YOUR Way Not THE Way
Building an Optimal Diet
All Diets “Work” but Diets Don’t Work
What’s the best diet? It depends. All of them, none of them. I’ve seen them all work, but diets don’t work. I’m not trying to be an amateur Zen poet, the difficulty in being strait-forward with the question is that it makes a number of assumptions and frankly looks at nutrition the wrong way.
There’s no best diet. In spite of what the top-recommended article for me today boldly proclaims, science has not uncovered what is best. Science does not concern itself with such questions but that doesn’t stop people from writing headlines that would send Karl Popper, famed philosopher of science, into pirouettes from his grave. Best is never a scientific question. The best diet for an individual at any given time is often going to change with the seasons, metaphorically and literally. Additionally, the best diet for one individual may not be the best diet for another. One simply can not make a scientific statement of what is best.
In so far as a scientific statement speaks about reality, it must be falsifiable: and in so far as it is not falsifiable, it does not speak about reality.
With diet, we should not be seeking them out like zealots seeking meaning and purpose in their lives. One need not become dogmatic. In fact, learning how to be non-dogmatic about nutrition and critically think rather than merely consume is essential in building an optimal diet- although I’m not technically including it as a step. I’m going to simply assume you’re up to the task because you found your way here.
I seek companions, those who follow me because they follow themselves. The guy who said that shares my favorite drink- water does the trick! I can’t tell anyone what the best diet is for them, but I can teach you how to go find out for yourself. If I simply tell you what I eat it's not going to help you much at all. That’s my way, what is yours? That is a question that you can answer all own your own with this process.
If you use this process you will be able to discard much of what you have been told about nutrition. No more fads. You will learn a series of skills in each step that will increase understanding of how your body responds to food in a number of useful ways. Increased mindfulness and understanding of energy balance, portions, response to different nutrients, sourcing, and even time of day will provide the framework for an individualized diet.
What results is not some stable and stagnant diet that one will then rigorously follow. One will gain an understanding of how and why to apply any number of different diets to their lifestyle and goals. There is no best diet, they all “work” and don’t if you don’t do things correctly. You must learn how to use these tools for yourself to find your way.
1. Quality
What is quality? Sounds like a line from Zen and the Art of Motorcycle maintenance only instead of fixing bikes we’re tinkering with the human-machine. There are a few overly reductive ways I’ve explained this in the past that might help but admittedly fall short of a bulletproof system. Knowing is doing whether we’re talking about nutrition or motorcycle maintenance and this may just be another one of those that is easier doing than saying, but that apparently hasn’t stopped me from trying.
Lightning hits! Quality! Virtue! Dharma! That is what the Sophists were teaching! Not ethical relativism. Not pristine “virtue.” But aretê. Excellence. Dharma! Before the Church of Reason. Before substance. Before form. Before mind and matter. Before dialectic itself. Quality had been absolute.
The first step in finding the way is controlling for quality. There’s a number of ways I’ve tried to communicate this over the years. Most simply, eat meat and plants. Some people don’t want to eat meat, I’ve got no issue with that so I started rephrasing it. Eat protein and plants. It’s good for people who need simple rules but it drives me crazy. Protein is a bit broad and in real life given these parameters many people are going to source a processed food heavy diet. When I speak of eating high-quality food, highly processed foods are the opposite of what I’m talking about.
I’ve tried telling people to eat whole natural unprocessed foods 80 to 90 percent of the time. Then I started getting a ton of questions about the most minute details about food production and was this food or that food allowed, defeating the purpose of creating an overly reductive moniker to rapidly communicate an idea. I thought saying 80 to 90 percent of the time would get me out of this but, no.
Check the ingredients and if you don’t know what one is- don’t eat it. While it gets upwards of 90% of the message on point it nearly as often gets lost in the minutia and meaningless small things as well. Don’t eat it if your grandma wouldn’t recognize it. There’s another that’s essentially the same. I could go on and on but with every one of these was only more questions.
None of these perfectly captures what is meant by quality in the domain of nutrition but they come pretty close. Shop the perimeter of the grocery store. I couldn’t help myself, there’s one more. If you’re going to ask me if jasmine rice or steel-cut oats are allowed I will lose my mind. Now I tell people to eat as close to nature as possible and pray they don’t ask me to define nature. It is an admittedly difficult concept to systemically define as I have learned but it is one that is stunningly simple in execution.
The truth is simple, it’s the lies that are complicated
I think most actually get what quality means from any one of these statements. That doesn’t mean there aren’t exceptions to each of those rules. One needs to exercise a little common sense and critical thinking but I think most people know what is good for them in reality. Everyone knows broccoli is healthy. You don’t need me to tell you that. Eat more plants. I still say that one even if I know absolutely nothing about you because it’s always true. Even small children know what is good for them, the truth is simple, it’s all the lies that are complicated.
If I’ve really got to spell it out eat fruits, vegetables, minimally processed whole grains, and minimally processed meats. If grain and meat are your thing of course. If they are not let me remind you that processed meat-like substances are also highly processed foods. When I think plant-based protein I think beans, lentils, chickpeas, legumes, etc… not processed food. Your “plant-based” diet may be light in plants if you’re like most people. Same with popular alternatives to whole grains. Often products made to meet the current fads around grain are more highly processed and lower quality than the products they aim to replace. If you don’t have a legitimate reason to avoid them, usually true of the vast majority of self-diagnosed, don’t buy highly processed alternatives and think you’re doing yourself a favor. Don’t just buy buzzwords on the packages, in fact, most of what you’ll be buying isn’t going to have a package to print trendy words on if your sourcing correctly. High-quality foods don’t often have wrappers but even that obviously has exceptions.
I’ve either made quality abundantly clear or even more muddled, let’s hope it’s the former because it’s the first step in optimizing nutrition. Eat high-quality foods 80 to 90% of the time. This is why we don’t need to freak out about the minutia, it’s not 100% of the time- there is room to be a little less than perfect. Whatever that means. If you eat high-quality foods the vast majority of the time and move the big rocks the little things don’t matter.
The main reason we are shifting to minimally processed foods is not to erect some pastoral fantasy of paradise lost from which we have descended and to which we should strive, eat like a caveman, but because these foods are nutrient-dense and designed to satisfy and nourish us. Highly-processed foods tend to be devoid of nutrients and not satisfy hunger as a feature, not a bug. Food manufacturers are good at their jobs and these foods are literally designed to be consumed. There’s a lot more that goes into “Bet You Can’t Eat Just One” than you may realize. The products that survive their trials are particularly difficult for humans to stop eating, period.
This article could almost end here. I could stop writing right now and many people would already discover their ideal diet. For many fitness and health goals, this is the only step. Sourcing mostly nutrient-dense whole foods will take care of so many health issues I’ll sound like the latest in a long line of gurus promising a cure to everything if I list them. Quality is not the cure-all as so many gurus have said, but it absolutely is the first step.
What quality can not do is bend the laws of physics. What do I mean? Even if you source a high-quality diet you will not magically start losing weight if you are eating more calories than you are burning. You can achieve many other markers of health by quality alone, but if weight-loss is a part of your goal then it probably will not be the only step in the process. That being said, if you do not take care of quality first, any “results” you get will be fleeting and when you come crashing back down there’s a great chance you’ll be in a worse place than when you started. Finding your way with food starts with quality.
2. Quantity
Step two. Emphasis on two because often I see this as step one. Thankfully for me, this one is way easier to define so we’ll cut right to the chase. When we’re talking quantity we are talking calories. Easy breezy right. Calories in calories out flat out works. Many people know this and this is how they begin dieting. If you begin restricting calories without first addressing quality you are jumping on the yo-yo train. Let me know if any of this sounds familiar as I break it down.
If you are eating a typical processed food heavy diet and restricting calories at the same time there is virtually no chance you are getting all your essential nutrients and eating a balanced diet from a nutritional standpoint. Obesity is first and foremost a condition of malnutrition and this is not addressed at all in merely cutting calories. Hunger is going to be an issue as it always is in caloric restriction but it will be exacerbated by your body sending signals to eat in order to get the sustenance and balanced nutrition your diet is not providing. After a few tough weeks reversion back to “normal” eating patterns occurs and any weight lost comes back quickly.
If you go right into caloric deficits it’s more likely going to send you into a cycle many people know all too well. Quantity is step two because without quality we are a house of cards. Once we have quality addressed and the diet is providing ample nutrition it is going to be a lot easier to maintain caloric restriction and we will not be setting the body up for a big bounce in the future. We have earned the right to address quantity only when quality is mastered and doing it in this order will help a lot in the long run.
Provided quality has been addressed, one can begin to look at quantity but this doesn’t mean caloric restriction yet. The first step with quantity is to simply find out how much you are eating. Start logging with no intention of a specific caloric target. Establish a baseline first. Without assessing we’re just guessing. I like a month of nutrition logs to get before I make tweaks to get a really good idea where someone is at, the old 21 days makes a habit rule is probably fine for a minimum. There’s enough going on that shooting for specific targets this early is probably going to interfere with learning the new habit of logging.
The unexamined life is not worth living.
To be honest, before we enter caloric restriction I would like to build the metabolism up. If one person has a resting metabolic rate that burns 3000 calories and another has one that burns 1500, who will have an easier time getting into & maintaining caloric restriction? If we reduce calories by one or two hundred per week, who can cut longer without destroying their metabolism? This is another reason why I am content to go slow at first. Log food and don’t make any massive overhauls just yet. Build metabolism in training. Purposely taking our sweet time getting into caloric restriction sets the stage for long-term sustainable progress as opposed to short-term “progress” that will collapse invariably.
If fat loss is the goal obviously caloric restriction will be used. It is not however the first step in this process or even in this bullet point. The first step to quantity is ascertaining how much is being consumed. With that, we can figure out exactly how much we will be restricting. More deficit is not better. Some intuit that bigger deficits will equal faster weight loss. Again, this is a ticket on the yo-yo train. The metabolism is going to adapt to caloric restriction by downregulating and burning fewer calories at rest. Deficits that are too large will sabotage the metabolism and compromise long-term success. We want this to happen as slowly as possible so we don’t pile the weight back on when we stop restricting. Instead of rushing into big deficits, slowly increase the deficit week over week. Slow and steady- that’s how we win the race.
For a long time the idea of “calories in calories out” was the only game in town for fat-loss. A calorie is a calorie, but this is not the only thing we are controlling for. If it was a snickers bar & a cup of Greek yogurt would be equivalent. This obviously isn’t true. This is again why it’s quality is over quantity, but if fat-loss is a goal we will have to count at some point. There is no way around that.
Many find this process tedious and it probably is. However, once you do it your relationship to food will be forever changed. After a few weeks of painstakingly logging & measuring food, you will intuit portion sizes with ease & reduce unconscious consumption in perpetuity. The biggest benefit from controlling for quantity is actually this sensibility, not caloric deficits. These are a temporary thing that will be used to lose weight, the increased mindfulness around portions sizes will forever change your ability to intuitively fuel without overeating.
3. Ratios
Step three, ratios. Emphasis on three. Sound familiar? At the risk of sounding like a broken record, many people also like to do this step first. In fact, when many people think diet, it is this step they are essentially thinking of. Most popular diets are different macronutrient ratios sold as one-size fits all comprehensive nutrition ideologies. Whether we’re talking Atkins, low-fat, Keto, or the Zone just to name a few- we are talking about macronutrient ratios. For the uninitiated macronutrients are carbohydrates, fat, and protein. Macronutrient ratios refer to the percentages each makes up in relation to the total amount of calories eaten.
The Zone diet was one of the first to take this idea to the mainstream and it is made up of 40% carbohydrate and 30% of both protein and fat. This is for many still the default “normal” when they think of macros if they are familiar with the concept. Each of the macro-based diets will try to convince you that their ratio is the one and only right ratio. Who’s right? All of them and none of them, they all work. The trick is finding out which ratios work best for you. Just because someone you know or your favorite celebrity had great results with one set of macros does not ensure that you will too. It is all about finding the right macros for your goals and lifestyle. Again, find your way not “the” way.
It isn’t just me saying this by the way. The National Weight Control Registry keeps stats on folks who have lost an average of 66lbs and kept it off for 5.5 years. If we control for keeping the weight off, not simply “losing” some at an arbitrary marker, but actually keeping weight off what is the best diet? None of them. All of them. Whichever you like. No diet has emerged as a clear favorite in their records either. Pick one and stick with it.
The truth about macros is that you will probably use more than one if you really get dialed in and begin to understand your optimal nutrition strategy. Needs change with the seasons literally and figuratively. It makes very little sense to dogmatically adopt one set of macros and never change. Goals may change. If I want to gain muscle I will need to fuel more carbohydrates than when I am cutting fat. If I’m trying to restore my hormones low-fat is not going to be my friend. There is no one size fits all when it comes to macros because they all work differently on each individual and our goals and demands in life are not constant or linear.
Sadly I’ve learned what most people want in these conversations is to be told exactly what to do. I’m sorry I can’t be your guru. I can not shill or pitch one of these diets to you. I will continue to implore you to actually try them and see how it goes for yourself. There are a few general rules I can give to speed up your curve in learning how different macros impact your health and physique, but you really will have to go actually do it for yourself to really understand what I am saying.
I distrust all systematisers, and avoid them. The will to a system shows a lack of honesty.
Let’s start with fat-loss. That’s what brings most people in the gym back when that was still a thing. If fat-loss is the primary goal I would recommend trying a lower carbohydrate approach first. Off the top of my head Atkins, keto, paleo, South Beach, Whole 30, etc… are all essentially low carbohydrate diets. Devotees of each will hate to hear me say it but you don’t need to buy into any of their systems, just eat the same foods they eat and you’ll be fine. They differ very slightly on minor things. Go grab all their cookbooks if you really need to buy something.
Some people want to gain muscle and that changes the game. Chances are you should not go low carbohydrate, you actually need those to build muscle. Most meatheads know the importance of protein but when building muscle you need about six times more carbohydrates than protein in grams. All those diets I mentioned in the last program will not be your friend. Well, technically you could still use the same cookbooks, just add a generous side of whole grains or starch to the same meals and they will instantly become great muscle building dishes.
Other people are mostly focused on health and longevity. Of all goals, this will be the most individualized but most of my clients are north of 35 and higher fat diets seem to help people regulate hormones and appetite better than other approaches. If you don’t have a specific weight loss or muscle or performance goal it’s a bit trickier to dial things in because the goal is less specific. There is a lot more variance here in what works and what different people regard as sustainable based on their lifestyle and preferences. In this camp I also think “eating with the seasons” is a great idea. What I mean here is to shop at your farmer’s market and buy what’s in season. As a result, your diet will vary throughout the year and you will source a broad base of nutrition by simply eating seasonal produce without ever thinking much. Get strong and add weight in the winter and eat clean and get lean when it’s warm and you’re spending time outside.
Don’t be dogmatic and marry yourself to one set of macros. Feel free to change and respond to the feedback you are getting. There are no right or wrong answers here. This step is more one of trial and error and ebbs and flows than cookie-cutter one size fits all answers. You need to stick with an approach for a few weeks at a time to learn anything, a few days here and there does not count as sticking with it. Two days on paleo, some keto, and Atkins with a cheat day is the same as doing nothing in my book. Choose one and see how it goes.
As annoyed as you may be with me for not telling you which set to go with I am equally annoyed that people need to be told what to do. Touchez. I simply can’t tell you. It’s not like I haven’t written Soviet style nutrition plans telling people exactly what to eat practically down to the bite, it doesn’t work. If you reject your autonomy and critical thinking our progress will be fleeting at best, I’ve seen it time and again. Decide, commit, see how it goes, rinse and repeat as necessary. Stay flexible this is not a lifetime decision you are making here. Like nutrition logging, once you have done this you will never need to do it again but if you have not done it there is no way to fully understand how your body actually responds to different eating patterns.
Give a man a fish, feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish- feed him for life. Learn to fish for yourself.
For myself, and remember, this is my way- what is yours? If this helps you on your journey great, if you just follow my path you haven’t understood me. I find that I can drop body fat by reducing carbs. When I want to add muscle or care about my performance I add them back in. I ebb and flow out of these approaches many times throughout the year so depending on the day I may have a different answer. I’ve found oats, potatoes, rice and whole grains to all be useful sources for me, depending on your allergies and preferences you may use others. I understand some of these are sacrilegious to some, but there are no forbidden foods here and many people are more reactive to present fads than anything contained in those carbohydrates to be honest. If you removed these without an allergy test or elimination then I won’t dance around it, I’m talking about you. Take the dogma out of your diet and you may find these sins are often safe staples. I made the mistake of removing them all at once for no benefit so I’m not talking down to you, again trying to shorten your curve in learning these lessons that took my many years to learn for myself.
4. Timing
Step four. Yeah, yeah it’s step four for a reason. I still have to say it because this is yet another thing people love to do first. There is a whole new set of trendy diets that fit into this category. I bet you’ve already heard of them. Carbohydrate cycling, protein fasting, or how about intermittent fasting? You clearly have internet access if you’re reading this so I know you’ve seen nutrient timing strategies discussed. I love these strategies and use many myself but I still see way too many people putting the cart before the horse. If you jump right into intermittent fasting without doing the work in the previous steps you are back on the yo-yo train. Don’t act like you didn’t know it was coming.
Begin at the beginning
Many people gravitate to intermittent fasting to “eat what they want.” I know because that’s what I did in my twenties. If you do not take care of quality, you will be sourcing a diet insufficient in essential nutrients, and holding the fast will probably feel tedious and difficult as you think about food constantly as you are nutritionally deprived.
Nutrient timing does not bend the laws of physics like some are trying to make us believe. This is where I must remind you that a calorie is still a calorie. People lose weight on intermittent fasting only if they are in a caloric deficit. Time-restricted feeding, another way of saying intermittent fasting, is just another way to make it easier to get into deficits. There are a host of other benefits that one may choose to fast for, but if fat-loss is the goal, it is only going to work if you are taking into account quantity.
People only lose weight on intermittent fasting only if they are in a caloric deficit.
Similar to quality, if your ratios are not dialed in it is going to be difficult to sustain a fast. Feelings of hunger and satiety are a huge factor in long-term success and if you do not know which macros contribute to making you feel full you will not enjoy your fasting windows. If it’s hard to do, you won’t do it very long. The bottom line is to the other three steps first. Most people won’t even get into this step if we’re being honest. If you’re firing on all cylinders with the first three steps we’re only tweaking very small things at this point.
At this point, the type of person I am talking to has what I consider advanced fitness goals and very high awareness of how different foods affect the body. Timing techniques are probably not necessary for the vast majority of people, but I include them because I think it can help tie nutrition into lifestyle. Many of my busy clients love intermittent fasting because it simplifies their diet and as a busy working dad that’s a big part of why I use it. Again I hesitate to offer my choices for anything other than a guide, copying me is not going to help you find your ideal, but I routinely fast between 12–20 hours daily. That’s a pretty wide variance that also correlates with my different goals. If I am more concerned with muscle and performance closer to 12 hours if my goals are more to get lean I’ll stretch it out. Even with my fasting windows, I am not dogmatic. If eating with my daughter means I only get in a 15 hour fast my priorities are such that I have the meal. Holding out on friends and family while watching a clock doesn’t sound like a liberating diet and it doesn’t sound like a healthy relationship with food. I’ve written a lot more about it if you’re interested in this idea.
Many of us in the health and fitness space ironically don’t have a healthy relationship with food. We have received positive validation oftentimes for doing things that are unhealthy and internalized them as worthwhile trade-offs to reach our fitness goals. The first three steps are designed to help one attain a healthy relationship with food. I fear that someone who skipped over the first three steps and jumped right into timing strategies would essentially be adopting a disordered eating pattern while lacking a healthy relationship with food. Positively reinforcing binge/starve cycles to someone like this is going to take them miles away from sorting out there issues with food. Having success may become a long-term block if this is the only tool one knows to alter physique.
Timing is the end, not the beginning. There’s presently a new crop of would-be gurus peddling intermittent fasting as a cure-all who will take issue with this. Following in the footsteps of Bernarr McFadden we actually have ample evidence to the contrary. If you don’t know who that is it’s worth going down the rabbit hole or we’ll have to give him a deep dive another time, nearly every current fad was already done by this twentieth-century guru. Spoiler alert, some of his kids died. Conversely, there are some who find this extreme behavior because of charlatans who have taken it too far. There are a number of benefits with fasting that make it a very useful tool but I do not want to add to the lineage of those who have overstated its role. By placing it where I have in the process I think it has been finally put in an appropriate place.
Conclusion
Quality, quantity, ratios, and timing. It fits neatly into a short sentence but there are potentially years of work contained there. If you have adopted the standard American diet work slowly through this process. There are gains to be made at each step so there really is no benefit to overhauling a diet immediately. Add one habit at a time and allow it a minimum of three weeks to take hold before trying to add another.
One of the most common mistakes that lands people on the yo-yo train is doing too much too quickly. In the zeal and excitement of starting many of us bite off more than we can realistically sustain and there is no point. It’s all about adaptation and simply making one small change at a time we can milk out progress for a long time. If you read this and decided to switch to whole natural unprocessed foods and eating 1800 calories a day with the trendiest macros you can find while observing a 16 hour fast you have misunderstood me. There’s nothing wrong with that plan it’s just not a beginning and it will only become your goal if it supports the life you are trying to live.
Controlling for individual differences, here’s how this process may play out in reality. Start by sourcing higher quality foods. Get rid of obvious junk first, the kind of stuff you do not need a nutritionist to tell you is unhealthy. Get used to living without these foods. After a few weeks, you will have a new set of cravings based on the higher-quality foods you are presently eating. At this point, the habit is sticking and we can introduce more. Begin logging food. Don’t make any more changes just yet. Establish a baseline. If we are strength training, which I hope we are, we will be simultaneously building the metabolism and setting the stage for a longer more sustainable cut. Once quantity has been addressed we’re jumping into ratios to find more gains. Losing fat try a few fewer carbs and see how it goes. Gaining muscle don’t be scared of carbs. The rest is individualized and context-dependent, if you find yourself in this phase and confused feel free to reach out and I will personally help you dial it in. Try to maintain the attitude of a scientist and not a dogmatist, you are testing ideas not beholden to them.
Clever people may learn as much as they wish of the results of science — still one will always notice in their conversation, and especially in their hypotheses, that they lack the scientific spirit; they do not have that instinctive mistrust of the aberrations of thought which through long training are deeply rooted in the soul of every scientific person. They are content to find any hypothesis at all concerning some matter; then they are all fire and flame for it and think that is enough. To have an opinion means for them to fanaticize for it and thenceforth to press it to their hearts as a conviction.
Step one is the biggest rock of all but these three make up the bulk of the work. If you still want to push your body a bit farther we still have a few tricks up our sleeve with timing. Resist the urge to begin at the end or any of the steps in between. I’m purposely spending the least amount of time discussing these because in truth most will not need them. Don’t get caught up in the thick of thin things as my wife tells me when I bombard her with the minutia of some shiny new idea I want to play with.
If you’re not eating mostly whole foods and drinking water, coffee, or tea then I’m unlikely to indulge you in any nutrition conversation. Why? That is what you need to do to earn the right to enter into the conversation. Every idea and every diet that has been pushed in the fitness space most likely does have a context where it can be useful. You’ve got to get there first. I have made a life of submitting myself as my own n+1 and the truth is you don’t have to. Everything I have learned in my countless trials preceded this paragraph. Follow this process as we have laid out, don’t rush, on the other side whenever that maybe you will be able to intuitively source an optimal diet for wherever you find yourself in life.
By many ways, in many ways, I reached my truth: it was not on one ladder that I climbed to the height where my eye roams over my distance. And it was only reluctantly that I ever inquired about the way: that always offended my taste. I preferred to question and try out the ways themselves. A trying and questioning was my every move; and verily, one must also learn to answer such questioning. That, however, is my taste — not good, not bad, but my taste of which I am no longer ashamed and which I have no wish to hide. “This is my way; where is yours?” — thus I answered those who asked me “the way.” For the way — that does not exist.
Find your own way my friends.
