6 Reasons You’re Failing at Flexible Dieting

Are you screwing Up Flexible Dieting?

Flexible dieting has a bad rap among the clean eaters and the just-plain-ignorant people of the fitness world. These folk believe that flexible dieting is sub optimal as far as building muscle and losing fat is concerned… they are so so wrong!!

That said, I have seen far too many people who claim to be IIFYM-ers and all day every day eat nothing but nutrient-void foods like ice cream and poptarts in order to make up their calories…. based on this fact sometimes I can see where ‘clean eaters’ get their opinions from.

This, along with five other reasons are the main ways even the most clued up of dieters can screw up eating flexibly.

1. You ignore the need for micronutrients

Micro-nutrients are vitamins and minerals, and are necessary for a whole host of reasons:

-The formation and density of bones

-Controlling body fluids inside and outside cells

-Enabling digestion

-Helping your body to absorb and utilise nutrients (especially important when trying to build muscle)

-Hormone production

- Aiding metabolism

You get micronutrients in foods such as meat, fish, milk and dairy foods, vegetables, fruits and nuts.

However, when people focus solely on macros, and try to get as much junk into their numbers as they can, they can miss out on micros, then wonder why their fat loss plateaus, and performance plummets.

A deficiency in a single vitamin can have great effects on your athletic performance and even in your health.

Micronutrients should be obtained mainly from food so look to consume plenty of veg and 1-2 servings of fruit per day. To cover bases I’d also suggest taking a multi-vitamin each day.

2. You don’t eat the right amount of calories for your goals

Guess what?

If you want to lose fat then you need to burn off more calories than you are taking in.

If you want to build muscle then you need to consume more calories than you are burning off.

I’ll throw some ball park numbers out there:

-For fat loss start off by consuming 13kcals per lb of bodyweight per day

-For adding muscle aim at consuming 16kcal per lb of bodyweight per day

If you don't start to add/drop weight at the end of the week then reduce or increase your calories slightly for the next week or reduce/increase activity

Once calories have been changed, reassess progress and adjust calories once again in order to keep moving forward

I have seen people give up on flexible dieting before because they haven’t been achieving what they would like to and blame it on food choices

Have patience!

In reality they simply aren't at the right calorie level they need to be for their chosen goals

3. You’re just not flexible

Unless you're in the final weeks of physique comp prep, being slightly off from your macro targets WILL NOT affect your progress whatsoever.

You can easily become obsessed about being bang on with your macro counting to the gram, but being overly anal about the accuracy of your macros can cause people to develop disordered eating habits or make a previous eating disorder resurface

What you need to know ...

Being 5-10g away from your carbs/protein target and 3-5g off your fat target is more than acceptable and will balance out over the course of the week

Why?

On food packets and calorie trackers like My Fitness Pal, each food listed isn’t 100% accurate

Don’t worry they aren’t lying to you, but here’s an example;

MFP may say that a 100g chicken breast has 30g protein, and 3g of fat, but who is to say that that isn’t a slightly leaner of slightly fattier cut of chicken?

A 50g serving of Muesli may have 14g fat, 19g carbs and 8g of protein but what is your bowl has more fruit and nuts in it than what the serving size says?

Basically don’t worry about it!

There can be a 10-20% inaccuracy range of the nutritional info given on food packets and calorie counters.

As long as you are fairly close to your targets then don’t worry about being slightly above or below them.

That is how to be flexible and still get results.

Now quit weighing out your lettuce.

4 .You don’t eat bulk or volume foods when cutting

One mistake I see unsuccessful flexible dieters make when they're trying to drop body-fat is that they eat too many calorie-dense and often highly palatable foods.

Calorie-dense foods are normally small meals/foods that have little ‘bang for their buck’ as far as satiety and volume is concerned.

The palatability can also (in some cases) cause people to have increased cravings, especially if there isn’t anything else consumed to add bulk to the meal.

A diet of 2000 calories from cereal, protein shakes, fruit and chocolate will leave you much hungrier and less fulfilled than a diet with matched calories that is made up from meat, fish, fibrous veg and wholegrain sources

A fat loss diet which includes some tasty treats is fine as long as you are still getting plenty of high volume and nutritious foods which preferably contain fewer calories.

The larger the size of meals you are eating while dropping body-fat in general the lower the cravings and the better chance of dietary adherence and results.

Simple.

My favorite high volume foods which add lots of bulk to my diet have very few calories are:

-green beans

-popcorn

-cauliflower

-peas

-spinach

-egg whites

-carrots

-tomatoes

That's not to say I don't indulge in Skittles, Mars Bars, crisps, or (my favourite) Frosted Shreddies, or that I ban my clients from these either, but be sensible and prioritise satiety and fullness over that moment on the lips.

5. You’re not consistent

This applies to ALL diets - consistency is most definitely the key to success when either wanting to build muscle or lose fat.

You may be recording your nutrition Monday to Thursday, but when the weekend creeps in you either completely ignore the drinks/extra foods you eat which add hundreds (or possibly thousands) of extra ‘untracked’ calories to your weekly calorie average.

If that weekly average is too high, your progress will be much, much slower, or could stop completely.

Similarly, some people who want to build muscle will actually under-eat 1 or 2 days per week or at the weekend. Under eating has the opposite effect and lowers their weekly calorie average, this can put them at maintenance (where they will stay the exact same weight) or even worse cause them to lose muscle by accidentally putting themselves in a deficit.

But Its only 1 or 2 days right?

WRONG

The extra calories (or missed calories in the case of our hardgainers) if left un-accounted for can halt progress in its tracks and reverse the full weeks efforts.

If you know you want to lose fat but like to have a drink or some more food at the weekend then account for it by reducing your calories from fat and carbs a few days prior to the weekend and make sure your weekly calorie average still adds up to the total calorie number that you’re aiming for at the end of the week. If you're trying to build muscle, but eat less one day than you should have then make a conscious decision to eat the calories that you missed spread over the next day or two. This will result in you still reaching your target calorie average for the week and still building muscle.

Remember the 80:20 rule - you don't have to be perfect, but you do need to be pretty damn good all the time.

6.You don’t train properly for your goals

So you've worked out your calories and macros for fat loss -

Great!

But before fussing about nutrition you need to have a sound workout plan in place.

A basic template of an effective weekly routine should consist of a strength plan including 2-5 days per week of moderate to heavy lifting and 1-3 short cardio sessions.

A basic 4-day full body routine may look like this:

Monday:

- Squats 6-8 reps x 4 sets

- Romanian deadlift 6 – 8 reps x 4 sets

- Incline dumbbell bench press 6 – 8 reps x 4 sets

- Lat pulldown 6 – 8 reps x 3 sets

- Barbell bent over row 6 – 8 reps x 3 sets

- Standing military press 6-8reps x 3 sets

- Followed by 30 mins low intensity cardio

Wednesday:

- Deadlifts 5 – 7 reps x 4 sets

- Seated leg curls 8 – 10 reps

- Flat barbell bench press 8 -10 reps

- Pull ups ‘as many reps as possible’ x 3 sets

- Single arm dumbbell row 8-10 reps x 3 sets

- Dumbbell biceps curls 10 -12 reps x 4 sets

- Rope tricep pressdowns 10 -12 reps x 4 sets

- Dumbbell lat raises 10-12 reps x 4 sets

Thursday:

Moderate – High intensity cardio for 20-30mins

Friday:

- Squats: 8 -10 reps x 3 sets

- Romanian deadlift: 8 -10 reps x 3 sets

- Incline bench press: 8-10 x 3 sets

- Incline dumbbell chest flys 8-10 reps x 2 sets

- Barbell bent over row 8 -10 reps x 3 sets

- Underhand lat pulldown 8-10 reps x 3 sets

- Seated dumbbell shoulder press 8-10 reps x 3 sets

Sessions should be intense, and you need to focus on adding volume (either by bumping up sets and reps, or by adding weight to the bar.)

You can’t out train a bad diet…but you can’t out diet bad training either.

Summing it up

Flexible dieting is the bees knees…and I can 100% say that since my clean eating days both myself and my clients are getting 100x the results that we used to achieve…and a lot of that is down to the fact that dieting flexibly is much, much more enjoyable than trying to stick to a ridged meal plan of white fish and chicken 6 x per day.

Just make sure you don’t take the p***!

Get plenty of fruit, veg and protein in your diet, enough fibre and be flexible with whatever else you eat. Eat the right amount of calories for your goals and train effectively.

Jonny

#macro #iifym #flexibledieting