Diets Don’t Work

 

What do we do with nutrition?

If you go on Facebook or Instagram or even Snapchat there are going to be a ton of “experts” telling you what to do and offering advice on the next best nutrition plan.

For a long time, CrossFit advocated, unofficially, the paleo “diet” which was then distilled to just eat whole foods and, if possible, try the zone diet. For those of you now in the know, the zone diet is another macro counting application that simplifies the process a little.

Like I mentioned in the last email, we have seen most diets work if applied correctly, but at some point all those diets break and then they are abandoned.

Emily and I have come to the conclusion that “diets” don’t work. We have seen too many people start on a diet plan or a meal plan, have great success for up to 5 months, and then fall off and never pick up that meal plan again.

Instead of a diet plan, we are going to offer a framework through education. We are not going to suggest that you overhaul your habits or your life. There is a lot of data that suggests that most Americans are at a serious deficit in most vitamins and minerals and that deficit is often largely responsible for hormonal and health imbalances. We think that you should be able to right that imbalance fairly easily without almost any shift in your daily life.

That’s the first step.

To answer the question of why we aren’t advocating counting macros or calories the answer is fairly simple. Counting is not only time consuming, it’s incredibly inaccurate. Because of the myriad potential for inaccuracy we are suggesting a calorie control method that doesn’t involve any kind of counting.

For example, men might begin by eating:

• 2 palms of protein dense foods at each meal;
• 2 fists of vegetables at each meal;
• 2 cupped handfuls of carb dense foods at most meals; and
• 2 thumbs of fat dense foods at most meals.

And women might begin by eating:

• 1 palm of protein dense foods at each meal;
• 1 fist of vegetables at each meal;
• 1 cupped handful of carb dense foods at most meals; and
• 1 thumb of fat dense foods at most meals.

If we want to do a deeper dive we can start looking at what body type you might have and how we can then tweak those portions to augment continued results. The best thing about this approach is that it can’t be more personalized because we are using your specific body.

Remember these helpful tips:

  1. First, remove red flags and nutrient deficiencies.
  2. Control your calorie intake without counting calories.
  3. Consider your body type and activity level.
  4. Observe your progress carefully. Adjust your intake as needed.
  5. Do all of this consistently and long-term first, before adding any new strategies.
  6. Eat plenty of protein.
  7. Eat a wide variety of fruits, vegetables, quality carbs, and healthy fats.
  8. Eat slowly.
  9. Try to create healthy habits and use that as your building blocks.

 

 

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