitive, you may need to eat fewer
carbs. If you have celiac disease, you cant eat gluten.
Base your diet on personal preference first. Modify your diet to suit
your goals second. Then take into account any potential restrictions
you might need to place on yourself.
Most popular diets do the exact opposite of this approach. They tell
you to avoid certain foods or foods groups based on pseudoscience
and anecdote, regardless of your goals.
Flexible dieting is the opposite. You get to decide what you do and
dont eat to reach your goals.
2/. Let yourself enjoy your favorite foods without feeling guilty or
deprived.

Unless you have a specific medical condition like celiac disease,

there is no reason you need to avoid any food forever. Theres also
no reason you need to eat the exact same diet every single day for
the rest of your life.
You should let yourself enjoy your favorite foods throughout your
diet. When you do, you shouldnt have to feel guilty.

Some people prefer to take a binary approach to dieting.

They eliminate all desserts, sugar, added fat, or certain food groups.
Theres nothing wrong with this approach as long as you let yourself
enjoy these foods later, in moderation, when youve reached your
goal.
Most people dont. They deprive themselves of their favorite foods
and end up miserable or, more likely, bingeing on them later. This
also usually happens before theyve gotten as lean as they want to
be, which makes them even more depressed.
With flexible dieting, you let yourself enjoy your favorite foods,
whether its cake, brownies, bagels, ice cream, cereal, pizza, pasta,
french fries, or steak throughout your diet. You dont damn up your
cravings and let them break through later on when you cant control
them.
In most cases, its best that your fat loss diet be essentially the
same as your regular diet.
3/. Stay calm and stick to your diet if you do overeat or have something
thats not on your diet.

Whether accidentally or intentionally, youre going to eat more

calories than you mean to, or youre going to eat a food that isnt
on your diet.
Its going to happen. The only thing that separates successful
dieters from unsuccessful ones is how they react.
If youve been depriving yourself of your favorite foods and forcing
yourself to stick to a diet you dont enjoy, you wont react well. Youll
either hate yourself for failing to stick to your diet, or binge, and then
hate yourself even more.
When you break the rigid and unrealistic rules youve set for
yourself, you feel like theres no point in trying. Five Oreos turns into

an entire box. An extra scoop of ice cream turns into the whole
carton.
On the other hand, a flexible dieter stays calm in these situations.
Flexible dieters put the magnitude of their mistake into perspective.
They realize that one scoop of ice cream or an Oreo has literally
delayed their progress by about 100 calories the equivalent of
maybe an hour or two.
Flexible dieters dont feel like theyve failed, cheated themselves, or
broken any rules, because they set reasonable expectations from
the beginning. They expected to overeat on some days and to eat
some foods that werent on their diets. Its all just part of the plan.
Rigid dieters do not. They expect to eat exactly the right foods in
exactly the right amounts every day, and when they cant, they give
up or hate themselves for not reaching their unreachable
expectations.
4/. Focus just as much on maintaining fat loss as on achieving it.

If youre a rigid dieter, you think in the short-term for two reasons:
1. You want results as fast as possible, so you set up a diet you
hate because you rationalize that it wont last that long.
2. After youve set up a diet you dont like, you become even
more focused on the short-term because thats the only way
you can make your diet bearable.
When you dont enjoy your diet and set impossible standards, the
only way to have any hope is to focus on the short-term. You adopt
an it can all be over soon mentality.
In some cases you might reach your goal. However, losing fat isnt
the hard part. Its maintaining fat loss thats really hard.

This is where rigid dieting almost always fails.

The behaviors that help you lose fat are the same ones that will help
you stay lean. If you cant maintain the diet and exercise habits that
you used to lose fat, you probably wont be able to stay lean in the
long-term.
For instance, studies have consistently shown that meal
replacements and weight loss shakes help people lose a lot of
weight.(1-5) It helps them control their portion sizes and calorie
intake. The problem is that these people never learn to control
calories without the shakes and meal replacements. They never
learn how to maintain weight loss with sustainable and enjoyable
behaviors. Thats why longer studies have generally shown that
meal replacement diets are not great at helping people maintain
much weight loss.(6)
With flexible dieting, your fat loss diet is almost identical to your
habitual diet. Theres no abrupt transition from your fat loss diet to
your regular diet, because the only real difference is your calorie
and macronutrient intake.
Instead of seeing your diet as an obstacle that you can forget about
once youve gotten lean, think of it as a long-term transition to
healthier behaviors that youll use to stay lean for the rest of your
life.
Eat a Diet You Can Maintain

Thats essentially what it means to be a flexible dieter.

You want to get lean as fast as possible, so you rush. You put up
with cravings, hunger, lethargy, and social isolation because youre
willing to suffer. You set rigid, impossible, miserable standards that
you cant achieve.
You either give up before, soon after, or long after reaching your
goal, because being lean wasnt worth the trouble anymore.

Flexible dieting is about finding a diet that works for you, and
deviating from that diet in a way that doesnt impede your long-term
progress.
How has rigid dieting helped or hurt your efforts to get lean? How do
you eat a structured diet to lose fat while maintaining your sanity,
social life, and happiness?

If youre struggling with weight loss (or

would like to lose weight easier) and want
to know how to speed up your metabolism,
you want to read this article.
When people want to lose weight, the advice theyll often get is to simply eat less and move
more. Its just calories in vs. calories out, theyll be told.
But how does that explain the women that come to me at 140, 150, or 160+
pounds, eating 1,300 calories per day, exercising 6 7 hours per week
without losing weight? According tostandard calculations, such women should be burning
upwards of 2,000 calories per day.
How the hell can they be eating so little without losing fat? And what should they do? Should they
suck it up and eat even less? Push through another hour or two of grueling exercise each week? Or
is something else needed?
Well, in this article Im going to break it all down and show you why
preserving your metabolic health is the key to consistent, pain-free weight
loss.
So lets start at the beginning: what the hell does metabolism even mean?

The Metabolism Made Simple

The dictionary defines metabolism in the following way:
The chemical processes that occur within a living organism in order to maintain life.
Two kinds of metabolism are often distinguished: constructive metabolism,
oranabolism, the synthesis of the proteins, carbohydrates, and fats that form tissue
and store energy, and destructive metabolism, or catabolism, the breakdown of
complex substances and the consequent production of energy and waste matter.

In short, when we speak of the metabolism, we speak of the bodys ability to use various chemical
processes to produce, maintain, and break down various substances, and to make energy available
for cells to use.
As you can imagine, this is an incredibly complex subject as it encompasses the entire set of
processes whereby life is sustained, so lets hone in on the aspect of it most relevant to this article:
metabolic speed.
Now, what does it mean to have a slow or fast metabolism?
Well, such distinctions are referring to what is known as the bodys metabolic rate, which is simply
the amount of energy the body uses to perform the many functions involved in metabolism.
Basal metabolic rate excludes physical activity, and we often measure it in terms of calories. (One
calorie, or kilocalorie as its technically known, is the amount of heat required to heat one kilogram of
water one degree Celsius)
The faster ones metabolism is, the more energy the body burns in performing
the many tasks related to staying alive. The slower it is, the less energy it
burns performing these tasks.
In a funny sense, a slower metabolism is actually more efficient than a faster one because it
requires less energy to maintain life. (This doesnt mean a slow metabolism is good.)
Now, the bodys metabolic rate is influenced by various factors such as age,
fat mass, fat-free mass, and thyroid hormone circulation, but some peoples
bodies also naturally just burn more energy than others.
For instance, one study reported basal metabolic rates from as low as 1,027 calories per day to as
high as 2,499 calories per day, with a mean BMR of 1,500 calories per day. Much of this variance
was due to different levels of fat-free mass and fat mass, age, and experimental error, but a
significant portion (about 27%) of the variance was unexplained.
Another study demonstrated that basal metabolic rates can vary between people with nearly
identical levels of lean mass and fat mass. Researchers found that despite their subjects all having
comparable body compositions, the top 5% BMRs metabolized energy about 30% faster than the
lowest 5%.
Alright, so thats what the metabolism is and how it works. Lets relate it to weight loss.

How Your Metabolism Affects Your Ability to

Lose Weight

As you probably know, you lose fat by feeding your body less energy than it burns every
day. Your body deals with this energy deficit, or calorie deficit, by tapping into fat stores to get the
energy it needs (that it isnt getting from the food you eat).
From where are most of these energy demands coming from, though? Thats right, the
metabolism.
For instance, a 180-pound man with 10% body fat and a healthy metabolism has a basal metabolic
rate of about 2,000 calories per day. Through regular exercise and other activity, total daily energy
expenditure could increase to about 2,800 calories per day.
Well, as we can see, about 70% of an in-shape, active mans total daily energy
expenditure still comes from the metabolism.
This is why preserving metabolic health is so important when it comes to weight loss. When you
reduce your calorie intake to induce weight loss, youre counting mainly on your metabolism to keep
humming along, pulling from fat stores. Sure, you use exercise to increase overall energy demands
and thus fat loss, but your metabolism is a major player in the game.
The slower your metabolism is, the less food youll have to eat and the more
exercise youll have to do to lose weight effectively. The faster it is, the more
youll be able to eat and the less youll have to exercise.

The Surefire Way to Slow Your Metabolism to

a Crawl and Get Fat
Most people know that losing weight requires eating less food than theyre currently eating and
moving more, and most people want to lose weight as quickly as possible.
What do many people do, then? Well, they dramatically reduce calorie intake and dramatically
increase energy output (through many hours of exercise each week). And while this approach will
induce weight loss for a bit, it will ultimately fail. Why?
Because your metabolism adapts to the amount of energy you feed your
body. Its goal is to balance energy intake with outputto maintain homeostasis.
When you restrict your calories and feed your body less energy than it burns,
your metabolism naturally begins slowing down (burning less energy). The more
you restrict your calories, the faster and greater the down-regulation.
The opposite is true as well, by the way. As you feed your body more, your metabolism
will naturally speed up (burn more energy).

Now, when someone dramatically decreases calorie intake and their metabolism finally slows down
enough to match intake with output, weight loss stalls. This is usually met with further calorie
reduction or more exercise, which only results in more metabolic slowdown, and thus a vicious cycle
begins.
In most cases, the dieter finally cant take the misery anymore, and goes in the other direction,
dramatically increasing calorie intake (bingeing and gorging on everything in sight for days or
weeks). This, in turn, has been shown to result in rapid fat storage, often beyond the pre-diet
body fat levels (people end up fatter than when they started dieting in the first place).
Whats going on here is very simple: these people have systematically crashed their metabolic rates
and then overloaded their bodies with way more calories than they needed, and the bodys response
to this is to store much of the excess energy as fat.
Ultimately what happens is the person winds up fatter than they started, and
with a slower metabolism. If they repeat this cycle a few times, they can find themselves in a
really bad place metabolically: eating very little food to maintain a high body fat percentage.
This process of dramatically and chronically slowing the metabolic rate down is often referred to as
metabolic damage, and fortunately, it can be resolved. (Click here to tweet this!)

How to Speed Up Your Metabolism for Easier

Weight Loss
Your metabolic health is going to determine how effectively you can lose weight, so heres the
bottom line:
If you want smooth and consistent weight loss, you want your metabolism to
be running quickly before you start. (Click here to tweet this!)
As the metabolism adapts to food intake, you want your weight to be stable with a high amount of
daily calories before you start restricting them for weight loss purposes.
Ideally, you should be eating at least your total daily energy
expenditure (TDEE) without gaining weight before you start a weight loss
routine. (Click here to tweet this!)
If youre not currently thereif youre eating quite a bit less than your TDEE and your weight is not
moving, you need to improve your metabolism before you attempt a weight loss routine.
Fortunately, this is easy to do if you remain patient. Heres how its done:

1. Engage in heavy resistance training (weightlifting,

ideally) 3 5 times per week.

This has two big benefits for your metabolic rate: it speeds it up in the short term, burning a
significant amount of post-workout calories; and it builds muscle, which speeds up your
metabolic rate in the long term.
My Bigger Leaner Stronger and Thinner Leaner Stronger programs are built around heavy,
compound weightlifting, and are perfect for repairing metabolic health.

2. Slowly increase your calories each week until youve

reached your target intake (your TDEE).
In the bodybuilding world, this is known as reverse dieting, and its a very simple but effective way
to speed up your metabolism.
Instead of dramatically increasing your calorie intake, you want to work it up slowly, allowing your
metabolism to keep up and match output with intake (resulting in little-to-no fat storage).
I like to increase in increments of about 100 150 calories with 7 10-day
intervals. That is, you increase your daily intake by 100 150 maintain that new level of intake for
7 10 days. You then do it again and again and again until youve reached your TDEE.

3. Eat plenty of protein.

A high-protein diet is important because it will promote muscle growth, which is what we want to
achieve with step #1.
I recommend that you eat 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight when
youre working on speeding up your metabolism.

4. Eat a moderate amount of dietary fat.

While Im generally not a fan of high-fat dieting for athletes (and I explain why here), I do
recommend eating a fair amount of dietary fat every day when youre working on improving
metabolic health.
The reason why is it boosts testosterone production (albeit slightly), which in turn speeds up
metabolic rate. Its a relatively minor point, but every little bit helps.
I recommend that you get 30 35% of your daily calories from dietary fat
when youre working on speeding up your metabolism.

A Healthy Metabolism Allows for Healthy

Weight Loss
When your metabolism is healthywhen youre able to eat plenty of food every day without gaining
weightweight loss is very easy.

As discussed in my article on meal planning, you will simply utilize about a 20% calorie
deficit with 4 6 hours of exercise per week (a combination of weightlifting and highintensity interval cardioworks best), and it will be easy, effective, and enjoyable.
Yes, your metabolism will slow down, but not by much. This approach will give you at
least a good 2 3 month window in which you can lose plenty of fat while potentially even
building muscle.
And if, over time, your metabolism slows down too much but you havent hit your body fat
percentage goal yet, you simply take the above steps to speed your metabolism back up, and then
move back to weight loss.

7 Diet Mistakes That Make It

Damn Hard to Lose Weight,
Build Muscle, and Feel Good
By Michael Matthews on November 3rd, 2014
CATEGORIES:
BUILDING MUSCLENUTRITIONWEIGHT LOSS
57 COMMENTS

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DONT FORGET TO FOLLOW MUSCLE FOR LIFE

If you stop making these diet

mistakes, youll be able to lose
fat and build muscle with ease, and
actually enjoy the process.
If you want to get really confused about how to eat to lose fat, build muscle, and stay
healthy, go read a few of the latest-and-greatest bestselling books on dieting.
And if you want to add some misery to the confusion, start following them. Eliminate
every food you actually enjoy from your diet. Try eating like a caveman. Starve yourself
with cleanses. Swear off carbohydrates, keep protein intake low, and eat all the nuts
and oils you can stomach.
Go ahead. But when you cant take it anymore and youre ready to take the red pill,
come on back. Ill be patiently waiting with the good news
When you know what youre doing, dieting is an enjoyable lifestyle, not a
miserable, masochistic period of self-denial. You can lose fat eating foods you like
and without ever feeling starved or deprived. You can build muscle without eating
obscene amounts of calories and piling on body fat. You can cheat frequently and
guilt-free.
In this article, Im going to share with you seven insidious diet mistakes Ive made
throughout the years and that millions of other people make every day, basically
guaranteeing theyll never achieve the types of physiques they ultimately desire.

Diet Mistake #1:

Thinking Its All About Clean Eating

Oh the joys of clean eating!

Im all for eating a bunch of nutritious foods, but if you think thats all it takes to lose
weight or build muscle, youre mistaken.

You can be the cleanest eater in the world and

still be weak and skinny fat.
CLICK TO TWEET

Sure, those fundamentals include providing your body with enough vitamins and
mineralsthrough nutritious foods, but they include a lot more if our goal is to build
muscle, get lean, and stay healthy.
Lets talk fat loss first. Losing fat over time requires feeding your body less energy (via
food) than it burns every day. We measure both the energy burned and eaten
in calories or kilocalories.
When you do this, you are keeping your body in a state known as a calorie
deficit, because its short on energy (youre putting greater energy demands
on it than youre giving it fuel for).
It has two options, then, to stay alive: get the energy from somewhere or physically shut
down. And fortunately, it has a ready store of energy made just for these circumstances:
body fat stores. It begins breaking these stores down into cellular fuel to make up for
the deficit, and voila, total fat mass decreases gram by gram, day after day, so long as
a calorie deficit is maintained.

Now, heres what most clean eaters dont understand: clean calories count just
as much as dirty calories when it comes to gaining or losing fat.

Clean calories count just as much as dirty

ones when it comes to gaining or losing fat.
CLICK TO TWEET

When were talking body composition, the calories from peas are no different than the
calories from a Snickers bar. Sure, the latter is more calorie dense than the former and
doesnt fit well into a proper meal plan, but people that think that eating a bunch of
peas is, in and of itself, conducive to weight loss whereas a Snickers bar isnt dont
understand the simple mechanism explained above.
Clean eating guarantees nothing in the way of weight loss. Feed your body
too much of the absolute cleanest foods every day and you simply wont
lose weight. Period.
And what about when youre focusing on building muscle? Many people are surprised to
learn that total calorie intake affects your bodys ability to build muscle just as much as
its ability to reduce body fat percentage.
This biological factor known as energy balance is the key. Think of energy
balance like your bodys energy checking account. A negative balance is a situation
where your body is burning more energy than youre feeding it (its in the red as far as
energy goes). A positive balance, on the other hand, is a situation where your body is
burning less energy than youre feeding it (its in the black).
Now, as you already know, when a negative energy balance is sustained over time, total
fat mass decreases. But this comes at a price: it also impairs the bodys ability
to synthesize muscle proteins.
What is means is when youre dieting to lose fat, your body simply cant build muscle
efficiently. This is why its commonly accepted that you cant build muscle and lose fat,
which is generally true but not always the case.
So, what this means is that when you want to maximize muscle growth, you
must ensure youre not in a calorie deficit. Instead, you must ensure that your
body is in a slight calorie surplus, or a positive energy balance.

When you want to maximize muscle growth, you

must ensure youre not in a calorie deficit.
CLICK TO TWEET

Diet Mistake #2:

Eating Too Much or Too Little For Your Goals

Surprise, asshole! Bet you never saw this coming!

This mistake may sound simplistic, but its one of the most insidious pitfalls that
prevents millions of people from reaching their fitness goals. And it revolves around one
simple fact
If you dont plan or track your food intake, and simply eat according to your
appetite, your weight is likely to remain the same.

If you simply eat according to your appetite,

your weight is likely to remain the same.
CLICK TO TWEET

This programming is a good thing, actually, and helps your body accomplish its goal
of homeostasis.
You see, your body doesnt want to get fatter or leanerit wants to maintain
its current state, and to accomplish this it uses a complex system of
mechanisms to carefully regulate both hunger and fullness as well
as metabolic rate.
Changing your body compositionlosing fat and/or building musclerequires conscious
efforts to under- or overeat, which are often uncomfortable at first. When you place your
body in a calorie deficit to lose fat, expect to deal with some hunger and energy issues
for the first week or two. When you place your body in calorie surplus to maximize
muscle growth, expect to feel over-stuffed at first and, well, like youre overeating.
Many people mistake these discomforts as signs that something is wrong, and
revert back to eating on instinct, and then wonder why they cant lose or
gain weight easily.
The key is trusting the process and staying the course, and the result always follow.

Diet Mistake #3:

Starving Yourself

Click here to learn one weird trick Africans use to melt away belly fat!
The easiest way to see the scale go down is to simply starve yourself. And thats why
many people do it.
And by starve yourself, I mean feed your body less than 70% of the energy
it burns every day (keep your body in a 30%+ calorie deficit). And the lower you
go, the worse things get.
To put this in perspective, consider the following:

A 140-lb woman exercising 3-5 times per week will burn approximately 1,6001,700 calories per day.

If such a woman ate less than, ~1,100 calories per day, she would be entering the
problem area.

A 200-lb man exercising 3-5 times per week will burn approximately 2,500-2,600
calories per day.

Anything less than ~1,900 calories per day would be under-eating for such a man.
Many starvation diets have you eating anywhere from 30-50% of the energy you burn
daily, and while they do induce weight loss, theres a lot more to consider

Much of the weight initially lost is water, which goes

and comesvery quickly.
When someone loses 6 pounds in a week, at least 50%, and as much as 75-80% of it is
water, and could actually be gained back within 1-2 days of overeating.

You also lose muscle, and the less you eat, the more you
lose.
As you lose muscle, your body not only begins to take on that amorphous skinny fat
look, but your metabolism slows down, your bone health decreases, and your risk of
disease increases.

You feel progressively worse and worse.

Your energy levels plummet, you battle intense food cravings, you become mentally
clouded and even depressed, and more.
So, while severely restricting calories is great for losing weight quicklyits ultimately a
bad way to go about losing weight.
Much better is to maintain a moderate caloric deficit of about 20% (eat about
80% of the energy your body burns every day).
By doing this, youre able to lose 1-2 lbs of fat per week while preserving your metabolic
health, energy levels, mental balance, and mood.

Diet Mistake #4:

Overlooking Hidden Calories

Ill just do some extra cardio.

A huge, killer diet trap that many people fall into is eating a lot of hidden calories
throughout the day. Then they wonder why they arent losing weight.
Hidden calories are those that you dont realize are there and account for, such as the
following:

the 2 tablespoons of olive oil used to cook your dinner (240 calories),

the 2 tablespoons of mayonnaise in your homemade chicken salad (200 calories),

the 3 cubes of feta cheese on your salad (140 calories),

the 3 tablespoons of cream in your coffee (80 calories), and

the 2 pats of butter with your toast (70 calories).

These little additions add up every day and are by far the number-one
reason why people fail to get results from what would otherwise be a proper
dietary regimen. There just isnt a large margin for error when youre trying to
maintain a moderate calorie deficit every day.
For example, lets say youre looking to maintain a 500-calorie deficit every day to lose
about a pound of fat per week, but you accidentally eat 400 more calories than you
should have, leaving you in a 100-calorie deficit instead. Itll now take a month or longer
to lose that pound of fat. Its that simple.
It might seem paranoid to be careful about how many tablespoons of ketchup you have
in a day, but if you watch your calories that closely when dieting for fat loss,
youre guaranteed to get results.
The best way to avoid hidden calories is to prepare your food yourself so you
know exactly what went into it. For most people, this just means preparing a lunch
to bring to the office, as they usually eat breakfast and dinner at home.

Diet Mistake #5:

Eating Too Little Protein
Whenever I talk about eating enough protein, I cant help but think of this video:
And then I want a protein shake, hahah.
Seriously thoughheres a dietary guideline that you can take to the bank:
Eat too little protein and youll always have trouble building muscle, even in a
calorie surplus, and preserving it when in a calorie deficit.
You may already understand the physiological reasons for this, but I want to give a brief
summary just to make sure.
In the body, a protein is a special type of molecule that is comprised of substances
known as amino acids. Think of amino acids as the building blocks of proteinswithout
the requisite amino acids, the body cant create protein molecules.
There are many types of proteins in the body, and they perform a wide variety of
functions ranging from the replication and repair of DNA, to cell signaling (insulin is a
protein, for instance), to the formation of tissues and other substances like hair and
nails, and more.

The building of muscle proteins (the types of protein molecules that our
muscles are made of) requires a variety of amino acids, some of which must
be obtained from food (these are known as essential amino acids).
When you eat a food that contains protein, your body breaks the protein molecules in
the food down into the amino acids theyre comprised of, and then uses those amino
acids to build its own proteins.
If you eat too few grams of protein every day, your body can become deficient
in the amino acids it needs to build and repair muscle, and thus, muscle
growth becomes impaired.
The body has certain protein needs even if you dont exercise. Remember that every
day cells are dying and being regenerated, and this requires amino acids. When you do
exercise, however, the body needs even more amino acids to repair damaged muscle
fibers and, depending on what youre doing, grow them larger.
Now, this all sounds good in theory, and we all know bodybuilders eat large amounts of
protein, but what does the scientific research say?
Research shows that high-protein diets

are more effective for building muscle

are more effective at reducing body fat, including abdominal fat in

particular,

help preserve lean mass

increase satiety, helping you avoid hunger pangs and cravings.

A low-protein diet, on the other hand, is great for accelerating muscle loss while in a
caloric deficit.
The abundance of research available on high-protein dieting makes it very clear that its
simply a superior way to diet for weight loss, and especially if youre exercising as well.
How much protein should you be eating, then?
Research has shown that protein should comprise approximately 30% of your daily
calories, but going as high as 40-50% is okay as well. For most people, that comes
out to be about 1 1.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight.
(In case youre wondering if a high-protein diet is bad for your kidneys, this myth has
been thoroughly debunked.)

Diet Mistake #6:

Eating Too Little Carbohydrate

The low-carb diet feels

Yes, you read that correctly. Im advocating eating carbohydrate. And no, Im not a neoNazi and I dont sacrifice babies to Moloch.
Seriously though, despite its current popularity, low-carb dieting sucks and is
not only unnecessary for most people, but downright counter-productive.
If you find that statement blasphemous, give me a minute to explain

You dont lose fat faster on a low-carb diet.

That statement is basically blasphemous these days, but the general advice of going on
a low-carb diet to maximize fat loss is scientifically bankrupt.
There are about 20 studies that low-carb proponents bandy about as definitive proof
of the superiority of low-carb dieting for weight loss. This, this, and this are common
examples. If you simply read the abstracts of these studies, low-carb dieting definitely
seems more effective, and this type of glib research is what most low-carbers base
their beliefs on.
But theres a big problem with many of these studies, and it has to do with protein
intake.
The problem is the low-carb diets in these studies invariably contained more
protein than the low-fat diets. Yes, one for onewithout fail.
In many cases, the low-fat groups were given less protein than even the RDI of .8 grams
per kg of body weight, which is just woefully inadequate for weight loss
purposes. Research has shown that even double and triple those (RDI) levels of protein
intake isnt enough to fully prevent the loss of lean mass while restricting calories for fat
loss.
So what were actually looking at in these studies is a high-protein, low-carbohydrate
diet vs. low-protein, high-fat diet, and the former wins every time. But we cant ignore
the high-protein part and say its more effective because of the low-carb element.
In fact, better designed and executed studies prove the opposite: that when
protein intake is high, low-carb dieting offers no especial weight loss benefits.

There are four studies I know of that meet these criteria and gee whiz look at that
when protein intake is high and matched among low-carb and high-carb dieters, there is
no significant difference in weight loss.
The bottom line is so long as you maintain a proper calorie deficit and keep
your protein intake high, youre going to maximize fat loss while preserving
as much lean mass as possible.Going low-carb as well wont help you lose more
weight.

You build less muscle on a low-carb diet.

When you reduce your carbohydrate intake, you reduce the amount of glycogen stored
in the muscles. This, in turn, compromises your performance in the gymyou can expect
a dramatic reduction in both muscle endurance and strength, which then limits the
amount of progressive overload you can subject your muscles to in those workouts.
(And less progressive overload in workouts = less muscle growth over time.)
There are other downsides to low muscle glycogen levels.
Research conducted by scientists at Ball State University found that when
muscle glycogen levels are low, post-workout signaling related to muscle
growth is impaired. This, by the way, is especially unwanted when youre dieting for
weight loss because a calorie restriction alone already impairs your bodys ability to
synthesize proteins.
In athletes, a low-carb diet has been shown to increase cortisol and reduce
testosterone levels. This too is particularly problematic when youre restricting
calories, which also reduces anabolic hormone levels.
So, we already know that a low-carb diet wont help us lose fat faster, but as you now
see, its looking pretty damn ugly for us weightlifters looking to get lean. It looks like all
a low-carb diet does is make our workouts suck and speed up muscle loss.
This isnt just theory, either.
A study conducted by researchers at the University of Rhode Island looked at how lowand high-carbohydrate intakes affected exercise-induced muscle damage, strength
recovery, and whole body protein metabolism after a strenuous workout.
The result was the subjects on the low-carbohydrate diet (which wasnt all
that low, actuallyabout 226 grams per day, versus 353 grams per day for the
high-carbohydrate group) lost more strength, recovered slower, and showed
lower levels of protein synthesis.
In this study, researchers at McMaster University compared high- and low-carbohydrate
dieting with subjects performing daily leg workouts. They found that those on the lowcarbohydrate diet experienced higher rates of protein breakdown and lower rates of
protein synthesis, resulting in less overall muscle growth than their higher-carbohydrate
counterparts.
All this is why I never drop my carbohydrate intake lower than about .8 grams
per pound of body weight when cutting (and yes I get to 6% body fat eating
this many carbs per day), and Ill go as high as 2 to 2.5 grams per pound
when bulking.

The bottom line on low-carb dieting.

Despite my general distaste for low-carb dieting, I actually do recommend it in certain
cases.
For instance, if someone is severely overweight, his insulin sensitivity is going to be
poor, and his body may do better with a lower carb diet than I recommend above. If
someone is sedentary (no regular exercise), he too would be better served by a lower-

carb diet because his body simply doesnt need the abundance of carbohydrate energy
for anything.
That said, if you exercise regularly, and especially with resistance training, a
low-carb diet will do nothing for you but slow muscle growth when bulking
and accelerate muscle loss when cutting.

Diet Mistake #7:

Taking Cheating Too Far

I EARNED THIS
Now that you know that cheating on a diet doesnt mean eating a food deemed
unclean, we can get at its real meaning:
Cheating on your diet has nothing to do with what you eatits simply
erasing your calorie deficit or adding to your surplus by overeating.

Cheating on your diet has nothing to do with

what you eatits all about HOW MUCH.
CLICK TO TWEET

And you can accomplish this by slightly overeating every day or by going buck wild one
or two days per week, which can then add back some or all the fat you lost during the
week (effectively reducing or erasing your calorie deficit for the week) or cause you to
gain too much fat too quickly if youre in a calorie surplus every day.
If youre dieting for fat loss (maintaining a weekly calorie deficit), I
recommend having a moderate cheat meal every week. Its a nice psychological
boost and, depending on where youre at in terms of body fat percentage, it can help
keep the weight loss going.
Notice I said cheat MEAL, though. And moderate. Not a cheat DAY or an all-out binge
meal, because either can undo some or all of a weeks worth of fat loss (super high-fat
meals with alcohol are the absolute worst).
If youre dieting for muscle growth (maintaining a weekly calorie surplus), I
also recommend having a moderate cheat meal every week, but I also

recommend that you avoid dramatically spiking your calorie intake for that
day.
The number one mistake that people trying to bulk make is simply using it as a
license to eat more or less whatever they want, and the result is rapid fat gain that in
turn impairs muscle growth, partially defeating the point of being in a calorie surplus in
the first place.
When youre in a calorie surplus and are cheating, you can end the day a few hundreds
calories above your normal daily intake, but dont go crazy.
If you need to, you can even reduce your carbohydrate and fat intake
throughout the day to save up calories for the larger meal and thus keep
your overall intake for the day in a reasonable range.

Stop Making These Diet Mistakes and Your

Body Will Change
Like anything, proper dieting doesnt require utter perfection to get results. It just
requires that you do enough of the important things right.
There are, of course, many other potential diet mistakes you can make, but theyre
inconsequential compared to the seven outlined here. These are the key, make or
break factors of dieting that you simply cant screw around with.
Stop making these mistakes and get these things right, and youll never fret
over dieting again. Youll learn to use it as a tool for changing body composition as
you desire, and youll gain freedom and control over what and how you eat.