Intro to Flexible Dieting Part 3

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Hey again! 

Welcome to the third installment of my Intro to Flexible Dieting series.  Truth be told, I could have said SO MUCH MORE, I do have almost 2 decades of experience using this approach after all, but I really, REALLY tried to keep it as simple as I possibly could while still providing you with details that will improve your understanding of why I provide the guidance I do.  

I hope you can feel the energy behind these posts is fueled by a deep desire to help women understand just how easy managing their diet really is.  That’s not to say sticking to it is easy, just the process and the why is easy & (fairly) simple.  If I can help even one woman avoid the terrible relationship with food I had for so long, I have accomplished my mission.  

That being said, we are going to dive into Steps 5 & 6 today.  Hopefully, you’ve practiced 1-4 already, but if you haven’t you can start now by going to part 1 and part 2, and I will happily answer any and all of your questions.

Step 5: Set up macros – Now that Gal has her total daily intake set (we are going to work with the calories from the example I gave all the way back here), we need to address how she will reach that intake.  

For most of my first-time macro counters, I begin with giving them a protein goal and a total calorie goal.  Unless you are a physique competitor or an advanced dieter, it is really unnecessary to try to finagle counting protein, carbs, and fat all at once, but I do find it helpful to keep in mind that 1g of carbs is 4 calories & 1g of fat contains 9 calories. 

There are multiple schools of thought regarding just how many of your daily calories to get from protein, but I typically assign approximately 1g/lb of body weight or 2.5g/kg of body weight (Campbell et al., 2018).  Since I am in the U.S., I am going to stick with lbs. For some of you, 1g per pound may seem like SO much, but once you are eating at a deficit it will help you enormously.  Why? 

  1. Protein has been shown to satiate dieter’s appetites (Leidy et al., 2010).  
  2. Protein supports muscle retention while at a caloric deficit – meaning you do not sacrifice as much muscle during weight loss, so more of your lost weight comes from body fat (Evans et al., 2012).
  3. Protein stimulates your metabolism through what is known as the “thermic effect of food” (Pesta & Samuel, 2014)

Another way to think of this is to think of the total percentage of calories in protein you are going to eat per day.  When I encounter clients who find it easier to think in this way, I typically assign somewhere between 35%-40%.  

In our example, we are talking about Gal. We know that Gal has a girlfriend’s wedding coming in 16 weeks and she wants to lose somewhere around 10 lbs.  We have not yet established her weight, but for the purpose of our example, we are going to say that Gal is about 140 lbs.  Easy enough, right? 140 lbs = 140g Protein per day.  

Gal’s total caloric intake on her diet is: 1343 calories per day

Gal’s total calories consumed via protein intake: 140g x 4 cal/gram=560 calories/day This means that approximately 42% of her total caloric intake will come from protein. 

Now, you may be asking, why I would assign such a high percentage of calories to protein for Gal when I just said that I would typically assign somewhere between 35%-40%.  Well, that’s because Gal has a pretty specific goal for a specific period of time.  If Gal wanted to just diet for 16 weeks, without a goal weight in mind, I would likely err on the side of a little more balance, but what I hope you are really gathering is that these numbers are flexible to a certain degree and should be dependent on what clients can adhere to. 

I realize I have spent a long time talking about protein intake, but that is because it is powerful and important.  Overwhelmingly more of the clients of mine that adhere to their protein intake achieve their weight-loss or body fat percentage goals.  It is a game-changer for me, and I want you to see the same success that I, and countless other women that I have trained also see. 

Let’s take a moment to cover how to utilize the remaining calories for your day.  

  1. Eat in a way that feels natural to you, just stay within your calorie goal. 
  2. Pay attention to how you feel when you eat a large percentage of fats or carbs on any given day. 
  3. As you track your food longer and gather more data, tailor your intake percentages to meet what helps you adhere consistently.  This is where the magic happens.

Step 6: Modify your intake as you monitor your results – This is the last step I am going to share with you, I promise! As you progress along in your diet, you should monitor your progress at regular intervals.  Many of my clients who are in diet phases check in with me the day after they have had a full day of rest.

Why? 

A: Because they have had the opportunity to recover as much as they can and inflammation will not be a factor that skews their scale weight.  

Use multiple ways of tracking progress. Use scale weight for calculation purposes, do measurements around your bust, waist, & hips (sometimes I add arms and legs too for more tracking depending on a person’s body-type), AND check to see how closely you adhered to your goals. 

Once you see your progress, recheck your calculations to figure out how close your projections were.  If your target was 1 pound per week, and you lost 2, you might be able to eat more.  If you lost less, you might want to readjust.  I typically wait a few weeks for clients to get into the groove before making many adjustments.  Factors like new workout programs, more volume of exercise or even fiber, less sleep, or hormones can all skew scale weight, so do not be afraid to give yourself a 2 or even 4-week sample before you check your calculations and decide to eat more or less.  

This is a relatively simple breakdown of how to successfully diet using a flexible approach.  There are many more little tidbits I will share at some point, but hopefully, this is enough to get you on your way.  If you are overwhelmed, that is okay, much of this is just practicing and failing.  Failing teaches you lessons just as much as the daily practice so embrace both.  I teach people this process daily and am here for you even if all you have is a question, but if you find that you need someone to do the math for you or just need someone to keep you accountable – that is what I do in my online coaching business and I would love to embark on that path alongside you. 

If this helped you at all, I would love it you would help me out by sharing it on your social media channels. You can tag me on instagram @dianabecker12 or on twitter @dianaleighbecker

References: 

Campbell , B., Aguilar, D., Conlin, L., Vargas, A., Schoenfeld, B. J., Corson, A., … Couvilllion, K. (2018, July 3). Effects of High Versus Low Protein Intake on Body Composition and Maximal Strength in Aspiring Female Physique Athletes Engaging in an 8-Week Resistance Training Program. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29405780/. 

Evans , E. M., Mojtahedi, M. C., Thorpe, M. P., Valentine, R. J., Kris-Etherton, P. M., & Layman, D. K. (2012, June 12). Effects of protein intake and gender on body composition changes: a randomized clinical weight loss trial. Nutrition & metabolism. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/22691622/. 

Leidy , H. J., Tang, M., Armstrong, C. L., Martin, C. B., & Campbell , W. W. (2010, September 16). The effects of consuming frequent, higher protein meals on appetite and satiety during weight loss in overweight/obese men. Obesity (Silver Spring, Md.). https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/20847729/. Pesta, D. H., & Samuel, V. T. (2014). A high-protein diet for reducing body fat: mechanisms and possible caveats. Nutrition & metabolism, 11(1), 53. https://doi.org/10.1186/1743-7075-11-53

Intro to Flexible Dieting Part 2

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Hello all! 

Thank you for coming back to read part 2 of my Intro to Macros series! If you missed last week’s blog, you can find it here: https://dianaleighgraham.wordpress.com/2020/10/01/introduction-to-flexible-dieting/

I hope that you found it helpful to begin by tracking your food as a method of gathering data.  I know I did.  I have been using flexible dieting for a long time, but just like you, my adherence ebbs and flows at times due to a variety of life factors.  Since last week, I have also been gathering data on myself and yesterday completed the steps I will outline for you today.  

As you spent the last few days tracking absolutely everything, did you find areas where you were intaking more calories than you initially figured? I sure did.  My coffee (creamer) addiction was adding almost 200 calories to my daily food intake because I had become so used to eyeballing (apparently incorrectly) it as I threw it into my mug.  As I became more aware of that (because I started using my food scale again), I have chosen to forgo some of it, and instead, use those macros/calories on other more nutritiously dense foods.

Now that you have the data to work with, let’s talk about what to do with it.  I will start with step 3 since last week’s blog contained steps 1 & 2. 

Step 3: Determine a goal and a timeframe – most of the time I train women who want to “lose weight”, but that is not specific enough.  Part of what makes a diet successful is the start and end dates.  No one can diet with no idea of when it might end, and when they try, they often get frustrated and give up or end up spinning their wheels beyond the time it would take to actually get to their goal if they had just buckled down.  

For the purpose of this example, we are going to say that Gal has her best friend’s wedding in Hawaii in 16 weeks and she wants to lose 10 lbs.  Both of these numbers are important in this process, so let’s do the calculations to see why.  

For Gal to lose 10 lbs she will have to be at a 3500 calorie deficit for every 1 pound.  

10 lbs * 3500 calories = 35,000 calorie deficit

Since we know Gal’s best friend’s wedding is in 16 weeks, we can spread that deficit over those 16 weeks. 

35,000 calorie deficit / 16 weeks = 2188 deficit per week

This can be further broken down into the number of days in the week Gal is going to be at a deficit through her diet/exercise.  In this example, we are going to say that Gal wants to be at the least deficit possible per day, so we will divide 2188 by 7 days which will give us her deficit daily.  

2188 deficit per week / 7 days of deficit per week = 313 calories per day

*Sometimes I come across clients who want to take a total rest day from dieting (meaning they eat maintenance calories on that day), or they want to diet a little harder some days and a little less on others.  When setting up, it really does not matter how you get to your total deficit, it only matters that you do.  There are numerous ways to set this up, and it is up to you (and your trainer if you are working with one) to decide exactly how you will get to your total caloric deficit.  

Step 4: Figure out how you are going to reach that deficit – Since Gal’s goal is fairly moderate, we are working with a deficit per day that can be taken completely from the calories she consumes on a regular basis or we can spread it across exercise and caloric intake.  Below is an example of how to do this with each scenario. 

Example 1 – deficit via diet alone every day of the week.  This is the most straightforward way to begin, and as long as your daily deficit is not an extremely high number (that “extremely high number” will vary from person to person), I typically begin this way. 

1656 calories per day to maintain – 313 calorie deficit = 1343 calorie intake per day 

Example 2 – deficit via diet & exercise every day of the week.  Sometimes I have a client who feels too hungry to adhere to a 1300 calorie per day intake, or maybe their deficit puts them even lower than this and feels unhealthy for them.  If this is the case, I spread it over a caloric intake deficit & a caloric output deficit.  Here is what that might look like: 

200 calorie deficit through intake: 

1656 calories per day to maintain – 200 calorie deficit = 1456 calorie intake per day

113 calorie output through ADDED exercise: 

1456 calorie intake per day – 113 calories burned through exercise = 

1343 total calorie intake per day

Phew! I realize that there are a lot of different calculations and numbers provided here, but try plugging in your own information and do the calculations according to your own goals.  It might take you a few attempts, or you may have to adjust your goal to be a little more realistic for your own life, and that is OKAY! Part of dieting success is understanding how to make the data work for you, AND adjusting your expectations so that they are doable with the time you are operating with.  

This week, all you need to do is work on these calculations, and stay within your new caloric goal.  Next week, after you have had some practice, we will talk about what “macros” are and how to find the correct balance for you.  

As you attempt to adhere to this new caloric intake, try to remember that mistakes are part of the process.  Do not quit (or get the “fuck-its”) if you are off unexpectedly or you eat something without realizing how much of your goal it will take up.  Learn the lesson for next time.  These lessons will better inform your food choices, and who can be mad about better information? 

If you have questions, please leave them below, or reach out to me on Instagram.  You can find me there at @dianabecker12 – I love to help people embarking on this process for the first time, and will happily assist you if you are at a sticking point. 

Introduction to Flexible Dieting

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Hello again! 

If you read my first post last week, I want to thank you for taking the time to do so and for returning to read again this week.  If you have not yet read last week’s, just know it is an overview of who I am, where I come from, and what my outlook is as a trainer and fitness coach.  You can find it here: Introducing: Me.

This week I want to dive into something a little more complex: how to set up and begin counting macros.  

I was first introduced to the idea of counting macros in 2006.  We called it flexible dieting back then, and I was taught (by people much smarter than I) that there were “no magic foods”, and that barring some serious medical issue, my body is not special and will breakdown/use foods no matter if they came from some special list of “clean” foods or not.  Last week I briefly spoke about my history of an eating disorder (ED), and I bring this up in this conversation because, for me, the use of flexible dieting was transformative.  I no longer had to think of foods in terms of good or bad.  I no longer had to eat only foods from the clean foods list.  I no longer panicked if we had a family birthday and I had to be subjected to (gasp!) cake eating.  Instead, I began tracking.  I picked a total calorie number and stayed within it.  That’s not to say I did everything right, or that I was immediately recovered, but it was a step in the right direction.  There is much more to that story that I will cover someday in another blog. 

I have been coaching women online since 2012, and since this tool has been something I personally employed for so long, I felt very comfortable using it with my online clients. I am happy to report that the vast majority of those women now know how to diet successfully, understand the process of setting their macros, and utilize it extremely successfully for whatever goal they might have on their horizon.  

Let’s get into it. 

Step 1: Start tracking – Begin by tracking 3 to 7 days of your normal unedited eating.  The ultimate goal here is to get an idea of what your metabolic setpoint is (read more about set point theory here: https://tinyurl.com/y6uppbsb).  Chances are you are maintaining your weight/body fat percentage, and getting a baseline reading for your typical caloric intake will allow you to know what you need to eat to maintain, thus giving you a number to make your predictions with. The bigger the sample size, the more accurate the data is likely to be, so although I know many of us are raring to go immediately when we finally decide to get serious with our diet, this is a CRUCIAL step.  

Here are some helpful hints: 

  1. Eat according to your hunger cues.  
  2. Do not try to eat “healthier” just because you are now seeing just how many calories are in that frappucino, donut, or protein bar you “occasionally” treat yourself to.  We need an accurate number and trying to perform in this way will throw our calculations off.  
  3. Weigh things to the best of your ability (more on that later), so that we can get the most accurate information when possible. When inputting them to your app, mmake sure that you input them the way you weighed them.  For example: If you weigh chicken raw, input it as raw.  If you weigh it once its cooked, input it as cooked in whatever method you used.  
  4. Use an app such as Myfitnesspal (there are others, MFP is just my go-to) to track AS YOU GO.  Do not leave it all until the end of the day. It will take a lot longer than necessary, and you will likely leave out some things and will throw our calculations off. 
  5. If you eat out or eat something you can’t measure, use your best guess.  Yes, you may guess wrong, but the experience is valuable and your best guess is better than none at all.  
  6. Track your alcohol intake.  MFP will not assign macros to alcohol, but it will add the calories into your daily totals, so don’t be confused if you do not have enough macros to account for the calories (we will talk about this later, too).  

Step 2: Average out your intake – Let’s say that our subject, let’s name her Gal (I love Gal Gadot) tracked for 5 days.  Gal would take the total amount of calories, add them together, and divide by 5. 

Here is an example: 

Monday – 1619

Tuesday – 1380

Wednesday – 2021

Thursday – 1450 

Friday – 1808 

1619+1380+2021+1450+1809 = 8279 calories consumed over 5 days 

8279 calories consumed over 5 days / 5 = 1656 calories per day to maintain 

Since most of my clients come to me when they are “stuck”, I am assuming that you too are at a sticking point.  If you are not losing or gaining, that means you are maintaining, so for the purposes of this example, we are assuming Gal is at maintenance.  

If you do not fall under this category, that’s okay! Based on the information we gather, we can project where your metabolic setpoint is at, all we need you to do is weigh yourself the day you begin tracking and the day after you end your initial tracking.  

Next week we will cover what to do with this information. This week, I want you to download a tracking app (link to Myfitnesspal here: https://tinyurl.com/tdz6ycv), order a digital food scale (this is the one I use: https://amzn.to/34jZCn4), and start your data collection! If you have questions, PLEASE comment below! I will absolutely answer them as they come in.  

Introducing: Me.

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Hi! My name is Diana Becker, and this is my very first blog post ever! 

I realize I am late to the blogging party and that social media is the way of the future, but I find that I have more to say than can be contained in a caption for a post.  I plan to integrate my blog posts into my captions for Instagram (where I am most active), but always link back to my blog so that all of you can read all of what I have to say if you wish to.  You can follow me on Instagram by finding my handle: @dianabecker12

I will be writing posts on subjects from how to get (and stay) motivated to what is happening physiologically in our bodies, and I am open to not only hearing your feedback but also hearing what you want to know!  

I want to dedicate this first post to telling you about myself.  I do not want to be just more noise in the world of fitness, and I aim not to be that by drawing on my 16 years of experience + education to have physiologically correct and real-world applicable advice.  

Before I became a trainer 16 years ago I had been an athlete.  I grew up playing various sports and participating in a myriad of physical activities.  I was never the best at anything, but always worked really hard to be among the top of everything.  I was the 5th or 6th runner (depending on the week) on a nationally ranked, 2nd in state, cross-country team as a freshman in high school.  My sophomore year I tried out for cheerleading, made it, loved it, and it carried me through the next few years of my life.  As a junior in high school I set out to learn how to backhandspring so that I could tumble for competitive cheerleading and joined our high school’s gymnastic’s team eventually winning the “most improved” award at the end of the season.  I cheered both competitively at a private club and for my high school in my senior year, then went on to be a part of a co-ed stunt team for the Seattle Supersonics immediately following high school.  These were the days that laid the foundation for the grit that I would need to pursue bigger goals and overcome large obstacles as an adult.  

During my senior year of high school I developed anorexia.  As it often does, my anorexia slowly developed into bulemia and I began to excessively exercise.  It would take me well into my 30’s to identify that anxiety was the underlying trigger that held me captive to these debilitating behaviors.  Someday, I will write a blog post about my eating disorder journey and how I overcame it.  Today, just know that I have been there and come out the other side.  It is an important collection of experiences that shape the way I coach and the way I see “fitness”. 

At 20 I became the mother to a son (Braden, now 15!).  I have been doing the “fitmom” thing damn near my entire adult life. I know what it is to balance motherhood, school, work, and personal goals.  I know what it looks like to “get back in shape” postpartum and I am also excited to share that with you.  

During my mid-twenties I began competing in the NPC (National Physique Committee) and set my goals high! 

They were: 

~To become an IFBB Pro

~To sign with the management group FMG

~To win an IFBB Pro Show 

~To compete at The Olympia

~To compete in The Arnold Invitational 

~To be a Sponsored Athlete with a large company

At Junior Nationals in 2011 I won my class, came in 2nd overall and turned pro.  I’ll never forget that night because not only did I accomplish that goal, but I was approached backstage by J.M. Manion to sign with FMG.  Two big goals accomplished! The very next weekend I competed in my first Pro Bodybuiling event.  It was called the PBW Tampa Pro Show and I won that too.  I am one of only a few bikini competitors who won their pro card and first pro show in the very same week. My win qualified me to compete at The Olympia, which I did, and I placed 11th that year.  Just before the Olympia, I signed with GNC to be a sponsored athlete and got to represent the company at a variety of events all over the United States.  In late 2011 I was invited to compete at The Arnold Bikini International and I did that in early 2012 where I placed 7th. This is not the whole story of my IFBB career, but it is a summary of the highlights, and I love sharing my experience and unique insight with the clients I train to compete in NPC shows far and wide. 

In the past 5 years I have coached women from all over the world.  These women have been beginners, they have been new moms, they have been experienced exercisers and they have been accomplished competitors.  Together we have achieved more goals than I could ever count and they have provided my life with an incredible amount of purpose and meaning. I am excited to share more of their experiences under “Success Stories”. 

At the same time that I have been coaching women, I have been in school.  I went back to school at 32 years old with no real idea of what I wanted to study.  As I continued further into my courses, I found that I loved science and learning about our bodies.  These two loves propelled me down the nursing track and I graduated with my AA in Pre-Nursing in Spring 2018.  I am now about 3 quarters away from graduating with my Bachelor’s of Health Studies which is an arm of the Nursing Program at The University of Washington.  Through school I have developed an even stronger ability to stay disciplined.  I have learned to apply that same grit that drove me physically to my studies, and now I reap the benefits in the form of excellent grades. 

16 years in the making, and I finally feel as if I have valuable and noteworthy things to say.  I hope you will join me by checking back here frequently, leaving your questions or comments, connecting with me on Instagram, and sharing if you feel so inclined.