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by Tony Gjokaj February 25, 2020 5 min read
With fitness, there’s plenty of non-absolutes. Simply put, there’s no direct or secret way of getting in the best shape of your life. It’s all consistent effort.
Since I started working out, I’ve seen a constant cycle of dieting styles: Keto, Intermittent Fasting, Low Fat diets, and more. Every couple of years, the trends repeat cyclicly.
We can choose any of these diets. A lot of them sound appealing, HOWEVER: What if you can’t stick with the newest diet in the long term?
Truth is, there's no one way to diet. We all require different nutrient intakes based on our genetics, training style, personal preferences, culture, and more.
With that, I wanted to propose a systematic solution to your own dietary preferences: Flexible Dieting.
In this post, we are going to explore Flexible Dieting.
Let's dive in!
Flexible Dieting is a system that revolves around a few of the following principles:
With these six principles, you can develop simple dieting guidelines that you can follow to craft a powerful diet around your lifestyle.
Let's explore these six principles below.
While a calorie is a simple measurement of energy, there are many methods you can utilize to help you eat properly. You can track calories to help gain or lose weight, track using a food journal, or you can start by developing portion control through something like the "PFFT" Method.
We will discuss these methods in this section.
Use the one that seems easy to get into and build a habit around!
If you’re just getting started with tracking, I would encourage you to start by JUST keeping a “Food Diary” or Journal. A simple 1% change per day is manageable. If you go all-in immediately, you most likely won’t be able to build a solid habit in nutrition.
Don’t disregard this one; this simple step will change your lifestyle drastically! This small sort of incremental change will keep you motivated to push drive you in the right direction.
Just like tracking your monthly expenses, I believe it’s important to track what you eat. This is because you build AWARENESS when it comes to what you eat. When it comes to meal tracking, you can write it down, or download a meal tracking app like MyFitnessPal.
MyFitnessPal will help you track foods by searching in their database for the food you eat. I do this to track my food when I eat out at restaurants too: even if the calories aren’t exact, I have the food tracked and I’ll be more inclined to share my dessert.
Other great apps would include:
There are plenty of apps you can use to track food. If this is not necessarily something you prefer, we can always use the portion control method in the next section.
If you don’t want to track your foods, portion them. This is where the Palm-Fist-Fist-Thumb strategy comes in! From Precision Nutrition‘s method on portion control, you can use this to size our portions PER MEAL. Here’s how to do it:
As you can see here, this is a less complicated method of “food tracking”. By default, this is should put you in a good spot for “maintenance calories” if you do some form of activity.
If you find that after a COUPLE OF WEEKS you are struggling to drop weight, take out 1/2 portion of carbohydrates out in one meal (or take a fruit out) and assess. I guarantee you will notice results over time.
Once you get used to food tracking AND you want to take your calorie tracking further, you can now get a MORE accurate calculation of your calories to “move the scale in the direction you want it”.
The following steps are what I use in getting a more accurate estimation of maintenance calories before I dig into either a “gaining weight” phase or fat loss phase.
This method was created by Dr. Eric Helms (he knows his sh**), and it’s fairly solid:
First Step: Get your “Base Calories”. Take your body weight and multiply it by 10. This will give you a base calorie intake. The base calorie intake is what you technically burn through daily without activity.
Second Step: Find the “Activity Multiplier”. The activity multiplier is a generic estimation; you might need to adjust depending on how much energy you expend. This is determined by the following:
Third Step: Take your base calories and multiply them by your multiplier to get your “Maintenance Calories”. This will determine the calories you can POSSIBLY eat to maintain your current physique.
Fourth Step: Determine your phase (whether fat loss or gaining), then add/subtract from “maintenance calories”.
And there you have it!
So there it is, methods and a brief intro to flexible nutrition. There is so much to cover with nutrition that we cannot cover in just one blog post. This is why we encourage discussion!
Any questions, comments, or insights? Throw them below! Let's discuss!
Until next time, legion!
Tony is the Owner of Reforged. He is a PN1 Certified Nutrition Coach and has been in the fitness space for over a decade. His goal is to help millions exercise their way out of depression and anxiety.
by Tony Gjokaj November 16, 2023 2 min read
I have been reading quite a few articles surrounding depression and its connection to lifestyle habits.
In recent years, scientists have started to discover that depression is not just a "chemical imbalance".
It's much more complex than that, and a lot of evidence is pointing towards positive habits helping to alleviate or reduce the risk of depression.
by Tony Gjokaj November 14, 2023 3 min read
Insomnia is a common sleep disorder that affects millions of people worldwide.
It is characterized by difficulty falling asleep, staying asleep, or both, despite the opportunity for adequate sleep.
This can lead to decreased energy levels, mood disturbances, decreased performance at work or school, and can negatively impact overall health and quality of life.
If you're tossing and turning at night, you're not alone.
In this post, we are going to go over the 5 natural ways to ease insomnia.
Let's dive in!
by Tony Gjokaj September 18, 2023 3 min read
Magnesium is an essential mineral that plays a vital role in many bodily functions, including muscle and nerve function, blood sugar regulation, and bone health.
Despite its importance, many people do not get enough magnesium from their diets alone.
This is where supplements like magnesium glycinate can be helpful.
Magnesium glycinate is a highly bioavailable form of magnesium that is easily absorbed by the body and has several potential health benefits.
In this post, we'll explore the benefits of magnesium glycinate and why it may be a valuable addition to your overall health and wellness plan.
Let's dive in!