Diet Musings

[Fruitbat]

My old PT told me to eat 40/30/30 so lots of protein. I found this to be a hell of a lot of lean meat and actually hard much else.

My doctor told me to eat Mediterranean. Real med, as in tons of veg, fish, limit red meat, no butter or processed food and little red meat. I felt incredibly healthy but quite hard to eat a lot of protein.

Bodybuilders eat lots of chicken, broccoli and rice.

To hit potassium goals this will not cut it.

So, what is better: a very high fruit and veg diet with as much lean protein you can fit in. Or a bland chicken based diet which probably won’t see you getting the full range of minerals and vitamins?

I want to shift weight but I am not a contest bodybuilder.

I’m edging to the med way, OO, fruit, veg etc.

What do you think?

 

[Manure Spherian]

So, what is better: a very high fruit and veg diet with as much lean protein you can fit in. Or a bland chicken based diet which probably won’t see you getting the full range of minerals and vitamins?

You don’t have to restrict any food group. So your diet can include grains, fruits, vegetables, potatoes, beans, meat, and dairy, all of which are in a Mediterranean diet. By the way, several Mediterranean cuisines include butter, including Turkish and Persian.

Butter isn’t bad for you, and I have it several times per week.

 

[Manure Spherian]

LOL bruh don't fall for the BS you hear on TV about the CBR diet, that's not true

It’s completely unnecessary. And many BBers don’t eat like that.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

My old PT told me to eat 40/30/30 so lots of protein. I found this to be a hell of a lot of lean meat and actually hard much else.

My doctor told me to eat Mediterranean. Real med, as in tons of veg, fish, limit red meat, no butter or processed food and little red meat. I felt incredibly healthy but quite hard to eat a lot of protein.

Bodybuilders eat lots of chicken, broccoli and rice.

To hit potassium goals this will not cut it.

So, what is better: a very high fruit and veg diet with as much lean protein you can fit in. Or a bland chicken based diet which probably won’t see you getting the full range of minerals and vitamins?

I want to shift weight but I am not a contest bodybuilder.

I’m edging to the med way, OO, fruit, veg etc.

What do you think?

Protein is THE most important macro when trying to drop weight. There really is no debate possible on this. The studies are too many and evidence too overwhelming in terms of showing this.

It helps spare as much muscle as possible even in a caloric deficit so that most of the weight being lost comes from fat and can even help slightly gain muscle if training heavy enough.

It also is highly thermogenic and causes far more energy to be used via the thermic effect of food. Protein is 25-30+%, Carbs are 10-15% and fat is 3-5%.

Ideally you should target 1-1.2g of protein per pound of bodyweight while losing weight. Never below 1g per pound of bodyweight. Prioritizing protein should be your #1 goal when designing a nutrition plan while trying to lose weight.

 

[EyeBRollin]

The protein recommendation is too high. It’s extremely unlikely that a non-elderly person will develop a protein deficiency on a caloric maintenance diet. It’s actually difficult to do as even commonly eaten vegetables are >10% protein by calorie.

Mediterranean diet is one of the best diets out there. There is no need for labels, however. I find it best to look at what foods are health promoting vs. not:

Health promoting- these foods have established health benefits and are worth eating:

-Raw fruit
-Raw or lightly steamed vegetables
-raw nuts
-legumes
-whole grains
-edible seeds
-fatty fish

Neutral - neither good nor bad. These foods are not required for a diet to be healthy but are helpful if they encourage you to eat more health promoting foods and/or eat less of the bad foods

-olive oil
-eggs
-dairy
-Lean meat (>90% lean)
-unsaturated, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils (canola, avocado, sunflower, etc. NOT palm or coconut)
-dark chocolate

Bad foods- Enjoy sparingly. These foods have established health risks:

-Basically everything not listed above
-Basically anything fried outside of your home
-Significant amounts of added fats, sugar, and salt

 

[BackInTheGame78]

The protein recommendation is too high. It’s extremely unlikely that a non-elderly person will develop a protein deficiency on a caloric maintenance diet. It’s actually difficult to do as even commonly eaten vegetables are >10% protein by calorie.

Mediterranean diet is one of the best diets out there. There is no need for labels, however. I find it best to look at what foods are health promoting vs. not:

Health promoting- these foods have established health benefits and are worth eating:

-Raw fruit
-Raw or lightly steamed vegetables
-raw nuts
-legumes
-whole grains
-edible seeds
-fatty fish

Neutral - neither good nor bad. These foods are not required for a diet to be healthy but are helpful if they encourage you to eat more health promoting foods and/or eat less of the bad foods

-olive oil
-eggs
-dairy
-Lean meat (>90% lean)
-unsaturated, non-hydrogenated vegetable oils (canola, avocado, sunflower, etc. NOT palm or coconut)
-dark chocolate

Bad foods- Enjoy sparingly. These foods have established health risks:

-Basically everything not listed above
-Basically anything fried outside of your home
-Significant amounts of added fats, sugar, and salt

No it isn't. It has nothing to do with being deficient in protein, it has to do with ensuring as much muscle is spared as possible while losing weight. Otherwise you will be shedding more lean body mass as part of the weight lost which is NOT what you want.

You need to eat MORE protein while dropping weight than at any other time, including when trying to add muscle. This both ensures you are sparing as much muscle as possible AND creates a greater thermic effect versus carbs and fat to help with weight loss.

Too many studies all show the exact same thing to the point it's not really even a debate anymore.

1g per pound of bodyweight is the MINIMUM, with 1.2g per pound of bodyweight being ideal. Prioritize protein above all else when losing weight or you are losing more lean muscle mass than you need to.

 

[EyeBRollin]

1g per pound of bodyweight is the MINIMUM, with 1.2g per pound of bodyweight being ideal. Prioritize protein above all else when losing weight or you are losing more lean muscle mass than you need to.

I have not seen any scientific recommendations that high, even for elite level athletes. What is important is the strength training. Also, the body doesn’t even store protein.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I have not seen any scientific recommendations that high, even for elite level athletes. What is important is the strength training. Also, the body doesn’t even store protein.

"Another older review of six studies showed that athletes who lost the least amount of muscle mass while cutting calories consumed the most protein — 1.14–1.3 g per lb (2.5–2.6 g/kg) of body weight (18Trusted Source)."

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Protein is tricky because you have to eat based on feel, if your feeling bloated by the protein and full, you need to wait an hour before consuming any more because it's just gonna likely be unused, the bloat is your body telling you that's enough and you'll likely feel hungry again in that hour which means you need to reduce the amount in that meal.

I know guys who can do 100g of protein in a sitting, I can't personally anything above 60 and I'm bloated and constipated which means spreading meals out, to hit my daily intake is 7 meals which is a lot of eating throughout the day but this is also when I feel my best.

The CBR diet just refers to the idea that if you don't consume protein or carbs in your diet, your going to lose lean muscle mass, I don't know how that works in Ketosis, I assume this is why most people intermittent fast is to get the blasts of HGH to defer muscle loss but all I know is I keep most of my muscle in keto without much issue

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

"Another older review of six studies showed that athletes who lost the least amount of muscle mass while cutting calories consumed the most protein — 1.14–1.3 g per lb (2.5–2.6 g/kg) of body weight (18Trusted Source)."

For athletes sure, but this figure seems excessive for a regular dude, .08 would probably be sufficient, might see a bit of loss but your mitigating most of it

 

[EyeBRollin]

"Another older review of six studies showed that athletes who lost the least amount of muscle mass while cutting calories consumed the most protein — 1.14–1.3 g per lb (2.5–2.6 g/kg) of body weight (18Trusted Source)."

If I recall, that same study had similar results at a lower threshold, 0.64 g per lb of body weight. That leads to the follow up questions:

Is this observation or RCT?
Is this a linear, exponential, or S curve relationship?
Where is the point of diminishing returns? We know it exists… protein is not stored.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

If I recall, that same study had similar results at a lower threshold, 0.64 g per lb of body weight. That leads to the follow up questions:

Is this observation or RCT?
Is this a linear, exponential, or S curve relationship?
Where is the point of diminishing returns? We know it exists… protein is not stored.

That's not for people losing weight. That's where no further muscle gaining benefit was found. Two completely different directions. We are talking about prevention of muscle loss while losing weight. You are referring to addition of muscle while looking to gain weight.

 

[BackInTheGame78]

For athletes sure, but this figure seems excessive for a regular dude, .08 would probably be sufficient, might see a bit of loss but your mitigating most of it

Why would it be different for an athlete if the goal was losing weight? It's not talking about athletic performance, it's talking about weight loss. You don't get any boost to that by being an athlete other than potentially burning more calories from activities

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

Why would it be different for an athlete if the goal was losing weight? It's not talking about athletic performance, it's talking about weight loss. You don't get any boost to that by being an athlete other than potentially burning more calories from activities

I would assume an athlete is going to have more muscle mass at the same weight than the average dude, which means a greater caloric intake and the protein needed is based on the maintenance or caloric intake needed.

If fat and muscle burned the same calories equally you'd be right.

Can't just calculate by weight, I mean you can if your gonna go way over but the average guy that means spending a lot or getting worse quality food, ideally you'd want your maintenance calculated which means tracking weight loss over a period of time based on a certain number

 

[BackInTheGame78]

I would assume an athlete is going to have more muscle mass at the same weight than the average dude, which means a greater caloric intake and the protein needed is based on the maintenance or caloric intake needed.

If fat and muscle burned the same calories equally you'd be right.

Can't just calculate by weight.

That still doesn't change the equation since it's grams of protein per pound of bodyweight which would not be dependant on muscle or fat.

And that isn't a good assumption to make. Have you ever seen some of the baseball players or linemen in football? Plenty of those guys are hovering at or above 30% BF.

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

That still doesn't change the equation since it's grams of protein per pound of bodyweight which would not be dependant on muscle or fat.

And that isn't a good assumption to make. Have you ever seen some of the baseball players or linemen in football? Plenty of those guys are hovering at or above 30% BF.

The equation is not based on weight because fat and muscle do not have the same caloric need. Weight is just a bench mark that you'd overshoot on, I edited my original comment to say this but you missed it

If you want to get really technical there is bone density weight differences as well, thus caloric intake should be calculated so your not consuming excess needlessly

 

[BackInTheGame78]

The equation is not based on weight because fat and muscle do not have the same caloric need. Weight is just a bench mark that you'd overshoot on, I edited my original comment to say this but you missed it

If you want to get really technical there is bone density weight differences as well, thus caloric intake should be calculated so your not consuming excess needlessly

This still has nothing to do with not losing muscle by intake of protein.

These studies have also showed the same thing many many times with non athletes as well so the point you are working so hard to make is moot.

 

[CAPSLOCK BANDIT]

This still has nothing to do with not losing muscle by intake of protein.

These studies have also showed the same thing many many times with non athletes as well so the point you are working so hard to make is moot.

Ok but if your trying to lose weight and not lose muscle at the same time, consuming excess protein is just adding excess weight, I'm not really trying that hard to make the point because it's a very simple one, consuming excess calories by over shooting your protein intake is just wasteful.

 

[Fruitbat]

No it isn't. It has nothing to do with being deficient in protein, it has to do with ensuring as much muscle is spared as possible while losing weight. Otherwise you will be shedding more lean body mass as part of the weight lost which is NOT what you want.

You need to eat MORE protein while dropping weight than at any other time, including when trying to add muscle. This both ensures you are sparing as much muscle as possible AND creates a greater thermic effect versus carbs and fat to help with weight loss.

Too many studies all show the exact same thing to the point it's not really even a debate anymore.

1g per pound of bodyweight is the MINIMUM, with 1.2g per pound of bodyweight being ideal. Prioritize protein above all else when losing weight or you are losing more lean muscle mass than you need to.

Ive read similar but one thing which is never really addressed is the position for the overweight and obese.

If you’re, say, 40% bodyfat then I really don’t believe this metric applies. If you’re dragging say 100lb of fat you surely don’t need 120g protein.

a man who is LBM of 150 and ideal weight of 175 but is currently 275lb surely shouldn’t eat 330g protein. This in chicken breast would be about 1500 cals alone and eating at 2300isj would be well over 50% as a macro.

 

[zekko]

My doctor told me to eat Mediterranean. Real med, as in tons of veg, fish, limit red meat, no butter or processed food and little red meat. I felt incredibly healthy but quite hard to eat a lot of protein.

I'm on a Mediterranean diet. Really, nothing is expressly forbidden, but some things are best kept to a minimum. So like you say, you can eat red meat, but limit it. I might have a steak once or twice a month. Mostly fish, chicken, turkey. I love fish, but the problem with that is it has mercury in it, so you shouldn't eat it more than a couple times a week. Similarly, I like oatmeal, but they say it has pesticides in it (even the organic kind), so again you have to limit it. The modern world has hurt some of our healthiest foods.

For protein, aside from the meat, I eat a lot of nuts and seeds. You have to watch the nuts though, because they're high in calories. Eggs are good, omelets with veggies and low fat cheese. Chickpeas (garbanzo beans) are also a good source of protein, I learned to make falafels (baked), and I developed a taste for them, I crave them now. Don't like tahini sauce though, I like them plain or with hot sauce. I haven't tried them with tzatziki sauce yet, that might be good.