The "Simple Diet" for athletes

Here's what you need to know...

1. This four step plan takes care of the big nutritional issues first and then narrows things down according to the needs and goals of athletes.
2. The first step is to remove the obvious junk that can get in your way.
3. Supposedly healthy foods make fat loss harder despite claims about their health benefits.
4. Although controversial, the vast majority of people lose body fat when they eliminate wheat, dairy and fruit juices from their diet and replace these foods with better alternatives.
5. Choose functional supplements to improve your training performance and speed up your recovery. Everything else is based on filling individual gaps and meeting individual needs.
6. Losing fat and fueling hardcore workouts doesn't have to involve calorie counting. Keep it simple and make adjustments as needed.

NFL Muscle

It's great to work with NFL athletes. They are used to being trained and they perform at their best in this environment. They do what you tell them to do, they get results and they say thank you.

These guys don't want to be inundated with science and complex plans. They want something that works, they don't want it to be a chore and they want results. If you think about it, this is exactly what most people want. There are times and places for more extreme and complex diet plans, but the majority of exercisers can modify their diet to focus on building muscle or losing fat without the process taking up half of their lives. When I recently helped an NFL athlete who needed to lose fat, I realized that most of the advice I gave him will work for pretty much anyone. Here's the plan I put together for him.

The 4 Step Diet

These steps can be used by anyone who wants to clean up and realign their diet:

Stage 1: Ditch the obvious junk:

You don't have to tell anyone that sweets, cookies, soft drinks, junk food, fast food and too much alcohol will ruin your body or at least hinder your progress. Well, maybe you do need to.

This is because there are plenty of advertisers out there telling you that this junk is okay in moderation.
These people also like to say that there is no such thing as "bad food" because they obviously define as food anything you can swallow that won't kill you instantly.

Well, they are wrong.

Every time an overweight person consumes what we will classify as "obvious junk", that person either takes a step back or temporarily halts their progress. And since many of these foods have addictive potential, moderation quickly goes down the drain.

If your goal is to lose fat, keep that fat off and increase your performance, then you need to leave this dietary junk out of it. Yes, there are a lot of diet plans out there that encourage the consumption of cheat foods, but these compliant plans have the same long-term success rate as Weight Watchers.

Maybe it's time to grow up and stop giving yourself a food reward every time you complete a workout session. Sure, a few skinny kids and users of large amounts of steroids might get away with eating junk for a while, but try staying lean in your 30s or 40s when you're eating like a spoiled fat kid every weekend.

Like a good strength and conditioning coach, a nutrition coach must first fill the cracks in the foundation and then build a stable structure. This is easy because usually the athlete knows damn well the things they eat that they shouldn't. And you know that too. Oddly enough, it's human nature to keep making these obvious mistakes until someone tells you not to. And that's why I say now: don't.

Step 2: Cut out the less obvious junk:

After eliminating the obvious junk, it's time to cut things down further. What is "less obvious junk"? These are foods that are often thought of as healthy, but really aren't.

Sometimes they are the "better bad" choice: things that still hinder your progress, but not as much as the original bad foods. These are also the types of foods that are the subject of much debate in the field of nutrition. I refer to many of these foods as "supposedly healthy foods". With these foods, the health benefits are touted right on the package: low-fat, fat-free, low-carb, gluten-free, high-fiber, organic, whole grain, etc. But low-carb foods can be high in calorie density and overloaded with the worst types of dietary fats, and fat-free foods are often sugar bombs or bursting with processed flour. Sugar is gluten-free. Breakfast cereals for kids are "high in fiber". And all of this will still make you fat.

You know this, but when fat loss is the goal, often IQ often drops faster than body fat percentage.

But let me get to the not-so-obvious stuff. Here's what I've had my NFL guys eliminate from their diet that may surprise you:

• Wheat
• milk
• Fruit juice

The wheat issue is controversial - but not among those who want results and simple rules. So a simple guideline is to cut out all wheat-containing foods or greatly reduce their consumption. The anti-wheat doctors and Paleo advocates will bore you to death with studies showing that polypeptides bind to the morphine receptors in the brain - the same receptors that opiates bind to - which means you will experience strong cravings for these foods, eat too much of them, and throw your natural appetite-signaling mechanisms out of gear.

They'll go on to list dozens of nasty-sounding effects, some of which seem to be true and some of which may be a bit exaggerated. But this much is true: the health benefits of this particular grain are largely non-existent - you don't need it and it will probably do you more harm than good.

Maybe it has more to do with the FODMAP diet, or maybe it has to do with the fact that most wheat-based foods are packed with the same stuff that can lead to something called toxic hunger. It doesn't matter. The simple rule is the same in all cases: does it contain wheat? If so, don't put it in your mouth. Incidentally, even if you don't have celiac disease, following a gluten-free diet can help you eliminate most of the stuff that made you fat in the first place, as long as you don't fall for those supposedly healthy foods. If your body fat is stubborn, or if you're losing control around food and you haven't eliminated wheat from your diet yet, give this a try. The same goes for milk and fruit juice.

It can take between 5 and 28 days to get rid of the "addiction" to these foods. Nutritionists and behavioral psychologists refer to this as the "don't be a wimp" stage and recommend 3 servings of "stick it out, princess" until the bad habits fade and unnatural cravings subside. Out there in the real world, this works for 90% of people. Let the nerds throw their studies around like monkeys throw their feces. We will focus on simplicity and results.

Step 3: Replace the above junk with better stuff.

Replace bread, cereals and pasta with rice, potatoes, quinoa, oatmeal, buckwheat and starchy vegetables.
Replace milk with unsweetened almond, coconut or cashew milk because you're not a newborn baby. Replace your juice with water because you are no longer 7 years old. Replace the supposedly healthy foods with food you cook yourself. Don't follow a Paleo diet but eat your meat, veggies, eggs and coconut oil.

Step 4: Supplements to boost performance and fill gaps.

Similar to food choices, the advice on supplements involves three stages.

1. skip the supplements for kids

If your supplement selection resembles that of a teenager who just walked out of a mall supplement store, it's probably crappy. If you're spending your money mainly on things that contain the letters "NO" or your pre-workout supplement consists of nothing but stimulants, then you're doing something wrong. If your favorite brand is a multi-level marketing operation, then you're beyond help. Get rid of the things that don't really work, or that do little, and focus on truly effective supplements that will benefit any hard-training athlete.

2. build the foundation

The foundation is the nutrition around the training. To ensure the best possible gains from your workouts, you need to fuel, protect and recharge your muscles right before, during and right after your workout. My NFL guys all start with a good and comprehensive pre-workout supplement that contains a blend of high quality carbohydrates, protein hydrolysates, citrulline, betaine and a mineral blend, as well as a high quality protein powder, both of which are customized for training and play. We won't talk about other supplements until this area is covered. For some, we stop at this point as this is all they need.

3. fill in the gaps

It's perhaps not so surprising that professional athletes often rely on fast foods. My NFL athletes replace these foods with high-quality protein bars that they eat before and after practice or a game. Many of these athletes suffer from poor sleep, which is why we give them GABA. I have most of them take 2000 to 5000 IU of vitamin D. Most also use a multi-mineral supplement and fish oil capsules. If they don't feel like eating fruits and vegetables, they get superfoods like greens and others.

At this point, it's all about filling in the nutritional gaps and meeting individual needs. They may only need one or two additional supplements or no additional supplements at all.

Bonus: Easy food preparation for athletes

Here's an easy way to prepare healthy meals quickly. First, buy a large slow cooker. Slow cookers come in small, medium and huge. Get the largest one as you will be preparing several meals in one pot. You will need a slow cooker with a timer so that it stops cooking and switches to keep warm when you are away.

Dinner

1. Get a gigantic mountain of meat: beef, a dozen chicken breasts, a turkey breast, a couple pork loins, etc. If it had to die for your dietary needs, it's good enough for you. Season the meat with salt and pepper and throw it in the crock pot.
2. Get some veggies, chop them up and throw them in the pot. Frozen vegetables work too.
3. Dice a few potatoes and add them to the pot.
4. Add the liquid. I recommend any kind of broth: beef, chicken or vegetable broth.
5. Herbs - use whatever you have on hand. Dried herbs are fine. Or refine the meal with tomato paste.
6. Turn the stove on in the morning on a low setting for 7 to 8 hours. After that, get everything done that you need to do: Work, school or whatever.
7. By the time you get home, the meal will be ready. Save the leftovers for later.

Breakfast

1. Put a cup or two of oatmeal in the slow cooker before you go to bed. Add three cups of water for each cup of oatmeal.
2. If you want, you can add a few bananas, apples or a bag of frozen berries or peaches.
3. Set the timer on very low to 7 hours and go to sleep.
4. When you get up the next morning, mix one or two scoops of protein powder into your hot, ready-to-eat porridge. Save the leftovers as you have just prepared breakfast for the next few days.

Simplicity wins

No counting calories or macronutrients here. For most hard-training athletes, this is not necessary. Just follow the basic guidelines and you'll figure out how to fine-tune things over time.
It works for the best NFL athletes and it will work for you too.

Source: https://www.t-nation.com/diet-fat-loss/simple-diet-for-athletes
by Chris Shugart | 01/29/16