What is the best diet plan? Is there one that is superior to others? The answer is both complicated and simple. Some diets tell you to eat tons of bacon. Others state it is about extreme calorie deficit. A successful diet is one that you will stick with over a longer duration. The diet that you can sustain is the life that you will be able to sustain. It is vital to know both the number of calories (energy) you consume as well as the calories (energy) you expend. Nutrition accounts for 75-80% of your overall health. You have heard it stated that you can not out exercise a poor diet. You can, however, adjust many aspects of a healthy lifestyle. It is imperative that you track your Basal Metabolic Rate, Non-Exercise Activities, Thermogenic Effect of Food, as well as move calories. From a scientific standpoint, if you expend more calories then you consume, you will lose weight. And so what diet is the perfect diet? The perfect diet is the one that you stick to. At the end of the day, as long as you have a calorie deficit and you're consistent, you're going to lose weight.
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Full Transcript:
So, there are so many fad diets out there that like to tell us that we can eat as much as we want, that we're going to lose weight no matter what we do, that we can eat all the ice cream and all the treats too and I'm going to tell you, you can do some of that as you've seen me post about, but there's more to it than that. I have done hours and hours and hours of research on this because this is a passion for me.
Everything that I'm reading says that diet is about 75 to 80% of your overall, or maybe I should say nutrition. Nutrition equals about 75 to 80% of a weight loss plan. So you can do all the exercise, but if you don't eat right at home, then you're not going to lose the weight, which is why this is something that's really interesting to me.
I've had a lot of slow times in losing weight, like it doesn't come off as fast as I want and I want to understand that. So I've done all this research and I want to share it with you. So, here's how it goes.
We're going to talk about calories for a second and about energy. So, if you'll look at my little whiteboard here, there is energy in, like I talked about, and the only way that you can get energy in is through your calories or your food, the things that you consume, right? That's it. That's all there is to it. Energy in.
Then on the energy out, there's a few more things that are involved. The first one would be your resting metabolic rate. So, that would be the basic, basic calories that it takes to run your body. I'm talking all your organs and all of those things that your body does there on the inside just to run. So, that would be your BMR and we'll talk more about that in a second.
The next one would be the term they use is NEAT and it stands for non-exercise activities. So your fidgeting, light walking, any time that you're moving, that would be considered your NEAT activity.
The next one would be just regular activity. Anything that's exercise based, so going to the gym or going for a brisk walk outside or anything that gets your heart rate up and moving, that would be your exercise activity.
And then the last one is the thermic effect of your food. So, all of those together equal your energy out. So in order to lose weight, it comes down to one thing, and we hate to think about it, but it really is about calories in and calories out. There's no simple solution for that. And every single fad diet, when it comes right down to it, does this: calories in and calories out.
If you do a keto diet and you drop your carbs, you tend to eat less food altogether. So there's less calories in. Weight Watchers is calories in, calories out. Any diet that you can think of, the end result is going to be what you consume and how the energy leaves. Right?
So calories in, we can figure out pretty well. We're going to go over, I'm going to teach you a little bit about calories out and what you can do to help affect that. But think of it like a teeter totter. Like, you know how that is or a balance or a weight scale, right? If one goes down, the other goes up and you can just affect one of these, calories or your energy in or your energy out and your balance is going to tip. But the ideal situation is to affect both of these.
So your metabolic rate here is about 60% of the total energy out from your body. And there's not a whole lot that you can do to change that, but we'll just put that as our number here. And then you have your non-exercise and your exercise, these can be affected. These are things that you can change. And then your thermic effect of your food is about 10%.
So those two together, so the last 30% comes from your non-exercise and your exercise activity. Those are the things that we control for our balance, right? Increasing for energy out.
So what can we do? I mean, we know that we can exercise more. We know that we can move more. So when Mark and I tell you to get up and move every hour that you're at work? That's one way that you can do that. Less sitting at home, more things that just cause you to be moving. So that's how you can affect your non-exercise activity. With your exercise activity, more time at the gym. So those things things can be affected. And we talk a lot about exercise and all that. So you know what to do with that.
What about your thermic effect? I want to talk a little bit about this because it's fascinating. So with that 10%, we talk a lot about macros. What to eat, right? And I want to go over just a little bit of what a macro is. Macros are the basic nutrients that your body needs to run. So your proteins, your fats, and your carbohydrates. So there's something interesting in your thermic effect. Protein has the greatest amount of metabolic energy that's required to process it. So when you look at the three macros that you're taking in, if you want to get the best thermic effect, if you want this number to be a full 10%? You're going to want to eat more protein. Then ... I'll tell you about that later. But you want to eat more protein than you think you would eat. Each food, each protein, carbohydrates and fats. Each macro has its own calorie count, right? So, they say that you want to eat somewhere between 1.8 and 2.4 grams of protein per kilogram.
And that's something, when we calculate your macros for you, when we help you with that, we can help you with more specific numbers. But if you're not eating between that 1.8 and 2.4, your body is not getting enough of the protein that it needs to regenerate your muscles, but not only that, you're losing out on part of that 10% of the thermic effect that it has with energy out to help the body. Right?
So another interesting thing though, so fat is only two to three percent of that and carbohydrates is 3%. But fiber is a full 30%, just like protein. So when people tell you to eat between 25 and 35 grams of fiber a day, it's to your benefit because fiber and protein are the two things that help will help you get a full 10% of your TEF, and thus give you more energy out and help you with losing weight.
So, there's an interesting theme in the fad diet world and that is that, like I said, a lot of people like to tell you that you don't need to be in a deficit to lose. But the reality is that all the science tells you, and you know Mark and I are really big into science. All of the science tells you that if you do not have a deficit, you're not losing.
So there's a lot of people will say, "Well, I've eaten the amount of calories that I'm told and I'm not losing weight." Well, that's because you're not in a deficit. And so the thing that's important to remember is that as you look at all of the diet programs out there, and there's about a gazillion ways to calculate your macros and a gazillion ways to calculate your calories and that kind of thing.
But at the end of the day, each and every single one of our bodies are different. And so even though there are general guidelines for calculating your macros, this is a lot of trial and error. I mean, we can give you estimates and then you work on that for a few weeks and you see what your body does and then we adjust from there. But what works as a calorie deficit for one person that's 5'1" and 165 is not going to work for a calorie deficit for the next person that's 5'1" and 165.
So, it's really just important and we want to stress to you that this process that we go through is about learning to listen to our bodies and learning to know what's best for our bodies. And so what diet is the perfect diet? The perfect diet is the one that you stick to. At the end of the day, as long as you have a calorie deficit and you're consistent, you're going to lose weight. And so, Mark and I can help you with what to do to find your own macros that fit within these guidelines and we can help you with what to do to increase your exercise and ideas for increasing your non-exercise activity, but be patient with yourself and realize that this is a long term game, and that it requires a lot of patience.
So anyway, hopefully this helps you. Hopefully, you've learned something fascinating with it. If you have any questions, make sure you comment below and always ask us questions so that we can help you with understanding your body and understanding this whole process. And we will talk to you again really soon.
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