First off, this is a general guide. Do not come into the thread, say you eat 2 whole pizzas a day and still have a six pack, that helps no one, many of whom have been struggling with issues with weight for a long time now. This is to help people just get a better understanding of food, the details behind the numbers and to help each other out.
Working out or not, nutrition is the majority of a lifestyle change. You cannot eat badly and work out, then expect results in fat loss. Knowing how much to eat, and what to eat is essential. When someone says they are eating clean, it means that they are eating whole foods. Usually if something comes out of a box or a wrapper, it is not a whole food. Whole foods include things like eggs, cheese, meat, green leafy veggies, nuts etc. Knowing what you're eating is extremely important.
There are many calculators out there to find out your maintenance levels of calories. One very popular one is http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/, which has tons of options. Here you input your information like weight, height, age, gender & more, and it gives you detailed information using several different calculations to your liking. There are lots of different calculators online, you can try others if you find something more you like. Getting your maintenance level calories is essential to knowing how much to eat to achieve the goal you are working toward.
If your goal is to lose fat, then you need to eat at a deficit. If your goal is to gain muscle, then you need to eat over your maintenance level. To lose fat and gain muscle at the same time is known as a Re-composition and is difficult to do, and is generally preferred to be done by someone who is very advanced into their lifestyle.
When people want to lose fat, it is referred to as Cutting. Cutting fat, while retaining as much muscle as possible. That is the goal. Most traditional diet's will have you losing fat and muscle at the same time, some diet's are more muscle sparing then others. Cutting is taking your maintenance calories, running a deficit, and sticking to that everyday. Most people like to use a deficit of 500 calories per day, you can try for more but it makes things a lot more difficult. Adding exercise to this can help you lose fat quicker as well, but is not required.
When you want to gain muscle, it is referred to as Bulking. Bulking is the process of eating your maintenance calories + more calories that will hopefully be converted to muscle at the gym. No one actually wants to gain fat, just the muscle, and that is a delicate fine line of how much over your maintenance you need to eat to achieve this. It is best to start with 200-300 calories over your maintenance and go for a few weeks, then measure and see how you've progressed. If you are gaining fat along with the muscle. you should lower the calories. If you aren't gaining fat, then up the calories another 100 or so and adjust from there. It is trial and error, and usually you will end up on the side of gaining fat, but that is what cutting is for later.
Our food has 3 main properties we're concerned with, Fat, Protein and Carbs. Protein and carbs both have 4 calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram. So if something has 5 grams of fat, it has 45 calories, something with 5 grams of protein has 20 calories. Add them all together to get your total calories from a meal. When it comes to carbs, there is a bit more to it in the form of fiber. Fiber cannot be used by the body, it goes in and comes out as is. Due to this, fiber is not to be counted against your total carbs for the day. If an item has 20g carbs per serving, and 5g of that is fiber, then the net amount of carbs in that item is only 15g of carbs. Net carbs are the ones that matter, fiber does not. Please keep in mind that in europe, the carbs are already subtracted on the label, it is in the US where you have to do the calculations yourself.
Another major thing to watch out for is how to read a label on food. I'm going to post an example label and break it down for you.
The main things to keep in mind here, are the total fat, protein and carbs. You can see that the item here has 31g of carbs, 3g of that being fiber, so that is 28g of carbs per servings net. You will also notice on top the serving size, this is absolutely essential to look at. This varies wildly per product. What you would think would be a larger portion, is calculated at a much smaller portion usually. And most importantly, look at the servings per container. Some things that logically should be 1 serving, is broken down into 2 servings per container like this label is. This is done to make the calorie content lower to people when they check the label. In this case, the entire container of whatever it is has 2 servings, so you would double all the calories (and fat, protein, carbs) in the item and that is how much the entire container would be to eat. In this case, eating the entire container would be 560 calories, with 26g of fat, 10g of protein and 62g of carbs (of which, 56g is actual amount of edible carbs).
When it comes to calculating how much of what to eat, this is referred to as Macros. Macros is just a term for the percentage of fat, protein and carbs you are going to try to eat for the day. A popular diet a lot of people do and have success with is the 40/30/30 split, where you get 40% of your calories from carbs, 30% from protein, 30% from fat. And when i mean %, i am referring to calories, not grams. So you want 40% of your total calories of the day to be from carbs on this diet. So to calculate, lets say you have a 2000 calorie diet for the day. On the 40/30/30 plan, you'd need:
800 calories from carbs
600 calories from protein
600 calories from fat
That works out to 2000 calories, with a 40/30/30 split. Now, to measure how many grams of each you need, you keep in mind how many calories per gram each one is. So for carbs in this instance, 800 calories of carbs, where each gram of carb is 4 calories, is 200g of carbs. So 200g of carbs is going to give you 800 calories. That is how you calculate how many grams of each type you need in your day to hit your macros.
End result, if you had to eat 2000 calories with a 40/30/30 split, it would work out to:
800 calories from carbs (200g)
600 calories from protein (150g)
600 calories from fat (66.5g)
Now, there are several diets out there for you to consider. But before you even consider one, i want you to not think of this as a diet. You will want a lifestyle change to happen, something sustainable. If you are just going to eat well for a while then go back to eating like crap, you will not be able to maintain it, if not worse off then when you started. Think of it as choosing a way of eating that you can live with the rest of your life, that can adjust to what you can handle, and build from there. The 40/30/30 diet is very popular and you really do not have to give up most foods in it. However, a lot of people have realized that cutting out carbs leads to a much healthier and easier way of eating, of which there is the Ketogenic diet (keto for short), atkins, and south beach. Keto diets are extremely low carbs, based around a high fat diet, which usually leaves you feeling full for most of the day and much less hungry. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to diet choices, its going with something you can deal with and stick to, that is most important.
Many people will talk about IF, or Intermittent Fasting. IF is a method where you fast for 12-20 hours of the day (or even more if you wanted to, 23/1 IF is done by some), and that helps people keep eating in check. The most popular method of IF is the 16/8, where you basically skip breakfast, then have lunch as your first meal of the day. You can look up online and find more info about IF, it works out great for some, not for others. This is not a one size fits all. Also, eating multiple times a day to keep metabolism up is proven wrong and does not help you lose weight. More then likely, that will just make you more hungry throughout the day.
When it comes to alcohol, it is known that when consumed, it is the preferred fuel for the body. Meaning that it will store everything in the body unprocessed as fat, just to consume the alcohol quicker. For those cutting, i would suggest keeping it at a very low quantity. You can have it, it will just slow you down. Again, this is YMMV, some people have a better ability to process food then others.
Measuring your food is actually pretty simple. The tools you will need are measuring spoons for the different teaspoon and tablespoon sizes, measuring cups for the different cup sizes, and the most important, a food scale. These, along with your knowledge of how to read a label now, will get you on track on what you are actually eating everyday.
Logging software is extremely recommended, sites like MyFitnessPal can help you setup a log of what you're eating, document it and help set goals. You can find most foods already pre-defined on the site, and using the mobile app, you can scan a barcode of the food you're eating for even easier entry.
Obviously there are a TON of websites with healthy and delicious meals to go with, but i'll just post some of my favorites. More will be added from other members favorite sites as well.
http://dhftns.com/ The Protein Chef
http://comfybelly.com/ Comfy Belly
http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/ All Day I Dream About Food
http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/ I Breathe Im Hungry
http://www.ruled.me/ Ruled Me
Common questions:
Q - What about protein shakes?
A - Protein shakes are to supplement, in order to hit your macros. Its just protein in liquid form. It does nothing special. If you are having trouble hitting your protein macros for the day, a shake can help hit them. That said, the more of your food that comes from actual food, will likely keep you fuller as your brain associates eating physical food and chewing with actual eating, vs drinking a liquid.
Q - What about supplements like vitamins?
A - This is a YMMV area. Most of the products out there are snake oil and can be avoided. A high quality multi vitamin is good. Don't go overboard.
I will add more info and adjust info as the thread goes along. Keep in mind, this is just a guide to help get people an understanding on food and to make it more simple to understand. Also, for more info on muscle building and fitness in general, visit us at the Fitness OT here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=831799
Working out or not, nutrition is the majority of a lifestyle change. You cannot eat badly and work out, then expect results in fat loss. Knowing how much to eat, and what to eat is essential. When someone says they are eating clean, it means that they are eating whole foods. Usually if something comes out of a box or a wrapper, it is not a whole food. Whole foods include things like eggs, cheese, meat, green leafy veggies, nuts etc. Knowing what you're eating is extremely important.
There are many calculators out there to find out your maintenance levels of calories. One very popular one is http://www.1percentedge.com/ifcalc/, which has tons of options. Here you input your information like weight, height, age, gender & more, and it gives you detailed information using several different calculations to your liking. There are lots of different calculators online, you can try others if you find something more you like. Getting your maintenance level calories is essential to knowing how much to eat to achieve the goal you are working toward.
If your goal is to lose fat, then you need to eat at a deficit. If your goal is to gain muscle, then you need to eat over your maintenance level. To lose fat and gain muscle at the same time is known as a Re-composition and is difficult to do, and is generally preferred to be done by someone who is very advanced into their lifestyle.
When people want to lose fat, it is referred to as Cutting. Cutting fat, while retaining as much muscle as possible. That is the goal. Most traditional diet's will have you losing fat and muscle at the same time, some diet's are more muscle sparing then others. Cutting is taking your maintenance calories, running a deficit, and sticking to that everyday. Most people like to use a deficit of 500 calories per day, you can try for more but it makes things a lot more difficult. Adding exercise to this can help you lose fat quicker as well, but is not required.
When you want to gain muscle, it is referred to as Bulking. Bulking is the process of eating your maintenance calories + more calories that will hopefully be converted to muscle at the gym. No one actually wants to gain fat, just the muscle, and that is a delicate fine line of how much over your maintenance you need to eat to achieve this. It is best to start with 200-300 calories over your maintenance and go for a few weeks, then measure and see how you've progressed. If you are gaining fat along with the muscle. you should lower the calories. If you aren't gaining fat, then up the calories another 100 or so and adjust from there. It is trial and error, and usually you will end up on the side of gaining fat, but that is what cutting is for later.
Our food has 3 main properties we're concerned with, Fat, Protein and Carbs. Protein and carbs both have 4 calories per gram, while fat has 9 calories per gram. So if something has 5 grams of fat, it has 45 calories, something with 5 grams of protein has 20 calories. Add them all together to get your total calories from a meal. When it comes to carbs, there is a bit more to it in the form of fiber. Fiber cannot be used by the body, it goes in and comes out as is. Due to this, fiber is not to be counted against your total carbs for the day. If an item has 20g carbs per serving, and 5g of that is fiber, then the net amount of carbs in that item is only 15g of carbs. Net carbs are the ones that matter, fiber does not. Please keep in mind that in europe, the carbs are already subtracted on the label, it is in the US where you have to do the calculations yourself.
Another major thing to watch out for is how to read a label on food. I'm going to post an example label and break it down for you.
The main things to keep in mind here, are the total fat, protein and carbs. You can see that the item here has 31g of carbs, 3g of that being fiber, so that is 28g of carbs per servings net. You will also notice on top the serving size, this is absolutely essential to look at. This varies wildly per product. What you would think would be a larger portion, is calculated at a much smaller portion usually. And most importantly, look at the servings per container. Some things that logically should be 1 serving, is broken down into 2 servings per container like this label is. This is done to make the calorie content lower to people when they check the label. In this case, the entire container of whatever it is has 2 servings, so you would double all the calories (and fat, protein, carbs) in the item and that is how much the entire container would be to eat. In this case, eating the entire container would be 560 calories, with 26g of fat, 10g of protein and 62g of carbs (of which, 56g is actual amount of edible carbs).
When it comes to calculating how much of what to eat, this is referred to as Macros. Macros is just a term for the percentage of fat, protein and carbs you are going to try to eat for the day. A popular diet a lot of people do and have success with is the 40/30/30 split, where you get 40% of your calories from carbs, 30% from protein, 30% from fat. And when i mean %, i am referring to calories, not grams. So you want 40% of your total calories of the day to be from carbs on this diet. So to calculate, lets say you have a 2000 calorie diet for the day. On the 40/30/30 plan, you'd need:
800 calories from carbs
600 calories from protein
600 calories from fat
That works out to 2000 calories, with a 40/30/30 split. Now, to measure how many grams of each you need, you keep in mind how many calories per gram each one is. So for carbs in this instance, 800 calories of carbs, where each gram of carb is 4 calories, is 200g of carbs. So 200g of carbs is going to give you 800 calories. That is how you calculate how many grams of each type you need in your day to hit your macros.
End result, if you had to eat 2000 calories with a 40/30/30 split, it would work out to:
800 calories from carbs (200g)
600 calories from protein (150g)
600 calories from fat (66.5g)
Now, there are several diets out there for you to consider. But before you even consider one, i want you to not think of this as a diet. You will want a lifestyle change to happen, something sustainable. If you are just going to eat well for a while then go back to eating like crap, you will not be able to maintain it, if not worse off then when you started. Think of it as choosing a way of eating that you can live with the rest of your life, that can adjust to what you can handle, and build from there. The 40/30/30 diet is very popular and you really do not have to give up most foods in it. However, a lot of people have realized that cutting out carbs leads to a much healthier and easier way of eating, of which there is the Ketogenic diet (keto for short), atkins, and south beach. Keto diets are extremely low carbs, based around a high fat diet, which usually leaves you feeling full for most of the day and much less hungry. There is no right or wrong answer when it comes to diet choices, its going with something you can deal with and stick to, that is most important.
Many people will talk about IF, or Intermittent Fasting. IF is a method where you fast for 12-20 hours of the day (or even more if you wanted to, 23/1 IF is done by some), and that helps people keep eating in check. The most popular method of IF is the 16/8, where you basically skip breakfast, then have lunch as your first meal of the day. You can look up online and find more info about IF, it works out great for some, not for others. This is not a one size fits all. Also, eating multiple times a day to keep metabolism up is proven wrong and does not help you lose weight. More then likely, that will just make you more hungry throughout the day.
When it comes to alcohol, it is known that when consumed, it is the preferred fuel for the body. Meaning that it will store everything in the body unprocessed as fat, just to consume the alcohol quicker. For those cutting, i would suggest keeping it at a very low quantity. You can have it, it will just slow you down. Again, this is YMMV, some people have a better ability to process food then others.
Measuring your food is actually pretty simple. The tools you will need are measuring spoons for the different teaspoon and tablespoon sizes, measuring cups for the different cup sizes, and the most important, a food scale. These, along with your knowledge of how to read a label now, will get you on track on what you are actually eating everyday.
Logging software is extremely recommended, sites like MyFitnessPal can help you setup a log of what you're eating, document it and help set goals. You can find most foods already pre-defined on the site, and using the mobile app, you can scan a barcode of the food you're eating for even easier entry.
Obviously there are a TON of websites with healthy and delicious meals to go with, but i'll just post some of my favorites. More will be added from other members favorite sites as well.
http://dhftns.com/ The Protein Chef
http://comfybelly.com/ Comfy Belly
http://alldayidreamaboutfood.com/ All Day I Dream About Food
http://www.ibreatheimhungry.com/ I Breathe Im Hungry
http://www.ruled.me/ Ruled Me
Common questions:
Q - What about protein shakes?
A - Protein shakes are to supplement, in order to hit your macros. Its just protein in liquid form. It does nothing special. If you are having trouble hitting your protein macros for the day, a shake can help hit them. That said, the more of your food that comes from actual food, will likely keep you fuller as your brain associates eating physical food and chewing with actual eating, vs drinking a liquid.
Q - What about supplements like vitamins?
A - This is a YMMV area. Most of the products out there are snake oil and can be avoided. A high quality multi vitamin is good. Don't go overboard.
I will add more info and adjust info as the thread goes along. Keep in mind, this is just a guide to help get people an understanding on food and to make it more simple to understand. Also, for more info on muscle building and fitness in general, visit us at the Fitness OT here:
http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=831799
