How a flexible diet is changing the world

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

In a guest article for Lifehacker, Artem Brazgovskiy, a certified fitness trainer from the Czech Federation of Fitness and Bodybuilding, talks about the benefits of a flexible diet, or IIFYM. With this approach to nutrition, you can lose weight without excluding sweets, starchy foods and alcohol from your diet.

Everyone knows that losing weight is hard. Essential components of success: refusal from alcohol, sweet, fatty, salty, starchy foods. Trainings 4-5 times a week. If you want to lose weight, do cardio.

If you add all this, it turns out that the fitness body is for people with iron patience, endurance and self-control.

I believe that this is only one side of the coin, and I will tell you about a different approach. It turns out you can eat sweets, drink beer, skip cardio, and look like a fitness model. The article contains both links to research and photos of real people from Instagram who use the flexible diet principle.

What is a flexible diet?

In English, this approach is hidden behind the acronym IIFYM - If It Fits Your Macros. The user's task is not to choose foods based on the “correct nutrition - unhealthy nutrition” approach, but to gain a certain amount of calories, proteins, fats and carbohydrates per day.

At first, it seems that the approach implies the ability to eat one fast food and lose weight, but this is not the case. With a little practice, you realize that two McDonald's hamburgers will exceed your fat allowance for that day, and it will be very difficult to balance the balance.

All this can be circumvented, but the article is about something else.

A flexible diet allows you to ditch the "eating right" approach, not thinking in terms of healthy and unhealthy food, but eating the way you like it and achieving your goals. With a flexible diet, you can lose weight, gain muscle mass, or maintain body weight.

The biggest disadvantage is the need for control. Without calorie control and BJU ratio, the approach does not work.

Flexible diet mechanism

The approach is based on energy balance. You get more macronutrients than you need (calorie surplus) - you gain mass. You are getting fewer macronutrients than you need - you are losing mass.

Costs are composed of two indicators: basal metabolism and daily activity. Basal metabolism is the amount of energy that you spend on the work of internal organs and heat exchange. These are digestion, breathing, the work of the heart and brain. This is the amount of energy you will expend if you are tied up and put to bed for 24 hours.

Daytime activity is different for everyone. Some are in the office, others are cutting trees in red shirts. Therefore, we all spend a different amount of energy. But this is a measurable amount that you can control.

Calorie and macronutrient control - a basic principle

IIFYM allows you to live, eat and lose weight. As soon as we start thinking, “Yeah, that's 150 kcal,” instead of, “This is the wrong diet,” life becomes easier. Here are some well-known "truths" and their analysis.

1. Diet - avoiding alcohol … Alcohol interferes with weight loss. Or a press, or a beer. Sound familiar? Have you ever wondered why this is so? Does alcohol have special properties that lead to fat gain? No. The reason is simple: calorie surplus. A glass of dark Bernard beer is 250 kcal. Few? Add a pack of nachos for another 300 calories. 550 total. The average male office worker spends 2,000 kcal per day. So 550 kcal is about 25% of the diet. But the one who drinks beer in the evening does not refuse breakfast, lunch and dinner. Bam! Calorie surplus - beer belly. Changing the approach. We count calories from beer and nachos, making sure that there is no daily calorie surplus. The result is that beer has no effect on the growth of subcutaneous fat.
2. Diet is hard … It is very difficult because you are constantly hungry. Have you already given up the idea that food should be delicious? Do not rush. You don't have to eat chicken breast (grilled only!) And broccoli to lose weight. A regular diet ("proper nutrition") forces you to give up fatty and sugary foods for one reason. This is a calorie surplus. Fat is a key flavor component. And besides, it is very high in calories: 1 gram of fat contains 9 kcal. Carbohydrates, including regular sugar, make up at least 30% of the average person's diet. As soon as you remove fat and carbohydrates (flour and sweet), you automatically reduce the calorie content of your diet by 30-50%. This is enough for weight loss. But if you are already counting calories, then why do all the same? Eat what you like.
3. Regular diet interferes with socializing with friends … "Katya, let's go to the cafe tomorrow!" - "I can't, I'm on a diet." "Vovan, let's go to the bar with the guys!" - "I can't, I'm getting ready for the beach." But if you count calories and take into account what you ate outside the house (at least approximately), then you become a good friend again.

Is it too good to be true?

The way it is. A flexible diet doesn't require your soul, but it does take work. Count calories. Examine how much protein, fat and carbohydrates you need. Find your frame of calorie surplus and deficit. Get rid of psychological limitations: You will not believe how many people count calories and are afraid to eat dairy products while losing weight.

It's a job, but it pays off. Here are some photos for example.

Alberto Nuñez, a well-known personality in narrow circles.

Took 15 year but I'm finally getting better at gaining than dieting. Come May when its time to potentially prep I'm going to have a hard time pulling that trigger. # 3dmusclejourney # team3dmj # 3dmj #dedication #desire #discipline

A post shared by Alberto Nuñez (@ nunez3dmj) on Jan 31, 2016 at 11:51 am PST

Loves and knows how to eat cookies.

Sammie wars. #creamnation

A post shared by Alberto Nuñez (@ nunez3dmj) on Jan 26, 2016 at 3:13 pm PST

Nick Cheadle, left, is eating some kind of fast food. Read the description: after that there was also a donut. Horror!

TAG YOUR SQUAD? #TeamON - #ThrowbackThursday? teriyaki chicken bowls in Vegas with @shaunstafford & @joepitt_ during the Olympia Expo last year. Not the most adventurous meal considering the options in the area & the brutal workout we put ourselves through but they went down a treat & meant there was still plenty of room for a donut. - There's no reason to deprive yourself or get overly anxious when eating out - so long as you're doing your best to account for what you're eating & fit it into your daily macros / requirements you should feel free to eat what you like so long as you're making appropriate decisions throughout the rest of the day. - On a different day we might have taken down a slice of pizza & a banana sundae, but a huge Team ON breakfast meant it was a little hard to fit on this occasion. Track your macros, eat with your health in mind & enjoy the food you eat ✌️ - Don't forget to check out the chest & back workout we uploaded. Search 'Nick Cheadle Fitness' on YouTube to find it. - Click the link in my bio for more information on how to fit your favorite foods & meals into your plan without jeopardizing your gains? @nickcheadlefitness - #TeamNCF @optimumnutrition @ optimumnutrition.au

A post shared by Nick Cheadle (@nickcheadlefitness) on Jan 27, 2016 at 5:05 pm PST

There are a lot of such examples.

Key features and benefits of a flexible diet

1. Get as many calories as you need for your goals. There are a lot of formulas for calculating, also, if the article turns out to be interesting for the readers of Lifehacker, I will make another one with my practical recommendations.
2. Keeping track of the amount of protein in your diet is the most important parameter. For an ordinary person, 1.2 g per 1 kg of weight is enough, with training - 1.5 g per 1 kg of weight, with increased drying - up to 2 g.
3. You can change the amount of fat and carbohydrates in your diet. High-fat diets work just as well as low-fat diets. There are many links to research on the topic here. Despite the obvious "a small amount of carbohydrates leads to faster weight loss", I would not greatly reduce their amount. A marked decrease in carbohydrate intake always leads to a decrease in athletic performance.
4. A flexible diet that doesn’t cut a variety of foods may be more effective for weight loss than a diet with limited food choices. There is an interesting study about this in the International Journal of Eating Disorders.
5. You can start from the website www.iifym.com, where there is a calculator for calculating calories and BJU ratio.

And what to do if …

A flexible diet and calorie-counting approach is fraught with its drawbacks. What if you overeat? What if you need to eat at a corporate party? What if macronutrients don't converge today? Is it okay to eat at night?

Once you start putting the approach into practice, questions will arise.

These questions are too many for one article, so we will do this: if you are interested, write in the comments. And I will write another article.