Game Changers
If you’ve watched Game Changers recently or had a family friend be successful on the ketogenic diet, you might actually be thinking of making a switch towards that eating style tomorrow.
Maybe even today.
Tuesday is the new Monday after all.
One alluring aspect of these (and other) diets is that they seem incredibly easy.
The rules for a ketogenic dieter are simple: avoid all carbs.
The rules for a vegetarian or plant based eater: avoid meat products at all cost.
It’s very black and white.
You don’t have to think; “was I close?” “does this fit in?”
The ‘how’ is pretty simple but simple and easy are two very different things..
Additionally, your lifestyle, for 99%, suffers.
Significantly.
If you’re in the 1% who prefer not to eat meat or hate carbs, then ignore what I’m about to say.
You don’t have to be miserable to get results.
When it comes to success, people fall under the misguided thinking that the more you suffer, the better off you’ll be.
It’s simply not true.
You can have your cake and eat it too.
When you’re getting results and it feels like you’re not depriving yourself from life, that’s when we know that you’re following the perfect dieting strategy for YOU.
Here are a few actionable items that will help move you in the right direction without having to overhaul your whole life.
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Get yourself in a SLIGHT caloric deficit of 300-500 calories per day (psst. This is the actual reason diets work btw - keto, vegan, paleo, etc). You can do this a variety of ways:
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Multiply your lean mass by 14-16 to find your calorie needs for the day
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Use a calorie calculator like this one (https://www.precisionnutrition.com/nutrition-calculator)
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Track what you are eating now (average your weekly calories) and eat less than that (again, aim for a deficit of approx 300-500 cals per day - more is not better here)
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Let us help you -- it’s a science and an art and we’re basically Albert Picasso
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Sleep & Drink Water (aim for 8hrs & ½ bodyweight in ounces)
Sometimes this is all it takes to help move you in the right direction
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Prioritize protein (approx 30-40% of your daily cals from a variety of lean protein sources -- egg whites, chicken, turkey, lean beef, fish, greek yogurt, whey, etc)
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Track your intake (think of it as a nutrition literacy course, once you figure out what your food is ‘worth’ in terms of cals & macros you’ll be nutritionally independent for life -- it’s the ‘teach a person to fish’ idea personified). Here are a couple of apps that do the trick:
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My Fitness Pal
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Lose It
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Eat frequently (5 ‘meals’ per day tends to work very well for people -- breaky, snack, lunch, snack, dinner)
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Choose whole foods when possible (the stuff that goes bad, usually around the perimeter of the grocery store) & bump those fiber numbers up. This is more of a health / performance tip than weight loss. Calorie deficit = weight loss regardless of the type of food you eat.
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Eat food you actually enjoy (the idea is to make what you like work, not make eating work)
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Exercise (you don’t have to . . . but it would be a lot cooler if you did).
I assure you, if you follow these steps (the first step up there is a bit of trial and error) you will get results.
If all of it gave you a visceral reaction and seems like a huge undertaking we can help you.
Here’s the Cole’s notes of our approach and how it can help you get to where you want to be.
BARRACKS NUTRITION
Step 1: We’ll meet you where you are (figuratively speaking)
If you’re downing a case of Mountain Dew everyday, we aren’t going to get you to track how many ounces of chicken breast you’re eating a day. That doesn’t matter. We’re going to work on decreasing the amount of pop you’re guzzling down in a day.
If you haven’t touched a green vegetable in months, it doesn’t mean you have to do a complete 180 and go vegan tomorrow. That said, we might work on just implementing a few servings per day.
Chances are you are doing most things right & we can just make a few ‘tweaks’ to get you moving on the right path.
Step 2: Building on what you are doing now & slowly migrate towards behaviours that will get you to where you want to be.
We’ll guide you to take the steps that will help you reach your goal. Whether you are looking to lose fat, gain muscle, increase your performance or simply feel better, we’ll help you get there.
At this point, we’ll talk about how many calories you’re eating a day on a super “macro” level. It might mean starting a food diary and just monitoring what you’re eating everyday.
The reality is that it isn’t about how many protein, carbs and fats that you eat in and of themselves, it’s more about finding the appropriate amount that’s going to work for your day to day routine.
From there, step 3 might be looking more at meal timing in conjunction with your workouts and sleep strategies. If your sleep is a hot mess and you’re up all of the middle of the night, we can get success without even changing your exercise routine or adjusting a single macro.
For others, we’ll look at how we can help you best recover from training to go again hard the next day.
Step four gets more into the weeds.
Once you’ve mastered the basics, we can dive deeper into your macronutrients (& micros) and maybe even look into supplements (It’s important to note that supplements, supplement). Like it or not, there’s no magic pill/bullet/plan. It’s actually a lot like balancing your cheque book. Get Rich Quick schemes don’t work either.
The question of “what is the best diet,” is one that will forever be without an answer. The proper question to ask instead is more specific, more fruitful.
“What’s the best diet for me and my goals?”
That’s an answer keto and Game Changers can’t deliver.
We can.