Good sources of soluble fiber include beans; peas; oats; certain fruits like plums, bananas, and apples; and certain vegetables like broccoli, sweet potatoes, and carrots.
Insoluble fiber doesn’t dissolve in water and bangs against the walls of the intestines, causing damage that must be repaired. Research shows this process stimulates cellular regeneration and helps maintain intestinal health and function.3
Good sources of insoluble fiber include whole-grain foods like brown rice, barley, and wheat bran; beans; certain vegetables like peas, green beans, and cauliflower; and the skins of some fruits like plums, grapes, kiwis, and tomatoes.
The importance of fiber in the diet has been known for a long time. For instance, the ancient Greek physician Hippocrates, who famously said, “Let food be thy medicine, and medicine be thy food,” recommended whole-grain breads to patients to improve bowel movements.
Modern science has found that fiber is good for a lot more than that. In fact, the evidence is pretty clear at this point that eating enough fiber is vital to reducing the risk of many types of disease, including heart and respiratory disease, cancer, infection, and type 2 diabetes, and to generally living a longer, healthier life.4
This is why the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics recommends that children and adults consume 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories of food eaten.5
This is easy to do if you follow my flexible dieting guidelines. In fact, it’ll happen naturally because, as you’ve just learned, the best sources of fiber are the nutritious plant-based foods that you should be eating plenty of every day.
4. You should eat on a schedule that works for you.
When you eat doesn’t matter nearly as much as many people believe. On the whole, so long as you’re sticking to your daily numbers, meal timing isn’t going to make much of a difference one way or the other.
There are some unique benefits to preworkout, postworkout, and prebed nutrition that you’ll learn about soon, but the bottom line is you can get the body you want eating three or eight meals a day, eating a large breakfast or skipping it, and eating as much or little at night as you’d like.
•••
Every so often, a new spate of headlines hits the shelves and airwaves proclaiming that “diets don’t work.”
According to one “expert” or study or another, we’re told that no matter what people do, if it qualifies as “dieting,” chances are it won’t result in significant and long-term weight loss.
Heck, you may have even concluded this yourself based on your own experiences.
Well, the real problem isn’t that “dieting” doesn’t work, but that most diets suck.
Most have you eat too few calories, which leaves you feeling miserable; most have you eat far too little protein, which accelerates muscle loss; most severely restrict the foods you can eat, which is impractical and irritating; and most provide no off-ramp to help you successfully return to normal eating, which makes it easy to regain any fat you lost.
That’s why a new approach to dieting is needed. One that sets you up for a guaranteed win, both physically and psychologically.
That new approach is Bigger Leaner Stronger’s flexible style of dieting, and once you’ve gotten a taste of it (figuratively and literally), I think you’ll never look back.
Key Takeaways
With flexible dieting, you can dramatically transform your body eating foods you want to eat, every day, seven days per week. All you have to do is follow a handful of simple guidelines, not starve or deprive yourself.
Diet is primarily how you lose fat, maintain a desirable body fat level, and boost muscle growth, and training is primarily how you gain and maintain muscle mass.
Once you can manipulate your calorie intake to lose, maintain, or gain weight as desired and manipulate your protein, carbohydrate, and fat intake to optimize your body composition, you can gain complete control of your physique.
No matter how perfect a diet might look on paper, if you can’t stick to it, it’s not going to work for you.
There’s far more to food than just calories and macros—it also provides our bodies with dozens of vital micronutrients that are needed to keep us healthy, happy, and performing our best.
You should get at least 80 percent of your daily calories from nutritious, relatively unprocessed foods.
Most of what you eat should consist of whole foods that you clean, cut, and cook yourself, like lean protein, fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes, nuts, seeds, and oils.
A major reason why eating like this is so healthy is it provides your body with enough fiber, which is an indigestible type of carbohydrate found in many types of plant foods.
Good sources of soluble fiber include beans; peas; oats; certain fruits like plums, bananas, and apples; and certain vegetables like broccoli, sweet potatoes, and carrots.
Good sources of insoluble fiber include whole-grain foods like brown rice, barley, and wheat bran; beans; certain vegetables like peas, green beans, and cauliflower; and the skins of some fruits like plums, grapes, kiwis, and tomatoes.
Children and adults should consume 14 grams of fiber for every 1,000 calories of food eaten, which is easy to do if you follow my flexible dieting guidelines.
On the whole, so long as you’re sticking to your daily numbers, meal timing isn’t going to make much of a difference one way or the other.
Slavin JL. Dietary fiber: classification, chemical analyses, and food sources. J Am Diet Assoc. 1987;87(9):1164-1171; Stephen AM, Cummings JH. Mechanism of action of dietary fibre in the human colon. Nature. 1980;284(5753):283-284.
Rabassa AA, Rogers AI. The role of short-chain fatty acid metabolism in colonic disorders. Am J Gastroenterol. 1992;87(4):419-423.
Medical College of Georgia. Scientists Learn More About How Roughage Keeps You ‘Regular’. Science Daily Website. https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/08/060823093156.htm. August 23, 3006. Accessed August 18, 2018.
Park Y, Subar AF, Hollenbeck A, Schatzkin A. Dietary Fiber Intake and Mortality in the NIH-AARP Diet and Health Study. Arch Intern Med. 2011;171(12):1061-1068. doi:10.1001/archinternmed.2011.18; McRae MP. Dietary Fiber Intake and Type 2 Diabetes Mellitus: An Umbrella Review of Meta-analyses. J Chiropr Med. 2018;17(1):44-53. doi:10.1016/j.jcm.2017.11.002.
Dahl WJ, Stewart ML. Position of the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics: Health Implications of Dietary Fiber. J Acad Nutr Diet. 2015;115(11):1861-1870. doi:10.1016/j.jand.2015.09.003.
17
The Easiest Way to Calculate Your Calories and Macros
You are right to be wary. There is much bullshit. Be wary of me too, because I may be wrong. Make up your own mind after you evaluate all the evidence and the logic.
—MARK RIPPETOE
Imagine someone tells you that they want to drive across the country without paying attention to their gas tank.
They plan on stopping for gas whenever and wherever they feel like stopping, and pumping as much or as little gas as they feel like pumping.
How would you respond? You’d probably think they’re nuttier than squirrel crap, right?
What if they picked up on that and snapped back with something like, “I hate feeling like a slave to the oppressive fuel meter. I should be able to drive as far as I want before refueling!”
Or “There has to be a better way. Who wants to constantly keep an eye on how much gas is left in their tank?”
Or “I read this book that said you don’t have to watch how much gas you have left if you use organic, gluten-free, low-carb, non-GMO gasoline.”
What would you do then? Gather up your toys and go play with someone else, right?
My point? When someone says they want to lose (or gain) weight without paying attention to their calories, or says that energy intake and expenditur
e have nothing to do with their weight, they’re being just as silly.
Is it possible to lose weight without watching your calories? Sure. Is it likely to work well over the long term for most people? Absolutely not.
It takes a high intuitive awareness of how many calories you’re eating and burning to make it work, and even then, it gets difficult as you get leaner and your body’s natural desire for more food rises.
This is why you need to learn how to calculate how many calories you should be eating every day. From there, you can easily create meal plans that all but guarantee fat loss and muscle gain.
There are just three simple steps to figuring out how many calories you should eat every day:
Calculate your basal metabolic rate.
Calculate your total daily energy expenditure.
Calculate your target daily calorie intake.
Let’s start with step one.
1. Calculate your basal metabolic rate.
Your basal metabolic rate (BMR) is the amount of energy your body would burn if you were to lie motionless for a day, without food. In other words, it’s the minimum amount of energy it costs to stay alive for 24 hours.
It’s called this because basal means “forming a base, fundamental.”
Unless you’re extremely active, your BMR constitutes the majority of your energy expenditure. Your brain alone burns about 10 calories per hour, for instance. This is why keeping your metabolism functioning optimally is a big part of successful weight loss and maintenance.
For example, I’m 34 years old and weigh 195 pounds, and my BMR is about 2,100 calories. I say “about” because you can never truly know how many calories you’re burning every day without doing fancy lab tests.
Fortunately, you don’t need to do that to achieve your goals. You just need to do some simple arithmetic to get a good enough guesstimate.
There are a number of mathematical formulas you can use to calculate your BMR.
The one I like most for our purposes here is known as the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation, which was introduced in 1990 by scientists from the University of Nevada to address some of the shortcomings of an older formula, the Harris-Benedict equation.1
Here’s the Mifflin-St. Jeor equation for men:
BMR = 10 x weight (in kilograms) + 6.25 x height (in centimeters) – 5 x age (in years) + 5
If that looks like Greek to you, don’t worry—all you have to do is solve from left to right, like this:
Multiply your weight in kilograms by 10.
Multiply your height in centimeters by 6.25.
Add these two numbers together.
Multiply your age in years by 5.
Subtract the result from the sum of steps 1 and 2.
Add 5 to the result.
Let’s see how this plays out for a 200-pound man who’s 5 feet and 11 inches tall and 41 years old.
First, he needs to convert his weight into kilograms, which is accomplished by dividing the number of pounds by 2.2. So, 200 / 2.2 = 90.9, which we’ll round up to 91 kilograms.
Then, he needs to multiply this by 10: 91 x 10 = 910.
Next, he needs to convert his height into centimeters, which is accomplished by multiplying the number of inches by 2.54. So, 71 x 2.54 = 180 centimeters.
Then, he needs to multiply this by 6.25: 180 x 6.25 = 1,125.
Next, he needs to add these two numbers together: 910 + 1,125 = 2,035.
After that is multiplying his age in years by 5 (41 x 5 = 205) and subtracting the result from the sum above: 2,035 - 205 = 1,830.
And last is adding 5 to that number: 1,830 + 5 = 1,835.
Thus, this man’s BMR is approximately 1,800 calories.
Want to know yours? Take a break and calculate it now! You’ll need to know it soon anyway.
If math really isn’t your forte, you can find a handy-dandy BMR calculator on my website. Go to www.biggerleanerstronger.com/calculator.
2. Calculate your total daily energy expenditure.
Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is exactly what it sounds like: the total number of calories you burn every 24 hours.
Your TDEE consists of your BMR plus all additional energy burned during physical activity and digesting and processing the food you eat.
“Eating food burns energy?” you might be wondering.
Yes sir, food costs energy to digest, process, and absorb, and different types of foods cost more energy than others.
Technically speaking, this is known as the thermic effect of food, or TEF, as well as thermogenesis, and research shows that it accounts for approximately 10 percent of TDEE.2
In this way, your metabolism does “speed up” when you eat, and the size of the boost depends on several factors:
The types of foods eatenFor example, protein costs the most energy to use and store, followed by carbohydrate and then dietary fat.3
Studies also show that the thermic effect of highly processed foods is substantially less than their whole-food counterparts.4
This is one of the contributing factors to the obesity epidemic because a diet of mostly processed foods results in less energy expenditure than one rich in whole foods, which makes it easier to accidentally overeat.5
How much food you eat in one sittingSmaller meals result in smaller increases in energy expenditure and larger meals result in larger increases.
GeneticsSome people just have naturally faster metabolisms than others (bastards).6
This helps explain why a number of studies have shown that high-protein, high-carb diets are best for maximizing fat loss.7 There are other factors, of course, but the significant boost in TEF is certainly one of them.
So, how do you calculate your TDEE?
First you need to know your BMR, which you just learned how to calculate, and then you need to account for the additional energy you’re burning, which requires a little more work.
There are a number of ways to calculate how many calories you’re burning through exercise and physical activity, including activity trackers, exercise machines, and mathematical methods. Let’s take a look at each.
How Accurate Are Activity Trackers?
Activity trackers are more popular than ever because the sales pitch sounds great. Wear a stylish band, do your thing, and know how many calories you’re burning every day!
Unfortunately, studies show they’re not nearly as precise as we’re being told.
These devices contain an accelerometer, an instrument that registers the velocity of movements. Every time you take a step, the accelerometer wiggles, and raw data is run through an algorithm to estimate how many calories that movement burned.
The problem here is obvious: this primitive mechanism can’t differentiate well between different types of activities. This is why most activity trackers can only be calibrated for one specific kind of activity, and doing anything else produces inaccurate data.
For instance, most pedometers are only good at measuring the calories you burn from walking at a certain pace.8 If you walk faster or slower, they become less accurate.
They’re even less precise for running and completely useless for something like weightlifting (heavy squatting burns a lot of energy but doesn’t involve a lot of motion).9
Fancier fitness trackers aren’t much better. According to a study conducted by scientists at the University of North Carolina, both Fitbit and Jawbone trackers underestimated steps, under- and overestimated calories burned during different kinds of exercise, and overestimated total sleep time.10
What about smartphone apps? Many are advertised as more accurate and convenient than dedicated fitness trackers, but the data says otherwise. Research shows that the measurements produced by many of these apps are off by 30 to 50 percent.11
It also doesn’t help that the most accurate of tracking
gizmos requires that you wear an unwieldy strap around your chest. Ones that measure heart rate via the wrist generally produce inferior results.
So, if you want to use an activity tracker to pay attention to steps or get a rough estimate of how many calories you’re burning in your workouts and other physical activities, go for it.
But don’t use any of that data to inform your calorie intake because it’s probably going to lead you astray.
How Accurate Are Exercise Machines?
Many people go into their cardio workouts with a target for calorie burning and rely on machine readouts to guide them there.
Little do they know that most of these machines overestimate the number of calories burned. By a lot.
For instance, an analysis conducted by scientists at the University of California-San Francisco found that, on average:
Stationary bicycles overestimated calories burned by 7 percent.
Stair-climbers overestimated by 12 percent.
Treadmills overestimated by 13 percent.
Elliptical machines overestimated by 42 percent (ouch).12
There are several reasons for these errors.
First, the algorithms used to estimate calorie expenditure differ from manufacturer to manufacturer, and some are better than others.
Then there’s the fact that weight, age, gender, and fitness level affect how much energy is burned during exercise. Heavier people generally burn more energy than lighter people, and fitter people generally burn less than unfit.13
Few machines ask for any of that information, let alone all of it, and work off fixed data instead.
Wear and tear on the machines also matters. For example, the belts on treadmills and other machines tend to slip with age, which reduces the amount of resistance they provide. This makes them easier to use, which results in less energy expenditure.
User error also factors in, with the most common mistake being leaning heavily on the handrails on the stair-stepper, elliptical machine, and treadmill (especially when walking on an incline). This lessens the amount of weight that muscles have to move, thereby lessening the amount of energy burned.
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