The guide to natural training nutrition

In this four-part series of articles, I will cover everything a natural trainer should know about building muscle without using prohibited performance-enhancing substances. Part 3 deals with the topic of nutrition.

Do you have a pen and paper to hand? If not, then save the following to your iPhone.

I'm going to give you a simple 3 step system that will turn you into a world renowned nutrition expert seemingly overnight.

• Step 1: Calculate your total daily calorie needs
• Step 2: Determine your macronutrients
• Protein: 2 to 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight
• Fat: 1 gram per kilo of body weight
• Carbohydrates: Plan the rest of your calorie needs after you have met your minimum protein requirements and top up with carbohydrates.
• Step 3: Plan your diet
• Create specific meals that you like to eat and that fit your macronutrient and calorie goals.
• Determine the specific amounts of food you need for your weekly meals.
• Shop, cook, eat, and repeat.

A little math, a little planning and an account on MyFitnessPal and boom...you're an Instagram sensation marketing your "wealth of knowledge" with generic infographics.

The whole thing isn't really complicated. Everyone talks about IIFYM, calorie calculators and keto. I'm bored with the basics. Let's move on to something more practical that goes a little deeper.

In the words of my mentor Dr. Ben House, "Some people just want the Kool-Aid, some people want the recipe for the Kool-Aid."

I'm going to give you both here.

1. food quality and quantity are usually inversely proportional to each other.

IIFYM may sound cool, but what do you do if someone doesn't want to count calories for the rest of their life? Do you really still want to weigh all your food when you're 40 years old and married with 2 kids and a dog?

Those who choose to ignore this principle often overlook additional nutritional factors such as food allergies/intolerances, short-term and long-term satiety, neurological reward (aka dopamine response), palatability (taste, smell, texture, etc.), and metabolic (in)flexibility.

If the diet includes a selection of very tasty, calorie dense, poorly satiating foods, then it is likely that calorie counting is necessary to maintain a caloric deficit (or caloric balance if weight maintenance is the goal) or at least reasonable portion control.

IIFYM does not teach you to pay attention to your individual responses to food (satiety, digestion, energy, focus, mental acuity, etc.), but promotes the idea that only numbers matter for progress.

While this may be true, it begs the question, are we really making progress if the numbers are moving in the right direction but we hate the process? Or are we merely promoting a poor lifestyle that is only marginally sustainable until the individual can no longer accept that the pros outweigh the cons (bring on the pizza and donuts once someone has lost 5 kilos)?

2. prepare most of your meals with whole foods (aka eat like an adult)

I love how these meal prep services market their systems as some sort of super-secret nutritional hierarchy. Who wants to know the secret? Let people eat real, whole foods in realistic amounts while being conscious about consuming that food. You know what that sounds like to me? Rational, sound principles.

Check out most of these societies on Instagram - you'll find tons of overly post-processed photos showing meat, vegetables, and starchy foods (rice, potatoes, pasta, fruit, etc.). Guess what? These things all work because they take into account the factors we mentioned above (satiety, micronutrients, calorie density, palatability, reward, etc.)

"Let food be my medicine and medicine be my food." - Hippocrates

You may have just wolfed down a packet of chocolate cereal and drunk a bottle of vitamin water, but that doesn't mean you've met your daily micronutrient requirements. Taking responsibility for your health means being accountable for what you consume.

Take an hour or two each week to cook your food and eat like an adult. Meal prepping in advance may seem difficult if you don't have a proven system, but with a little searching you'll find many promising approaches online.

3. body composition is not an accurate indicator of health

Did you read about the nutritional sciences professor who lost 27 pounds by eating only Twinkies? What about the organic teacher who lost more than 60 pounds eating only McDonald's food?

Obviously, you can dance at two weddings at once if you believe in the IIFYM ideology. However, you have to be very careful when assuming that all macronutrients are equal. Trans fats, for example, are usually simply added to the total fat content on food labels, but their metabolic impact is quite different from that of polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats (1, 2).

Be careful about oversimplifying nutrition to mere data, equations and algorithms. Nutritional biochemistry is amazingly complex and human physiology is often unpredictable.

If someone follows a diet that only covers macronutrient requirements but has never had blood tests done, then it is very difficult to make objective statements about their current state of health - regardless of whether they have visible abs or not.

Priorities: principles or pre-workout supps?

Nutrition is cool, etc., but most people care more about supplements and body composition than micronutrients and health. Everyone wants to get high on 3 scoops of a pre-workout and record motivational videos for Instagram.

Before you even consider using supplements, make sure you have these 11 fundamentals in place (ideally this is non-negotiable):

• You should have an adequate overview of your total daily calorie consumption and protein intake.
• You should eat a wide variety of whole foods.
• You should consume usable amounts of protein in the range of at least 20 to 35 grams per meal.
• Get at least 7.5 to 8 hours (or more) of sleep per night.
• You should eat lean red meat two to three times a week
• Consume foods rich in potassium and add salt to your meals (if you eat bland foods) to ensure an adequate electrolyte balance.
• You should eat 120 to 150 grams of wild-caught oily fish two to three times a week.
• You should go to bed before 11pm.
• You should eat at least 7 to 10 portions of fruit and vegetables per day.
• You should get 20 to 30 minutes of direct sunlight daily.
• You should eat 2 to 3 whole eggs a day.

Basics before supplements

Do people add supplements to their diet before they meet the criteria listed above? Of course, because people are constantly trying to compensate for a poor lifestyle and diet with supplements.

• Does your diet lack omega-3 fatty acids? Then take half a can of fish oil.
• Do you sleep badly? Time for 15 milligrams of melatonin and off you go into a coma.
• Do you have trouble waking up in the morning? Swallow a "5 hour energy" tablet and chew a packet of caffeine gum until your adrenal glands explode.

I get that. Some people don't like salmon. Others are allergic to eggs or start gagging at the sight of broccoli. I'm not suggesting that supplements are a problem. Quite the opposite - I use and recommend supplements. The point is, however, that we should get the basics right first before worrying about trivialities.

If you can't manage to put the 11 recommendations on the list above into action, then you don't need to spend 50 euros on the latest pre-workout product that will unleash a sledgehammer on your nervous system and drive you to ventricular tachycardia.

Pick the lowest hanging fruit first. Engaging in L-carnitine supplementation to squeeze a few extra triglycerides into the Krebs cycle without considering your total caloric intake is like mowing your lawn while your house is on fire.

The basics are the first thing you should take care of.

References

1. Trans fatty acids and cardiovascular health: research completed?
2. Trans fat diet induces abdominal obesity and changes in insulin sensitivity in monkeys.

Source: https://www.muscleandstrength.com/articles/natty-lifters-guide-to-nutrition