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00:00:00
Speaker 1: In this episode, I will explain you the exact method
00:00:03
Speaker 1: you can use to control your food intake without tracking
00:00:06
Speaker 1: your calories. I use the same method for myself and
00:00:09
Speaker 1: my clients to lose or gain weight at will.
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Speaker 1: Hello and Namas. Kara Hope you're doing great today if
00:00:16
Speaker 1: you're a first time listener. Welcome to the Stronger Men Project.
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Speaker 1: This is a podcast dedicated to men's fitness and personal excellence.
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Speaker 1: And I'm your host, A. Desai, a mechanical engineer turned
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Speaker 1: fitness coach. If you are a return listener, welcome back.
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Speaker 1: And thank you so much for your support. I
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Speaker 1: this podcast for men just like you who value themselves
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Speaker 1: and want to become the best version of themselves. I
00:00:37
Speaker 1: have a small ask for me. If you find this
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Speaker 1: podcast helpful, please leave a five star rating and a
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Speaker 1: review for this podcast. Your review and rating is immensely
00:00:46
Speaker 1: important because it will help this podcast reach more men.
00:00:50
Speaker 1: Encourage me to continue doing this, and if you also
00:00:53
Speaker 1: leave a feedback for improvement,
00:00:55
Speaker 1: it will help me come up with higher quality episodes.
00:00:58
Speaker 1: Thank you again for tuning in. Now let's move on
00:01:01
Speaker 1: to today's topic before we begin this episode, I would
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Speaker 1: like to clarify one thing that you don't want to
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Speaker 1: lose weight. Your intention in losing weight is to look
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Speaker 1: good rather than seeing the number go down on your scale. Right.
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Speaker 1: And also you want to avoid all the health complications
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Speaker 1: that come from excess body weight.
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Speaker 1: That is your goal, not really to lose weight. So
00:01:24
Speaker 1: what you essentially want is is to build a great looking,
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Speaker 1: strong and healthy physique, right? The fundamental game of building
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Speaker 1: a great physique boils down to losing maximum body fat
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Speaker 1: while maintaining or building muscle and strength, or gain weight
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Speaker 1: to optimise muscle and strength building while minimising fat gain.
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Speaker 1: This is what it is all about. For that to happen,
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Speaker 1: the common advice of eat less move more to lose
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Speaker 1: weight or eat more to gain weight does not hold good.
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Speaker 1: You have to control your food intake, and when I
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Speaker 1: say control, you have to control your calorie intake and
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Speaker 1: also control
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Speaker 1: the nutrients you're getting from your food. And to do this,
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Speaker 1: the single best, most objective and foolproof way is to
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Speaker 1: track your food using a food tracking app. For that,
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Speaker 1: you need to weigh all the ingredients you're going to
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Speaker 1: use to prepare your meals and enter that in a
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Speaker 1: food tracking app like a myfitnesspal or healthy me. And
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Speaker 1: when you do that, the APP will throw out the
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Speaker 1: exact calories and the nutrients contained in that food item,
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Speaker 1: and
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Speaker 1: that is how you control your food intake in the
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Speaker 1: best way possible. But that's something which can get very
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Speaker 1: cumbersome and impractical to most people, especially when the food
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Speaker 1: we cook is cooked for the whole family rather than
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Speaker 1: one person. And if you want to cook meals separately
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Speaker 1: for one person, it is too much of work, which
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Speaker 1: may not be practical. In most cases, the same complexity
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Speaker 1: will not be there if you're living alone and cooking
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Speaker 1: for yourself. But again,
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Speaker 1: it can get very overwhelming for most people and lead
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Speaker 1: to frustration and non compliance. Regardless of the situation, most
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Speaker 1: people would not want to follow this approach. This approach
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Speaker 1: is mostly for people who have made fitness as their
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Speaker 1: number one priority in life. But most people
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Speaker 1: have regular jobs and responsibilities and family to take care,
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Speaker 1: and they cannot make fitness as their main priority. Fitness
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Speaker 1: is important. It is one of their top priorities. But
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Speaker 1: with this approach, you have to spend a lot of
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Speaker 1: time and effort in that one thing. Only.
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Speaker 1: The next approach, though not nearly as accurate, is to
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Speaker 1: weigh your food as you serve it on your plate
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Speaker 1: and log it in your food tracking app. This is
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Speaker 1: not so accurate because it depends on how you prepare
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Speaker 1: your food and what portions of ingredients you put in
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Speaker 1: while preparing your food. But in spite of the inaccuracy,
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Speaker 1: it will work in the long term. It may not
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Speaker 1: be accurate, but it may be a good indicator how
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Speaker 1: much food you're eating again. With this approach, my experience
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Speaker 1: with over 800 people has shown that it will not
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Speaker 1: work for 90% of the people. Most people will not
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Speaker 1: do it. There are very few people who start doing it,
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Speaker 1: and and slowly they'll start forgetting to log in the
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Speaker 1: app and even
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Speaker 1: skip it all together. That is why I came up
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Speaker 1: with an approach which could help my clients to stick
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Speaker 1: with their diet and also have reasonable control on their
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Speaker 1: eating habits. I call this method as flexi fixed method,
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Speaker 1: which includes some fixed elements that add structure and control
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Speaker 1: to the diet. And there are some flexible elements that
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Speaker 1: give you the freedom to choose the food as per
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Speaker 1: your taste and convenience.
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Speaker 1: The objective of this method is to meet all your
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Speaker 1: nutritional needs without making the diet too restrictive or inconvenient,
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Speaker 1: while also having a control on the portions without actually
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Speaker 1: measuring everything to the gramme and to the calorie you're eating.
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Speaker 1: And with my experience, this method is pretty solid and
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Speaker 1: it gives great results in the long term. If you
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Speaker 1: control everything properly before we go to the elements of
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Speaker 1: this method,
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Speaker 1: we have to understand that any diet should meet these
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Speaker 1: three requirements. The number one requirement is your energy needs,
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Speaker 1: which depends on the quantity of food. It is absolutely
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Speaker 1: necessary that you control the energy you're getting from your food,
00:05:10
Speaker 1: which is measured in terms of calories. You have to
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Speaker 1: eat fewer calories than you are spending throughout the day
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Speaker 1: and do it for a long enough period of time
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Speaker 1: so that you can lose weight or vice versa. If
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Speaker 1: you want to gain weight, the
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Speaker 1: requirement is nutrients, which depends on the food choice and
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Speaker 1: whether the food items you are eating provide your body
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Speaker 1: with all the nutrients like proteins, fats, vitamins, minerals, trace
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Speaker 1: metals and fibres. And out of these, the most important
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Speaker 1: is protein when it comes to fitness, because protein is
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Speaker 1: a must for muscle recovery and growth, all other nutrients
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Speaker 1: are necessary for healthy functioning of the body,
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Speaker 1: and the third requirement is that the food provides the
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Speaker 1: pleasure you derive from food. It depends on the food
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Speaker 1: choice and how you prepare your food. The overall enjoyment
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Speaker 1: and fulfilment you get from the meal is very important
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Speaker 1: for long term sustainability. If that is clear to you,
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Speaker 1: let's move on to the elements of the flexi fixed method.
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Speaker 1: Like I said, there will be few fixed elements in
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Speaker 1: your diet and few flexible elements.
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Speaker 1: The first element, which is sort of fixed, is your
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Speaker 1: eating routine. For most people, what works is having somewhere
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Speaker 1: between 3 to 5 meals per day. Here it is
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Speaker 1: important that you fix the number of meals and also
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Speaker 1: the timing of the meals. That is because the number
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Speaker 1: of meals and timing of the meals plays a very,
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Speaker 1: very important role in your hunger management. You might have
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Speaker 1: observed that you may be following a fixed kind of
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Speaker 1: routine
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Speaker 1: without even thinking much about it. For example, you may
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Speaker 1: be having your breakfast, lunch and dinner almost same time
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Speaker 1: of the day, and it is generally, which is something
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Speaker 1: related to your convenience and hunger. Let's say you're having
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Speaker 1: your lunch daily at 2 p.m. You might observe that
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Speaker 1: you'll start feeling hungry by 130 or 145 right? And
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Speaker 1: let's say at a particular day you did not eat
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Speaker 1: your regular breakfast. What happens is you'll start feeling very
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Speaker 1: hungry at the time of breakfast. Even if you skip it,
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Speaker 1: it will
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Speaker 1: affect your lunch. It could also happen that you had
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Speaker 1: a very, very heavy breakfast or you had late breakfast.
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Speaker 1: Then you will not feel hungry at all at the
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Speaker 1: time of the lunch, and your hunger emerges at a very,
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Speaker 1: very odd time, right. So in order to control your hunger,
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Speaker 1: you have to fix your meals and also the timing
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Speaker 1: of the meal, how you fix your meals, what time
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Speaker 1: you have your meals and the size of your meals,
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Speaker 1: and what you choose to eat at each meal depends
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Speaker 1: on your convenience and your liking. And, uh,
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Speaker 1: generally, when you feel more hungry or less hungry, that
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Speaker 1: is something which you have to plan based on your
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Speaker 1: experience and also be ready to make some adjustments whenever
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Speaker 1: need arises.
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Speaker 1: The second element of your diet is having protein fixes. Protein,
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Speaker 1: like I said earlier, is the most important nutrient when
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Speaker 1: it comes to fitness because it is important for muscle
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Speaker 1: recovery and growth. And if you want to lose fat
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Speaker 1: and build muscle, then you have to eat at least
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Speaker 1: 1.6 grammes per kg of your target body weight of
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Speaker 1: protein on a daily basis. Let's say your target body
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Speaker 1: weight is seven
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Speaker 1: the KG. Then you have to eat 1.6 into 70
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Speaker 1: grammes of protein, which will be around 112 grammes of
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Speaker 1: protein on a daily basis. So how to fix your
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Speaker 1: protein is out of this 110 grammes. You have to
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Speaker 1: keep 80% fixed. This is because Indian diet is mostly
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Speaker 1: very low in protein, and you have to take this
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Speaker 1: step so that you meet your protein requirements and eating
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Speaker 1: more protein will be by far the
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Speaker 1: biggest change in your eating habits. So how you have
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Speaker 1: to do it is you have to choose high protein
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Speaker 1: food items which you like, which you can eat daily
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Speaker 1: and which is convenient for you and which will give
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Speaker 1: you 80% of your protein requirement. In our example, 80%
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Speaker 1: of 110 grammes will be around 90 grammes of protein.
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Speaker 1: For your convenience, I leave a link to a list
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Speaker 1: of protein sources in the
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Speaker 1: subscription. You can download that and decide for yourself. What
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Speaker 1: are the protein items you want to fix? The second
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Speaker 1: thing you have to keep in mind here is 50%
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Speaker 1: of your protein requirement, which will be around 50 to 60.
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Speaker 1: Grammes in our example has to come from low calorie
00:09:11
Speaker 1: protein options like Greek yoghurt, soya chunks, low fat tofu
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Speaker 1: and panir protein powders, egg whites, chicken breast
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Speaker 1: fleshed fish and select seafood and lean meats. That is
00:09:23
Speaker 1: because you also want to control the calories you're consuming,
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Speaker 1: and you don't need to think too much or go
00:09:30
Speaker 1: much in retail. Just fix 50% of your protein from
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Speaker 1: the low calorie food options, and the third thing you
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Speaker 1: have to keep in mind is these food items are
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Speaker 1: only the ingredients of the raw materials. How you cook
00:09:42
Speaker 1: your food is also important.
00:09:43
Speaker 1: You have to cook it with minimum cooking oil so
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Speaker 1: that you don't add up too many calories that come
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Speaker 1: from the cooking oil, apart from muscle recovery and growth
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Speaker 1: protein will also provide you two more benefits. The number
00:09:56
Speaker 1: one benefit is protein. Food items are very, very filling.
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Speaker 1: If you add protein to your meal, the meal will
00:10:01
Speaker 1: be more satisfying and filling. It takes lower to digest
00:10:05
Speaker 1: and you will also not feel
00:10:06
Speaker 1: very quickly. The second benefit is your body needs to
00:10:10
Speaker 1: spend a little more energy to digest protein, and that
00:10:13
Speaker 1: is where you will get extra benefit in terms of
00:10:16
Speaker 1: overall calories. You're getting from your food because your body
00:10:20
Speaker 1: has to spend a little extra calories to digest protein
00:10:23
Speaker 1: so the total available calories from your protein food items
00:10:26
Speaker 1: will be offset by that amount.
00:10:28
Speaker 1: So the third element in your diet should be micronutrients,
00:10:33
Speaker 1: which are vitamins, minerals and trace metals. and the food
00:10:36
Speaker 1: items which are rich in micronutrients are vegetables and fruits,
00:10:40
Speaker 1: and if you're trying to lose weight, you have to
00:10:43
Speaker 1: supersize your vegetables, meaning you have to eat more subs
00:10:47
Speaker 1: and salads. And you also have to make sure that
00:10:49
Speaker 1: you eat fruit at least once a day. And I
00:10:52
Speaker 1: suggest eating two different foods in a day is much better,
00:10:56
Speaker 1: and you can make it as a part of a
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Speaker 1: healthy evening snack rather than eating fried junk for evening snack.
00:11:03
Speaker 1: And overall, when it comes to micronutrients, you have to
00:11:05
Speaker 1: make sure that you eat variety of vegetables and fruits,
00:11:09
Speaker 1: which are in different colours, shapes, sizes and seasonal vegetables
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Speaker 1: and fruits. And that should take care of your micronutrient needs.
00:11:17
Speaker 1: And the fourth element in your diet will be fats. Here,
00:11:21
Speaker 1: you have to understand that fats are the most calorie,
00:11:23
Speaker 1: dense food items, and you have to take these in moderation.
00:11:28
Speaker 1: The fat we consume the most comes from cooking oil
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Speaker 1: and fried food items. You have to make sure that
00:11:33
Speaker 1: you reduce your cooking oil and minimise eating fried food
00:11:37
Speaker 1: items and make sure that when it comes to other
00:11:40
Speaker 1: high fat food items like nuts, milk products, butter oils,
00:11:44
Speaker 1: egg yolks, fatty fish, meat, sweets, avocado or butter fruit.
00:11:50
Speaker 1: You have to consume these food items on a regular basis,
00:11:53
Speaker 1: but you have to consume them in
00:11:55
Speaker 1: moderation and whenever it comes to reducing your calories, these
00:12:00
Speaker 1: are the food items you have to minimise. But also
00:12:03
Speaker 1: keep in mind that you cannot go with zero fat
00:12:06
Speaker 1: because fat is an essential nutrient and your body cannot
00:12:09
Speaker 1: produce fat by itself. That is why you have to
00:12:12
Speaker 1: include these food items, but remember that moderation is the key.
00:12:17
Speaker 1: The fifth element in your diet is carbohydrates, and this
00:12:20
Speaker 1: is the least priority because carbohydrates, even though
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Speaker 1: it is very good for fitness and performance in your workouts.
00:12:27
Speaker 1: Our Indian diet is very, very high in carbohydrates. You
00:12:31
Speaker 1: need not really try hard to get carbohydrates from your food.
00:12:34
Speaker 1: You have to try to minimise the carbohydrates in your
00:12:37
Speaker 1: food because this is where you have the maximum room
00:12:41
Speaker 1: to adjust your calories and the major sources of carbohydrates
00:12:45
Speaker 1: are all the grains, including cereals and pulses, fruits, sugar
00:12:50
Speaker 1: and jaggery, and the first thing
00:12:51
Speaker 1: you can cut out in your carbohydrate consumption is the
00:12:55
Speaker 1: food items, which provide you empty calories, like sugary drinks, juices,
00:12:59
Speaker 1: sweets and baked food items. These are food items which
00:13:03
Speaker 1: are mostly very low in nutrients but very high in
00:13:07
Speaker 1: sugar and fat and thus very high in calories. These
00:13:11
Speaker 1: are the food items you have to avoid, and you
00:13:13
Speaker 1: have to control the carbohydrate food items like rotis, chapatis, breads,
00:13:19
Speaker 1: rice
00:13:20
Speaker 1: and most of the breakfast items. And the idea here
00:13:23
Speaker 1: is to maintain a fixed portion of all these items.
00:13:26
Speaker 1: For example, how many chapatis or roti you're eating or
00:13:30
Speaker 1: what quantity of rice you're eating, regardless of which form
00:13:33
Speaker 1: you're taking rice, whether you're taking dull rice or curd
00:13:36
Speaker 1: rice or lemon rice or biryani. Whatever form it may be,
00:13:41
Speaker 1: you have to maintain a fixed portion for this.
00:13:44
Speaker 1: And when the time comes, you should be able to
00:13:47
Speaker 1: increase or decrease the quantity of these food items.
00:13:50
Speaker 1: For that, you have to be aware how much quantity
00:13:53
Speaker 1: you are actually eating and make changes accordingly.
00:13:58
Speaker 1: And the next element in your diet is consuming enough water,
00:14:01
Speaker 1: and the general recommendation here is to drink somewhere between
00:14:05
Speaker 1: 2 to 4 litres of water on a daily basis,
00:14:08
Speaker 1: apart from all the water you get from the food
00:14:10
Speaker 1: and beverages you have on a regular basis. So once
00:14:13
Speaker 1: you've gone through all the elements of your diet, the
00:14:16
Speaker 1: idea is to make sure that you're eating a fixed
00:14:19
Speaker 1: portion of each of these elements
00:14:22
Speaker 1: and you need not really measure everything on a daily basis,
00:14:26
Speaker 1: and you need not log it into your food tracking
00:14:28
Speaker 1: app on a daily basis. But you have to do
00:14:30
Speaker 1: your best to maintain your portion sizes. It is OK
00:14:34
Speaker 1: if you can weigh everything and eat, but you need
00:14:37
Speaker 1: not really log everything into a food tracking app on
00:14:40
Speaker 1: a daily basis. You can do it once in a
00:14:42
Speaker 1: while to just check how many calories you are eating roughly,
00:14:46
Speaker 1: and, uh, whenever you want to make some adjustments. Once
00:14:49
Speaker 1: you set your diet, you also make sure that you
00:14:52
Speaker 1: exercise regularly and preferably you do strength training at least
00:14:56
Speaker 1: 3 to 5 days per week so that you can
00:14:58
Speaker 1: maintain or build your muscle mass and strength. With that,
00:15:01
Speaker 1: you also have to track your body weight and body measurements,
00:15:04
Speaker 1: and once you have everything in your place your diet
00:15:07
Speaker 1: and your meals and your exercise routine
00:15:09
Speaker 1: and your tracking. You have to maintain that for at
00:15:12
Speaker 1: least four weeks and every four weeks you have to
00:15:15
Speaker 1: do a review and check if you're losing weight. If
00:15:18
Speaker 1: you're losing measurements and based on that, you have to
00:15:21
Speaker 1: adjust your portions. If you're losing weight, then it's fine.
00:15:24
Speaker 1: If you're not losing weight, then you have to reduce
00:15:26
Speaker 1: your portions, especially in the food items, which have more
00:15:29
Speaker 1: fat and food items which are carbohydrate based.
00:15:33
Speaker 1: And if you're someone who want to gain weight and
00:15:35
Speaker 1: not able to gain weight, then you must increase your
00:15:37
Speaker 1: food intake. And if you're someone who find it difficult
00:15:40
Speaker 1: to eat more food, it is easy to drink your calories.
00:15:43
Speaker 1: It is easy to add high fat food items to
00:15:46
Speaker 1: your diet and increase your calorie intake relatively easily. So
00:15:50
Speaker 1: this was a flexi fixed method, which I have used
00:15:53
Speaker 1: successfully multiple times and which I continue to use for
00:15:57
Speaker 1: my clients and get them great results.
00:16:00
Speaker 1: I hope this episode has been informational and helpful to you,
00:16:03
Speaker 1: and it will help you to control your food intake
00:16:06
Speaker 1: the easiest way without breaking your head with food tracking apps.
00:16:10
Speaker 1: And if you're someone who still want to figure this out,
00:16:12
Speaker 1: then I would definitely recommend you to get in touch
00:16:15
Speaker 1: with me so that I can do it all for
00:16:17
Speaker 1: you and coach you through your fitness journey. To lose fat,
00:16:20
Speaker 1: build muscle and become the fittest strongest and the best
00:16:23
Speaker 1: looking version of yourself.
00:16:25
Speaker 1: And if you want me to help you achieve that,
00:16:27
Speaker 1: we can get on a 30 minutes. Clarity call, and
00:16:30
Speaker 1: how you can get on the call is by filling
00:16:32
Speaker 1: a Google form, the link for which I have left
00:16:34
Speaker 1: in the description. Fill in the form, and once you
00:16:36
Speaker 1: submit the form, you'll get a link to book a
00:16:38
Speaker 1: 30 minutes. Call with me by choosing the date and
00:16:42
Speaker 1: time of your convenience, and I'll come on the call
00:16:44
Speaker 1: and clarify all your doubts and questions. And if I
00:16:48
Speaker 1: and you feel we are a good match
00:16:49
Speaker 1: and we can start the coaching journey and it's not
00:16:52
Speaker 1: necessary that you have to get on a coaching journey
00:16:54
Speaker 1: with me if you come on the call, you can
00:16:56
Speaker 1: also come and clarify your doubts and questions. and get
00:17:00
Speaker 1: some tips from me to overcome the challenges which you
00:17:03
Speaker 1: are facing currently in your fitness journey. Thank you so
00:17:06
Speaker 1: much for tuning in today and listening to this episode
00:17:08
Speaker 1: till the end. I'll see you in the next one.
00:17:10
Speaker 1: This is a always here to help you become the
00:17:13
Speaker 1: best version of yourself.