May 18, 2018
Coach D and Trent lay out the basics of nutrition for the 40fit athlete. It's easy (and tempting) to overcomplicate the subject, but fundamentally nutrition is about providing the fuel we need for our bodies to grow and function as we want. Our diet, the things we eat every day, should follow our physical goals. If your goal is to get stronger and you are underweight, you need to gain weight (muscle) and strength train. Simple.
Except we often get distracted by things that don't matter. It's common in western culture to be concerned with the number on the scale. When we talk about diet we say things like "I want to lose weight." What do we mean exactly? Weight is a vague term. Often what we really mean is that we want to lose body fat and look better, which involves gaining more muscle mass. What if we lost body fat, our waist measurement went down, but we gained muscle, and the number on the scale went up? Is that not a desirable outcome? The important point here is that the number on the scale is arbitrary, and simply losing or gaining weight is not a very specific goal.
40fit Pearls
- Diet is dependent on goals
- Gaining/losing “weight” is too vague. We typically want to gain muscle and lean mass and lose body fat (recomposition).
- Compliance is key. Plans and macro budgets don’t matter if we don’t consistently hit our targets.
- When we gain weight, we gain lean mass (muscle, bone, other), and adipose tissue. When we lose weight, we lose muscle and fat. Strength training skews the ratio toward gaining more muscle and less BF, or toward maintaining muscle while losing BF. But you can’t have both at the same time.
- You can’t exercise off a bad diet.
- Protein drives the diet, and strength training drives body composition. A more muscular body burns more calories at rest.
- The weight on the scale doesn't matter. The amount of muscle you have matters.