Hello everyone! We are very excited for all of you that are taking part in the Healthy Eating Challenge here at Outlier and we wanted to review some information for those of you that won’t be able to attend the meeting tomorrow, January 7th at 10:30 AM! In my ten years of working with people in the fitness industry I have played with and recommended all types of diet strategies to people. The main thing that I have discovered is that there is no diet that beats the rest or one that works for everyone. The responsibility is on the dieter to find a method and strategy that works best for their established goals. Below I will go over the most popular diets that are around these days and offer examples of how they look on a day to day basis.
Quantitative Control (Calories, Zone/Macros/RPS)
The first camp of dietary control is quantitative control. This means you are weighing and measuring and balancing macronutrients or calories. Typically people that prefer these methods don’t restrict the types of foods they eat as much as they control the amount of things that they eat.
Let’s say that you had a plate of steak, eggs and rice for dinner.
Calorie Counting – This can be done via uploading it to a diet app or looking up the value online or on the packages the food comes in. You will need to measure the items, a small digital counter scale is recommended.
5 oz steak = 300 cals
2 large eggs = 140 cals
1.5 cups of rice = 300 cals
total meal = 740 cals
Macros/RPS/Zone* – The goal is to balance your macronutrients in your meals to different parameters. Most of the time people on these diets have a pretty even balance of protein to carbohydrates with some fat in the mix. These values can be found via diet app or online searching or on the packaging. You are looking for how many grams of Fat, Carbohydrates and Protein are in each item/the meal.
5oz steak = P36 C0 F13
2 large Eggs = P12 C0 F12
1.5 cups rice = P6 C68 F 1
Total Meal = P54 C68 F26
*Zone – Zone is essentially that same thing as Macros and what RP recommends but they add an extra measurement unit called blocks. The “Zone” diet prescribes that your calories should be balanced each meal so that the macronutrient balance is 40% carbs, 30% protein, 30% fat. The way they do this is by creating a unit called a block. 1 block of protein is equal to 7 grams. 1 block of Carbs is equal to 9 grams of carbs. 1 block of fat is equal to 3 grams of fat. When you add your meal up it should have equal amount of all blocks (which also means that the macronutrient balance should fall into the 40% carbs, 30% Protein, 30% Fat) to be considered a “Zone Meal.”
5oz steak = 4 blocks fat 5 blocks protein
2 large eggs = 3 blocks fat 2 blocks protein
1.5 cups rice = 7 blocks carbs
end balance = 7 blocks fat, 7 blocks carbs, 7 blocks protein
This will conclude the quantitative control tour and you now will be sailing off on the cruise de qualitative collection.
Qualitative Collection (Paleo and Primal)
Now we no longer are going to weigh and measure, rather we are going to assess the quality of the food we are eating. The two ways of measuring is going to be with Paleo and Primal guidelines. Both of these methods are similar but allow/restrict different items. These approaches don’t outright restrict amounts under the assumption that you are eating better quality foods that are typically more filling and satisfy the body, so the quantity will be more self regulated since you should naturally not be as hungry eating better food. For some people this works better as a healthy eating style because they feel less restricted by not having to limit amounts and they get to control the quality of food they eat.
Paleo – In order for a meal to be a paleo meal it needs to be free of grains (wheat, corn, oatmeal, caucasus, quinoa etc etc…), dairy, high fat cuts of meat, added sugar and anything processed. Paleo foods will fall under lean meats, nuts, seeds, vegetables and fruit.
steak = paleo
eggs = paleo
rice = not paleo
Primal – Primal is very similar to paleo except it allows for a few things to be brought into the diet. The main things that are allowed will be dairy items and high fat cuts of meat. The guidelines for avoiding grains stay the same.
steak = Primal
eggs = Primal
rice = not Primal
By this point in the blog you probably only read one of those sections because the other just sounded like your personal hell. I have found that most personalities gravitate towards one of those styles. Figuring out which one sounds more doable will help you decide your initial strategy for our six week challenge! Remember that we will have a follow up meeting two weeks in and four weeks into the challenge. These meeting will give us a chance to collectively discuss successes and troubles with the diets so far. Remember this is meant to be a learning process and there will be mistakes and corrections most likely made. We will be creating several groups for all of you with others of like minded goals. Your group will then have a coach assigned that will keep up on the group google doc that is created for you to track and see each others progress!
For the people that achieve the greatest results and highest achievements, we will have cash prizes funded from the entry fees ($20 to participate)! We are aiming to have five winners for both the male and the female category! These choices will be influenced by the before and after photos that we take, weight change, body fat change and who the coaches felt made the biggest changes!
Looking forward to seeing lots of you at the challenge and rocking the new year!
Remember if you can’t make the meeting you can still participate be emailing jessica@outliercrossfit.com and snagging myself before class for body fat measurements!
Coach P