8 mistakes men make when it comes to nutrition and dieting
Do you avoid these mistakes and achieve a defined body? Are you making one or more of these mistakes? Check the list.
1 - Using diets designed for physically inactive women
Most popular diet and weight loss books are designed with what marketers refer to as the target audience in mind. This is the type of person the product is designed for. Trendy diet books and weight loss plans advertised on television target one demographic: physically inactive women.
Are you a middle-class housewife with 2.3 children in your thirties or forties who thinks that exercising means going for a walk with your girlfriends? No? Then why are you dieting like a housewife from the yogurt commercials? Diets for average people are designed to achieve the goals of an average person: a low weight on the scales. Even men succumb to the obsession with body weight, many of them not even realizing that there is such a thing as body composition or catabolism.
"Hey, I lost 10 pounds!" Yes, you lost 5 pounds of fat, 3 pounds of muscle and 2 pounds of water. Congratulations, you're thinner and weaker, you're producing less testosterone and your metabolism has slowed down a bit more. You fit in with the opposite sex without having to inject estrogen or cut off your penis. Great weight loss success, lady. Now go watch a telenovela.
Unless you're extremely obese and just trying not to die during the next year, your diet goals probably exceed the capacity of a housewife's diet capabilities. You want less fat, but you also want more muscle, more strength and better athletic ability. None of this can be provided by your mother's diet plan or the latest Dr. Oz book.
The solution
If you need to follow a diet plan to get back on track, then you need to make sure it's designed with your target audience in mind: a man who works out and who cares more about looking and performing better than dubious numbers on the scale. Make sure this diet plan takes into account that you want to build muscle and be strong.
Note: Such a plan is unlikely to be advertised by a D-list celebrity, nor does it have a name like "Kale Detox: Tighten Your Tummy in Two Days!" You'll find plenty of better options on this site and the relevant bodybuilding sites on the internet.
2 - Overdoing it with the "you need to eat to get bulky and muscular"
Most men love to eat and eat a lot. So it's easy to overdo it with the calorie surplus when the focus is on building muscle. There's a difference between eating enough to provide the body with enough energy for training, recovery and muscle hypertrophy and eating so much that you look more like a fat guy with a serviceable trapezius than a muscular exerciser.
Massier arms don't count if 7 centimeters of your girth is slobbery fat. And if your abdominal girth is growing, then it's pretty safe to say that you're significantly exceeding the calorie plus you need to optimally fuel hypertrophy with energy and building materials. You are simply building up stubborn fat deposits and perhaps even stretching the skin permanently, without building more muscle mass than with fewer calories.
The worst case scenario is that you develop anabolic resistance: the impaired ability to build muscle caused by excessive calorie intake over time. It starts with insulin resistance, leads to leptin resistance, and when this problem is fully developed, it will manifest itself in excessive fat gain, loss of pump during training, stagnant strength gains, inflammation, and even low libido. Also, shedding excessive amounts of fat after each bulking phase becomes harder and harder and soon you'll have that pregnant potbelly look that will take years off your life.
The solution
About 100 kcal above maintenance calories is all you really need to provide the energy required for muscle gains. This is about building muscle, not building an impressive potbelly. Use a targeted diet around training to provide that extra energy, not chocolate bars or fast food. The quality of the food matters. Anyone who says otherwise is selling books and fantasies.
3 - Eating like a professional bodybuilder
Men fall into the trap of making mistake number two, copying the diet of your favorite bodybuilder or your favorite muscle-bound movie star. The problem? Well, most men don't have the genetics of a pro bodybuilder, they don't perform the marathon training sessions of a pro, and they don't use the performance enhancing substances that the pros use. Heck, even guys who use steroids probably don't use even a tenth of what the pros use. All of these points allow for leeway in diet. The pros can get away with insane diet plans because of steroids (at least for a couple years).
You can't. If you follow the muscle building diet plans of these people, then you will get fat and ruin your health. And if you follow the diet plans of the professionals, you will lose muscle...and ruin your health. And sadly, many of these competitive bodybuilders and gurus make a living selling these dysfunctional diet plans to google-addicted groopies. And those personalized diet plans they sell? They usually have three or four versions of the same plan with slight variations and simply tell you that the plan you receive in the mail is customized for you. In reality, such plans are far from personalized.
The solution
Look critically at nutrition advice from professionals. You may be able to pick up a few tips from these guys - many of them are in fact quite intelligent - but always remember what their plans are: THEIR PLANS. Not yours. Your body is a laboratory and you need to run your own experiments to find out what works for you. This takes some brain power and some work. Don't like that idea? Then keep paying someone for the privilege of being their nutritional bitch.
4 - "Define" when there's nothing to show under the flab
Many men today suffer from the (delusional) notion that if they lose 5 or 10 kilos, they will uncover a shapely body that deserves to be on the cover of a fitness magazine. What they realize afterwards is that there wasn't really anything under that layer of flab worth showing off.
It's understandable. You're working out with weights, but you still look kind of soft and flabby. And visible abs might increase your chances of seeing a woman naked who isn't on a website. So you continue with your fat loss diet. The result? Not really a better physical appearance, but a weakened metabolism and the inability to eat three carbohydrate sources at once without building fat.
First of all, let's remember that the lean participants in these Mens Physique competitions usually weigh around 90 kilos in the upper ranks - defined. And most of them are bigger than their brethren in the bodybuilding category. So if you weigh a soft 78 kilos, you won't really be happy with a leaner 68 kilos. Muscle matters - not just how low your body fat percentage is. Make sure you have some muscle before you embark on a definition plan.
The solution
Many people recommend that these guys build mass before they diet down. And sure, they need to build muscle. But skinny yet flabby guys often have the same underlying problems as fat guys - a dysfunctional nutrient uptake mechanism and poor nutrient partitioning abilities. Basically, when these guys eat to build muscle, they mainly build fat. And when they diet to lose that fat, they also lose muscle mass. The solution in this case is to use neither a targeted mass building diet nor a fat loss diet. Instead, the underlying problems need to be addressed.
Yes, cut out the obvious junk foods that are problematic for everyone, but don't diet. Instead, repair those metabolically active but broken fat cells with cyanidin 3-glucoside to selectively increase insulin sensitivity in the muscles. In short, this means that your body will release and burn fat more easily while maximizing nutrient uptake into the muscles. Basically, food will be used instead of stored and you can now build muscle and lose fat without extreme dieting.
5 - Too much beer
T-Nation editor Dani Shugart has worked as a nutritionist for some time. 90 percent of her male clients lost fat by reducing or eliminating their alcohol intake. And these weren't real drinkers, just ordinary men who had enjoyed a few beers after work and in front of the TV.
Apart from the calories, alcohol itself is not so much a 'fat-storer' as a fat-burning suppressor. And if your goal is to lose fat, then it's not wise to take yourself out of fat-burning mode for several hours. And high alcohol consumption activates several mechanisms that will ruin your protein synthesis and recovery.
A beer after work or on the weekend won't ruin your body development right away, of course, but can you stop at this point? And if your main goal is fat loss, can you accept that this will stall your progress? If you are trying not to exceed a certain amount of calories per day, will you allow yourself 2 beers totaling 300 kcal or save those calories for foods or supplements that will bring you closer to your goal? Maybe your body development goals aren't that important to you.
Sure, you can get away with it - at least for a while and at least when you're younger. But most men can't. And many don't realize this until they're over 40 and have to crawl out of a deep hole.
The solution
Take a serious look at your drinking habits. Give up the beer and ignore whatever your lame-ass friends will think. Has it gone too far? Is it hindering your progress? If you absolutely need a post-work stress reliever and live in a state where it's legal, then just 2.5mg of THC has all the relaxing benefits and virtually none of the downsides of alcohol. And you can even get this in the form of a 2 kcal mint, so your lungs will be as healthy as your waistline.
6 - Not learning how to cook
Mom's gone and now grown men can no longer feed themselves properly. Sad. Not learning how to cook is like not learning how to wipe your butt. Are you unable to prepare your own meals that fit your goals? Are you more "alpha" because you have to rely on others to feed you? Are you smarter because you don't know how to do something that is necessary every day of the year, a few times a day?
These gaps in their skills cause many men to depend on others to make the nutritional choices for them - whether that's a partner who doesn't care about your silly goals or some fast food franchise or food manufacturer who would put cocaine in your frozen pizza if it meant you'd buy more of it. Cooking your own food is a very basic form of self-reliance. If you can't feed yourself, then not only are you willfully ignorant, but you're putting your body development goals in the hands of others - and those people don't really care about your goals.
The solution
Become a man and put on an apron. Okay, you can skip the apron. But start working on the basic skills and take back control. The internet is here to help you.
7 - Become complacent
Poor women. There is more social pressure on them not to be fat. They are pressured to look good and looking good usually means not being obese. And that's not a bad thing. "Oh no, I need to stay in better shape because society demands more of me!" Boo hoo. You know they like to look good and living longer is another plus. Sometimes outside pressure encourages us to make better choices.
Men often don't experience this pressure to the same extent. Big bellies and man boobs are part of the uniform of the over 35s in North America. It's expected and it's pitiful. Women are often surrounded by other women who are constantly concerned about their bodies or their diets in general. This is typically not the case for men. Their friends are fat. They eat a lot of junk. And their social activities partly revolve around drinking and eating.
I once had a fat client who told me that it was impossible for him to improve his diet because he watched sports with his friends and he had to eat with them. Yes, he was really grown up and still had both testicles.
The solution
Get a divorce. No, not really, but imagine that you are getting divorced. Free yourself from that "married guy", dad-bod complacency. That's right, pretend you're back on the market after all these years and that, if you're lucky, new eyes will see you naked. Maybe younger, more athletic eyes. And she expects you to go mountaineering with her. Are you still happy with the body your dietary choices have given you? Probably not. You may adjust your workouts, but you'll definitely feel compelled to revamp your diet too.
8 - Thinking you can still eat like a teenager
High school is over. You're no longer 17, you're no longer playing multiple sports, and you're no longer working out several hours a day almost every day of the week. You're just that kid in your mind. Most men still catch touchdown passes and occasionally act like teenagers, even if their bodies no longer fit that mental image of themselves.
Even if you work out regularly, your time is probably limited and you have other responsibilities. You can no longer get away with eating for two football training sessions a day, which has been replaced by a 45 minute training session with weights and stress at work. Your diet needs to be adapted to your current needs and activity level.
The solution
It's time to eat like an adult. You start again. Forget the memories of what used to work and what you used to be able to eat. Stand in front of the mirror and ask yourself what THIS body needs. Probably something different than what your teenage body got away with.
Fat loss starts in your mind. Clean it up with some honest evaluation and you'll be able to make a good diet plan work.
Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/8-mistakes-men-make-with-diets
By Chris Shugart | 05/06/16
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