Calories 2.0. How much you are actually eating VS labels.
Why protein, MCTs and coffee are the foods for lean people!
As a famous saying these days goes:
“If you believe calories don’t matter — you need more nutrition education. If you believe they are all that matter — you need your education even more!”
“If you believe calories don’t matter — you need more nutrition education. If you believe they are all that matter — you need your education even more!”
Until I really started getting deeper into the science of nutrition and digestion, still emerging and evolving and FAR from being applied properly (even to such a simple and universal thing as food labels AND your google search), until that, I had no idea, how much difference it really makes — what foods you get your calories from, when you get them, what you consume along with them, your training, your digestion, your metabolic health and blood sugar control or lack of — there is no end to detail and depth guys! There is no end to research in sight to figure out EXACTLY HOW different calories are absorbed by unique and different bodies of every individual, seemingly eating the same diet.
But let’s put aside at least individual metabolic differences for now, and let’s compare foods, timing of eating, coffee and the actual calorie absorption of different nutrients from different foods.
This is really the foundation and essential knowledge, if you are serious about getting lean and staying lean without starving yourself till the rest of your life!
Let’s talk about one nutrient at a time, how you can optimize your food or fuel partitioning for the maximum lean effect. I’ll try to keep it simple giving you enough understanding.
First, you want to understand that every time you eat anything at all our body has to spend energy to digest that food, get and use nutrients for different purposes — that is known as thermic effect of food, or TEF, or also DIT — diet induced thermogenesis. Different nutrients, from different foods at different times produce different effect — meaning your body gets different amount of calories (not talking about fuel distribution here or what the body does with that fuel).
And guess what? That is NOT reflected on ANY food labels known today.
NONE!
Some more advanced food companies will tell you what sugars are absorbed and not absorbed, some will tell you the amount of fiber your body will not digest, but that’s about it. The fact, that most fat calories produce 0–3% “loss” of calories compared to 25%, at the very least, that of proteins, meaning 25% of calories from protein will be lost to digestion and assimilation — nobody tells you that! Not only you get twice as much calories from fat on the label but you get roughly 20% more of them absorbed compared to protein!
Let’s talk details.
CARBS.
You lose approximately 5–10% on average eating carbs. The more processed they are — the more calories you get. (Cause guess what? Your body has to do less digestion the more the food is processed. As simple as that). Liquid sports drink require almost no digestion, giving you 99% of energy to make use of. If you eat your carbs before and after exercise — you lose another 5–10% of calories — so by eating good quality carbs from whole unprocessed foods around your workout you might “lose” up to 15–20% of calories, meaning with the same amount of calories on paper your body will get less. Much less.
Fiber?
Insoluble fiber gives you zero carbs or calories, soluble fiber can give you around 2 calories, being partly absorbed I guess, I would not count fiber from whole food sources at all for simplicity. The effect there is very negligible.
FATS.
We all love fats! Especially in keto and low carb community. Fats are energy for us. Not carbs. But I believe one of the big reasons, people tend to have weight loss plateaus on a high fat diet, especially with low protein content, is that fat, unknown to many, fat calories almost entirely, with only 0–3% loss, are available for energy. Caveat: MCTs are an exception! The loss there is on average 9–13%. Cool keto people and coconut oil fans, isn’t it? I definitely notice “slimming” effect of MCTs, even if all you do is substitute all your fats for MCTs — you’ll get less calories from them!
Cool, right?
Just the difference in molecular structure of fats can cause such a huge difference in absorbed calories! I’m not even talking about eating your MCTs from coconuts! All the fiber will make those coconut fats really slimming! Plus all the chewing you have to make!
PROTEINS.
Favorite macronutrient of lean people for 3 main reasons.
It helps to lose the most amount of calories on digestion, 25% on average, depending on protein source, vegetables VS steak, whole food VS shakes, protein can make you lose up to 35% of calories you eat to digestion and absorption, (steak kind of food yields the most loss) — compare that to most fats — 30% difference! It’s like eating 900 calories from fats and proteins, and in case of protein, getting just 600 VS 900 calories from fats. It’s like a whole keto cookie there you could be eating!
Whole protein foods of animal origin, like eggs, meats, fish, makes you burn more calories digesting the protein.
Another reason, why lean people love protein — it keeps you full and satiated the longest. Because it takes the most time to digest and assimilate the nutrition, and also because protein is the most valuable nutrient for the body — all structures, all processes require amino acids or proteins in one form or the other — if you want to starve yourself, the quickest way to get there is to eliminate your protein. That basically means that our body needs protein the most and is quite happy when we get all we need even without other nutrients.
And the third reason why lean people love protein — it helps to build that beautiful lean muscle and six pack abs, that keep us super sexy and strong, help us to live longer.
Caffeine.
Not a macronutrient. But did you know, that drinking 100 mg of caffeine (in coffee or otherwise) every other hour for 12 hours will make you burn 150 calories more that day doing nothing on top of that? AND coffee can increase your metabolic rate 6–9%! Even decaf works for 6% increase! And that can further be increased, by eating meals that burn more calories, like fiber and protein rich meals! Plus, caffeine has other benefits like appetite suppression, improved exercise performance, better insulin sensitivity, increased muscle glycogen. All of that also helps you to burn more fat staying leaner.
Stack all of the above on top of each other and you’ll start to see, why certain eating habits with seemingly big amounts of food (like protein and fiber rich whole food diets) can make you super lean VS someone eating barely anything from a processed low quality food diet, that keeps one fat.
Based on all of this — how do I recommend you to eat?
Simply.
Increase the amount of protein you eat.
In most cases you are not eating enough. Eat at least 1g of protein per 1lb of your ideal body mass. If you want to build lean muscle mass and on a low carb and keto diets, I’d say eat 1.5 g of protein per pound of ideal body weight. Divide that amount into 2–3 meals and stop snacking.
Each meal to your whole foods containing protein — add vegetables with lots of fiber, fresh salads, cooked green veggies. Eat as much veggies as you can fit into you along with your protein.
Fats?
Use MCTs and olive oil as much as possible (Why olive oil? Also seems to have slimming effect, even though I have no studies to back it up, just my personal experience and my clients’ feedback and some reading and research over the years) the rest of fat, get it from whole foods — fatty fish, fattier cuts of meat, whole eggs, 100% dark chocolate, olives, avocados, nuts and seeds — you’ll get all the fats you need!
Want to eat a piece of fruit? Some rice or sweet potatoes? Eat that around your training for maximum calories “loss”, and to increase performance, and to fill your glycogen stores to increase muscle protein synthesis.
Ideal meal formula for breakfast lunch and dinner:
FATTY PROTEIN + VEGGIES WITH LOTS OF FIBER
If added fats: MCTs, coconut oil, olive oil
If added carbs, besides non-starchy veggies: eat around your workout
Coffee? — Drink it!
Great to increase exercise and mental performance too!
Noticeable effects come from consuming coffee or caffeine every other hour, even decaf works but not as much as caffeine. (Probably because there is still some caffeine left in decaf too)
Whole foods always make you lose more calories, as we said before.
Hopefully by now you feel a bit more confident counting your calories from the right kinds of foods.
HUGE thanks to “The Leangains Method: The Art of Getting Ripped. Researched, Practiced, Perfected.” book by Martin Berkhan for more detailed fat-loss calorie-counting science-based information.
Have more questions?
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