Is your meal plan optimized for your fitness goals? Are you struggling to follow your diet plan because it is too restrictive? Are you looking to maximize your muscle growth and boost your energy?
In this episode, Philip (@witsandweights) provides an evidence-based, comprehensive guide that cuts through conflicting information about meal planning and macro setting. He shares a blueprint that covers the essential aspects of setting up your meal plan for success. By following his recommendations, you will recover faster from your workouts, see changes in the mirror and on the scale, and optimize fat loss, muscle gain, performance, and overall health. Whether you are cutting, bulking, or maintaining, this episode will equip you with the necessary knowledge to structure your nutrition and achieve your fitness goals.
Today, you’ll learn all about:
4:35 Energy balance essentials
7:48 Calculating maintenance calories
11:55 Protein and 1,200 cal meal planning tips
14:55 How much fat and carbs you need in your diet
17:45 Nutrient-dense 1,200 cal breakdown
20:04 Sample 1,200 cal day meal plan
26:21 Macro management on a 1,200-cal diet
28:15 Transitioning to and sustaining a 2,000-cal plan
36:27 3,000 cal plan for muscle building
43:03 Hunger management at higher calories
44:48 Episode takeaways
48:12 Outro
Episode resources:
- Join my email list and tell me you want my free meal planning guide (with foods by macro, sample meal plans, and foods sorted by protein density)
- Try MacroFactor for free with code WITSANDWEIGHTS. It's the only food-logging app that adjusts to your metabolism!
👩💻 Book a FREE 15-Minute Rapid Nutrition Assessment:
https://witsandweights.com/free-call
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https://physique.witsandweights.com/
👥 Join our Facebook community for live Q&As & support
👋 Let's connect! Ask a question, get my FREE newsletter, or find me on Instagram
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Philip Pape (00:00):
What is the optimal way to allocate your calories
(00:02):
for fat loss, muscle gain ormaintenance? In this episode,
you'll learn how to distributeyour macros for different
calorie levels, the keydifferences between them and
practical tips to make your mealplan both simple and foolproof.
Learn how to master your mealplanning on today's episode.
Welcome to the wit's end weightspodcast. I'm your host, Philip
(00:23):
pape, and this twice a weekpodcast is dedicated to helping
you achieve physical selfmastery by getting stronger.
Optimizing your nutrition andupgrading your body composition
will uncover science backedstrategies for movement,
metabolism, muscle and mindsetwith a skeptical eye on the
fitness industryso you can look and feel your
absolute best. Let's dive rightin Whitson weights community
(00:45):
Welcome to another solo episodeof The Whitson weights podcast
in our last episode 181 How notto be skinny fat and week with
Adrian McDonald. You learn thereal reasons that you might be
skinny, fat and weak right nowand what to do to get strong to
feel energize, nourish yourtraining and your body and build
that lean, well muscled physiqueyou're going for. Adrian shared
(01:07):
his personal journey with bodydysmorphia, so you could come
away with strategies for ahealthier, more positive self
image. Today, for Episode 182,how to allocate 1200 2003 1000
calories in your meal plan plushit your protein, we're tackling
a topic that comes up constantlywith my coaching clients and
(01:27):
with my listeners, how toallocate calories for optimal
results, we get questions allthe time about meal planning,
you know, how do I set up mymacros for fat loss? What's the
best way to distribute mycalories if I'm trying to build
muscle. And the truth is,there's a lot of conflicting
information there about mealplanning, and setting your
macros. And the real big thinghere that I want you to get out
(01:51):
of this episode is meal planningitself is a skill, it's very
personal to you, that's theapproach that we take to be
given a meal plan is like beinggiven a blank workout template
that hasn't been personalizedfor you. It might work in the
short term, but it's notsustainable and probably is not
going to match you yourpreferences, your lifestyle, the
things that you enjoy aboutfood, and so on. And then you
(02:12):
have the conflicting informationwhere some people say, you have
to eat six small meals a day,you know, just okay metabolism.
Others claim intermittentfasting is the key to burning
fat. And then there's you know,cutting out carbs, and cutting
out fat and all those sorts ofthings. And all of which is I'll
call it prescriptive andrestrictive. Whereas what we
want to do is develop an openability to put this together for
(02:35):
yourself based on your goals andyour preferences. And I want to
cut through the noise, I want togive you evidence based
practical strategies that youcan implement today. Because you
can follow the mostscientifically optimal, you
know, program meal plan, takethe right supplements. But if
your nutrition is off, you'renever going to achieve the
physique that you want. So thisis more than just hey, here are
the meal plans you can puttogether. This is what's behind
(02:57):
that. Now, when you do nail downyour nutrition, everything else
becomes easier, right you havemore energy to crush those
workouts, you can recoverfaster, you can start seeing
changes that you want to see,because you're in control. So
whether you're cutting, you'rebulking you're maintaining this
episode's gonna give you a clearblueprint for how to set up your
meal plan for success. And we'regoing to do it by allocating
(03:20):
calories and macros at threedifferent levels. These are
totally random, but I pickedthem because they cover the
spectrum where most people fall1200 is really on the very low
end. 2000 is kind of in themiddle. And then 3000 is a
little bit on the upper end formost people. And then you can
find the approach that works foryou based on your goals and
lifestyle within those levels.
(03:42):
And so by the end of thisepisode, you're going to know
exactly how to structure yourmeal plan your nutrition to
optimize whatever it is fatloss, muscle gain, performance,
health, whatever. And before Iget into this, I just thought of
something. I have a guide thatI've created for private clients
that has sample meal plans. Ithas foods by macro, and it has
(04:03):
foods by protein density. If youwant that just join my email
list and then reply and say,Hey, give me your meal plan
guide. To join my list. Go toWhitson weights.com/email or
click the link in the shownotes. Again, go to Whitson
weights.com/email You'll get awelcome email and then just
reply to Hey, Philip, I heardyou on the podcast. Can you give
me that meal planning guide andI'll be happy to send it to you.
(04:24):
All right, get ready to takenotes and let's dive in today's
episode how to allocate1200 2003 1000 calories in your
meal plan plus hit your protein.
So first, we have to talk aboutthe basics of energy balance as
a refresher, because at itscore, managing your weight
managing your mass that theamount that gravity pulls you
(04:45):
into the earth, right that'sreally all that is, comes down
to the first law ofthermodynamics energy in vs
energy out. If you consume morecalories than you burn, you're
going to gain weight. Youconsume fewer calories than you
burn. You're going to loseweight If you consume the same,
you're gonna maintain yourweight. And this is independent
of everything else of bodycomposition of fat loss building
muscle, right? This is purelythe weight on the scale. And as
(05:09):
much as we talk about fat lossversus weight loss, fat loss
being more important, we stillhave to understand energy
balance and how that affectsthis whole thing. And so this
might seem simplistic, right.
And there are certainly otherfactors that influenced body
composition, like themacronutrient, split the amount
of protein you have, and thenall the things like sleep
(05:29):
stress, even your genetics, atthe end of the day, calories are
king when it comes to weightchange. Understanding that it's
a lot, you know, it's easy tosay that, and then there are
practical things that come inplace that actually make it
challenging for people,especially in the what we call
obesogenic environment in thewestern world with easy access
to food, that makes itchallenging to actually control
(05:52):
those variables. And that's thekey distinction here. Now, if we
look at studies, right, I liketo call on studies, there's a
meta analysis from 2017, thatlooked at 400 Weight Loss
studies and found that the onlyconsistent predictor of weight
loss was calorie intake. Okay.
So again, not a surprise, itwasn't low carbs, it wasn't low
fat, it wasn't intermittentfasting, it wasn't exercise, the
participants who lost the mostweight were the ones who stuck
(06:15):
to a deficit, regardless of whatthey follow. Now, you might say,
Okay, that's great. The problemis maintaining the weight. Yeah,
that's a whole separate thing.
We're not going to get into thatin detail here. I just wanted to
cover the fact that calories areimportant for energy balance.
Now, before you get caught up inthe details of like meal timing
of food composition, you have tohave a handle on this. And
(06:36):
that's why I'm starting here.
Because if you don't know, yourmaintenance calories, your total
daily energy expenditure, right,the number of calories that you
burn in a day. And that includesyour basal metabolic rate, your
activity level, the thermiceffect of feeding for your food,
it includes everything, it's thewhole pie, everything you burn
in a day, if you don't knowthat, it's very hard to decide
(06:57):
where to go from there. And mostpeople who reach out to me
saying, I've struggled, youknow, to lose weight, right hit
a plateau. The first question Iask is, are you tracking, and
usually it's either, well, I'musing my fitness pal and I track
my food, but they don't knowwhat their expenditure is, they
don't know how many calories areactually burning. Or they'll
say, I'm looking at my wearable,my Apple watch, and it says, No,
(07:20):
very, very inaccurate, you haveto have a way to know pretty
precisely what your maintenancecalories are on any given day or
week, so that you can constantlyadjust those calories
accordingly. And there's a lotof online calculators and
formulas. And the problem isthey can be off by like 400
calories in either direction. Soit's okay to start with that.
But then you're gonna have totrack your food and weight over
(07:42):
time to see how it changes inresponse. And then you'll know
your true maintenance. And ofcourse, I'm gonna plug macro
factor as a great food loggingapp that does that for you. And
if you want to download macrofactor, use my code, Whitson
weights get an extra three weekon the free trial. And it's the
only app I know that really doesthis correctly, it determines
your true maintenance calories,doesn't just give you an
(08:05):
estimate. And then it will go upand down based on your activity,
what you're eating, how yourlifestyle changes, whether
you're in fat loss or not,right. And then once you do that
you can maintain for a few weeksand say, Okay, I'm ready for fat
loss, I'm gonna go ahead and seta goal to lose fat at a rate of
x, maybe it's half a percent ofmy body weight a week. And
that's going to require acertain deficit. And there you
(08:26):
go. And that'll determine whatcalories and macros you then
need. And that determines whatyou need for your meal plan,
right when you put your mealplan together. So when I work
with clients, and when we talkabout our physique university,
you know, sometimes I'll have anew client that isn't too
familiar with the podcast orwhat we do, and they'll come in
and they want to lose fat rightaway. We say, Well, hold on,
(08:47):
let's determine your maintenancecalories first, and then go
after it. And then the other.
The other question is, well, doyou give me a meal plan? Like
no, I don't give you a mealplan. I want you to put together
your own meal plan based on whatyou enjoy, what your timing is,
what your preferences are forlike level of protein and fat,
things like that, within someconstraints, right within some
(09:10):
boundaries, of course, withinsome general guidelines of 80%,
Whole Foods, 20%, indulgences,things like that. But at the end
of the day, you can eat whateveryou want, as long as it fits
your personal goal for your mealplan which is calories, macros,
and micronutrients for the mostpart Other than that, it's
things like timing, andoftentimes a meal plan will have
(09:33):
timing in there it'll you'llhave like in my pre workout, my
post workout, my lunch, mymidday mid afternoon snack, my
dinner, for example. You don'thave to it could just say like,
here's four meals in the day,figure out where you want them.
But whatever you do for yourmeal plan, you know, calories
are the foundation, then themacros, and then the micros and
timing and all that kind of fillin the gaps. And it's just a
(09:54):
starting point because whateveryour day one meal plan is, you
might find that it doesn't workfor you in some way and and
you're gonna have to swap itout, right, and you know, swap
one food for another changearound the timing, reallocate
the calories and the macros. Solet's start with the lowest
level of calories, because Iknow that can be the most
challenging of all. And I wantto start with the good stuff
(10:16):
just right away. Okay, let's sayyou're in a fat loss phase. And
you've determined that 1200calories is the right target for
you. And I will say 1200, themore I've worked with clients,
the more that this is generallya very, very low number, almost
the rock bottom lowest amount ofcalories that I would recommend
for anybody. And it's usuallywhen you have a slightly low
(10:37):
metabolism to begin with, andyou're trying to go moderate to
aggressive. Other than that, Iam generally seeing most people
higher than this, you know, moremore like 15 to 1800 calories.
Okay, and again, it depends onyour weight, right depends on
your starting point depends onhow aggressive you're going, but
slightly lower than 1200, you'regonna start to run into some
(10:58):
malnutrition. And it's hard toget protein with having much of
anything else, you know what Imean? Like just practically,
these absolute numbers do havesome significance, right? Even
if you are 100 pound female, andyour metabolism is only, you
know, 1400 calories, we stillhave to understand there are
practical limitations to beingable to eat enough nutrients and
(11:21):
different foods and macros, whenyou go too low in calories.
Alright, so having said that outof the way, I'm starting with
1200, because it's kind of therock bottom, and it has the most
restrictions on you, and we'regoing to make it work anyway.
And then from there, it shouldget easier, the more calories
you have. So again, you might besmaller frames, you know, more
petite person, you might have aslower metabolism, you might
(11:43):
just be looking to go prettyaggressively from a moderate
level of metabolism. Okay, it'sprobably gonna be a very
specific reason for that. Andit's important to be strategic
then with how you allocate thecalories. So we always start
with protein, right? Protein isthe most important macronutrient
when you're in a deficit,because it helps you preserve
(12:04):
that lean muscle mass, it helpsyou stay forward, it helps you
stay satisfied, it burns themost calories of all the macros,
right. And that means you onlyhave so many calories to work
with, you're going to be takenaway from fats and carbs,
because protein is number one.
So keep that in mind. Mostpeople when they're down at this
level of calories, it ends upbeing a fairly low carb diet
anyway, not because carbs arebad, but because you don't have
(12:27):
room for them once you allocateso many of your calories to
protein. So if we're going forsomething like that magic, you
know, one gram per pound ofprotein of lean body mass or one
gram, we're gonna make itsimple. One gram of protein per
pound of target bodyweight,right. So if you're 150 pounds,
and you're trying to lose 20pounds, go to 130, we're gonna
(12:48):
go about 130 grams of protein,right? When you multiply that by
that four, multiply that byfour, you get, what 520
calories. So actually, you don'thave these Aerohive these
numbers right now, I'm justdoing them in my head. But 520
Out of the 1200 calories, noticehow much that is, that's almost
50% of your calories. Right? Itmight seem like a lot in
percentage wise, if you were touse like zone or some other
(13:10):
percentage based system. Itsounds like a lot of protein,
but it's actually a very goodbalanced level, that will make a
difference in holding on to thatmuscle on your results and how
you feel and it's probably goingto make it a lot easier to get
through the dieting phase, justbecause of the types of foods
now you're going to be eatinggood protein sources like lean
meats, right chicken, turkey,fish, lean beef, eggs that you
(13:32):
know the challenge with eggs, ofcourse, his whole eggs are
roughly the same amount ofprotein and fat. So if you eat a
bunch of eggs, you're also goingto have a lot of fat for the
ride. And that's why I likeadding an egg whites along with
whole eggs to kind of dilute ittoward more protein. Things like
Greek yogurt, or cottage cheesein the dairy department, right?
Tofu Satan, right, all the soybased stuff if you're plant
(13:56):
based protein powder, of course,like whey protein, casein
protein, plant based proteins,and then all the plant sources
of protein like say oats orlegumes, knowing that those
things also contain. They're notprimarily protein sources. They
also contain carbs, and somesome of them contain fats,
right. The rule of thumb here isincluding a solid serving of
protein at every meal, when youset up your 1200 Calorie plan is
(14:19):
going to be pretty muchrequired. If you're going to get
in all that protein. And one ofyour snacks might be mostly
protein. As much as I lovebalance, it might not
practically work out that wayfor you. If you were to eat, say
four times a day one of thosemight be a snack that's
predominantly protein. But youknow, something like Greek
yogurt, or cottage cheese doeshave some carbs in there so it
(14:40):
ends up being a little bitbalanced. And then you can use
this protein supplementationlike whey powder to kind of fill
it in to get more of a pureprotein. So that's where we
start with protein and in the1200 calorie diet that's going
to dominate everything. Rightthen we get to fat, right? Fat
is very important. It'sessential for hormone
production. for vitaminabsorption for brain function,
(15:01):
and the challenge with lowcalories with fat is we don't
want it to go so low that we'restarting to harm our health. And
that's where we get to, Iusually say about 30% of
calories. And for most people,even at 1200 calories, that's
going to be enough. In terms ofgrams, I wouldn't want to go
below, say 10 to 15, rock,bottom right 10 to 15, rock
(15:24):
bottom, but you probably can bemore up like, say, 30, or 40,
something like that, maybe inthe 20s, right to kind of keep
it a little lower fat and giveyou room for extra carbs. So
when you do the math on 1200calories, that's kind of where
you're constrained, because thenthe rest of it goes to carbs.
And when we talk about fatsources, this is where you've
(15:44):
got to be a little bit morejudicious in your meal planning,
right? You know, foods like nutscan definitely be in there, but
you're probably not going tohave too much peanut butter, for
example, because so caloriedense, you're not gonna able to
have much of it. Seeds, avocado,olive oil, you know, fatty fish
is great, because now you've gotyour protein and your fat in
there that that's where the fatcan come from a little bit of
(16:05):
saturated fat from things likeeggs and beef and things like
that, you're not gonna have muchof it, most likely during a fat
loss phase. And we always wantto limit saturated fat to like a
third of your fats, or 10% ofthe total calories roughly. And
then the rest is with carbs.
Right. And of course, contraryto hopefully, it's not popular
(16:26):
belief anymore, but I think itis, you don't have to avoid
carbs ever. Carbs don't make yougain fat. It doesn't help you
lose fat to cut carbs, right?
Carbs fuel your workouts, theyreplenish your glycogen, they
keep your metabolism humming,they spare protein. And the
challenge when you're at 1200calories is you just don't have
very much room. For carbs, youmight be down to like 80 grams.
(16:47):
And that ends up being fairlylow carb, I mean, in the Keto
world, you're looking well sub100, generally, but even when we
put the low carb label on itthat I usually think of as 100
or less. And so when you're at1200 calories, and you're giving
almost half your calories ofprotein, and then a decent
amount of fat just for health,you're left with probably 80 or
100 grams of carbs. And noticeI'm not giving you exact
(17:10):
numbers, because it's going todepend, you may be the type that
wants to go up to 1.2 grams perpound of protein and really
crank up that protein and havevery little of the other stuff.
You know, hitting your fatminimum always but not very much
from for carbs. Or you might bea little bit lower, you might be
down at the point eight gramsper pound, giving yourself some
more room for carbs. So itreally depends. And whatever you
start with, listen to your body,document your biofeedback and
(17:34):
see if it wouldn't help to say,Cut some protein and give
yourself some more carbs. Right.
And this all assumes you're notchanging the calories you're at
1200 ish calories. When youchoose carbs for your meal plan.
Again, in fat loss. This iswhere the complex nutrient dense
sources kill two if not threebirds with one stone, the other
(17:55):
birds and they kill. Sorry to beso McCobb about death here. But
birds is nutrient density, sogetting your nutrients in and
also fiber. So when you choosecarbs for a low calorie meal
plan, you want them to kind ofsatisfy the fiber nutrient
density, satiety and carbbuckets all at once. And that
would be simple things likefruits, veggies, some whole
(18:18):
grains, but you're gonna findwhole grains also have a decent
amount of like calories. So youmay be limited there. And maybe
even legumes right beans, youknow, people forget that. But
that's beans are like a carbsource with some protein. So if
you're going to have beans inyour, you know, kind of serves
both of those. So, a lots ofveggies, you know, green
veggies, veggies that have verylow calories, but take up a lot
(18:39):
of space are really going to behelpful when the calories are
low to fill up your stomach tohave more volume. That's super
key. Right. So this is not thetime where we're going to have
lots of, you know, pizza anddoughnuts, or we're not going to
have probably lots of refinedgrains just because they're not
going to make you as full youcan have them there's no rule
against them. But they don'thave as much fiber and they
don't have as much volume. Andso you're just consuming a lot
(19:02):
of very easily pre digestedcalories that don't fill you up.
And that's not going to help asmuch in fat loss as going with,
you know, whole grains, fruits,vegetables, things like that.
And then even with fruits, youcan kind of be a little
judicious and lean more towardthings like berries, which will
have more volume for thecalories. But still things like
oranges, apples, bananas areawesome because of all the other
(19:23):
nutrients they have as well,electrolytes and things like
that. So you've got about 100grams to work with or less. It's
not a ton of room. So you've gotto be strategic, having high
fiber, high volume foods, lotsof protein. That is the strategy
here, right? A lot of volumewithout much calories, leafy
greens, berries, sweet potatoes,oatmeal, all the lean proteins
(19:45):
that we talked about before. Andso real quick hear, you know,
even though the title of thisepisode sounds like I'm just
giving you meal plans, theactual meal plans are just kind
of a drop in the bucket here asan example for how to construct
this and everything I just toldyou are other principles behind
a low level of calories. Allright. So here's what a sample
1200 Calorie day might look likebreakfast, a cup of Greek
(20:08):
yogurt, half a cup of berries,quarter cup of some low sugar
granola. So right off the bat,when I say low sugar granola,
I'm talking about a processedfood you get in the middle of
the grocery store that you mightlike the taste of to kind of add
some variety to your yogurt. Butyou're picking a something that
food science has developed. Forus that happens to have low
sugar, you're not doing itbecause you're on a low sugar
(20:28):
diet, or low carb diet. This iswhere the creativity comes into
play. And using food science toyour advantage, and not
listening to the influencersthat say you can't have any
processed food at all. I'mstarting to throw in the little
examples where it's perfectlyfine, and it might work for you.
Okay, so yogurt, berries, alittle bit of low sugar granola,
you can have a snack with some,like a protein shake with
(20:52):
protein powder and almond milk.
So I love almond milk during fatloss, instead of say 2%, or even
whole milk or something that hasmore calories. But if you're
gonna use a milk like a 1%fairlife could work because it's
mostly protein. Okay. And again,this is kind of fitting a snack
in like maybe it's after yourworkout, lunch, some sort of
lean meat, let's say grilledchicken, that's the classic go
(21:13):
to but you can have a lean, youknow, pork or beef or fish or
whatever, with some mixedgreens, tomatoes, avocado,
balsamic vinegar that make abig, big ass salad. But like
they say, I'm a big fan duringfat loss when your calories are
really low. I'm having lots andlots and lots of veggies with
some protein for lunch. Likethat's a great combination. And
because you already probably hadsome carbs earlier in the day,
(21:36):
or let's say you worked outearlier, you may not you might
work out in the afternoon, inwhich case you could flip it
around. But let's say you didyou had you should have most of
your carbs during fat lossaround your workout. And then
maybe reserve a little bit fordinner because that's where
people like to have anothersource of carbs. So that's
lunch, it's some sort of proteinwith a bunch of veggies, add in
zucchini, peppers, cucumbers,you know, anything that's just
(21:58):
like big crunchy volume, Enoshas water in it, and almost no
calories. All right, then if youwere to have another snack,
which again, this is reallytough, right 1200 calories,
typically you're going to havemaybe as little as three meals,
but some people don't like to goa long time between eating
because of their hunger signals.
And so you're either going tohave, you know, five or six
(22:20):
small meals, or you're going tohave three bigger meals. And one
more caveat during 1200calories, if you want to use a
little bit of intermittentfasting because it helps you
manage your hunger signals andbe consistent and stick to those
calories go for it. If on theother hand, you're like me, you
can't go this long stretch ofdata, you just don't want to
Well, then you're gonna have tospread out the feeding window,
(22:42):
and then make the calories workwithin that window. So if you
were to have a snack on thisdiet, you might have like a hard
boiled egg and an apple, youknow, very simple like fat,
protein, carbs. Now, that maynot actually be enough protein.
But because we're dealing withlow calories, you may not be
able to hit some sort of minimumfor a particular snack and give
you permission to do that. Thetotal protein is what matters.
(23:06):
So I'm throwing a bunch oflittle caveats at you here to
show you that there's no suchthing as perfection when it
comes to this. But you couldjust get rid of that snack and
allocate those calories to theother meals. Hey, this is Philip
and I hope you're enjoying thisepisode of weights and weights.
I started with some weights tohelp ambitious individuals in
their 30s 40s and beyond, whowant to build muscle lose fat
(23:27):
and finally look like they lift.
I noticed that when peopletransform their physique, they
not only look and feel better,but they also experienced
incredible changes in theirhealth, confidence and overall
quality of life. If you'relistening to this podcast, I
assume you want the same thingto build your ultimate physique
and unlock your full potentialwhether you're just starting out
(23:48):
or looking to take your progressto the next level. That's why I
created wits and weightsphysique University, a semi
private group coachingexperience designed to help you
achieve your best physique ever,with a personalized done for you
nutrition plan, custom designedcourses, new workout programs
each month, live coaching callsand a supportive community,
(24:09):
you'll have access to everythingyou need to succeed. If you're
ready to shatter your plateausand transform your body and
life, head over to Whitsonweights.com/physique or click
the link in the show notes toenroll today. Again, that's
Whitson weights.com/physique. Ican't wait to welcome you to the
community and help you becomethe strongest leanest and
(24:30):
healthiest version of yourself.
Now back to the show.
All right, dinner again, fourounces of salmon, a big cup of
broccoli, a half cup of quinoa,right simple. quinoa, brown
rice. I mean, you could do whiterice, but again, white rice,
brown rice, make the comparisonand you'll see you could eat
(24:50):
more brown rice with thecalories and it fills you up and
gives you more fiber. Again justduring fat loss. Maybe you go
back to white rice duringmaintenance. It's not a huge
sacrifice. It's Still rice,you're not cutting out the rice
altogether. Again, rice, quinoa,things like that. And then if
you need one more snack beforethe end of the evening, here's
where some cottage cheesecucumber can come together, you
(25:11):
know, or you can have like acasein protein pudding that
you've made a lot of my clientsduring, and even myself, if I'm
at fairly low calories, I mightreserve like 150 of those
calories or 200 of them. For theend of the day, just in case I
know I'm gonna get a littlehungry or want a snack or
dessert, and reserve that forthis pre bed snack or this post
(25:34):
dinner snack. Okay, so I justgave you one of a million
permutations for a 1200 Calorieday, but what you noticed is
very little processed food,because that's just not going to
satisfy you. It doesn't meanthat you can't like on a given
Saturday, or a given day of theweek, say I have to have ice
cream, I want to have ice cream.
And I'm going to reserve icecream in there. And it's just
(25:55):
going to affect the rest of myday up up ahead. And I'm going
to pre plan for that. I'm justgoing to pre login or pre plan
or if I know I'm going out to arestaurant during a fat loss
phase, I'm going to pre plan forthat, I'm going to switch up my
meal plan. So the first, youknow, two meals of the day, are
mostly protein and veggies. Andthen I've reserved most of my
fats and carbs for dinner.
Right? totally your choice. Andthat's how we do it. That is how
(26:18):
we do it. 1200 calories is not alot of food. And so making it
balanced, nutrient dense.
Hitting your macros as the daygoes on is going to be very
important. So if you're usingmacro factor, for example, you
can tap the macros at the topand look at how what percentage
of your macros you've hit sofar. And if you keep them more
or less aligned, right, knowingthat you need a lot of protein,
(26:39):
every meal is going to have abig percentage of protein, keep
them aligned, don't let any onemacro fall too far behind. And
that'll be a really easy way toget where you need to be at the
end of the day. All right. Sothe key to 1200 calories is
really quality over quantity,making every calorie count.
Choosing whole minimallyprocessed foods that nourish
your body. But planning inindulgence is where you need
(27:01):
them. And don't tell yourself,you can't have anything, you can
have anything, it's just goingto be very strategic. And if
1200 calories, doesn't feelright to you, if it just feels
too restrictive, no matter whatyou do, you've gone through all
these changes, you've come upwith like the ideal meal plan
for you. And it still justdoesn't satisfy you, it may be
too low calories. And I don'tcare if that means your fat loss
(27:23):
phase slows down. It is what itis now there may be changes on
the calorie burn side of theequation that we can deal with.
We never want to overdo itthere. We never want to say
well, okay, I'm just going toadd in five hours of cardio a
week, it doesn't work, the bodywill compensate for that. But
increasing your step count,maybe adding one or two small
cardio sessions and things likethat, if you're not moving
(27:44):
enough, if you're simply getting6000 steps a day during a fat
loss phase, and you'restruggling to hold on and
calories. Well, the 6000 steps aday is probably the opportunity,
right? Not necessarily thecalories or your meal plan. So
just throwing that in there. Sothat's 1200 calories, any lower
than that it gets really, reallytricky. You're getting closer
and closer to more of a proteinmodified fast, right? If you're
(28:05):
down to 800 or 700 calories,you're eating almost entirely
protein. And if you're not,you're probably going to lose
muscle. Right. So just keep thatin mind that as these principles
apply, no matter what it's justyou have more room to work with,
the higher the calories are. Sonow let's move into the middle
level, the 2000 calorie mealplan. And again, I just kind of
chose this it was around number,maybe you're at 1800. Maybe
(28:28):
you're at 2200. But you've got alittle more wiggle room to work
with than the 1200. Well, quitea bit more, right? Because when
you go from 1200, to even like1600, that extra 400 calories,
you know, that's like a decentsized snack or even a small
light dinner. Right? So with2000 calories, you have a more
moderate level that's moresustainable for people. And by
(28:50):
sustainable, I simply mean, youcan go a longer duration and not
feel psychologically drained ortaxed at that level. And for
some people that's like, youcould go years at that level
depends on who you are. Youknow, I'm a bigger guy. My
metabolisms around 3000. For me2000 calories a day is a really
aggressive diet. And so for me,it's not something I want to be
(29:11):
on for more than I'll say, likeat most four months. Now, you
might be like, Oh, that's adecent amount of time. But I
mean, that's like the upper end.
If I were to do it day after dayafter day, eventually I would
just get kind of tired of that.
Right. And by the way, I did anepisode recently about how fast
to lose weight for fat loss. AndI talked about diet breaks and
refeeds there. Go listen to thatepisode, if you want to learn
(29:35):
about strategies for breaking upthe diet along the way to make
it even more sustainable for thewhole dieting phase to get to
your endpoint without feelinglike you ever have to give up.
Okay, I'm not covering thattoday, though. So 2000 calories
a day. At this level, you havesome more flexibility with your
macros, you're still going toprioritize protein, you're still
going to be up at that, alwayswithin that point seven to one
(29:58):
gram per pound. All right. Andif you're at 2000 calories,
maybe you're dieting, maybeyou're maintenance, maybe you're
gaining depends on where youstart, I don't know, okay, we're
not the 1200 was focused on fatloss, this one is just focused
on hitting the macros properly,and it gets a little bit easier,
right? For fat, you get a littlebit more room as well. So the
fats can come up a little as apercentage of calories, they
(30:19):
stay the same, but they come upin grams, you know, maybe
they're up around 5060 gramsnow, right four to 500 calories.
And then now you've got yourcarbs. And this is where at the
2000 calorie level, the carbsmight come up to 200 or more,
right, so now you've gone fromway down at the 100 level, up to
the 200 level, now you startgetting into that spot where
you've got some flexibilityyou've got, you're able to put a
(30:42):
decent amount around yourworkouts, right, if you've got
200 grams of carbs to work with,you could put like 75 to 100
grams around the workout, if youwant, you can have like, you
know, say 30 to 40 grams beforelike 50 or 60 grams after you
don't have to, but you mightfind that that makes you feel
great for your trainingsessions. And you can start to
(31:03):
include starchy carbs, you know,like other like white rice,
pasta and bread, the highersugar fruits, you might be able
to eat more of those metbananas, mangoes, things like
that. And then the indulgence iswhen we talk about our 8020, the
8020 rule 80% of your diet comesfrom whole nutrient dense foods.
And then 20% from less optimalchoices, sources that you just
(31:24):
love to eat. You've since you'vegot more calories to work with
the 20% also becomes a few moreinstances of that right, some
extra squares of chocolate orextra slice of pizza, you know,
and not that you could you everhave to say that you're limited
to those period, it's just thatnow you have more flexibility to
do it. And you can, you know, goout to eat things like that a
(31:48):
little bit more frequently. Andalways however, we want to plan
in those indulgences, we want tofit them in to our targets and
our goals rather than justwinging it and hoping for the
best. That's where people oftenscrew up, people come to me and
they're like, I hit a plateau.
And even if they are a quoteunquote, tracking, they might
(32:08):
not track everything. And evenif they're tracking, they might
still go out to eat on theweekends and just far over
consume, what they thought wastheir deficit for the week and
offset it. And now they're stillat maintenance or gaining
weight, right? And they'reinconsistent, and all of those
things, even if they aretracking, right. But usually
(32:29):
when you're tracking whentracking properly, it helps you
gain that awareness and start tochange your behaviors and give
you a sense of what portionslook like and how different
foods fit into your plan. That'swhy we do it. We don't do it to
count calories, or to restrictourselves. We do it to give us
information and empower us tosay okay, 2000 calories actually
makes a lot of sense. At thatrate, I can you know, gain or
(32:53):
lose x pounds a week. That'sreasonable for me, and I can eat
this way. And I can eat thisway. And that's what
sustainability is all about. Itfits within your lifestyle. So
what does 2000 calories looklike? Well, let's say we were to
have again, four or five, evensix feedings a day, right?
Depends. I'm going with morebecause it's harder to do to go
(33:14):
from less to more than more orless. Make sense like I'm giving
you more frequency. And then youcan say well, I'd rather only
eat three times a day so now I'mgonna squish those together and
just increase the volume of eachof those meals fine. But if I
only gave you say breakfastlunch dinner, then you'd be like
well what do I do to create asnack here or pre or post
workout here or pre bed overhere. I don't want to make you
(33:35):
overthink that so if you were tohave breakfast on a 2000 calorie
meal this is where you mighthave your eggs right eggs mixed
with egg whites and some arrowsspinach and mushrooms and toasts
with almond butter for exampleor peanut butter a little bit
right and that's that's adelicious breakfast right there.
snacks throughout the day mightlook like say protein powder
(33:56):
with almond milk but now you canadd in some banana or make a
smoothie with it if you want.
Another snack might look likeyou know the classic like
vegetables dipped in hummus ifyou'd like and then another
might be you know cottagecheese, Greek yogurt and things
like that with protein you know,again I'm giving you two or
three snacks throughout the dayif you'd like but smush them
together get more protein in anyone snack that's how you do it.
(34:17):
Lunch. I get a li meat with somevegetable this time you might
have not only greens but alsosomething like sweet potato and
then for your greens. It couldjust be any leftover greens you
have broccoli, green beans,brussel sprouts, a little bit of
olive oil. You know this iswhere you can have a lot more
oil and butter and thingsbecause you have more calories
to work with dinner you knowdinner and lunch you're going to
(34:38):
hear from me and are pretty muchsimilar, you know Brown Turkey
or you know pork loin with somerice and some zucchini and some
sauce of some kind that you likelike a tomato sauce or say a low
calorie barbecue sauce andthey're not on this one but like
if you were going to have pork,you can throw some barbecue
sauce on there. There's somelike nice lower sugar varieties
or just have the full up andjust planted in. And then in a
(34:59):
2000 calorie diet, you probablycan fit in small desserts if
you'd like them, like I'm a bigdessert eater. It's just how I
like to do it. My family likesdesserts, you know, we're
active, we keep the caloriesreasonable, we like indulgences
here and there. I love icecream. So fit it in. And I'm
telling you, you've got thepermission to do that, and
you've got the room to do it. Ifyou plan accordingly. That's all
(35:21):
it comes down to, if you're notjust snacking, and licking, and
taking off of your kid's plate,and randomly drinking six beers
on the weekend, not trackinganything, if you're not doing
those things. Well, now you canput all this delicious,
nourishing food, includingthings like ice cream, if you
like it into your plan, right.
(35:42):
So you get more food morevariety, at this level of
calories. And this is tend to bea more realistic and sustainable
level for a longer duration. Sothat's really all I'm gonna say
about that. And no matter whatyou do, you don't want to ever
feel restrictive, you'll everwant to feel deprived or burnt
out. So that's sort of the dietbreaks come in, or increasing
your calories. Or using forms ofnonlinear dieting, which is
(36:05):
going to be a topic I cover in aupcoming episode, I'm going to
cover all the ways to use nonlinear dieting, like you don't
just diet on the same caloriesday after day after day. There's
ways to be creative about it.
Again, not for today, upcomingtopic. So make sure to follow
the show always follow the show,click the Follow button in your
app. So you get notified ofthose episodes. All right,
(36:25):
finally, let's talk about 3000calories. And some of you are
like I could never eat 3000calories you ladies out there. I
know I've heard it many, manytimes. Some of you guys are
like, well, that's mymaintenance, you know. So when I
say 3000, just imagine it's justa fairly high level of calories
for you. Maybe it is 2500, maybeit's 4000. And it represents
(36:46):
being in a building phase. Thisis a building phase, I'm not
talking about 2000 was more inthe middle kind of maintenance,
maybe cut, maybe build threesounds like you're building, you
need a lot of food. And ifyou're a bigger guy, think of
this as like 4000. If you're amore petite female, maybe this
is 2800. And that's a lot foryou. All right. So this is you
know, you're active, you'retraining you have you're
(37:09):
building muscle, you're tryingto gain weight, most likely. And
maybe you're a hard gainer, andyou've experienced the situation
where as your metabolism rampsup, you can't keep up with the
calories and you start toplateau, and you're not able to
gain so kind of covers all thosescenarios. And at this calorie
level, on the plus side, youhave a ton of room to play with
your macros and your food. Okay,protein is still important. But
(37:33):
believe it or not, it doesn'thave to be nearly as high as it
would in fat loss in terms ofgrams per pound, which sounds a
little bit ironic, since youhave so many more calories to
play with. And in reality,you'll probably end up having no
problem hitting that protein, ifyou've been doing it at those
lower levels. And so point sevento one gram per pound. Again,
I'll target body weight. Solet's say you're 160 and you're
(37:56):
trying to get to 190. All right,you know you're aiming in the
181 90 range for protein interms of grams. Alright, so you
know, you're talking, I don'tknow what, what does that come
out to be six 700 calories fromprotein, something like that,
which as you as you realize nowis only like a fifth of the
calories, where it was almost ahalf of the calories are in fat
(38:17):
loss. So the higher your calorielevel, the lower the percent of
the protein is because you don'treally need to change it much.
Protein is almost always aroundthe same amount. For me, being
that I'm around 180 pounds, I'musually eating around 180 grams
of protein, whether it's veryaggressive fat loss,
maintenance, or, you know,optimal muscle building gain,
(38:39):
I'm still always around 180grams. So what changes is the
fat and carbs, fats scale withthe the calories, so they don't
go like way up or down. Theyjust kind of scale a bit. So
when you're at 3000 calories,now you're up to like 7080 90,
even 100 grams of fat kind of inthat range. Some people like to
eat more fat than others. Somepeople like to eat fattier cuts
(39:00):
of meat. And that's fine. Aslong as we're cognizant of the
saturated fat. As a portion ofthat, again, reminder, we don't
want to really exceed a third ofour fats from saturated fat, or
put another way, around 10% ofour calories. So if you're at
3000 calories, you don't wantmore than, you know, 300
calories from saturated fat, andthat's really on the upper end.
(39:21):
So we try to keep thatreasonable but overall your fats
probably 7080 90 100 grams, andthen the rest is carbs. Now
you're up to three, four or 500grams of carbs, right again,
depending on where everythingelse lies. I'll say for most
people, you're going to bearound three or 400. Okay, and
this is where everything justopens up, right? Dried fruit,
honey, maple syrup, starchyvegetables, like the amounts of
(39:44):
them just get a lot moreflexible. And you don't have to
be as you know, cognizant ofthem. You still plan you still
track. You still make room. It'sstill easy to over indulge and
over consume just like it isn'tany level. And I've seen cases
where you are now at such a highcalorie level that you almost
lose a little bit of thatcontrol. Because you have so
(40:07):
much flexibility. And you'reprone to say, going out to a
restaurant and consuming 5000calories. Because you know, you
have all these calories to workwith, you know, maybe not 5001
meal, but 5000 for the day,let's say. And before long,
you're having a problem by overconsuming even when you're
trying to get a lot of calories.
(40:27):
It's less of a problem. For mostpeople, most people have a
problem on new consuming, butjust be aware of that, that we
always need to be tracking andplanning. Alright, so what does
the 3000 Calorie day look like?
I mean, honestly, it's anything.
It's like anything goes. Andit's gonna be very easy to hit
your minimums no matter what. SoI would just do what you do with
(40:47):
the other levels and just scalethings up and add more
indulgences where you want themand give yourself some more
flexibility. It's really all itis, you may have to eat more
frequently to get all the foodin. That's the one of the
challenges people say I can'teat enough well, you're maybe
you're not eating frequentlyenough, you may have to eat more
calorie dense foods on purposeto consume more it so I
mentioned the dried fruit, butthis is having more oil, butter
(41:09):
in your foods having higher fatmeats, having a higher fat
dairy, so instead of low fat orno fat Greek yogurt, you'd go
with the regular you know fullfat Greek yogurt, right instead
of the low sugar granola Imentioned just regular old full
up granola you know, you stillwant fruits, vegetables,
starches, you know carbs allthat in there. But now you might
have just whole eggs when youhave eggs don't even worry about
(41:31):
egg whites, right? So anyway,the meals are gonna look the
same just scaled so likebreakfast could be eggs with
some spinach and mushrooms andoatmeal and protein powder and
some peanut butter. Right nicebig hearty meal to go maybe
that's your post workout. For methat would be like a post
workout. A pre workout might bewhey protein shake and banana.
But I don't know when you'retraining so I'm just kind of
giving it to this way snacksthroughout the day. It would be
(41:53):
things with Greek yogurt andberries, you know fruits, almond
or peanut butter dairy products.
I think I mentioned already.
Maybe it's an indulgence rightthat's where you might you might
have a pop tart. I don't knowlike if you really have a
hankering for a pop tart or bowlof ice cream you want to fit it
in there. That's that might bewhere you have it right no
judgment, no judgment at all.
You can do this lunch is goingto be you know fish and quinoa
or, and brussel sprouts andolive oil same is at 2000
(42:16):
calories but just scaled updinner steak potato broccoli
with some butter, right so youcan kind of live it up a little
maybe have that ribeye thatyou've been kind of hankering
for, you've been eating a lot oftop sirloin now you're gonna
have some ribeye a fattier cutof steak, a lot more calories,
but you've got the room for it.
So it's a lot of food for somepeople, right. And it can be a
(42:37):
challenge to eat this much.
Especially if you have a smallerappetite. And that's where like
liquid calories can be helpful.
Protein shakes, smoothies, milk,just good old whole milk.
Alright, don't over think itgood old whole milk can really
help. If you get fairlifeChocolate milk, love that stuff.
It's got a nice balance ofmacros. Lots of protein tastes
great sweet. You can heat it upin the winter. And it's like
(42:58):
instant hot cocoa, you can putit in a ninja creamy recipe and
make ice cream. There you go. Sothe key with 3000 calories is,
you know, it's like you'relistening to your hunger cues,
and not really trying to forceyourself to eat when you're not
hungry, but rather make the mealthat what you eat and how you
time it work with your hunger.
So you don't feel like Oh, I'mjust stuffing myself to eat.
(43:19):
Because to me that's as mentallyunhealthy as forcing yourself to
starve at lower calories. Likeyou don't want to do either of
those, it has to be moresustainable, even in the face,
even when you are pushing it.
And when you're at 3000calories, it's okay to have a
lighter day. And then a heavierday, like if you want to cycle
(43:40):
if it makes sense on trainingdays, you feel a lot more
hungry,maybe more calories go on those
days. Right The goal is to hiton a weekly basis is to hit your
averages for the week, not everysingle day, you can't be a
robot. Alright, so hit it forthe week. And that really
applies to everything, righteven if you're at 1200 calories,
you want to hit the 1200 onaverage for the week. If one day
you're at 1000, another day or1400. But again, it averages
(44:00):
out. You've planned in going toa restaurant on Saturday, but it
averages out it's fine. Nevermake up for something the next
day that you didn't plan fordon't do that. But think ahead
to make it work for the week.
Alright, so we covered a lot ofground. We talked about the
importance of energy balance,how to determine your calorie
(44:21):
needs for each of these levels,when they might be appropriate,
you know, fat loss, maintenance,muscle gain, we broke down meal
plans at different levels so youcan understand the level of
inherent kind of flexibilityversus strictness you might
have. Right 1200 2000 3000 Andthen how to allocate macros at
each level. You notice thatthings are pretty much the same,
(44:42):
they just tend to be scaled, andthere room for indulgences and
flexibility goes up the morecalories you have. So some
takeaways that I want you tocome out with this episode are
number one, calories are stillthe be all end all when it comes
to scale weight when it comes toweight management. And that's
what you have to know youmaintenance calories by tracking
your food against your weightand macro factors, the best tool
(45:04):
to do that. So calories areking, they're the beginning of
it. Number two is protein is thenext thing we prioritize right
prioritizing protein, especiallyin a deficit and deficit, it's
even more important to get thatupper level toward that one gram
per pound of bodyweight. That'snumber two. Number three, don't
fear fat, don't fear carbs.
They're both super important ina balanced diet, you know, focus
(45:25):
on quality, especially at thelower calorie levels, and then
adjust based on the calorieneeds and be creative. Plan
ahead, you know, use macrofactor and plan out an entire
day. That looks like a quoteunquote, perfect day just to
give you inspiration for how tokeep these things in balance.
Number four, always plan fortreats and indulgences. Right,
the 8020 rule is a greatguideline, if most of your diet
(45:47):
is coming from hold nutrientdense foods then gives you lots
of flexibility for the treatsand indulgences as opposed to
the other way around where youmight have lived before, which
is a lot of foods or just randomprocessed foods, indulgences,
going out to eat fast foodrestaurants, you know, snacks
and licks. And just before youknow it 80% of your diet is this
(46:08):
unplanned processed food, we'rejust flipping that around 80%
Whole Foods, the rest comes fromwhatever you want. And then
number five, track track track,I'm just mentioning this
specifically here. At leastinitially, it's going to give
you a lot of awareness. But mostof my clients when they start
tracking, especially when theyuse macro factor, because it's
so easy to use. They keep goingI mean, I've been going for
(46:29):
several years just because Ilove the information. I like to
train myself on on the portionsizes on how different foods fit
in different phases. And also beable to track my micronutrients
and things like fiber, andsaturated fat that can also be
helpful. So remember, there's noone diet, there's no one meal
plan for everyone. Right, thebest meal plan is the one that a
meet your goals. And that b Youcan stick to consistently over
(46:52):
the time necessary for thatlevel of calories. So take these
guidelines and make them workfor you. All right now if you
need some help personalizingyour approach to all of this and
keeping yourself accountablebecause remember, the
information we provide in thispodcast is information that you
can use, but it doesn't helpsolve the implementation for
(47:14):
you, you have to either do thatyourself or reach out for help
and help as often the best wayto accelerate that process. So
doors to widths and weightsphysique University are open.
Inside WWE, pu, you're gonna geta customized nutrition plan
right off the bat. Now itdoesn't have meal plans, because
again, I said it earlier, I'mnot a hypocrite. I don't give
(47:36):
you meal plans. I give you theguidelines, the macros, the meal
timing around your workouts,depending on your workout. I
adjust it for your preferences,do you like more fat? Do you
like more balanced? Are you froma Keto history, we kind of want
to make that work so you canease into it. Also in www you
get live weekly coaching calls,custom courses on everything
related to physique development.
(47:59):
And then of course, a privatecommunity of like minded people
are all working toward theirbest physique, and who also have
fantastic ideas regarding mealplanning and recipes. So just
head to Whitsonweights.com/physique. To learn
more and join today, or clickthe link in my show notes.
Again, that is Whitsonweights.com/physique. Alright,
(48:20):
in our next episode 183, thedark side of GLP, one weight
loss drugs ozempic Manjaro satdown with Amy Wilson, you're
going to learn the root causesof obesity and weight gain, the
origins and current use of GLPone drugs like the some
magnetite and tricep peptidebased brand names that we just
(48:40):
talked about, and others fordiabetes, and now weight loss,
their pros and cons. And whatmost people can do instead from
a lifestyle perspective, becausethat's at the end of the day,
what we are all trying to dohere. Make sure to hit the
Follow button right now in yourpodcast app to get notified when
that comes out. And it supportsthe show when you subscribe or
(49:01):
when you follow to the show. Soplease go ahead and take a
moment to do that. As alwaysstay strong, and I'll talk to
you next time here on TheWhitson weights podcast. Thank
you for tuning in to anotherepisode of wit's end weights. If
you found value in today'sepisode, and know someone else
who's looking to level up theirwits or weights. Please take a
(49:22):
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catch the next episode. Untilthen, stay strong.
What is the optimal way to allocate your calories
(00:02):
for fat loss, muscle gain ormaintenance? In this episode,
you'll learn how to distributeyour macros for different
calorie levels, the keydifferences between them and
practical tips to make your mealplan both simple and foolproof.
Learn how to master your mealplanning on today's episode.
Welcome to the wit's end weightspodcast. I'm your host, Philip
(00:23):
pape, and this twice a weekpodcast is dedicated to helping
you achieve physical selfmastery by getting stronger.
Optimizing your nutrition andupgrading your body composition
will uncover science backedstrategies for movement,
metabolism, muscle and mindsetwith a skeptical eye on the
fitness industryso you can look and feel your
absolute best. Let's dive rightin Whitson weights community
(00:45):
Welcome to another solo episodeof The Whitson weights podcast
in our last episode 181 How notto be skinny fat and week with
Adrian McDonald. You learn thereal reasons that you might be
skinny, fat and weak right nowand what to do to get strong to
feel energize, nourish yourtraining and your body and build
that lean, well muscled physiqueyou're going for. Adrian shared
(01:07):
his personal journey with bodydysmorphia, so you could come
away with strategies for ahealthier, more positive self
image. Today, for Episode 182,how to allocate 1200 2003 1000
calories in your meal plan plushit your protein, we're tackling
a topic that comes up constantlywith my coaching clients and
(01:27):
with my listeners, how toallocate calories for optimal
results, we get questions allthe time about meal planning,
you know, how do I set up mymacros for fat loss? What's the
best way to distribute mycalories if I'm trying to build
muscle. And the truth is,there's a lot of conflicting
information there about mealplanning, and setting your
macros. And the real big thinghere that I want you to get out
(01:51):
of this episode is meal planningitself is a skill, it's very
personal to you, that's theapproach that we take to be
given a meal plan is like beinggiven a blank workout template
that hasn't been personalizedfor you. It might work in the
short term, but it's notsustainable and probably is not
going to match you yourpreferences, your lifestyle, the
things that you enjoy aboutfood, and so on. And then you
(02:12):
have the conflicting informationwhere some people say, you have
to eat six small meals a day,you know, just okay metabolism.
Others claim intermittentfasting is the key to burning
fat. And then there's you know,cutting out carbs, and cutting
out fat and all those sorts ofthings. And all of which is I'll
call it prescriptive andrestrictive. Whereas what we
want to do is develop an openability to put this together for
(02:35):
yourself based on your goals andyour preferences. And I want to
cut through the noise, I want togive you evidence based
practical strategies that youcan implement today. Because you
can follow the mostscientifically optimal, you
know, program meal plan, takethe right supplements. But if
your nutrition is off, you'renever going to achieve the
physique that you want. So thisis more than just hey, here are
the meal plans you can puttogether. This is what's behind
(02:57):
that. Now, when you do nail downyour nutrition, everything else
becomes easier, right you havemore energy to crush those
workouts, you can recoverfaster, you can start seeing
changes that you want to see,because you're in control. So
whether you're cutting, you'rebulking you're maintaining this
episode's gonna give you a clearblueprint for how to set up your
meal plan for success. And we'regoing to do it by allocating
(03:20):
calories and macros at threedifferent levels. These are
totally random, but I pickedthem because they cover the
spectrum where most people fall1200 is really on the very low
end. 2000 is kind of in themiddle. And then 3000 is a
little bit on the upper end formost people. And then you can
find the approach that works foryou based on your goals and
lifestyle within those levels.
(03:42):
And so by the end of thisepisode, you're going to know
exactly how to structure yourmeal plan your nutrition to
optimize whatever it is fatloss, muscle gain, performance,
health, whatever. And before Iget into this, I just thought of
something. I have a guide thatI've created for private clients
that has sample meal plans. Ithas foods by macro, and it has
(04:03):
foods by protein density. If youwant that just join my email
list and then reply and say,Hey, give me your meal plan
guide. To join my list. Go toWhitson weights.com/email or
click the link in the shownotes. Again, go to Whitson
weights.com/email You'll get awelcome email and then just
reply to Hey, Philip, I heardyou on the podcast. Can you give
me that meal planning guide andI'll be happy to send it to you.
(04:24):
All right, get ready to takenotes and let's dive in today's
episode how to allocate1200 2003 1000 calories in your
meal plan plus hit your protein.
So first, we have to talk aboutthe basics of energy balance as
a refresher, because at itscore, managing your weight
managing your mass that theamount that gravity pulls you
(04:45):
into the earth, right that'sreally all that is, comes down
to the first law ofthermodynamics energy in vs
energy out. If you consume morecalories than you burn, you're
going to gain weight. Youconsume fewer calories than you
burn. You're going to loseweight If you consume the same,
you're gonna maintain yourweight. And this is independent
of everything else of bodycomposition of fat loss building
muscle, right? This is purelythe weight on the scale. And as
(05:09):
much as we talk about fat lossversus weight loss, fat loss
being more important, we stillhave to understand energy
balance and how that affectsthis whole thing. And so this
might seem simplistic, right.
And there are certainly otherfactors that influenced body
composition, like themacronutrient, split the amount
of protein you have, and thenall the things like sleep
(05:29):
stress, even your genetics, atthe end of the day, calories are
king when it comes to weightchange. Understanding that it's
a lot, you know, it's easy tosay that, and then there are
practical things that come inplace that actually make it
challenging for people,especially in the what we call
obesogenic environment in thewestern world with easy access
to food, that makes itchallenging to actually control
(05:52):
those variables. And that's thekey distinction here. Now, if we
look at studies, right, I liketo call on studies, there's a
meta analysis from 2017, thatlooked at 400 Weight Loss
studies and found that the onlyconsistent predictor of weight
loss was calorie intake. Okay.
So again, not a surprise, itwasn't low carbs, it wasn't low
fat, it wasn't intermittentfasting, it wasn't exercise, the
participants who lost the mostweight were the ones who stuck
(06:15):
to a deficit, regardless of whatthey follow. Now, you might say,
Okay, that's great. The problemis maintaining the weight. Yeah,
that's a whole separate thing.
We're not going to get into thatin detail here. I just wanted to
cover the fact that calories areimportant for energy balance.
Now, before you get caught up inthe details of like meal timing
of food composition, you have tohave a handle on this. And
(06:36):
that's why I'm starting here.
Because if you don't know, yourmaintenance calories, your total
daily energy expenditure, right,the number of calories that you
burn in a day. And that includesyour basal metabolic rate, your
activity level, the thermiceffect of feeding for your food,
it includes everything, it's thewhole pie, everything you burn
in a day, if you don't knowthat, it's very hard to decide
(06:57):
where to go from there. And mostpeople who reach out to me
saying, I've struggled, youknow, to lose weight, right hit
a plateau. The first question Iask is, are you tracking, and
usually it's either, well, I'musing my fitness pal and I track
my food, but they don't knowwhat their expenditure is, they
don't know how many calories areactually burning. Or they'll
say, I'm looking at my wearable,my Apple watch, and it says, No,
(07:20):
very, very inaccurate, you haveto have a way to know pretty
precisely what your maintenancecalories are on any given day or
week, so that you can constantlyadjust those calories
accordingly. And there's a lotof online calculators and
formulas. And the problem isthey can be off by like 400
calories in either direction. Soit's okay to start with that.
But then you're gonna have totrack your food and weight over
(07:42):
time to see how it changes inresponse. And then you'll know
your true maintenance. And ofcourse, I'm gonna plug macro
factor as a great food loggingapp that does that for you. And
if you want to download macrofactor, use my code, Whitson
weights get an extra three weekon the free trial. And it's the
only app I know that really doesthis correctly, it determines
your true maintenance calories,doesn't just give you an
(08:05):
estimate. And then it will go upand down based on your activity,
what you're eating, how yourlifestyle changes, whether
you're in fat loss or not,right. And then once you do that
you can maintain for a few weeksand say, Okay, I'm ready for fat
loss, I'm gonna go ahead and seta goal to lose fat at a rate of
x, maybe it's half a percent ofmy body weight a week. And
that's going to require acertain deficit. And there you
(08:26):
go. And that'll determine whatcalories and macros you then
need. And that determines whatyou need for your meal plan,
right when you put your mealplan together. So when I work
with clients, and when we talkabout our physique university,
you know, sometimes I'll have anew client that isn't too
familiar with the podcast orwhat we do, and they'll come in
and they want to lose fat rightaway. We say, Well, hold on,
(08:47):
let's determine your maintenancecalories first, and then go
after it. And then the other.
The other question is, well, doyou give me a meal plan? Like
no, I don't give you a mealplan. I want you to put together
your own meal plan based on whatyou enjoy, what your timing is,
what your preferences are forlike level of protein and fat,
things like that, within someconstraints, right within some
(09:10):
boundaries, of course, withinsome general guidelines of 80%,
Whole Foods, 20%, indulgences,things like that. But at the end
of the day, you can eat whateveryou want, as long as it fits
your personal goal for your mealplan which is calories, macros,
and micronutrients for the mostpart Other than that, it's
things like timing, andoftentimes a meal plan will have
(09:33):
timing in there it'll you'llhave like in my pre workout, my
post workout, my lunch, mymidday mid afternoon snack, my
dinner, for example. You don'thave to it could just say like,
here's four meals in the day,figure out where you want them.
But whatever you do for yourmeal plan, you know, calories
are the foundation, then themacros, and then the micros and
timing and all that kind of fillin the gaps. And it's just a
(09:54):
starting point because whateveryour day one meal plan is, you
might find that it doesn't workfor you in some way and and
you're gonna have to swap itout, right, and you know, swap
one food for another changearound the timing, reallocate
the calories and the macros. Solet's start with the lowest
level of calories, because Iknow that can be the most
challenging of all. And I wantto start with the good stuff
(10:16):
just right away. Okay, let's sayyou're in a fat loss phase. And
you've determined that 1200calories is the right target for
you. And I will say 1200, themore I've worked with clients,
the more that this is generallya very, very low number, almost
the rock bottom lowest amount ofcalories that I would recommend
for anybody. And it's usuallywhen you have a slightly low
(10:37):
metabolism to begin with, andyou're trying to go moderate to
aggressive. Other than that, Iam generally seeing most people
higher than this, you know, moremore like 15 to 1800 calories.
Okay, and again, it depends onyour weight, right depends on
your starting point depends onhow aggressive you're going, but
slightly lower than 1200, you'regonna start to run into some
(10:58):
malnutrition. And it's hard toget protein with having much of
anything else, you know what Imean? Like just practically,
these absolute numbers do havesome significance, right? Even
if you are 100 pound female, andyour metabolism is only, you
know, 1400 calories, we stillhave to understand there are
practical limitations to beingable to eat enough nutrients and
(11:21):
different foods and macros, whenyou go too low in calories.
Alright, so having said that outof the way, I'm starting with
1200, because it's kind of therock bottom, and it has the most
restrictions on you, and we'regoing to make it work anyway.
And then from there, it shouldget easier, the more calories
you have. So again, you might besmaller frames, you know, more
petite person, you might have aslower metabolism, you might
(11:43):
just be looking to go prettyaggressively from a moderate
level of metabolism. Okay, it'sprobably gonna be a very
specific reason for that. Andit's important to be strategic
then with how you allocate thecalories. So we always start
with protein, right? Protein isthe most important macronutrient
when you're in a deficit,because it helps you preserve
(12:04):
that lean muscle mass, it helpsyou stay forward, it helps you
stay satisfied, it burns themost calories of all the macros,
right. And that means you onlyhave so many calories to work
with, you're going to be takenaway from fats and carbs,
because protein is number one.
So keep that in mind. Mostpeople when they're down at this
level of calories, it ends upbeing a fairly low carb diet
anyway, not because carbs arebad, but because you don't have
(12:27):
room for them once you allocateso many of your calories to
protein. So if we're going forsomething like that magic, you
know, one gram per pound ofprotein of lean body mass or one
gram, we're gonna make itsimple. One gram of protein per
pound of target bodyweight,right. So if you're 150 pounds,
and you're trying to lose 20pounds, go to 130, we're gonna
(12:48):
go about 130 grams of protein,right? When you multiply that by
that four, multiply that byfour, you get, what 520
calories. So actually, you don'thave these Aerohive these
numbers right now, I'm justdoing them in my head. But 520
Out of the 1200 calories, noticehow much that is, that's almost
50% of your calories. Right? Itmight seem like a lot in
percentage wise, if you were touse like zone or some other
(13:10):
percentage based system. Itsounds like a lot of protein,
but it's actually a very goodbalanced level, that will make a
difference in holding on to thatmuscle on your results and how
you feel and it's probably goingto make it a lot easier to get
through the dieting phase, justbecause of the types of foods
now you're going to be eatinggood protein sources like lean
meats, right chicken, turkey,fish, lean beef, eggs that you
(13:32):
know the challenge with eggs, ofcourse, his whole eggs are
roughly the same amount ofprotein and fat. So if you eat a
bunch of eggs, you're also goingto have a lot of fat for the
ride. And that's why I likeadding an egg whites along with
whole eggs to kind of dilute ittoward more protein. Things like
Greek yogurt, or cottage cheesein the dairy department, right?
Tofu Satan, right, all the soybased stuff if you're plant
(13:56):
based protein powder, of course,like whey protein, casein
protein, plant based proteins,and then all the plant sources
of protein like say oats orlegumes, knowing that those
things also contain. They're notprimarily protein sources. They
also contain carbs, and somesome of them contain fats,
right. The rule of thumb here isincluding a solid serving of
protein at every meal, when youset up your 1200 Calorie plan is
(14:19):
going to be pretty muchrequired. If you're going to get
in all that protein. And one ofyour snacks might be mostly
protein. As much as I lovebalance, it might not
practically work out that wayfor you. If you were to eat, say
four times a day one of thosemight be a snack that's
predominantly protein. But youknow, something like Greek
yogurt, or cottage cheese doeshave some carbs in there so it
(14:40):
ends up being a little bitbalanced. And then you can use
this protein supplementationlike whey powder to kind of fill
it in to get more of a pureprotein. So that's where we
start with protein and in the1200 calorie diet that's going
to dominate everything. Rightthen we get to fat, right? Fat
is very important. It'sessential for hormone
production. for vitaminabsorption for brain function,
(15:01):
and the challenge with lowcalories with fat is we don't
want it to go so low that we'restarting to harm our health. And
that's where we get to, Iusually say about 30% of
calories. And for most people,even at 1200 calories, that's
going to be enough. In terms ofgrams, I wouldn't want to go
below, say 10 to 15, rock,bottom right 10 to 15, rock
(15:24):
bottom, but you probably can bemore up like, say, 30, or 40,
something like that, maybe inthe 20s, right to kind of keep
it a little lower fat and giveyou room for extra carbs. So
when you do the math on 1200calories, that's kind of where
you're constrained, because thenthe rest of it goes to carbs.
And when we talk about fatsources, this is where you've
(15:44):
got to be a little bit morejudicious in your meal planning,
right? You know, foods like nutscan definitely be in there, but
you're probably not going tohave too much peanut butter, for
example, because so caloriedense, you're not gonna able to
have much of it. Seeds, avocado,olive oil, you know, fatty fish
is great, because now you've gotyour protein and your fat in
there that that's where the fatcan come from a little bit of
(16:05):
saturated fat from things likeeggs and beef and things like
that, you're not gonna have muchof it, most likely during a fat
loss phase. And we always wantto limit saturated fat to like a
third of your fats, or 10% ofthe total calories roughly. And
then the rest is with carbs.
Right. And of course, contraryto hopefully, it's not popular
(16:26):
belief anymore, but I think itis, you don't have to avoid
carbs ever. Carbs don't make yougain fat. It doesn't help you
lose fat to cut carbs, right?
Carbs fuel your workouts, theyreplenish your glycogen, they
keep your metabolism humming,they spare protein. And the
challenge when you're at 1200calories is you just don't have
very much room. For carbs, youmight be down to like 80 grams.
(16:47):
And that ends up being fairlylow carb, I mean, in the Keto
world, you're looking well sub100, generally, but even when we
put the low carb label on itthat I usually think of as 100
or less. And so when you're at1200 calories, and you're giving
almost half your calories ofprotein, and then a decent
amount of fat just for health,you're left with probably 80 or
100 grams of carbs. And noticeI'm not giving you exact
(17:10):
numbers, because it's going todepend, you may be the type that
wants to go up to 1.2 grams perpound of protein and really
crank up that protein and havevery little of the other stuff.
You know, hitting your fatminimum always but not very much
from for carbs. Or you might bea little bit lower, you might be
down at the point eight gramsper pound, giving yourself some
more room for carbs. So itreally depends. And whatever you
start with, listen to your body,document your biofeedback and
(17:34):
see if it wouldn't help to say,Cut some protein and give
yourself some more carbs. Right.
And this all assumes you're notchanging the calories you're at
1200 ish calories. When youchoose carbs for your meal plan.
Again, in fat loss. This iswhere the complex nutrient dense
sources kill two if not threebirds with one stone, the other
(17:55):
birds and they kill. Sorry to beso McCobb about death here. But
birds is nutrient density, sogetting your nutrients in and
also fiber. So when you choosecarbs for a low calorie meal
plan, you want them to kind ofsatisfy the fiber nutrient
density, satiety and carbbuckets all at once. And that
would be simple things likefruits, veggies, some whole
(18:18):
grains, but you're gonna findwhole grains also have a decent
amount of like calories. So youmay be limited there. And maybe
even legumes right beans, youknow, people forget that. But
that's beans are like a carbsource with some protein. So if
you're going to have beans inyour, you know, kind of serves
both of those. So, a lots ofveggies, you know, green
veggies, veggies that have verylow calories, but take up a lot
(18:39):
of space are really going to behelpful when the calories are
low to fill up your stomach tohave more volume. That's super
key. Right. So this is not thetime where we're going to have
lots of, you know, pizza anddoughnuts, or we're not going to
have probably lots of refinedgrains just because they're not
going to make you as full youcan have them there's no rule
against them. But they don'thave as much fiber and they
don't have as much volume. Andso you're just consuming a lot
(19:02):
of very easily pre digestedcalories that don't fill you up.
And that's not going to help asmuch in fat loss as going with,
you know, whole grains, fruits,vegetables, things like that.
And then even with fruits, youcan kind of be a little
judicious and lean more towardthings like berries, which will
have more volume for thecalories. But still things like
oranges, apples, bananas areawesome because of all the other
(19:23):
nutrients they have as well,electrolytes and things like
that. So you've got about 100grams to work with or less. It's
not a ton of room. So you've gotto be strategic, having high
fiber, high volume foods, lotsof protein. That is the strategy
here, right? A lot of volumewithout much calories, leafy
greens, berries, sweet potatoes,oatmeal, all the lean proteins
(19:45):
that we talked about before. Andso real quick hear, you know,
even though the title of thisepisode sounds like I'm just
giving you meal plans, theactual meal plans are just kind
of a drop in the bucket here asan example for how to construct
this and everything I just toldyou are other principles behind
a low level of calories. Allright. So here's what a sample
1200 Calorie day might look likebreakfast, a cup of Greek
(20:08):
yogurt, half a cup of berries,quarter cup of some low sugar
granola. So right off the bat,when I say low sugar granola,
I'm talking about a processedfood you get in the middle of
the grocery store that you mightlike the taste of to kind of add
some variety to your yogurt. Butyou're picking a something that
food science has developed. Forus that happens to have low
sugar, you're not doing itbecause you're on a low sugar
(20:28):
diet, or low carb diet. This iswhere the creativity comes into
play. And using food science toyour advantage, and not
listening to the influencersthat say you can't have any
processed food at all. I'mstarting to throw in the little
examples where it's perfectlyfine, and it might work for you.
Okay, so yogurt, berries, alittle bit of low sugar granola,
you can have a snack with some,like a protein shake with
(20:52):
protein powder and almond milk.
So I love almond milk during fatloss, instead of say 2%, or even
whole milk or something that hasmore calories. But if you're
gonna use a milk like a 1%fairlife could work because it's
mostly protein. Okay. And again,this is kind of fitting a snack
in like maybe it's after yourworkout, lunch, some sort of
lean meat, let's say grilledchicken, that's the classic go
(21:13):
to but you can have a lean, youknow, pork or beef or fish or
whatever, with some mixedgreens, tomatoes, avocado,
balsamic vinegar that make abig, big ass salad. But like
they say, I'm a big fan duringfat loss when your calories are
really low. I'm having lots andlots and lots of veggies with
some protein for lunch. Likethat's a great combination. And
because you already probably hadsome carbs earlier in the day,
(21:36):
or let's say you worked outearlier, you may not you might
work out in the afternoon, inwhich case you could flip it
around. But let's say you didyou had you should have most of
your carbs during fat lossaround your workout. And then
maybe reserve a little bit fordinner because that's where
people like to have anothersource of carbs. So that's
lunch, it's some sort of proteinwith a bunch of veggies, add in
zucchini, peppers, cucumbers,you know, anything that's just
(21:58):
like big crunchy volume, Enoshas water in it, and almost no
calories. All right, then if youwere to have another snack,
which again, this is reallytough, right 1200 calories,
typically you're going to havemaybe as little as three meals,
but some people don't like to goa long time between eating
because of their hunger signals.
And so you're either going tohave, you know, five or six
(22:20):
small meals, or you're going tohave three bigger meals. And one
more caveat during 1200calories, if you want to use a
little bit of intermittentfasting because it helps you
manage your hunger signals andbe consistent and stick to those
calories go for it. If on theother hand, you're like me, you
can't go this long stretch ofdata, you just don't want to
Well, then you're gonna have tospread out the feeding window,
(22:42):
and then make the calories workwithin that window. So if you
were to have a snack on thisdiet, you might have like a hard
boiled egg and an apple, youknow, very simple like fat,
protein, carbs. Now, that maynot actually be enough protein.
But because we're dealing withlow calories, you may not be
able to hit some sort of minimumfor a particular snack and give
you permission to do that. Thetotal protein is what matters.
(23:06):
So I'm throwing a bunch oflittle caveats at you here to
show you that there's no suchthing as perfection when it
comes to this. But you couldjust get rid of that snack and
allocate those calories to theother meals. Hey, this is Philip
and I hope you're enjoying thisepisode of weights and weights.
I started with some weights tohelp ambitious individuals in
their 30s 40s and beyond, whowant to build muscle lose fat
(23:27):
and finally look like they lift.
I noticed that when peopletransform their physique, they
not only look and feel better,but they also experienced
incredible changes in theirhealth, confidence and overall
quality of life. If you'relistening to this podcast, I
assume you want the same thingto build your ultimate physique
and unlock your full potentialwhether you're just starting out
(23:48):
or looking to take your progressto the next level. That's why I
created wits and weightsphysique University, a semi
private group coachingexperience designed to help you
achieve your best physique ever,with a personalized done for you
nutrition plan, custom designedcourses, new workout programs
each month, live coaching callsand a supportive community,
(24:09):
you'll have access to everythingyou need to succeed. If you're
ready to shatter your plateausand transform your body and
life, head over to Whitsonweights.com/physique or click
the link in the show notes toenroll today. Again, that's
Whitson weights.com/physique. Ican't wait to welcome you to the
community and help you becomethe strongest leanest and
(24:30):
healthiest version of yourself.
Now back to the show.
All right, dinner again, fourounces of salmon, a big cup of
broccoli, a half cup of quinoa,right simple. quinoa, brown
rice. I mean, you could do whiterice, but again, white rice,
brown rice, make the comparisonand you'll see you could eat
(24:50):
more brown rice with thecalories and it fills you up and
gives you more fiber. Again justduring fat loss. Maybe you go
back to white rice duringmaintenance. It's not a huge
sacrifice. It's Still rice,you're not cutting out the rice
altogether. Again, rice, quinoa,things like that. And then if
you need one more snack beforethe end of the evening, here's
where some cottage cheesecucumber can come together, you
(25:11):
know, or you can have like acasein protein pudding that
you've made a lot of my clientsduring, and even myself, if I'm
at fairly low calories, I mightreserve like 150 of those
calories or 200 of them. For theend of the day, just in case I
know I'm gonna get a littlehungry or want a snack or
dessert, and reserve that forthis pre bed snack or this post
(25:34):
dinner snack. Okay, so I justgave you one of a million
permutations for a 1200 Calorieday, but what you noticed is
very little processed food,because that's just not going to
satisfy you. It doesn't meanthat you can't like on a given
Saturday, or a given day of theweek, say I have to have ice
cream, I want to have ice cream.
And I'm going to reserve icecream in there. And it's just
(25:55):
going to affect the rest of myday up up ahead. And I'm going
to pre plan for that. I'm justgoing to pre login or pre plan
or if I know I'm going out to arestaurant during a fat loss
phase, I'm going to pre plan forthat, I'm going to switch up my
meal plan. So the first, youknow, two meals of the day, are
mostly protein and veggies. Andthen I've reserved most of my
fats and carbs for dinner.
Right? totally your choice. Andthat's how we do it. That is how
(26:18):
we do it. 1200 calories is not alot of food. And so making it
balanced, nutrient dense.
Hitting your macros as the daygoes on is going to be very
important. So if you're usingmacro factor, for example, you
can tap the macros at the topand look at how what percentage
of your macros you've hit sofar. And if you keep them more
or less aligned, right, knowingthat you need a lot of protein,
(26:39):
every meal is going to have abig percentage of protein, keep
them aligned, don't let any onemacro fall too far behind. And
that'll be a really easy way toget where you need to be at the
end of the day. All right. Sothe key to 1200 calories is
really quality over quantity,making every calorie count.
Choosing whole minimallyprocessed foods that nourish
your body. But planning inindulgence is where you need
(27:01):
them. And don't tell yourself,you can't have anything, you can
have anything, it's just goingto be very strategic. And if
1200 calories, doesn't feelright to you, if it just feels
too restrictive, no matter whatyou do, you've gone through all
these changes, you've come upwith like the ideal meal plan
for you. And it still justdoesn't satisfy you, it may be
too low calories. And I don'tcare if that means your fat loss
(27:23):
phase slows down. It is what itis now there may be changes on
the calorie burn side of theequation that we can deal with.
We never want to overdo itthere. We never want to say
well, okay, I'm just going toadd in five hours of cardio a
week, it doesn't work, the bodywill compensate for that. But
increasing your step count,maybe adding one or two small
cardio sessions and things likethat, if you're not moving
(27:44):
enough, if you're simply getting6000 steps a day during a fat
loss phase, and you'restruggling to hold on and
calories. Well, the 6000 steps aday is probably the opportunity,
right? Not necessarily thecalories or your meal plan. So
just throwing that in there. Sothat's 1200 calories, any lower
than that it gets really, reallytricky. You're getting closer
and closer to more of a proteinmodified fast, right? If you're
(28:05):
down to 800 or 700 calories,you're eating almost entirely
protein. And if you're not,you're probably going to lose
muscle. Right. So just keep thatin mind that as these principles
apply, no matter what it's justyou have more room to work with,
the higher the calories are. Sonow let's move into the middle
level, the 2000 calorie mealplan. And again, I just kind of
chose this it was around number,maybe you're at 1800. Maybe
(28:28):
you're at 2200. But you've got alittle more wiggle room to work
with than the 1200. Well, quitea bit more, right? Because when
you go from 1200, to even like1600, that extra 400 calories,
you know, that's like a decentsized snack or even a small
light dinner. Right? So with2000 calories, you have a more
moderate level that's moresustainable for people. And by
(28:50):
sustainable, I simply mean, youcan go a longer duration and not
feel psychologically drained ortaxed at that level. And for
some people that's like, youcould go years at that level
depends on who you are. Youknow, I'm a bigger guy. My
metabolisms around 3000. For me2000 calories a day is a really
aggressive diet. And so for me,it's not something I want to be
(29:11):
on for more than I'll say, likeat most four months. Now, you
might be like, Oh, that's adecent amount of time. But I
mean, that's like the upper end.
If I were to do it day after dayafter day, eventually I would
just get kind of tired of that.
Right. And by the way, I did anepisode recently about how fast
to lose weight for fat loss. AndI talked about diet breaks and
refeeds there. Go listen to thatepisode, if you want to learn
(29:35):
about strategies for breaking upthe diet along the way to make
it even more sustainable for thewhole dieting phase to get to
your endpoint without feelinglike you ever have to give up.
Okay, I'm not covering thattoday, though. So 2000 calories
a day. At this level, you havesome more flexibility with your
macros, you're still going toprioritize protein, you're still
going to be up at that, alwayswithin that point seven to one
(29:58):
gram per pound. All right. Andif you're at 2000 calories,
maybe you're dieting, maybeyou're maintenance, maybe you're
gaining depends on where youstart, I don't know, okay, we're
not the 1200 was focused on fatloss, this one is just focused
on hitting the macros properly,and it gets a little bit easier,
right? For fat, you get a littlebit more room as well. So the
fats can come up a little as apercentage of calories, they
(30:19):
stay the same, but they come upin grams, you know, maybe
they're up around 5060 gramsnow, right four to 500 calories.
And then now you've got yourcarbs. And this is where at the
2000 calorie level, the carbsmight come up to 200 or more,
right, so now you've gone fromway down at the 100 level, up to
the 200 level, now you startgetting into that spot where
you've got some flexibilityyou've got, you're able to put a
(30:42):
decent amount around yourworkouts, right, if you've got
200 grams of carbs to work with,you could put like 75 to 100
grams around the workout, if youwant, you can have like, you
know, say 30 to 40 grams beforelike 50 or 60 grams after you
don't have to, but you mightfind that that makes you feel
great for your trainingsessions. And you can start to
(31:03):
include starchy carbs, you know,like other like white rice,
pasta and bread, the highersugar fruits, you might be able
to eat more of those metbananas, mangoes, things like
that. And then the indulgence iswhen we talk about our 8020, the
8020 rule 80% of your diet comesfrom whole nutrient dense foods.
And then 20% from less optimalchoices, sources that you just
(31:24):
love to eat. You've since you'vegot more calories to work with
the 20% also becomes a few moreinstances of that right, some
extra squares of chocolate orextra slice of pizza, you know,
and not that you could you everhave to say that you're limited
to those period, it's just thatnow you have more flexibility to
do it. And you can, you know, goout to eat things like that a
(31:48):
little bit more frequently. Andalways however, we want to plan
in those indulgences, we want tofit them in to our targets and
our goals rather than justwinging it and hoping for the
best. That's where people oftenscrew up, people come to me and
they're like, I hit a plateau.
And even if they are a quoteunquote, tracking, they might
(32:08):
not track everything. And evenif they're tracking, they might
still go out to eat on theweekends and just far over
consume, what they thought wastheir deficit for the week and
offset it. And now they're stillat maintenance or gaining
weight, right? And they'reinconsistent, and all of those
things, even if they aretracking, right. But usually
(32:29):
when you're tracking whentracking properly, it helps you
gain that awareness and start tochange your behaviors and give
you a sense of what portionslook like and how different
foods fit into your plan. That'swhy we do it. We don't do it to
count calories, or to restrictourselves. We do it to give us
information and empower us tosay okay, 2000 calories actually
makes a lot of sense. At thatrate, I can you know, gain or
(32:53):
lose x pounds a week. That'sreasonable for me, and I can eat
this way. And I can eat thisway. And that's what
sustainability is all about. Itfits within your lifestyle. So
what does 2000 calories looklike? Well, let's say we were to
have again, four or five, evensix feedings a day, right?
Depends. I'm going with morebecause it's harder to do to go
(33:14):
from less to more than more orless. Make sense like I'm giving
you more frequency. And then youcan say well, I'd rather only
eat three times a day so now I'mgonna squish those together and
just increase the volume of eachof those meals fine. But if I
only gave you say breakfastlunch dinner, then you'd be like
well what do I do to create asnack here or pre or post
workout here or pre bed overhere. I don't want to make you
(33:35):
overthink that so if you were tohave breakfast on a 2000 calorie
meal this is where you mighthave your eggs right eggs mixed
with egg whites and some arrowsspinach and mushrooms and toasts
with almond butter for exampleor peanut butter a little bit
right and that's that's adelicious breakfast right there.
snacks throughout the day mightlook like say protein powder
(33:56):
with almond milk but now you canadd in some banana or make a
smoothie with it if you want.
Another snack might look likeyou know the classic like
vegetables dipped in hummus ifyou'd like and then another
might be you know cottagecheese, Greek yogurt and things
like that with protein you know,again I'm giving you two or
three snacks throughout the dayif you'd like but smush them
together get more protein in anyone snack that's how you do it.
(34:17):
Lunch. I get a li meat with somevegetable this time you might
have not only greens but alsosomething like sweet potato and
then for your greens. It couldjust be any leftover greens you
have broccoli, green beans,brussel sprouts, a little bit of
olive oil. You know this iswhere you can have a lot more
oil and butter and thingsbecause you have more calories
to work with dinner you knowdinner and lunch you're going to
(34:38):
hear from me and are pretty muchsimilar, you know Brown Turkey
or you know pork loin with somerice and some zucchini and some
sauce of some kind that you likelike a tomato sauce or say a low
calorie barbecue sauce andthey're not on this one but like
if you were going to have pork,you can throw some barbecue
sauce on there. There's somelike nice lower sugar varieties
or just have the full up andjust planted in. And then in a
(34:59):
2000 calorie diet, you probablycan fit in small desserts if
you'd like them, like I'm a bigdessert eater. It's just how I
like to do it. My family likesdesserts, you know, we're
active, we keep the caloriesreasonable, we like indulgences
here and there. I love icecream. So fit it in. And I'm
telling you, you've got thepermission to do that, and
you've got the room to do it. Ifyou plan accordingly. That's all
(35:21):
it comes down to, if you're notjust snacking, and licking, and
taking off of your kid's plate,and randomly drinking six beers
on the weekend, not trackinganything, if you're not doing
those things. Well, now you canput all this delicious,
nourishing food, includingthings like ice cream, if you
like it into your plan, right.
(35:42):
So you get more food morevariety, at this level of
calories. And this is tend to bea more realistic and sustainable
level for a longer duration. Sothat's really all I'm gonna say
about that. And no matter whatyou do, you don't want to ever
feel restrictive, you'll everwant to feel deprived or burnt
out. So that's sort of the dietbreaks come in, or increasing
your calories. Or using forms ofnonlinear dieting, which is
(36:05):
going to be a topic I cover in aupcoming episode, I'm going to
cover all the ways to use nonlinear dieting, like you don't
just diet on the same caloriesday after day after day. There's
ways to be creative about it.
Again, not for today, upcomingtopic. So make sure to follow
the show always follow the show,click the Follow button in your
app. So you get notified ofthose episodes. All right,
(36:25):
finally, let's talk about 3000calories. And some of you are
like I could never eat 3000calories you ladies out there. I
know I've heard it many, manytimes. Some of you guys are
like, well, that's mymaintenance, you know. So when I
say 3000, just imagine it's justa fairly high level of calories
for you. Maybe it is 2500, maybeit's 4000. And it represents
(36:46):
being in a building phase. Thisis a building phase, I'm not
talking about 2000 was more inthe middle kind of maintenance,
maybe cut, maybe build threesounds like you're building, you
need a lot of food. And ifyou're a bigger guy, think of
this as like 4000. If you're amore petite female, maybe this
is 2800. And that's a lot foryou. All right. So this is you
know, you're active, you'retraining you have you're
(37:09):
building muscle, you're tryingto gain weight, most likely. And
maybe you're a hard gainer, andyou've experienced the situation
where as your metabolism rampsup, you can't keep up with the
calories and you start toplateau, and you're not able to
gain so kind of covers all thosescenarios. And at this calorie
level, on the plus side, youhave a ton of room to play with
your macros and your food. Okay,protein is still important. But
(37:33):
believe it or not, it doesn'thave to be nearly as high as it
would in fat loss in terms ofgrams per pound, which sounds a
little bit ironic, since youhave so many more calories to
play with. And in reality,you'll probably end up having no
problem hitting that protein, ifyou've been doing it at those
lower levels. And so point sevento one gram per pound. Again,
I'll target body weight. Solet's say you're 160 and you're
(37:56):
trying to get to 190. All right,you know you're aiming in the
181 90 range for protein interms of grams. Alright, so you
know, you're talking, I don'tknow what, what does that come
out to be six 700 calories fromprotein, something like that,
which as you as you realize nowis only like a fifth of the
calories, where it was almost ahalf of the calories are in fat
(38:17):
loss. So the higher your calorielevel, the lower the percent of
the protein is because you don'treally need to change it much.
Protein is almost always aroundthe same amount. For me, being
that I'm around 180 pounds, I'musually eating around 180 grams
of protein, whether it's veryaggressive fat loss,
maintenance, or, you know,optimal muscle building gain,
(38:39):
I'm still always around 180grams. So what changes is the
fat and carbs, fats scale withthe the calories, so they don't
go like way up or down. Theyjust kind of scale a bit. So
when you're at 3000 calories,now you're up to like 7080 90,
even 100 grams of fat kind of inthat range. Some people like to
eat more fat than others. Somepeople like to eat fattier cuts
(39:00):
of meat. And that's fine. Aslong as we're cognizant of the
saturated fat. As a portion ofthat, again, reminder, we don't
want to really exceed a third ofour fats from saturated fat, or
put another way, around 10% ofour calories. So if you're at
3000 calories, you don't wantmore than, you know, 300
calories from saturated fat, andthat's really on the upper end.
(39:21):
So we try to keep thatreasonable but overall your fats
probably 7080 90 100 grams, andthen the rest is carbs. Now
you're up to three, four or 500grams of carbs, right again,
depending on where everythingelse lies. I'll say for most
people, you're going to bearound three or 400. Okay, and
this is where everything justopens up, right? Dried fruit,
honey, maple syrup, starchyvegetables, like the amounts of
(39:44):
them just get a lot moreflexible. And you don't have to
be as you know, cognizant ofthem. You still plan you still
track. You still make room. It'sstill easy to over indulge and
over consume just like it isn'tany level. And I've seen cases
where you are now at such a highcalorie level that you almost
lose a little bit of thatcontrol. Because you have so
(40:07):
much flexibility. And you'reprone to say, going out to a
restaurant and consuming 5000calories. Because you know, you
have all these calories to workwith, you know, maybe not 5001
meal, but 5000 for the day,let's say. And before long,
you're having a problem by overconsuming even when you're
trying to get a lot of calories.
(40:27):
It's less of a problem. For mostpeople, most people have a
problem on new consuming, butjust be aware of that, that we
always need to be tracking andplanning. Alright, so what does
the 3000 Calorie day look like?
I mean, honestly, it's anything.
It's like anything goes. Andit's gonna be very easy to hit
your minimums no matter what. SoI would just do what you do with
(40:47):
the other levels and just scalethings up and add more
indulgences where you want themand give yourself some more
flexibility. It's really all itis, you may have to eat more
frequently to get all the foodin. That's the one of the
challenges people say I can'teat enough well, you're maybe
you're not eating frequentlyenough, you may have to eat more
calorie dense foods on purposeto consume more it so I
mentioned the dried fruit, butthis is having more oil, butter
(41:09):
in your foods having higher fatmeats, having a higher fat
dairy, so instead of low fat orno fat Greek yogurt, you'd go
with the regular you know fullfat Greek yogurt, right instead
of the low sugar granola Imentioned just regular old full
up granola you know, you stillwant fruits, vegetables,
starches, you know carbs allthat in there. But now you might
have just whole eggs when youhave eggs don't even worry about
(41:31):
egg whites, right? So anyway,the meals are gonna look the
same just scaled so likebreakfast could be eggs with
some spinach and mushrooms andoatmeal and protein powder and
some peanut butter. Right nicebig hearty meal to go maybe
that's your post workout. For methat would be like a post
workout. A pre workout might bewhey protein shake and banana.
But I don't know when you'retraining so I'm just kind of
giving it to this way snacksthroughout the day. It would be
(41:53):
things with Greek yogurt andberries, you know fruits, almond
or peanut butter dairy products.
I think I mentioned already.
Maybe it's an indulgence rightthat's where you might you might
have a pop tart. I don't knowlike if you really have a
hankering for a pop tart or bowlof ice cream you want to fit it
in there. That's that might bewhere you have it right no
judgment, no judgment at all.
You can do this lunch is goingto be you know fish and quinoa
or, and brussel sprouts andolive oil same is at 2000
(42:16):
calories but just scaled updinner steak potato broccoli
with some butter, right so youcan kind of live it up a little
maybe have that ribeye thatyou've been kind of hankering
for, you've been eating a lot oftop sirloin now you're gonna
have some ribeye a fattier cutof steak, a lot more calories,
but you've got the room for it.
So it's a lot of food for somepeople, right. And it can be a
(42:37):
challenge to eat this much.
Especially if you have a smallerappetite. And that's where like
liquid calories can be helpful.
Protein shakes, smoothies, milk,just good old whole milk.
Alright, don't over think itgood old whole milk can really
help. If you get fairlifeChocolate milk, love that stuff.
It's got a nice balance ofmacros. Lots of protein tastes
great sweet. You can heat it upin the winter. And it's like
(42:58):
instant hot cocoa, you can putit in a ninja creamy recipe and
make ice cream. There you go. Sothe key with 3000 calories is,
you know, it's like you'relistening to your hunger cues,
and not really trying to forceyourself to eat when you're not
hungry, but rather make the mealthat what you eat and how you
time it work with your hunger.
So you don't feel like Oh, I'mjust stuffing myself to eat.
(43:19):
Because to me that's as mentallyunhealthy as forcing yourself to
starve at lower calories. Likeyou don't want to do either of
those, it has to be moresustainable, even in the face,
even when you are pushing it.
And when you're at 3000calories, it's okay to have a
lighter day. And then a heavierday, like if you want to cycle
(43:40):
if it makes sense on trainingdays, you feel a lot more
hungry,maybe more calories go on those
days. Right The goal is to hiton a weekly basis is to hit your
averages for the week, not everysingle day, you can't be a
robot. Alright, so hit it forthe week. And that really
applies to everything, righteven if you're at 1200 calories,
you want to hit the 1200 onaverage for the week. If one day
you're at 1000, another day or1400. But again, it averages
(44:00):
out. You've planned in going toa restaurant on Saturday, but it
averages out it's fine. Nevermake up for something the next
day that you didn't plan fordon't do that. But think ahead
to make it work for the week.
Alright, so we covered a lot ofground. We talked about the
importance of energy balance,how to determine your calorie
(44:21):
needs for each of these levels,when they might be appropriate,
you know, fat loss, maintenance,muscle gain, we broke down meal
plans at different levels so youcan understand the level of
inherent kind of flexibilityversus strictness you might
have. Right 1200 2000 3000 Andthen how to allocate macros at
each level. You notice thatthings are pretty much the same,
(44:42):
they just tend to be scaled, andthere room for indulgences and
flexibility goes up the morecalories you have. So some
takeaways that I want you tocome out with this episode are
number one, calories are stillthe be all end all when it comes
to scale weight when it comes toweight management. And that's
what you have to know youmaintenance calories by tracking
your food against your weightand macro factors, the best tool
(45:04):
to do that. So calories areking, they're the beginning of
it. Number two is protein is thenext thing we prioritize right
prioritizing protein, especiallyin a deficit and deficit, it's
even more important to get thatupper level toward that one gram
per pound of bodyweight. That'snumber two. Number three, don't
fear fat, don't fear carbs.
They're both super important ina balanced diet, you know, focus
(45:25):
on quality, especially at thelower calorie levels, and then
adjust based on the calorieneeds and be creative. Plan
ahead, you know, use macrofactor and plan out an entire
day. That looks like a quoteunquote, perfect day just to
give you inspiration for how tokeep these things in balance.
Number four, always plan fortreats and indulgences. Right,
the 8020 rule is a greatguideline, if most of your diet
(45:47):
is coming from hold nutrientdense foods then gives you lots
of flexibility for the treatsand indulgences as opposed to
the other way around where youmight have lived before, which
is a lot of foods or just randomprocessed foods, indulgences,
going out to eat fast foodrestaurants, you know, snacks
and licks. And just before youknow it 80% of your diet is this
(46:08):
unplanned processed food, we'rejust flipping that around 80%
Whole Foods, the rest comes fromwhatever you want. And then
number five, track track track,I'm just mentioning this
specifically here. At leastinitially, it's going to give
you a lot of awareness. But mostof my clients when they start
tracking, especially when theyuse macro factor, because it's
so easy to use. They keep goingI mean, I've been going for
(46:29):
several years just because Ilove the information. I like to
train myself on on the portionsizes on how different foods fit
in different phases. And also beable to track my micronutrients
and things like fiber, andsaturated fat that can also be
helpful. So remember, there's noone diet, there's no one meal
plan for everyone. Right, thebest meal plan is the one that a
meet your goals. And that b Youcan stick to consistently over
(46:52):
the time necessary for thatlevel of calories. So take these
guidelines and make them workfor you. All right now if you
need some help personalizingyour approach to all of this and
keeping yourself accountablebecause remember, the
information we provide in thispodcast is information that you
can use, but it doesn't helpsolve the implementation for
(47:14):
you, you have to either do thatyourself or reach out for help
and help as often the best wayto accelerate that process. So
doors to widths and weightsphysique University are open.
Inside WWE, pu, you're gonna geta customized nutrition plan
right off the bat. Now itdoesn't have meal plans, because
again, I said it earlier, I'mnot a hypocrite. I don't give
(47:36):
you meal plans. I give you theguidelines, the macros, the meal
timing around your workouts,depending on your workout. I
adjust it for your preferences,do you like more fat? Do you
like more balanced? Are you froma Keto history, we kind of want
to make that work so you canease into it. Also in www you
get live weekly coaching calls,custom courses on everything
related to physique development.
(47:59):
And then of course, a privatecommunity of like minded people
are all working toward theirbest physique, and who also have
fantastic ideas regarding mealplanning and recipes. So just
head to Whitsonweights.com/physique. To learn
more and join today, or clickthe link in my show notes.
Again, that is Whitsonweights.com/physique. Alright,
(48:20):
in our next episode 183, thedark side of GLP, one weight
loss drugs ozempic Manjaro satdown with Amy Wilson, you're
going to learn the root causesof obesity and weight gain, the
origins and current use of GLPone drugs like the some
magnetite and tricep peptidebased brand names that we just
(48:40):
talked about, and others fordiabetes, and now weight loss,
their pros and cons. And whatmost people can do instead from
a lifestyle perspective, becausethat's at the end of the day,
what we are all trying to dohere. Make sure to hit the
Follow button right now in yourpodcast app to get notified when
that comes out. And it supportsthe show when you subscribe or
(49:01):
when you follow to the show. Soplease go ahead and take a
moment to do that. As alwaysstay strong, and I'll talk to
you next time here on TheWhitson weights podcast. Thank
you for tuning in to anotherepisode of wit's end weights. If
you found value in today'sepisode, and know someone else
who's looking to level up theirwits or weights. Please take a
(49:22):
moment to share this episodewith them. And make sure to hit
the Follow button in yourpodcast platform right now to
catch the next episode. Untilthen, stay strong.
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