There is one thing that is important and that leaves us pondering about it: what amount of “junk food” can we fit into our ideal calorie and macro nutrient goals?

Of course the typical response you’ll get from “clean eaters” and “old school bodybuilders” is that flexible dieting can’t work.  This is because they have a misconception about what flexible dieting is, and that it’s just a way to fit “junk food” into our diets.

SEE ALSO: HOW TO LOSE FAT QUICK AND EFFECTIVELY!

Obviously that is not the case. The truth is that that is a practice avoided by most flexible dieters, but still the myth states that all flexible dieters do is try to complete their macros with chocolates, cakes, fried food, pizzas and donuts. We can firmly state that that is not what we do, and certainly not what our clients do. Of course you can see us eat some food considered of the “junk” persuasion but, for the bulk of the pack, this constitutes only a small amount of our diet.

Still the question remains, what is the acceptable amount of “junk” that we can fit into our diet? Well, when flexible dieting started being used, the method was revolutionary because no other diet had ever stated that you could lose weight this way. All of them foresaw the elimination of a large portion of the calories ingested, an almost total elimination of fats from the diet, strict meals based on specific foods considered “magical” for fat loss and a whole other lot of bull cr*p. Later on, the concepts on which diets were based started to allow certain “goodies”, as long as calories, protein, carbs and fats were controlled daily.

That was when pictures of flexible dieting followers started emerging, where they were eating all sorts of “junk food” but displayed much better results than those who followed restrictive diet plans. With the popularity of these photos largely growing on Facebook, Instagram and all sorts of fitness websites, the general audience started to get the idea that you had to include “junk food” in flexible dieting in order for it to work, so respect for “healthy food” started to diminish, since the general opinion was that the bulk of the daily calories was made up from “junk food”. Truth be told, very few are the followers of flexible dieting that deviate their nutrition focus from unprocessed foods to “junk food”. Of course all of us have certain foods of which we don’t want to give up eating altogether. Some prefer pancakes, others pizza, ice cream, chips, burguers… Be it whatever food it is, we know that each person should adjust its  diet, regarding calorie and macro nutrients counting, to allow the consumption of these foods that provide satisfaction and mental well-being. The quantities ingested will vary of course, depending on each person’s goals, being that we should never take that consumption to an extreme.

What are our goals? For example, if we’re in a phase of weight gain where we increased our macros up to 500g of carbs and 100g of fats per day, we can perfectly eat a cheese burguer and fries and have many calories left to eat unprocessed, healthier food. Most people need a meal like this, not much food but high in calories. Making this a regular practice is hard, but many times necessary because obtaining all those grams of carbs and fats from healthy food would be practically impossible. When it comes to “cutting” in our diets, the story differs because we would still be able to eat “junk food”, but the amounts would be quite different. If we’re eating 250g of carbs and 70g of fat, we could still eat that burguer and fries, but it wouldn’t be feasible because our daily requirements of carbohydrates and fat would be complete with just that meal. That would mean the remaining meals of the day would have to be based around grilled chicken, canned tuna, salad and vegetables.

Still, it’s better for us to find balance by eating a turkey burguer with no cheese to economize on the fats, or exchange the fries for vegetables. This way, we could still eat “junk food” without that meal compromising the rest of our meals throughout the day. From a physical standpoint, the only “junk food” we shouldn’t eat is the one to which we will have a bad reaction, like a person who is lactose intolerant having a milkshake. But that doesn’t mean that a certain food is bad, it just means that if you don’t react well to it, you shouldn’t eat it.

Another thing, if there is a certain food that we know that we simply can’t eat just a tiny bit of, we shouldn’t include it in our diet. It’s better that we exclude it completely so that it doesn’t constitute a problem.

SEE ALSO: WHY SHOULD WE EAT PIZZA?!

After all, what is the amount of “junk food” we can really eat? As a rule, we should assume that we can go up to an 80:20 ratio, meaning that 80% of our daily calories should come from nutrient dense foods, while the remaining 20% can come from “junk food”. Of course we should always bear in mind our goals, that can vary throughout time.

If we are in a weight gain phase and we need to increase our ingested calories, there is no problem in increasing that ratio to 30% “junk food” because we will still be able to ingest plenty of fiber, vitamins and minerals from the remaining 70%. It will be easier using this method to achieve our daily goals. If, on the other hand, our goals is to “cut calories”, the easiest thing to do is reduce the ratio down to 10% “junk food”, so that we eat more healthy food that will make us feel fuller longer.

So as a rule we can conclude that, as always, we should do what works best for each of us, as long as we’re happy with the results we achieve.

A diet low in carbs? Low in fat? Intermittent fasting? Eating healthy? After all, what is a healthy diet?

People who follow a Paleo Diet will say that they have the ideal diet for health, fitness and body composition. But men and women who follow IIFYM say that they have the best way of managing food. Those who follow a keto diet, as well as vegetarians, vegans and all other diet followers try and promote their methods as being the best.

SEE ALSO: MYTH: fLEXIBLE DIETS ARE PORR IN MICRONUTRIENTS?!

The truth is that, when you’re talking about the perfect diet, there is not right answer.

What is perfection?

Regarding results optimization, we can look at studies, but we will still wonder if it’s the most adequate way to choose our diet.

We can be sure that some factors play a very important role in a diets’ success, with which everyone agrees, such as:

1) high fiber intake is certainly a good idea;

2) fruit and vegetables are rarely a bad idea;

3) you must ingest an adequate amount of protein in order to “build” muscle;

4) food should be the least processed as possible;

5) alcohol, trans fats and a few others should be avoided in high quantities.

Still, in addition to these factors, there are many other being debated. In the extremes of the diet world, there are studies that show that fasting has positive effects regarding insulin sensitivity, metabolic rate and satiety, while others demonstrate that it increases eating disorders, it diminishes muscle protein synthesis and doesn’t create a strong commitment to the diet.

On that note, we have low carb intake vs. high carb intake, low fat intake vs. high fat intake, the need or not to consume grains…

The truth is that the concept of a perfect diet is very ambiguous and always has many aspects to be taken into account. But, for us, “The best diet is the one you can follow”. So, since there is no plan that is perfect in theory, nor a diet that guarantees fast and effective results, sticking to the diet will be faced in a flexible way.

Being very strict and dedicated is a great start to any diet, but willpower has a limit. At some point in time, even the most strict and motivated ones can cave.

Look at the low carb or keto diets for example.

This type of diet normally implies a minimal consumption of carbohydrates on a daily basis (normally around 50g, although some plans allow up to 100g and others recommend bellow 30g). So let’s look at the most extreme end of the spectrum and consider the 30 gram per day limit: this limit means, essentially, that you will depend exclusively of foods like meat, eggs, cheese, oils, nuts and possibly legumes all day. All fruit is out of the equation, as well as all the vegetables rich in starch and most dairy products like milk and yogurt. Foods like rice, bread and pasta are out of the question.

Let’s consider for a second that science had proven that the best diet for those looking to lose fat was the keto diet.

Well, what if that person loves carbs? Or if he really likes food high in fat? Or if eventually he has digestive problems and needs to ingest fruit and fiber? Or what if work involves many social situations and having to entertain clients and therefore drinking alcohol two or three times a week?

In these cases, it doesn’t really matter what these people could have achieved following a keto diet, because it simply wouldn’t be possible to sustain that diet with their lifestyle. It would be a miserable experience and, despite the results being potentially “the best”, they would be suffering every minute until they reached them. All meals would be feared, which would end in a stray from the diet in an intermittent or definite fashion.

Let’s dive into the pool of personal preference… it’s crucial to include peoples’ personal preference in a diet plan, because you can’t just rely on results due to the mechanisms of the diet in itself, you must also find something that works as well on the body as it does on paper!

SEE ALSO: TRAIN WITH YOUR BETTER HALF!

If we love steak fried in butter, snacking on olives and almonds, and if we think a higher ingestion of protein and fats leaves us fuller and that it burns more fat afterwards, then we should do it. We will be in the hands of a low carb diet. But, if this isn’t what we love, this diet won’t be ideal for us, so it doesn’t really matter if it’s effective in theory.

How to choose the best diet for each of us? The first step to adjust a diet not only to achieve the best results but that also works for our lifestyle is to find any possible flaws.

The worst that can happen is finding yourself following a diet that you’re struggling with! Finding the aspects where you struggle is the first step. If we are restricting the diet in order to maintain a certain meal as ideal as possible, or if we’re counting every gram of every macro, well maybe something more flexible would be best.

If we’re thinking about starting a diet, instead of removing all the food we love from our life like most people do, then we should pay more attention to what we can add to our diet to make it better!

Protein for breakfast? Exchanging French fries for regular potatoes that have less fat? All of these simple changes will make our diet easier to follow.

Finally…we must be FLEXIBLE. Our last tip is to be flexible with your diet. The great advantage of following a flexible diet is that we can count calories and macros nutrients so that we have freedom of choice regarding the food that we eat. This way we maintain a balance between our health and well-being.

What this all means is that it’s possible to achieve the body we desire and easily adjust our meal plan for fat loss or muscle gain without having to follow any strict and absurd rules. We can adapt everything according to our personal preference.

SEE ALSO: HYPERTROPHY TRAINIG DOESN’T BURN FAT!

Now we have a diet where everyone can achieve great results. Results come when we follow what works best for us and when we create a plan that is custom to our needs. We’re all unique. All we have to do is find out what works for each of us!

With our help you can create this plan and implement it based on your personal preference and lifestyle. This is the only way to achieve consistent results and also being consistent in our diet. This way we will achieve the physique we desire.

The supplement industry…Ahh that passion fruit pre workout that almost tastes like a soft drink when you’re dieting… Well. We’re here to tell you that they take advantage of us. How? By making us believe that the supplements being sold are absolutely essential to obtain the results we desire.

If you’re a man, they’ll try and tell you that you need to buy product X to gain 10kg of muscle in 1 month.

If you’re a woman, well, they’ll tell you you have to buy tons of fat burners to lose 10kg of fat in a month.

What they “forget” to tell you is that without intelligent nutritional habits and without being consistent in your workouts, you won’t achieve any of the goals you have set for yourself! Well, unless you want to enter the anabolic steroid department. And if so, we’re not your guys.

SEE ALSO: WHAT IS THE AMOUNT OF “JUNK FOOD” THAT WE CAN INCLUDE IN OUR DIET?!

So, what we’re saying is that you should invest LESS in supplements and MORE in nutrition and training!

We can be smart in our choices of supplements. For example, if at a certain point we need more energy to withstand our training program, we can simply buy caffeine. On the other hand, Whey is just a more convenient source of protein for us to include in our diet, it isn’t essential to achieve our goals. Also, for about 15€ we can buy enough creatine for a year which has been scientifically proven to be very effective in terms of decreasing fatigue while exercising.

To conclude this rant, we’re totally against the false allegations that exist in the supplement industry. These are easily visible in their use of proprietary blends.

Note: Proprietary blends are used when they label a very effective product on their supplement, but no quantity is described. So the supplement can contain only 5% of the necessary dose for it to be effective and another 95% of some other ingredient that is totally useless.

The glycemic index (GI) isn’t as important as society thinks, due to the fact that it is only based on the speed at which the carbohydrates in food X ate transformed into glucose by our bodies. They don’t take into account the total number of carbohydrates that that food contains in said ingestion – being this the factor that truly matters – ,while the glycemic load actually does this analysis.

Let us explain why the glycemic index doesn’t really matter. The glycemic index is calculated based on a food by itself, never when it’s eaten in a full meal: Eating a plate of white rice on its own isn’t the same thing as eating a plate of white rice along with meat, some type of fat, etc… Our body won’t separate the rice to one side, meat to the other, etc. It will create a bolus in its totality. Said bolus will be digested in a much more consistent manner than a bolus formed solely by white rice.

SEE ALSO: AN IMPARTIAL TAKE ON ARTIFICIAL SWEETNERS!

With that being said, if you were to calculate the glycemic index of a meal composed by rice, meat and fat, it would score a high value. It would actually score a low value, low GI, because digestion would be composed of carbohydrates (even though they are relatively simple), protein and fat. Protein and fat are macro nutrients that have a very high molecular constitution, which makes their digestion quite slow when compared to a plate of white rice.

That’s why in flexible dieting we let our clients eat whatever they want as long as they reach their macro and micronutrient goals on a daily basis. They must respect the limits of protein, fats and carbs (also carbohydrates of which fiber), making up a good foundation of food that also contains a good dose of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals).

The great advantage that the flexible dieting concept brought to the world was science supporting nutrition. So let us explain the concept of our diet and training through these 18 facts that are scientifically proven!

SEE ALSO: HOW TO LOSE FAT QUICK AND EFFECTIVELY!

1) There is no food that increases our metabolic rate.

2) Don’t create food restrictions.

3) Don’t label food as “clean/dirty” or “healthy/unhealthy” because there is no scientific evidence that proves that some type of food isn’t healthy.

4) Don’t force yourself to eat 6 or 7 daily meals, eat the amount of times that is adequate to your lifestyle.

5) Don’t focus on meal timing (eating meals at the “right” times, for example: pre-workout, post-workout, etc…) as it being a decisive factor in you making your body composition better or even your health. Meal timing should be a personal preference.

6) Don’t force yourself to eat 30g of protein at every meal, or force yourself to split the macro nutrients throughout your day, just because of the myth that says that the human metabolism can’t metabolize/absorb/use nutrients if the whole of the daily dose of nutrients is ingested in only two meals.

7) Don’t force pre/post-workout meals and don’t take notice of the anabolic window myth (30/60 min).

8) Don’t restrict sodium consumption without a proven health reason.

9) Fast cardio isn’t better than slow cardio, or vice versa, for fat loss. The only factor that actually matters for fat loss is being in a deficit of thermodynamic energy. This creates an energetic deficit. Still, you can resource to caloric restriction to create the same energetic deficit.

10) Do very little cardio when in a thermodynamic energy deficit and only when it’s appropriate, because normally it’s more indicated to cut/reduce “calories” from food. But in case you have “psychological hunger”, that’s when you should introduce a small amount of cardio, because it is a weapon that should be used to increase caloric expenditure. In an initial phase it is unnecessary, seen as we still have many calories to dispose of through food cuts.

11) Don’t use fat burners or any supplement that increases your heart rate just because you think it’ll increase your energy expenditure.

12) We use no “trendy” diets like “zero carbs, 0 fats, high protein”.

13) It isn’t necessary for you to consume protein from a biological/animal source. It doesn’t matter if it’s 20g of milk/meat/fish/etc (good quality proteins) protein vs 20g of protein coming from carbohydrates (bread/pasta/rice/etc) or even from fats low in amino acids (low quality protein). This is because the importance of amino acids is relative when against a daily/weekly consumption of any type/source of protein supported by a sufficient consumption of thermodynamic energy. Protein quality would only be relevant of we were presented in an excessive weekly deficit of thermodynamic energy.

14) We don’t practice carbs that cycle carbohydrates because it doesn’t present a significant benefit when opposed to a flexible diet with appropriate nutrient dosages.

15) We use adequate macro and micronutrient doses custom to X or Y goals.

16) Thermodynamic energy “in” vs. Thermodynamic energy “out”.

17) Thermodynamic energy deficits that are adequate/correct for fat loss when your goal is to lose the least amount of muscle possible during the process.

18) Thermodynamic energy excess adequate/correct for muscle gain when the goal is to accumulate the least fat possible during the process.

SEE ALSO: WHY SHOULD WE EAT PIZZA?!

If our diet doesn’t give us a chance to eat our favorite meals every once in a while, then it’s time to try a different approach so that we can have a diet that doesn’t damage our lifestyle and that can provide us with the results we want.

To get to know our work methodology, so that you know what to do to get started on your transformation, contact us through our Contactos page.

Sugar! Insulin! Everyone goes nuts about glycemic index. Problem is, glycemic load is unknown to most.

As we’re sure you know, we hear loads of people talk about the glycemic index as if it were diets worst enemy. Truth is, it’s not that simple nor linear. Let us explain what the glycemic load is so that you can better understand what we’re going on about.

SEE ALSO: HYPERTROPHY TRAINIG DOESN’T BURN FAT!

Glycemic load is the classification system used to categorize a diet high in carbs, it measures the amount of carbs in a serving of a certain food.

Foods that contain a glycemic load (GL) below 10 are considered foods with a low GL and have little impact over blood sugar levels. Foods that score between 10 and 20 are considered moderate GL level foods and have a moderate impact on blood sugar levels. All foods classified 20 or above are considered to have a high GL and tend to cause spikes in blood sugar levels.

How does the glycemic load relate do the glycemic index?

Glycemic index indicates the speed at which a carbohydrate is digested and metabolized into glucose (sugar starch) in the blood stream. In other words, the speed at which a carbohydrate is transformed into glucose (sugar starch) in the blood stream. A food with a high containing high glycemic index raises blood sugar levels more than a food with a medium to low glycemic index.

But, glycemic index doesn’t have into account the amount of carbs in a certain food. So, glycemic load is a better parameter to evaluate how a certain carbohydrate will affect blood sugar levels.

If a certain food has a high glycemic index but a low glycemic load –  like a single X-type cookie that has a GI of 74, but has a GL of 8,1 – how will that negatively affect blood sugar levels?

Foods with a higher classification on the GI chart are a majority. Why? Because GI isn’t based on standard servings. Basically, if a food is classified as having high GI, is because it contains predominantly carbohydrates that are quickly absorbed. The question is that that same food can have a low GL due to the fact that it doesn’t contain many carbohydrates in the portion size it’s normally consumed in. A low GL is a better indicator of what the impact of eating said food will be on your blood sugar levels.

Here are two examples:

Watermelon has a high GI, 72. But, it has a low GL level, only 7,2. High GI is based on 5 cups of watermelon. A real serving would probably be around 1 cup of watermelon. Low GL means that that portion of watermelon doesn’t actually have that many carbohydrates because it’s mainly composed of water (just in case you hadn’t noticed the name…). This means that if you eat a realistic portion of watermelon, it won’t have much impact on blood sugar levels.

SEE ALSO: LUIS’S 11 WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Carrots are another example of a food with low GL, but many people think it will greatly raise blood sugar levels (because carrots have a GI of 71, quite high). That isn’t true because, what most people don’t know, is that the GL of carrots is only 6! So, unless you eat half a kilo of carrots in one setting, they will probably not have much impact on your blood sugar levels. With that being said, carrot juice – which means more carrots at once – will have a higher impact on your blood sugar levels than a moderate portion of carrots.

All we wanted to say is that the key to a sustainable diet is to be moderate and eat a bit of everything – yes, everything! – That’s what you call a flexible diet!

Hi guys. Surf the internet much? Always looking for ways to get in shape? Let us guess: you’ve come across multiple articles that promise “fast results”, “get slim fast”, “lose weight at light speed”, “gain 30 pounds of lean muscle in 30 days”, etcetera. The list of ‘keywords’ goes on, it’s up to each person’s imagination, all of them come up with tons of articles that promise to unveil “the secret”, “the unbeatable formula”, “what they don’t want you to know”… And then comes the part where food X or Y that transforms you into Superman/Woman or “the 8 foods you should never eat” or even “the only 5 foods you should eat”… infinite articles trying to take your money or simply make you waste your time.

SEE ALSO: WHY SHOULD WE EAT PIZZA?!

All of this just to tell you that the only factor that really matters whether it be body composition or decomposition is the amount of thermodynamic energy we store throughout a week. Yup, that’s right. Metabolism is a weekly process, it doesn’t happen in a matter of hours or even days. It takes its time, as should you, to achieve the results you want.

Now you ask: what about macro and micro and phyto nutrients? Don’t they matter?

What optimizes results is a correct ingestion of macro nutrients. These are the ones who offer us thermofynamic energy:

1g of carbohydrates = 4 unites of thermodynamic energy expressed in the kilocalorie chart;
1g of protein = 4 unites of thermodynamic energy expressed in the kilocalorie chart;
1g of fat = 9 unites of thermodynamic energy expressed in the kilocalorie chart;

If this were measured in the kilojoule chart, the values would be different. What matters is that thermodynamic energy is “heat”, and heat is always heat, wherever it comes from, as long as we can absorb it and metabolize/utilize it.

What this means is that you don’t get lean in a fast and effective way. You can get lean quickly, but losing weight involves a lot of things, not just fat:

You can lose fat, water – due to the carbohydrate reduction – (because each gram of carbs can accumulate up to 3g of water) and even muscle (because by eating less fat we have reduced hormone production which can greatly influence losses in the body).

Why can’t we just lose 100% fat by implementing an extreme caloric deficit in our diet?!?

It’s quite simple. Our body only decomposes/oxidizes X grams of adipose compounds (fat stores)  per week, meaning that a caloric deficit beyond that X amount that we can decompose/oxidize, is totally useless and will only make us decompose muscle compounds, which basically means we are killing ourselves.

For example, let’s imagine our energetic requirement for body maintenance is around 2500kcal and that we can only oxidize fat contained in our fat stores that provides us with 300kcal. Do you think it would be wise to lower our consumption to 2000kcals per day?

No!!! Our body will be “hungry” for 200kcals that we should be consuming, that will in turn be reflected on cellular decomposition (muscle mass)!! Since we don’t have sufficient energy to feed X number of cells which should be fed by those 200kcals, that X amount of cells would “die”, enter decomposition, like anything else in life when it doesn’t receive sufficient energy for maintenance.

The deficit has to be done progressively, little by little, until our metabolism gets used to the new caloric deficit (making us stagnate).. Only then should we lower our caloric consumption again, once again in a progressive manner!!

SEE ALSO: AN IMPARTIAL TAKE ON ARTIFICIAL SWEETNERS!

This process can seem very confusing for some, for others not so much. Don’t worry guys, that’s why we are here at your disposal, so that we can help you achieve the goals you want to achieve!

Your results are the reflection of our passion and dedication because our team only seeks excellence! We get better every email we exchange!

Our approach regarding nutrition is something that can and should be maintained for a long period of time, it isn’t just a trendy diet!

Little science lesson. Buckle up. Metabolism is the set of chemical reactions that occur inside our organisms and it’s function is to change or produce molecules. Bored yet? It can be present in two ways: anabolic or catabolic state.

In the state of anabolism (oh you so love that word), compounds are created. In the opposite state, catabolism, there occurs a breakdown of said compounds. When we speak of diets for fat loss, people suffer from catabolism, because some of the particles of the body get degraded. That generates weight loss.

SEE ALSO: WHY WE SHOULD EAT PIZZA!

Contrary to what is common belief (that anabolism is the muscle building process and catabolism is the opposite, destruction of muscle mass), science tells us something else. Looking into the body at a cellular level, anabolism is the creation of compounds, which can be both muscle and fat (adipose). The opposite applies as well, catabolism is the decomposition of molecules both of muscle and fat.

Nowadays it’s trendy to talk about metabolism. Many people want to know their metabolic rate. There are many doubts regarding that question, however, it’s simpler than it appears. There is no magic formula that makes your metabolism become more or less accelerated (sorry..), there are many factors that play a role and must be considered and evaluated individually so that you can fully understand how ones metabolism functions. Weight, body fat percentage, age, height, gender, physical activity levels, all of these are important factors in the regulation of metabolism. If we look at those who have more weight, need a greater energetic value. Advanced age makes the metabolism slower. Men have more muscle mass in relation to women, that makes them have faster metabolisms. Despite all of that, physical exercise makes the metabolism faster. All of these factors must be considered, nonetheless, when the matter at hand is the metabolism of each person. But as we have said many a time, the only factor you can’t measure and has to be calculated through trial and error, that influences the heart rate, is how much energy we have been consuming throughout X amount of time.

To simply keep your body alive, you spend a certain amount of calories. When you breathe, sleep and all the rest of vital functions, your body needs energy. The amount that it need is related to the base metabolism rate of each person. In the case of fat loss, where a decrease in energy supplies occurs, the body, with time, demands less energy for maintaining vital functions, making the metabolism slower, adapting to its current situation. That’s known as the Plateau effect, in which case you need to decrease the energy available through physical activity or food reduction (or even both at the same time), so that you can continue to lose the expected weight.

Bearing this in mind, you can clearly see that in all situations, whether it be for loss, gain or maintenance of weight, the energetic requirements is different from person to person.

SEE ALSO: MARCO BATISTA’S 11 WEEK TRANSFORMATION

Sorry for the technical post, we know this can seem confusing to many of you, for others not so much, but don’t worry. That’s why we are here, at your disposal, ready to make you achieve the results you desire!