Making Gains, Losing Fat, Living Regular - Q&A #7

Met with a friend yesterday. Doctor and researcher, interesting guy. Just started training again after a long layoff. The good doctor is lucky in one sense. Always skinny and struggling to gain weight, his problem is opposite of most.

Told me about the obstacles. First, tracking calories is hard because he eats at work. Second, restaurant attached to the hospital doesn’t serve the best food. Third, he doesn’t have time to prepare meals in advance. Told him the solution. Called me a genius. Problem solved. 

On the phone with a new client today. Family guy wanting to ditch jogging shoes for iron and chalk. Few years of weight training experience, borderline dadbod but wants more. Intermediate and fairly typical client looking to lose fat and gain muscle. But he had wants and concerns. 

Preparing dinner and eating with the family was important to him. I respect that. But how, if possible, would he do that on my plan? Told family guy what I told the good doc the day before. And what I’ve told countless others before the good doc. 

Simplistically speaking, diet is math, and lifestyle and habits what makes or breaks the equation. 

A day is an equation with 3 variables, meaning 3 meals. When you have a plan, those variables turn into constants. They’re constants because they don’t vary much if at all. You plan ahead to arrive at the end result, whether that’s a 500-kcal surplus or 500-kcal deficit. Eating the same shit day in and day out is not lack of fantasy, it’s practical and efficient. 

Sometimes, for reasons described, you can’t have 3 constants, so you have to settle for two constants and one variable. Work, family, relationships, etc. 

In case of the good doctor, who eats thrice a day, the variable is lunch. Now, let’s try to put a number on it. The average lunch is 600-800 kcal for a man, so let’s assume 700 kcal. I'd generally use 800 kcal here, but this guy's more likely to under-eat than to over-eat. 

The doctor weighs around 80 kg which multiplied by 30 gives 2400 kcal as maintenance. Adding 300 kcal equals 2700 kcal as a good number for quality gains. 2700 - 700 (lunch/variable) is 2000 and 2000/2 (meals/constants) yields 1000 kcal which is calorie intake per meal for those  that can be controlled. 

Add body weight tracking to that and the good doctor has no excuse. This is a guy thinking he's leaving gains on the table because food at work sucks. Well, problem solved. Might not know exactly how much he’s eating, but knowing it’s somewhere in the 2600-2800 kcal range is a hell of a lot better than nothing.

What about family guy? His case is a bit different since he eats at home and retains full control of what’s served. But he’s also on a high-protein fat loss diet which means less room for error and more limitations. For him, dinner is the variable. 

I set up his diet to include a spartan and boring lunch - lean protein and veggies, circa 400 kcal and roughly 20% of his total daily intake. Dinner and post-workout meal are both sizeable at circa 800 kcal and 40% each of total daily intake. 

For dinner, I told him to set aside 400 g of meat for himself (roughly 80 g protein). In addition to that, he could have whatever else the family was eating that day - as long as it could fit on one plate. Knowing how much space 400 g of meat takes up, I knew it'd take some effort to exceed the 800 kcal allotted to the variable. So, problem solved. 

People are quick to use work, family or relationships as excuses to not count calories and get their shit in check. My former training partner was notorious for this. Every time bulking season came around, he’d tell me the same story. He’d count calories this time and not get fat as before. He’d know his protein intake, not leave gains on the table. 

Every single year, usually a few months into bulking, he’d plateau or even regress while I kept gaining. Trying to figure out what was wrong - we were doing the same program after all - asked about his calorie intake. His answer? Wasn’t worth tracking calories, because he ate at work. I don’t train with him any longer.

That’s it for today, folks. Hope this gives some ideas and insights to those having to make similar compromises to make dieting or bulking work. While maintaining or bulking, I use this strategy to keep myself in line when eating out (at least once or twice a week). 

When there's two meals I can control and one meal I can't, I make a qualified guess, knowing the actual figure can't be much different from my guesstimate. A good rule of thumb is around 800 kcal per plate of mixed food and 500-600 kcal per plate of meat and veggies.

And those of you who think work and family is preventing from realising your plans, stop. It's ridiculous. Yes, you will have to compromise, and yes, you might be over or under by 100-200 kcal, but so what? Time's on your side, excuses ain't.