The Best Diet for Weight Loss
Want to know what the best diet for weight loss is? Find out in this article.
What’s the best diet for weight loss?
You’ve probably heard Keto, Paleo, Mediterranean, Intermittent Fasting, and nowadays, Carnivore.
But which one actually works?
Which one is best?
That is what you’ll learn today.
I will tell you exactly what diet is best for you as you aim to lose weight, and why.
Here’s the thing. Searching for the “best” diet for weight loss is the exact reason people get stuck, or at best, lose a little weight and then gain it all back (80% of people who lose weight regain it within the first five years (1).
You may have experienced the same.
Maybe not.
I don’t know exactly what brought you here. Perhaps you’ve lost weight and you’ve gained it all back. Maybe you’ve been trying to get the weight off but it’s just not working the way you’d like. Maybe you’re just starting out and you’re feeling a bit overwhelmed with where to start and what to do.
No matter what your story or where you’re coming from, you’re here to figure out what the best diet is to help you finally get rid of that weight that is holding you back.
But you see, that right there is the problem. There is no such thing as the one “best” diet for all people.
That’s the reason people get stuck. They’re looking for something that doesn’t exist.
It’s not entirely about the diet itself.
It’s about your consistency.
Simply put, the best diet for weight loss is the one you can stick to consistently while being in a calorie deficit.
The #1 Factor In Weight Loss: A Calorie Deficit
Whether you eat nothing but Twinkies and Ho Hos, or nothing but sirloin and broccoli, a calorie deficit is what is going to get you to lose weight.
If you’re not familiar with a calorie deficit and how it works, let’s go over a brief lesson.
Your body is constantly burning calories. This is what we call your Total Daily Energy Expenditure, or in other words, the total amount of calories you burn throughout the day.
Your TDEE consists of a few different components:
Basal Metabolic Rate (calories burned at rest): this is often referred to as your metabolism
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): this is the amount of calories your body burns by breaking down and digesting the food you eat. Diet quality is the largest contributing factor.
Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): this is the amount of calories your body burns from movement that isn’t formal exercise such as doing chores, typing on a computer, walking, etc.
Exercise Activity Thermoenesis (EAT): this is the amount of calories burned from exercise like lifting weights, swimming, cycling, etc.
Fat tissue is essentially stored energy or stored calories (a calorie is a unit of energy).
When you consume fewer calories than you burn in the day, you are in a calorie deficit.
In order to make up for the deficit, your body will use stored energy or in this case, fat tissue.
And that is how fat is lost.
Although all of the special diet influencers want to make it seem like their diet is the only one that causes weight loss due to some special component, the reality is this:
Every diet that works for weight loss is one that creates a calorie deficit.
When you sit back and evaluate all diets out there, nearly all of them help you create a calorie deficit but restricting foods or meal timing.
Low-carb creates a calorie deficit by cutting out calories from foods with carbohydrates.
Carnivore creates a calorie deficit by cutting out calories from foods that aren’t animal based.
Intermittent fasting creates a calorie deficit by shortening eating windows in order to consume fewer calories.
They all do the same thing.
On the flipside, if you do Carnivore and eat more calories than your body needs to maintain weight, you will gain weight.
If you do intermittent fasting and only eat in a 8 hour window during the day, yet eat more calories than you need to maintain your weight, you will gain weight.
Plain and simple.
Now this may seem frustrating.
If all diets do is create a calorie deficit, then no diet itself truly works because of some special reason.
But it’s actually freeing.
Because no diet works for a special reason other than creating a calorie deficit, you are free to eat however you want to lose weight, as long as you are in a calorie deficit.
Take my client Eric, for example. Before working with me, he thought he couldn’t have ice cream. So he followed a strict diet but wasn’t seeing the progress he wanted, because he wasn’t in a calorie deficit.
But while working with me, he was able to enjoy his ice cream and still get in the best shape of his life.
Now, just because you can eat however you’d like in a calorie deficit and still lose weight, it doesn’t mean you should.
There are a few things to keep in mind when constructing the best diet for weight loss.
What Makes a Diet Work?
Adherence
What makes a diet work is you following through with the calorie deficit consistently.
So, when determining what kind of diet you want to follow, I invite you to ask yourself two questions:
1. Do I see myself eating like this the rest of my life?
If you only see yourself eating a certain way to lose fat for a short period of time, it will absolutely work, but once you return to your old ways, the fat will pile right back on.
2. Do I see this diet fitting into the lifestyle I want to live?
You cannot live the same lifestyle that got you in this situation, and expect to get in incredible shape.
There will be certain aspects of your lifestyle that you will need to change. However, your diet needs to be able to find its place in the new lifestyle you want to live with some level of flexibility.
For example, if eating a paleo style diet will work for the next few months because you don’t have a lot of social events coming up, it will not work long term if you intend to participate in the food and drinks that social events have to offer down the road.
But again, there must be some change. You once enjoyed far too much at social events. Moving forward, you don’t need to say “no” to social events, you just need to be more mindful of when indulging is worth the impact on your goals. Sometimes it will be, sometimes it won’t.
Protein Intake
If you didn’t think protein intake played a role in the effectiveness of your diet, think again.
Protein intake is a crucial part of finding the “best” diet for weight loss.
When you are eating adequate protein, along with following a proper resistance training program, you will increase your lean body mass, which will lead to more calories burned throughout the day without any added effort.
When you burn more calories throughout the day, you have a higher calorie budget to elicit the same calorie deficit.
For example, let’s say you used to need 1,600 Cals per day in order to be in a 20% calorie deficit (20% fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight). After gaining more lean body mass, you now need 1,800 Calories per day in order to be in a 20% calorie deficit.
Not only will more protein lead to higher lean body mass and therefore a high total daily calorie expenditure, but it will lead to a higher thermic effect of food as well.
The thermic effect of food (TEF) is the amount of calories your body burns by breaking down and digesting the food you consume.
Believe it or not, your body burns roughly 20-30% of the calories from protein during digestion, compared to 5-10% for carbs and 0-3% for fats (1).
A higher calorie budget makes your calorie deficit far easier.
Adequate protein intake will also make your diet far more satiating.
If you’ve tried to lose fat before, you know that hunger management is the name of the game. The more satiated you are, the less you need to rely on fighting your way through hunger.
As a macronutrient (a nutrient that your body needs in large quantities), protein has quite a few foods that are high on the satiety index.
“How much protein should I be eating?” you may wonder.
The RDA for protein intake is .8g per kg of total body weight. But the RDA is designed to prevent deficiency, rather than optimize muscle mass, health, and quality of life.
It’s generally recommended that you consume a minimum of .7g per pound of bodyweight each day.
Nutrient Density
Speaking of protein, the overall quality of your diet is another factor that will impact its effectiveness for weight loss.
Though a calorie deficit is the single more important factor, it’s important to make sure you create that deficit with a diet full of whole, natural, nutrient dense foods.
Unfortunately, roughly 60% of the American diet is made up of ultra-processed foods that are low in micronutrients, protein, and fiber.
A high fiber diet from whole foods will lead to greater weight loss and weight management long term, as those who eat more fiber generally eat 100 fewer calories per meal without even trying (2).
Simply put, your energy, satiety, health, mood, digestion, and body composition will all be better off when whole foods make up the majority of your diet, no matter what kind of dietary approach you choose to take.
Turns out the age-old advice of eating lean proteins and an abundance of fruits and veggies had a lot of truth to it.
Yet people thought it was too simple to be true.
Flexibility
Flexibility is arguably one of the most important elements of what makes a diet work long term.
If it’s too rigid, you will create meaningless and useless food rules that do you no good.
You will feel like you “cheated” your diet if you went “off plan” and that can lead to further binging and yo-yoing.
The best approach is a flexible approach. Without beating a dead horse of flexibility, keep the following things in mind when thinking through the best diet for weight loss.
Do I enjoy this diet?
Does this diet allow for wiggle room for indulgences, social events, etc.
Can I enjoy those things and still reach my goals?
Do I truly see myself eating this way the rest of my life?
Will this diet help me feel good as well as look good, or will I have to sacrifice how I feel to appease my physique for a short stint?
The Best Diet For Weight Loss: A Practical Approach
In an effort to reduce overwhelm from information overload, I wanted to include a section breaking down a simple and practical way to approach a healthy, sustainable diet in your everyday life.
First and most importantly, no matter what style of diet you choose, make sure you are in a calorie deficit, eating fewer calories than you need to maintain your weight. It doesn’t matter how healthy you eat, if you’re eating too many calories you will not lose fat.
Secondly, focus on 80% of your calorie intake coming from whole, natural, nutrient dense foods. I like to tell my clients to make sure that 80% of what they eat came from the ground or something that had a face before it was on their plate. If you are aiming to eat 1,600 calories per day to lose weight, 1,280 calories per day should come from whole foods, and the remaining can come from whatever else you’d like.
Ensure that you are able to be flexible with your approach. If you feel restricted in any way, it won’t work. If you find yourself saying things like “I can’t have ____”, you’ve created a meaningless rule that is too rigid.
By the way, if you want to avoid certain things out of choice, that is entirely different. It’s one thing to say “I can’t have that cake” when you really want it. It’s another thing to say “I choose not to have that cake” when it doesn’t align with what you want out of your diet.
Choice is everything.
Lastly, prioritize protein and fiber. I hardly ever have my clients aim for carbohydrate and fat goals, simply because it’s far too much mental energy spent on things that have very little return. Paying attention to calorie, protein, and fiber targets will make dramatic changes not only in your health, but in your body composition as well.
I don’t believe I’ve mentioned this yet, but a good rule of thumb is to aim for 14g fiber per 1,000 calories consumed. This means a 2,000 calorie diet should have 28g fiber from whole foods.
Here is a list of whole foods that can and should be regularly included in your diet, unless you have an intolerance or allergy:
Healthy Go-Tos: These are foods you should regularly consume for an overall healthy diet:
Berries
Nuts and Seeds
Avocados
EVOO (extra virgin olive oil)
Olives
Seafood
Non starchy vegetables
Herbs and Spices
Healthy Additions: These are foods that can be regularly incorporated into a healthy diet:
Whole fruits
Poultry
Keifer and Greek Yogurt
Potatoes
Whole Grains
Dark Chocolate
Healthy in a Balanced Diet: These are foods that can a part of a healthy diet:
Red Meat (unprocessed)
Non-Fermented Dairy and Cheeses
Eggs
Coconut Products
Soy Products
Foods to Limit: These are foods that are not necessarily off limits, but should be consumed sparingly for overall health:
Processed Meats (lunch meats, hot dogs, etc.)
Added sugar
Syrups
Refined grains
Fried Foods
Alcohol (I would limit alcohol more than anything else, but that’s for another article)
At this point you may feel ready to turn your diet around for the better with simple changes, rather than continuing to dig for the “best” crash diet for weight loss. If so, I’ve done my job. However, I would regret not sharing some tips on how to avoid very common mistakes to help you keep them from happening.
Common Mistakes to Avoid
Chasing Outcomes Over Behaviors
If there’s anything I’ve learned about fitness, nutrition, and how humans interact with the two, it’s that behaviors and actions are far more important than outcomes.
Weight loss is important for most people to be healthier, and I understand that it is an outcome. By no means am I suggesting that you shouldn’t pay attention to your weight.
What I will say, though, is to make sure that your pursuit of weight loss doesn’t cause you to lose sight of your actions and behaviors.
You will not lose weight every week. In fact, you may not lose weight for a few weeks in a row. Oftentimes, this will lead people to believe that what they’re doing isn’t working. Yet, their choices are better, their habits and routines are better, their energy is better, their libido is better, their workouts are better, their sleep is better, and their quality of life is better. Weight loss may be your end goal, but it’s not the only thing that comes from a quality diet.
Focus on your actions and behaviors, and the outcomes will take care of themselves.
Eating Healthy Yet Overeating
Study after study shows that we can drastically underestimate how many calories we eat in a day.
One study found that individuals who thought they were consuming 1,200 calories per day were actually consuming more than 2,000 calories per day (3).
Even nutrition professionals have been shown to underreport their food intake by hundreds of calories per day (4).
The solution?
Track your food.
Though tracking isn’t necessary for weight loss, it is too powerful of a tool to ignore, especially since we notoriously eat far more than we think we do.
Lucky for you, there are tons of apps that make food tracking easier than ever before.
MyFitnessPal, Chronometer, FatSecret, and MyNetDiary are all great options, to name a few.
Food tracking is not a way of life. You don’t have to do it forever, but you can if you want to.
Households have a budget when their finances need to be under control.
Businesses have accountants to make sure things don’t get out of hand.
Your body is no different. It has a calorie budget, and if you choose to ignore it, the stats show the fat could start to pile on.
The “All or Nothing” Mindset
If you’re someone who has a hard time with the all or nothing mindset, I have some tough love for you.
The all or nothing mindset is an excuse.
Why?
Because you never do anything perfect.
Yet, all or nothing individuals will find themselves saying “either I do it perfectly or I don’t do it at all”.
Not true. You actually do everything imperfectly. The same goes for your nutrition.
“All or nothing” is usually a smokescreen for something else.
The good news is that you can finally let go of this mindset.
“But Adam, I do tend to go off the rails when I slip up.”
I hear you. In order to avoid that, making sure your diet allows for flexibility will largely address that.
However, there are a couple of things you can keep in mind to prevent you from going off the deep end should you make a decision that wasn’t a part of your plan.
The first is a story.
Let’s say you’re driving down the road, and you get a flat.
Would you proceed to get out of the car and say “you know what? If I can’t drive with all four tires, I may as well drive with no tires” and then begin slashing the other three tires?
No.
That would be stupid.
The same concept applies to your nutrition.
If you made a decision that was off plan, you simply move on with your life and make a sound decision next time. Not the next day, not the next week, but the next meal.
Here’s the second: never miss twice.
Though I’m not a huge fan of rules, I do like this one.
Never miss two meals in a row of on plan eating. Never miss two workouts in a row. Never miss two days in a row. Whatever your “two” is, never miss two of them in a row.
Will you at some point? Yes, because you’re imperfect.
And when you do, you’ll remember that there’s no point in sabotaging the rest of the day, and you can make a sound decision next time you have the opportunity.
How to Start Today
Here’s your step by step guide to finding the best diet for weight loss, starting today.
Track your intake for two weeks straight. If you’re not willing to weigh and track your food, at least write down what you eat and drink every day for two weeks straight. At worst, your awareness of your habits, good and bad, will drastically increase.
Set a protein target, and aim to hit it each day through whole foods, and some protein powder if needed. Remember, .7g per pound of bodyweight is the minimum to shoot for.
Set a fiber target, and aim to hit it each day through whole foods. Aim for 14g per 1,000 calories consumed.
Stick to a rough meal schedule. Each eating window can be about two hours. For example, breakfast happens sometime between 7-9am, lunch from 12-2pm, and so on. Your body loves routine.
Make sure you’re eating in a calorie deficit. You only know if you track, and/or see fat leaving your body. Use my free fat loss calorie calculator here
Focus on sustainability and enjoyment, not perfection.
With that, you have your “best” diet for weight loss.
Thanks for reading. I hope this helps. :)
Should you have any questions or comments, please feel free to leave them below, or send an email to adam@poehlmannfitness.com. I read every one of them.
To your health,
Adam
PS. You’ve got this. But if you’re tired of trying on your own, or want to team up with me and work together, you can find more information here.
References
How Many Meals Should You Eat Per Day?
Some say you should eat two huge meals per day. Others say you should eat several small meals per day. What’s the truth?
HOW MANY MEALS SHOULD YOU EAT PER DAY?
The question “how many meals should you eat per day?” has been a prevalent question in the fitness and nutrition industry longer than I’ve been alive.
There have been thousands of attempts at answering this question.
Some say you should eat more frequently, some say you should eat less.
Which is it?
In the days of misinformation and mass information, how can you know the right answer?
That’s what I hope to help you with in this article.
My hope is that you not only walk away with an answer to “how many meals should you eat per day?” but also, a better understanding of the roles meal frequency plays so you can sniff out myths and distinguish right from wrong.
Now, if you’re someone who just wants a fast answer without learning anything from it, here you go:
There is no best meal frequency for every person. The ideal amount of meals per day depends on a few factors, but generally, I will make the argument that 3-4 meals per day is best for most people.
Now, if you’re someone who wants to get an answer, learn something new, and figure out what’s best for you and your goals, keep on reading.
What’s the context?
Before we get into the nitty gritty of meal frequency, we need to make sure we’re on the same page.
Most people who are wanting an answer to this question are those who want to improve their body composition (build muscle and/or lose fat), improve their diet and nutrition habits, and as a result, improve their health and longevity.
By the way, if you want a free fat loss guide to help you lose fat easily in sustainably, you can get that here.
Given that those people are the people I help, the remainder of this article will be speaking through that lens.
In other words, I’ll be more directly answering this question: “how many meals should I eat per day if I want to improve my body composition and health?”
With that clarified, let’s dive in.
Meal Frequency and Its Contributions
Meal frequency is tied to many things regarding our health and body composition such as
Weight management
Hunger and Satiety
Circadian Rhythm
Muscle Growth and Recovery
as well as blood sugar control. However, I will be speaking to the first four, as your blood sugar and insulin sensitivity conversations should be between you and your doc.
Weight Management and Body Composition
In order to better understand meal frequency, we need to understand body composition change and how it works. Specifically, we need to understand fat loss.
Your body burns a certain amount of calories per day. That total calorie amount is called your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE).
TDEE consists of a few different things:
Basal Metabolic Rate (calories burned at rest): this is often referred to as your metabolism
Thermic Effect of Food (TEF): this is the amount of calories your body burns by breaking down and digesting the food you eat. Diet quality is the largest contributing factor.
Non Exercise Activity Thermogenesis (NEAT): this is the amount of calories your body burns from movement that isn’t formal exercise such as doing chores, typing on a computer, walking, etc.
Exercise Activity Thermoenesis (EAT): this is the amount of calories burned from exercise like lifting weights, swimming, cycling, etc.
A snapshot of your total daily energy expenditure
If you consume more calories than you burn, your body will store those excess calories in the form of fat and/or muscle. This is called energy or calorie surplus.
If you consume fewer calories than you burn, your body will lose stored energy from fat and/or muscle. This is called energy deficit, or calorie deficit. A calorie deficit is needed to lose stored energy.
Put plainly, a calorie deficit is needed to lose fat.
This is where we run into a very common meal frequency myth: the more meals you eat in the day, the more it “stokes your metabolism” making it faster. It’s often illustrated like a flame. The more meals (coal, paper, etc.) you put into the fire, the more the fire roars. This myth has led to the misleading idea that eating more meals makes fat loss easier due to a faster metabolism.
But that’s not really what’s going on.
As we just learned, the only part of your TDEE that increases from food consumption is your TEF, and TEF is largely dictated by food/diet quality.
A diet of 4 meals per day with quality food choices can have a bigger impact on TEF than a diet of 7 small meals per day with average food quality.
But you may be thinking “well what about a diet of 7 small meals per day with quality food?”
Sure, that may increase your TEF by a teeny bit.
But if you’re consuming more calories than you burn, you will still gain fat.
And one thing we need to remember is that the more frequently you eat, the higher the likelihood you eat in a caloric surplus, consuming more energy than your body needs to maintain its current weight.
There are two reasons for this:
For starters, the more often you eat, the smaller your meals will need to be (assuming you’re trying to keep your calorie intake at bay on some level). The smaller your meals are, the harder it’s going to be to feel satiated.
The lower satiety you have, the hungrier you are.
The hungrier you are, the more you want to eat.
The more you want to eat, the more the inner cookie monster in you is screaming to be released.
Secondly, and though it’s obvious, it’s still worth stating, the more often you eat, the more you expose yourself to opportunities to consume additional calories.
Think of it this way: Imagine you had two versions of your day. Version A required you to look into the pantry every hour, and version B required you to look into the pantry every 3 hours. Odds are, version A would lead you to increased snacking and excess calorie consumption.
Flipping those two things on their heads, let’s look at fewer, larger meals.
Hunger and Satiety
Do you want to guess what the largest contributing factor to satiety or “fullness” is?
It’s not calories.
It’s food volume.
The volume of food you consume is the largest contributing factor to feeling full and satisfied throughout the day.
This is the key to fat loss. I communicate this with my clients regularly and it’s what allows them to consistently lose fat, build muscle, and do so without feeling like they’re on a diet eating like the little bird that sits on their back porch every morning.
Losing weight, keeping it off, and doing so without being a starving, miserable grouch comes down to an abundance of high volume foods that are lower in calories.
Aside from selecting foods that are high in volume, having larger meals per day is a key to feeling fuller for longer.
Imagine spreading 6 pounds of food per day across 3 meals compared to 6.
I don’t know about you, but eating 2 pounds of food in one sitting sounds like a lot.
When you eat large, square meals, you are going to feel fuller for longer. Especially when each meal contains at least 30g of protein and a few hundred grams of fruits and/or vegetables.
Aside from having more high volume, low calorie food in your diet and enjoying 3-4 square meals per day, there’s another thing you can do to reduce hunger.
Circadian Rhythm
Want to take a wild guess as to why you’re craving things a lot and feeling hungry more often than usual?
You’re not sleeping enough.
Research suggests that less than 7 hours of sleep can begin affecting ghrelin and leptin hormone levels.
If you read those two words and imagined a couple of gremlins, I got you.
Ghrelin is the hunger hormone, and leptin is the fullness hormone.
Getting 6-7 hours (what some consider great sleep) of sleep, can begin causing mild increases in ghrelin and decreases in leptin; more hunger and less time feeling full.
After 1-2 nights of 6 hours of sleep or less, significant changes in ghrelin and leptin can be seen.
Long story short, less sleep turns you into a tired and hungry grump.
Want to take a guess at what contributes to the quality of your sleep?
Meal frequency.
Meal frequency plays a large role in your circadian rhythm, the cycle that helps your body know when it’s time to be awake and when it’s time to be asleep.
Your body has an internal clock on some level, and some “cogs” that help keep that internal clock regulated are the meals you eat, so sticking to regular meal times can be helpful.
It doesn’t have to be strict, such as eating breakfast at 8am on the dot every morning. Think of your eating times as windows.
For example, breakfast between 8am-9am, lunch between 12pm-1pm, and dinner between 5pm-6pm.
In addition to having regular meal windows, it can be beneficial to avoid eating two hours before bed. It's been shown that eating closer to bed can affect the quality of your sleep.
And we all know that there is a difference between getting seven hours of poor sleep and seven hours of great sleep.
When you prioritize meal frequency and eating windows, your sleep will be better. And when your sleep is better, your mood, energy, hunger, and satiety is better.
Muscle Growth and Recovery
Meal timing may arguably have a more important role on muscle growth and recovery than meal frequency, but the way I see it, meal frequency and meal timing go hand-in-hand..
But I will be honest with you, meal timing is definitely one of those “don’t miss the forest for the trees” scenarios.
Overall, your total daily protein intake is what matters most.
If you’re consistently consuming 7 small meals a day but you’re consistently underconsuming protein, smaller meals won’t matter.
If you’re consistently consuming 3 larger meals a day but you’re consistently underconsuming protein, larger meals won’t matter.
Generally, aiming for a minimum of .7g per pound of bodyweight is best when prioritizing muscle growth, recovery, and preventing muscle loss.
And yes, even if your main goal is fat loss and you’re afraid of getting “bulky” you should still be aiming for a minimum of .7g per pound of bodyweight each day.
If your goal is fat loss, an easy number to get is 1g protein per pound of goal body weight.
So if you weigh 200lbs, but you want to weigh 150lbs, aim for 150g protein per day.
The meal frequency you set for yourself will help you make sure you get enough protein each day.
When you have a daily protein target of 150g per day, and you eat three meals per day, you know you need at least 50g protein in each meal to hit your daily target.
This is called chunking, where you take something big and break it down into small chunks in order to better understand it.
It's far easier to get 150g of protein each day when you are only focused on getting 50g in the next meal, compared to eating throughout the day and hoping you hit 150g when the day is finally over.
And generally speaking, whole foods that are high in protein tend to be satiating. The more protein you have in each meal, the higher the chances are you feel satisfied and you’re not feeling ravenous going into the next meal.
Now what if you’re consistently getting enough protein in? Does meal timing matter then?
Yes, it does.
Your pre and post workout meals are arguably the most important meals to prioritize proper nutrient timing, especially if you train first thing in the morning.
Ideally, your pre and post workout meals should have at least 15g carbohydrate and at least .3g protein per kilogram of bodyweight (lbs / 2.2 = kg).
But if you’re like me, you don’t like the feeling of food in your stomach while you train.
If you have to train first thing in the morning before eating, do your absolute best to have something light so you can get your pre workout nutrients such as a rice cake, graham cracker, or piece of fruit and protein shake in water (I know, the water won’t taste as good as with milk, but may be better to sip on throughout your workout).
Now, if you insist that you won’t eat anything before your workout first thing in the morning, though I strongly advise against it to prevent muscle breakdown, I won’t fight you to the death on it. But, I will stress the importance of getting plenty of protein within two hours after your workout.
And for those of you wondering.. No, your workout won’t be wasted if you don’t have a protein shake immediately after your workout.
Just eat a high protein meal as soon as you can within two hours if you’re training fasted.
With all of that said, meal frequency may have an impact on your body composition through meal and nutrient timing.
In my opinion, this one isn’t worth spending a lot of time on, as getting your total daily protein intake is most important. But if you want to optimize your results a bit more, spend some time tweaking your meal frequency to prioritize protein intake pre and post workout. My client Eric and I focused on this and his results speak for themselves.
Piecing it All Together
We’ve spent some time going over meal frequency in order to answer the “how many meals should I eat per day?” question.
Generally speaking, meal frequency plays an important role in weight management, hunger, satiety, circadian rhythm, as well as muscle growth and recovery.
Here’s the bottom line:
There is no one size fits all for meal frequency. Do whatever you need to do to get enough protein in, keep hunger at bay, feel satisfied after each meal, have regular meal windows, and most importantly, enjoy your diet.
If that means you have 6 meals per day, great. If that means you have 3 meals per day, that’s great too.
It is my opinion that 3-4 larger, more protein dense meals will be best for most people who want to feel full, hit their protein target, and have a rhythm to their eating without feeling like they’re eating all day long.
I have been training and coaching people for over 10 years now, and I have only seen a handful of scenarios where smaller meals were better for the individual compared to 3 to 4 larger meals.
The only way you can figure out what works best for you is to be consistent with something, see how you feel, and tweak it if it doesn't work.
There's no teacher like experience
Thanks for reading. I hope this helped.
If you have any questions or comments, feel free to let me know below or send an email to adam@poehlmannfitness.com
Cheers,
Adam
PS. If you want more information on coaching and what it’s like to work with me, you can learn more here.
Be a Better YOU
This world needs you. You’re worth it. You have potential and gifts that you need to tap into. Not because you need to be more like someone else, but because you need to be more like you.
My wife and I watched “The Social Dilemma” on Netflix the other night. I usually don’t watch something and begin recommending it to everyone I know, but I did with this one. This documentary shed some light on the truth of the monster we have created in social media and what we need to do in order to raise our awareness and combat it.
If you have kids, have kids that are addicted to their phones, have social media yourself, whatever it may be, it’s worth the watch.
Anyway, the main premise of the documentary was that social media has become a place for fake news and false information to gain traction and influence our minds. This is heavily related to the division we feel in our country.
But as I was watching the documentary, my fitness mind came to the forefront. I began to look at what they were saying through a health and fitness lens.
Sure, social media has clearly allowed more hate, division, and fake news to spread rapidly, causing us to lose our grip on the reality of our world we’re actually living in.
But I would also argue that social media has clearly allowed more self loathing to spread rapidly, causing us to destroy ourselves from the inside out.
Young impressionable girls are subconsciously being taught that their self-worth comes from pleasing men and using their body to do so. They begin to use and expose their bodies for likes and views. And if they don’t get those likes and views, they fall into the trap of believing that their body is not good enough, therefor THEY are not good enough.
They begin this vicious cycle of comparison, self-hate through diet and exercise, and then comparison again.
“My breasts aren’t big enough.”
“My butt isn’t shaped like hers.”
“Her waist is so much smaller than mine.”
I’m not a father, nor do I have any relatives that are young girls. But as I sit and write this, I feel so, so sad. My heart sinks with grief and sorrow for young girls out there.
As they critique themselves, they begin working to change in order to be more like another person and less like themselves. They start going to the gym to have a butt like so and so person. They start saving up money for botox so they can have lips like so and so person.
It is so heart wrenching.
The same goes for young boys.
“Girls will only like me if I have abs like he does.”
“Girls seem to like his earring. Maybe if I get one like that I’ll finally get the girls to like me.”
“My arms are so small, I want my arms to be like his.”
So they begin lifting, taking unnecessary supplements, and possibly even begin exploring steroids to look less like themselves and more like the other person.
This is all subconscious, of course. They aren’t telling themselves this directly. But don’t be mistaken, this is exactly what they are thinking even if they don’t know it.
And the issue doesn’t only lie in the mind of young boys and girls. It is present in all of our lives. I’ll be the first to admit that I fall into this trap.
“He is playing professional baseball, he is far more successful than me.”
“He gets to pitch in front of thousands of fans and live his dream. I guess I’m just not good enough for that.”
I’m aware that these thoughts come into my mind.
I’m willing to bet that you have some toxic thoughts, too.
Look, I had a direction when I began writing this, but right now in this moment I feel my hear aching for myself, for you, and for all the other people out there comparing themselves.
I’m just going to continue to write what my heart is calling me to write.
We mustn’t give into this toxic trap of comparison.
Now, don’t get me wrong, there is absolutely nothing wrong with improving yourself. Where the wrong lies is in the intention of why you want to improve yourself.
Are you aiming to improve yourself in order to be more like someone else you saw on your screen? If so, I have news for you. You will never be that person on the screen because you are NOT that person on the screen. You are YOU.
So instead, focus on improving yourself in order be the best version of YOU.
I fully believe that we were created with unique talents and gifts that were intended to be used in order to make our lives and other people’s lives better. So why not work on improving yourself in order to refine those talents and gifts so that this world can be a better place?
Being healthier and having more energy throughout the day will allow you to create better culture in your workplace. Being more fit may allow you to be more present with your children when they want to have play time with mommy or daddy. Being stronger in the gym will allow you to better learn how to mentally and physically overcome adversity in your life and your household. Being more mobile will keep you from injuries, allowing you to be more adventurous with your spouse.
I know that this is cheesy, but this world literally only has one of you, and this world is so much better off with you in it, living to your full potential.
There is no sense in working to be more like someone else. The world already has one of them.
It makes all the sense in the world to become the best, healthiest, fittest version of yourself because dammit, this world NEEDS you.
You were created with love and a purpose in mind. Don’t you dare undervalue that by comparing yourself to someone else.
That’s my heart today. Take it for what it’s worth.
Much love.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Adam is a fitness professional, baseball fan, and cookie fanatic based in Fort Collins, Colorado. After hanging up the cleats, he found a strong interest in the human body and how it performs. Since then, Adam has been transforming lives through fitness in a fun and encouraging atmosphere. As an ACE CPT and Fitness Nutrition Specialist, he is constantly moved to help people improve in all walks of life.
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