Flexible Dieting

Low carb, low fat, Zone diet, fruit and veggie diet, liquid diet, South beach, Paleo...

some or all of these might sound familiar since they are popular dieting methods used today by people trying to lose those x amount of pounds and/or trying to live a healthier life. The thing all these fad diets have  in common is there arbitrary food restriction and rules that come along with them (for some people the restrictions might be good per individual reasons but for most these are firm rules that one must follow for no reason) and most of the rules are blanket statements that are so broad that they hinder most people in reaching their goals. If one is trying to lose weight they have to understand that you must be in a caloric deficit, some of the methods above might reach desired weight loss but its not because of some special magic it's usually because of restricting a food group or groups thus having the person cutting calories. For most people they will bounce back with the weight since fad diets really have no sustainability unless you're willing to be that person carrying 3 containers of food around and that person that gets water and celery sticks when you go out for lunch. The leaders and die hard sheep of fad diets will usually say that you have to sacrifice it all to win and you have to do what you don't like to be healthy, sounds kinda extreme to me and not needed.

You don't have to sacrifice to win...

This post is all about a scientific and common sense approach to dieting that allows you to live a normal social life being able to eat out with friends and eat foods you enjoy. This method is Flexible Dieting, there are no food restrictions, no special foods, no specific meal timing, none of that. Flexible Dieting is based on reaching 2+ serving of fruit and vegetables a day along with reaching a minimum fiber intake (this is based on how many calories you eat around 10-13 grams of fiber per 1000 kcals eaten) along with adequate protein intake and getting 80% of food from whole foods and 20% to eat foods that may seem unorthodox to eat while trying to be healthy or lose weight (this usually is food with a very low micronutrient values).

Now I will say that if your goal is to lose weight then counting calories is the most fool proof way to make sure you're in a deficit and combine that with flexible dieting you have the perfect match to reach your goals with no unnecessary side effects (eating disorders or arbitrary food avoidance) or loss of life. Once you learn that a serving of Entiments cookies with a half cup of milk isn't going to go straight to your things or midsection (your within your caloric limit) you can live a realistic healthy life and still reach your fitness goals. That is what flexible dieting is, it is realistic way to live healthy and reach your own goals without hindering your life and staying sane. Below I have links to better articles on flexible dieting please take some time to read them, so remember choose the foods you eat with hitting the simple criteria and live your life.

Continue Reading:

Lyle McDonald “Is a calorie a calorie?”
http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/fat-loss/is-a-calorie-a-calorie.html

Alan Aragon “clean eating”
http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

Syatt fitness “Flexible Dieting for Long Term Success”

http://syattfitness.com/fat-loss/flexible-dieting-for-long-term-success/

Layne Norton “Clean eating vs Flexible Dieting (IIFYM)”

http://www.biolayne.com/nutrition/biolayne-video-log-12-clean-eating-vs-iifym-if-it-fits-your-macros/

Study on rigid dieting vs flexible dieting (I know its only the abstract but i don't have the full text)

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/10336790

Sources:
http://doyoueven.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/food-temptation.jpg

Clean Eating, Is it False?

How much windex do I need to make ice cream "clean"...

If you were to ask different followers of fad diets, different cultures or even a handful of people at your local gym for the definition of “clean” eating” or “clean foods” it would be different across the board. This is because there is no designated term for clean foods in nutritional science, because to use those terms are absurd and it 100% demonizes the “dirty” foods.

Foods are broken into high micronutrient value and low to none micronutrient value...

Even with that being said food with calories are still calories, a unit of energy that the body uses to live, but just because one group is higher than the other does not mean that the other is worse or inferior. To put things simply, a healthy diet is constructed of moderation and variety of all types of food to meet caloric and micronutrient goals by the end of the day that allows the person to eat foods they still enjoy to alloy them to live life. The idea that "x is good for me so I need to take x 1000 times" is what fuels the falsehoods of clean eating.

You can have some pizza or cake and eat it too...

Like I stated above placing foods into these two categories leads to people to demonizing certain food groups or specific foods all together. The process a person goes through when demonizing food that they enjoy can lead to harsh disorder eating down the road. Some of these disorders or unhealthy eating habits are binge eating, orthorexia, yo yo dieting, and anorexia (none of those seem fun to me). This is the outcome of the main stream nutrition though, separate foods into good and bad, Best or worst, any arbitrary hierarchy that pushes a groups agenda that has no basis on what the science shows us.

Here is the article that I based most of what  I wrote here, read it, it has stronger writing and goes into greater detail. 

http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/

Sources:

http://www.wannabebig.com/diet-and-nutrition/the-dirt-on-clean-eating/
http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/orthorexia-nervosa

http://www.nationaleatingdisorders.org/general-information
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/11883916

Images:

http://doyoueven.com/2013/01/iifympart1/