Episode Transcript
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Philip Pape (00:01):
Yes, you can lose
fat eating pop tarts and ice
cream.
You could also get rippedeating nothing but chicken,
broccoli and sweet potatoes.
Both statements are true andboth approaches could derail
your progress in ways mostpeople don't think about.
Today, we're exploring one ofthe most important concepts in
modern nutrition science thefalse dichotomy, and why the
fitness industry's obsessionwith extremes traps you in these
(00:24):
cycles of all-or-nothingthinking that undermine your
long-term success.
You'll learn why the solutionlies in the unsexy middle ground
, how rigid dietary rulesincrease your risk of binge
eating, and the exact frameworkto build a sustainable approach
that delivers results withoutturning food into a moral
battleground.
(00:53):
Welcome to Wits and Weights, theshow that helps you build a
strong, healthy physique usingevidence, engineering and
efficiency.
I'm your host, certifiednutrition coach Philip Pape, and
today we're examining one ofthe most persistent problems in
nutrition culture the falsechoice between eating like a
garbage disposal or like a monk.
If you've ever felt tornbetween influencers pushing if
(01:17):
it fits your macros, all junkfood diets and clean eating
gurus demonizing everything asingle cookie, a Pop-Tart you're
experiencing exactly whatresearcher and author Lyle
McDonald calls excluding themiddle, and it's probably
costing you results.
By the end of this episodeyou're gonna understand why both
extremes miss the point and howto build your sustainable
(01:40):
approach to work in the realworld.
Now, if this all-or-nothingpattern sounds familiar, there's
always a faster way forwardwith more support, wits and
Weights.
Physique University gives you asystem to eat with confidence
and deal with these issues whilebuilding the physique you want.
And we are all aboutsustainability and we are all
about meeting you in the middleand allowing you to enjoy your
(02:01):
life and have fun and eat thingsyou enjoy but still make
progress on your goals.
Physique University gets youthat framework the community and
, of course, a custom nutritionplan built by me, if you use the
link in the show notes and thatis specific to your goals Link
in the show notes to check thatout.
I just wanted to mention that.
But now let's get into how webuild a sustainable system for
(02:23):
our nutrition.
First, we're going to breakdown this concept that I've
already alluded to.
It came from an article I readby Lyle McDonald called
Excluding the Middle, and why itis a very important idea when
it comes to modern nutrition.
Second, we're going to examinethe two extremes the all junk
food diet, the rigid cleaneating.
What they get right, what theyget very wrong and why both can
cause problems, and where themiddle ground is.
(02:45):
Third, we're going to explorewhat the research says about the
middle ground and why it's notjust more effective, but that is
where sustainability happens.
And then, of course, I'm goingto give you some practical tips
to implement this in your ownlife, complete with some real
numbers and specific strategies.
So definitely stick around forthe whole episode to get the
whole context and then thepractical tips as well.
So let me start by givingcredit where it's due.
(03:06):
This entire discussion is builton an article by Lyle McDonald
from bodyrecompositioncom.
It's called Excluding theMiddle.
I heard him mention it on anepisode recently with Brandon
DeCruz and, of course, brandonDeCruz and I just did a back and
forth Q&A episode on both ofour shows.
So kind of coming full circlehere Now.
Lyle's been researching bodycomposition and nutrition for a
long time, for decades.
(03:27):
Some would argue he's one ofthe godfathers of flexible
eating and this particulararticle it's a bit on the older
side when he wrote it, but itstill is highly relevant and it,
you know, in his own style ofcutting through the noise and
calling people out, it's prettyclear.
The core idea is that in anydebate, but particularly these
nutrition debates, people areconstantly framing issues in
(03:49):
extreme black and white terms.
They are ignoring the nuance,they're ignoring the middle
ground, where the real solutionsexist, and they use it as a
straw man.
They use it to suggest that, ifyou don't agree with their
position, you must be talkingabout the opposite extreme, as
opposed to something morenuanced.
I just wanted you to thinkabout it.
When was the last time you sawa social media post on Instagram
(04:10):
about eating mostly whole foodswith some flexibility?
Well, you probably see them ifyou follow the people I follow,
but most people don't see these,so I'm not going to say that
you never see them.
The more people you follow thatdo have that kind of nuance in
their language, the more you'llsee.
But it doesn't get clicks, itdoesn't get views, it doesn't
get virality.
What does is hey, I ate nothingbut donuts for 30 days and look
(04:32):
how he did it and how shreddedI got, or you know, these toxic
foods are destroying yourmetabolism and whatever it is,
whatever the food of the day isit could be seed oils, it could
be broccoli, doesn't matter andit's not just annoying.
I mean, it's very annoying, butit is actively harmful,
actively harmful.
I want you guys to realize that, and that's why it's so
important who we follow and whowe trust, because when we
(04:54):
exclude the middle, we'recreating that false dichotomy,
we're creating false choicesthat lead to the all or nothing
thinking, to dietary extremism,to failing at what we're trying
to do in the first place.
It's funny I just went to a bookfair at our local library and I
looked at all these old schoolbooks on dieting and weight loss
and they've always had thatsame messaging it's this diet or
(05:17):
that diet, and it's always anextreme.
It's like here are the rules,here's how you cut things out,
and it's based on psychology,because our brains love
certainty.
We want clear villains andheroes.
We want clean versus dirty.
In fact, one of my villains forthe podcast is both the clean
and the dirty camps.
Right, that is my boogeyman,and it's a hard one to have
(05:38):
because it's hard to be a heroof nuance.
Let's just say but that's wherewe've got to be.
So you've got healthy versustoxic, you've got good versus
bad, and nutrition doesn't workthat way.
We can't force it into boxes,because what that does it ends
up forcing what decisions wemake and those decisions
practically move us further fromthe goals.
(06:00):
So what are those extremes?
That's what I want to breakdown.
Next, and hence the title ofthis episode, let's talk about
the all junk food extreme.
This is the, I'll say, energybalance.
Calories a calorie if it's amacros idea, but taken to the
logical extreme.
And this is where the straw mancomes in, because it is true
(06:23):
that a calorie is a calorie froman energy perspective, but it
doesn't mean that that is theonly variable at play when it
comes to our nutrition.
Right, it may be the onlyvariable at play when it comes
to strictly gaining or losingweight in a vacuum, but that's
barely scratching the surfaceand the argument goes like this
Since weight loss is aboutcalorie balance, you can
(06:45):
literally eat anything pop tarts, ice cream, fast food as long
as you stay within your calorietargets.
And they're not entirely wrongabout the calorie part.
I saw an article in.
Where was this?
Oh yeah, our local newspaperhas this wraparound to celebrate
like 200 years of the paper orsomething, and there was
something from the I want to sayearly 1900s, and it basically
(07:07):
talked about, you know, eatingless than you burn if you want
to lose the weight that youadded on Right, and so we've.
We've known this for a longtime.
We have studies that showpeople losing weight on diets
composed of just about anything,including all or mostly
processed foods.
You know the famous Twinkiediet professor Mark Mark, how,
how, how?
He lost 27 pounds eating mostlythose Twinkie you know survive
(07:30):
into the apocalypse snack cakeswhile staying in a calorie
deficit.
So we know that that part works.
But what?
What it gets wrong and it gets alot wrong is, first,
micronutrients do matter.
You know macros matter too, butmicronutrients also matter.
Your body needs vitamins,minerals, fiber, phytonutrients
all of these things compoundsfrom plants to function
optimally.
This is why I don't even likeyou know the carnivore diet, for
(07:52):
example, that excludes so muchof that from plants, because
it's the same idea.
It's like we're trying to get aresult from looking at one
variable excluding the rest, andgood luck getting adequate
nutrition from pop tarts, andyou'll be deficient in dozens of
essential nutrients if you dothat.
Second, satiety being full is socrucial for adherence.
(08:13):
It's probably the number onevariable for adherence.
Processed foods are engineeredto be hyper palatable and very
easy to overeat.
That's what they're designedfor.
I'm not going to blame thecompanies for doing that.
They make them that way onpurpose.
Good luck staying in a caloriedeficit when you're fighting
food addiction or binging orlack of satiety because you're
(08:37):
eating mostly processed foodsright, sure, we want to be in a
calorie deficit to lose weight,lose fat, but it's very hard to
do so when you're eating mostlyprocessed foods.
Third, the health markers beyondweight.
Right, weight, I guess, is ahealth marker, but there are so
many health markers beyondweight that matter that we often
ignore in these discussions.
We're always talking aboutweight loss.
(08:58):
Now I'll be the first to saythat losing significant weight
if you're unhealthy, in and ofitself is probably the biggest
factor toward lots of thingsimproving from inflammation to
gut health, to immunity, to evenjust it helps you lose body fat
.
But we also have to think aboutblood sugar control and
cardiovascular health and musclemass and function and all of
(09:20):
those things that are influencedby how we move, how we train
and how we eat right.
And so just reducing it to ifit fits your macros is not
enough.
It will get you to a certainextent and it will allow you to
put some structure and controlover your diet, but only to a
point if you're not payingattention to all these other
things.
And control over your diet, butonly to a point if you're not
paying attention to all theseother things.
(09:40):
And then the last thing aboutthe all junk food approach is it
ignores the psychologicalcomponent.
Food is more than fuel.
Right, it should be fuel, butit also is tied to our emotions
and our culture, our ethnicity,our social connections.
And so this, even if it's notthe all junk food, but if it's,
if it's your fit, your macros,we're reducing it to pure
mathematics.
(10:01):
We tend to miss that humanelement, and I've gotten caught
in that trap where I'm veryfocused on even even focused on
hitting the numbers that I wantto hit, and it causes me to make
weird decisions in socialsituations that aren't always
aligned with my bigger goal asbeing a human in society or with
my family.
Now, sometimes it is, sometimesthat does come first, but when
(10:23):
we reduce it to something likejust calories or just macros,
this can often happen.
So that's the all junk fooddiet extreme, I'll say, where it
doesn't matter, quote, unquotewhat you eat.
The other extreme, the otherside, is clean eating, and I'm
actually going to pound on theseguys a lot more, because that's
where I see a lot of the toxicbehavior coming from, as well as
(10:45):
the emotional issues aroundfood that get developed.
The obsessiveness around ittends to be more on this side.
Yes, we have a little bit ofobsessiveness on the other side,
but when people have createdmoral categories around food
right, chicken breast is good,cookies bad One cheat meal means
you failed, need to start overtomorrow.
I don't even use the term cheatmeal, but you get the idea and
(11:07):
I've heard on podcasts peopletrying to go the other direction
and say, well, all these newdiet people saying nutrition,
people saying that there are nogood versus bad foods Of course
there's good versus bad, right,and you hear that false
dichotomy come up over and overagain and I probably said, hey,
there's no good or bad, but wewanna add some context and
nuance to that.
So what does it get right?
(11:27):
Well, whole foods are generallymore nutrient-dense foods.
They are more satiating percalorie.
They support better health.
The food quality piece isextremely valid.
It is.
I don't want to deny that.
That's the point.
I don't want to deny that.
That one piece of it is great.
In fact, I will tell people hey, eat 80, 85% whole foods and
(11:49):
you're golden as long as theymeet your other goals, right, as
long as they meet your caloriesand macros and the other things
.
It's kind of a blend of the two.
But where this whole cleaneating philosophy goes way off
track is the first thing is itmoralizes the food in a way that
is psychologically damaging.
Period when you label foods asgood or bad.
This is the thing.
When you do that, you aresetting yourself up for guilt
(12:12):
and for shame and for anunhealthy relationship with
eating.
I don't care if you think seedoils are harmful and processed
foods harmful and therefore aPop-Tart is quote-unquote bad,
simply by labeling that,moralizing it instead of just
saying it is a food that hasthese characteristics.
Does that align with what I'mtrying to do?
That is what creates thatunhealthy relationship.
Secondly, it's justunnecessarily restrictive.
(12:35):
There is no evidence that 100%,quote unquote clean eating is
required for health or bodycomposition goals, right, and in
fact the stress of trying toeat perfectly is often more
harmful mentally than theoccasional treat, and we know
that people inevitably willbinge their foods again and
again anyway when they try tokeep them away 100% and try to
(12:55):
abstain with everything.
The third thing here is thatrestriction leads to binge
episodes, which I just alludedto.
So I kind of jumped the gun.
Research is consistent inshowing that rigid dietary
constraint increases thelikelihood of binge eating
period.
Hey, this is Philip, and beforewe continue, I want to talk
about cookware.
(13:15):
We all love to make our ownfood.
I love nonstick pans.
The problem is I've avoidedthem for years because when they
get scratched, when they getheated, they can release
microplastics, pfas smallparticles that can accumulate
over time in the body and somestudies have shown them to be
linked to health issues.
If you're optimizing yournutrition and making lots of
food for you and your family athome, it doesn't make sense to
(13:38):
compromise that withquestionable cookware.
So that's why I was interestedwhen Chef's Foundry, who is
sponsoring this episode, showedme their ceramic cookware.
It's called the P600 and usesSwiss engineered ceramic coating
which has no Teflon, no PFAS,no plastic components.
It is nonstick, it works on allstovetops, it goes straight
(14:00):
into the oven All the things youneed if you're trying to cook a
lot of your meals at home.
Right now you can get the P600at 50% off by going to
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You'll also get a bunch ofaccessories with that.
There's a whole page thatexplains what you'll get for
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Go to witsandweightscom, slashchefsfoundry or click the link
(14:21):
in the show notes.
All right, let's get back to theshow.
Tell someone they can neverhave ice cream again, and what's
the first thing that they'regoing to crave all the time?
Ice cream.
Of course we know this.
This is pretty intuitive by now.
And then, finally, therestrictive mindset here is
socially isolating.
When you can't eat atrestaurants, you can't enjoy
birthday cake, you can'tparticipate in the party and eat
(14:44):
what's provided or what yourgrandmother bakes for the
holiday, you're just trading allof these moments of social
connection for dietary purityright Now.
Again, I alluded to the factbefore you don't have to be all
or nothing here.
There are cases where, ifsomeone is pushing something on
you over and over and over again, you have to create some
balance and boundaries.
That's fine.
(15:04):
I'm talking about the idea thatyou can't ever a hundred
percent, just because you feellike you have this false
dichotomy in your head that youhave to stick with.
So if both extremes areproblematic, what does the
research actually support?
And the answer is beautifullyboring A diet primarily based on
nutrient-dense whole foods withroom for some discretionary
(15:26):
calories from foods you enjoy.
That's it.
I know it sounds simple.
You probably hear it a lot.
You hear 80-20, right, and itactually works.
But it has to work for you inthe way that you want to
construct it.
So if I give you some numbers,right, research says that
getting 80% to 90% of yourcalories from minimally
processed nutrient-dense foodsprovides most of the health and
(15:48):
satiety benefits you're lookingfor.
The remaining 10% to 20%, thatis your flexibility buffer.
That's like your buffer thatsolves all those other issues,
including the psychological ones.
And this is not just theory.
There have been studies on thisthat look at flexible versus
rigid dietary constraint andthey're always showing better
outcomes for the flexibleapproach.
It just kind of makes sense,right?
(16:08):
But I know we can't just relyon common sense and anecdote.
It helps to have data as well.
But people who allow themselvesthat little bit of wiggle room,
some freedom in their diet,have better long-term
maintenance of their weight.
They have lower rates of bingeeating.
They have better psychologicalrelationships with food.
Right, and again, we're nottalking about the extremes.
Don't take this to mean, oh, youcan eat whatever you want.
(16:29):
Of course not.
I just set the whole context ofwhy.
That's not what I'm saying.
We know that metabolic wardstudies show us that, while
(16:53):
calorie balance of course drivesweight change it always does
they naturally just eat morecalories.
When they eat more whole foods,they naturally eat fewer
calories.
In other words, the quality ofyour overall diet will affect
the quality of your diet.
Isn't that kind of interesting,right?
And you know this.
It's not that you're addicted.
It's not that, oh, I just hadsome candy and all of a sudden
(17:14):
I'm just going to go crazy oncandy.
It's more of your overalldietary pattern.
If you eat mostly whole foods,you know what you are going to
crave mostly whole foods.
You're not going to have asmuch of a sweet tooth.
That's how I am today.
I used to love candy.
I used to love sweets.
I almost had to force myself tojust enjoy a couple gummy worms
or something that my kids offerme.
It's like, oh, that's okay,that tastes good, that's sweet,
(17:36):
that's fine, and you know,whatever not like, it used to be
right.
You lose those inhibitions Now.
That doesn't mean you're notgoing to have specific foods
that you want to binge to theday you die.
That that's definitely the casewith some people, and there's
tools that you can support that.
We're also not saying you haveto have all foods that are in
the indulgent spectrum as partof your 10 or 20%.
(17:57):
You can abstain from certainfoods if that's helpful to you
and allow in other foods thatserve the same purpose for you,
if that makes sense, whetherit's a craving or an experience
or what have you.
So this is a nuanced,evidence-based approach and
that's exactly what this podcastis all about.
That is what we teach insidethe physique university.
(18:17):
You know, we see people all thetime that are tired.
They're just exhausted ofbouncing between this diet and
that diet and, oh, now it's myhormones, and now I have this
condition, and now it's mythyroid, and so now I have to be
in this diet.
This person on social mediasaid this doesn't support my
thyroid, this doesn't supportthis.
What about when I'm trying tobuild muscle?
(18:38):
What about when I'm trying tolose fat?
Right, it's exhausting.
And then none of those thingsever stick because it feels like
these very specific, highlyrestrictive solutions for
specific problems rather than anoverall sustainable system that
just works no matter what youdo long-term.
You can change the levers anddials.
Right, you can change thecalorie dial, but just start
(18:58):
scaling things up and down.
When I'm in a fat loss phaseand I'm eating only, say, 1800
or 2000 calories, of course I'mgoing to eat a lot fewer just
food and a lot less food ingeneral, including processed
food than when I'm eating 3,500or 4,000 calories.
Maybe the percentages aresimilar, maybe not.
It depends on what I need tomake me successful.
(19:20):
But there's a lot of flex inthere.
So I'm just mentioning thatthat is so important and
sometimes it helps to havepeople in your corner to support
you.
That's why we have PhysiqueUniversity it's just 27 a month
free nutrition plan included, ifyou use my custom link in the
show notes.
And I want to continue heretalking about behavioral
psychology, because I think thatis really crucial here and we
have to talk about it.
Flexible dietary restraint,where you have guidelines but
(19:44):
not rigid rules Okay, guidelinesbut not rigid rules is going to
correlate with better long-termoutcomes.
Again, it's not eat whateveryou want.
It's not intuitive eating.
It's guidelines instead ofrules.
Rigid restraint that is wherefoods are strictly forbidden.
That correlates with higherrates of eating disorders and
(20:05):
weight regain.
So we want flexible restraint,not rigid restraint.
Think about those terms.
The word restraint is in both.
There's guidelines in both,there are boundaries in both,
but one is flexible, one isrigid, and this does make
intuitive sense when you thinkabout it.
If you tell yourself you cannever have pizza again, what
happens when you inevitably dohave pizza?
(20:26):
You feel like you've blown it.
It often leads to well, I mightas well keep going, I'll get
back to it on Monday and then afull binge episode.
But if pizza is just one foodamong many in your overall
dietary pattern, having a sliceor two, it's not a moral failing
.
It's just Tuesday Decided tohave pizza on Tuesday, all right
(20:46):
.
So now we get to theimplementation.
How do we implement this middleground approach?
I'm gonna give you a fewguidelines as part of a
framework.
Okay, the first one is the85-15 rule.
Now, I mentioned we're nothaving rules, but rule here is,
in the colloquial sense, as in arule of thumb right, a thumb
suck.
You're going to go up and downdepending on what you need.
(21:07):
Now I talk about 80-20 a lot,but I think 85% is a good place
to aim for, especially when youare in a fat loss phase and when
you look at the numbers.
When you look at the numbers,okay, so if you get 85% of your
calories from minimallyprocessed, nutrient dense foods
right, which gives you all thehealth and satiety benefits you
(21:27):
want, leaves 15% for pureenjoyment foods.
What does that look like?
Well, if you're eating 2000calories a day, that's 300
calories of flexibility.
That could be a few cookies, amuffin, a big chunk of dark
chocolate, like whatever youenjoy.
300 calories a day is actuallya decent amount when you think
about it, when you're planningit in and thinking in this
flexible way, as opposed to justad hoc, intuitively eating
(21:49):
whatever you want and snackingright, snacking is a big
challenge too for folks.
Now, you could do 80-20, youcould do 85-15, you could do
90-10.
Even that is flexible, based onthe number of calories.
You have to work with what youlike to eat.
I have clients who just lovewhole foods, so almost all their
foods are whole foods and thenoccasionally they have a really
(22:09):
indulgent treat.
So that's the first one.
Just have a ratio for yourselfin numbers, in other words, know
what calories you're eating.
If you're in a fat loss phase,eating, let's say, 1500 calories
, then maybe 200, it's 200calories of flexibility a day,
all right.
The second principle here ishaving macro targets, yes, but
(22:31):
with food quality guidelines.
So, instead of just trackingmacros or just focusing on food
quality, do both right.
Have your targets, usesomething like Macrofactor to
track your food, and havetargets for your body
composition goals, right, andyour calorie goals.
So you've got your calories and, within that, your protein, fat
, carb targets, but you'retrying to hit those through
(22:53):
whole food sources to focus onfood quality.
That's really all it is, andyour protein might come from
chicken, fish, eggs, greekyogurt most of the time, with
the occasional protein bar whenlife gets busy.
Your carbs are going to bemostly from fruits, vegetables,
grains, starches, most of thetime, with some room for ice
cream on the weekend.
(23:13):
And remember most of theseindulgences pizza, ice cream,
muffins are usually acombination of macros and not
very much protein.
Very often, right, even pizza,unless you get, like it, loaded
with lean meats, which is a veryrare thing, let's be honest.
Usually it's sausage andpepperoni.
You know, very fatty meats, alot of fatty cheese.
Right, it's going to have a lotof fats and carbs in there.
So you're kind of covering bothwith that.
(23:36):
But on the indulgentflexibility.
So if you're really to sum thisall up, I would say the vast
majority of protein is going tocome from whole foods.
Some of your fats and carbsmight be where the reserved
calories come from.
For the indulgences Maybe.
Again, unless it's like aprotein bar, then it's kind of a
neat little hybrid.
So that's.
The second one is macro targetswith food quality guidelines.
The next one is the principleof context.
(23:58):
The same food can beappropriate or inappropriate
depending on context, on thesituation.
This is why I don't like thisrejection of no foods can't be
good or bad.
Yeah, foods can't be good orbad, which is what I generally
say.
And then people are likerejecting that, saying no, no,
no, they absolutely can't.
No, it's context.
(24:19):
A Gatorade during a two-hourtraining session where you
didn't get your pre-workout andyou're short on carbs, could be
extremely helpful.
But if you just get that as anindulgent drink while you're
sitting on the couch watchingNetflix, probably not.
I mean, I shouldn't have toexplain this, but I think it
does help to understand that,that you shouldn't beat yourself
(24:39):
up based on the context.
I mean, don't beat yourself upat all, but understand this.
You know, post-workout fastfood because you're genuinely
hungry and it's your only optionmight be okay in that context
Now, maybe it's Chick-fil-A withgrilled chicken, with some of
the waffle fries or something Idon't know versus something that
(25:00):
is farther away from your macrogoals.
But if you have that everysingle day because you don't
plan for your food and becauseyou get stressed, that's not
optimal.
There are differences here, andeven the first example, where
you're hungry and it's your onlyoption, you probably could have
planned better.
But we always have our nextbest choice.
That is my point, and that'scontext is everything.
And so that segues into thelast piece of practical
(25:27):
implementation here, which isplanning ahead.
Like, planning ahead is thething that glues everything
together.
If you can plan for theflexibility and I know that
sounds counterintuitive, butit's not, because, remember,
we're talking about flexiblerestraint, not anarchy, not
quote unquote intuitive eatinganything goes and eat whatever
you want.
We're talking about planned inrestrained flexibility, rather
than trying to spontaneouslymake perfect choices.
(25:49):
Do you see the difference?
A lot of us, we think we have aplan in our head and then in
the moment, we're going to makegreat choices.
No, it doesn't work that way.
We're human beings.
We get stressed, we getdistracted.
Right, it doesn't work.
That way we get fatigued.
Plan for that flexibility.
If you know you're going out forpizza Friday night, work that
in to your plan.
Whether that's your calories,your macros, your micros,
(26:12):
whatever you feel like it is orisn't going to serve, pizza is
going to give you some of thethings you want and need.
It will, but not everything,and it might take away from
others.
So make make the indulgencepart of your, say, 15%.
Don't pretend that it's notgoing to happen when every
single Friday night you know youend up going out, even when you
don't think you're going to,and then feel guilty when it
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does happen.
Right, it's like don't pretendthat Christmas isn't going to
happen and therefore you didn'tsave up to buy gifts, right, it
always happens.
The stuff in your life happens,and this could mean a whole
bunch of different things toplan around it.
It could mean eating a bitlighter during the day, friday,
and starting with your leanproteins and vegetables.
It could be, you know, shiftingyour training day around or
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getting some extra walking in.
I mean, I don't like to movethe calories or to burn the
calories through movement, right, but just thinking about how
you're moving things around andaccepting that one day of higher
calories in the context of aweek of appropriate eating is
completely fine.
And when we say 15% of your100%, it doesn't have to be
daily.
Some people have a very boringMonday through Friday with their
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planned out meals, and it's allwhole foods, and then they
quote unquote, save theirindulgences all for the weekend.
You can do whatever you want,absolutely enjoy it.
That's the whole point Flexiblerestraint.
Now, when you think about thismiddle ground, it's really a
game changer.
I mean this is the thing thatchanged my life when it comes to
nutrition, because when youstop moralizing food, you start
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making better choicesautomatically.
Again, it soundscounterintuitive, but I see it
with clients all the time.
Somebody finally givesthemselves permission to have
the ice cream and then they stopthinking about ice cream
constantly.
When cookies are not forbidden,they become less interesting,
right?
I mean it's fascinating howthat works.
It's like that old saying thebest way to get someone to do
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something is tell them theycan't do it.
Right?
That's when we remove theforbidden fruit aspect from
foods.
That is where they lose theirpower over us.
So instead of spending yourmental energy fighting the
cravings, feeling guilty aboutfood choices, you can redirect
that energy toward things thatmatter, like your training, like
your sleep, like managing yourstress, because the middle
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ground isn't just about thesephysical outcomes, which are
definitely real.
It's going to improve yourphysical outcome, but it's the
food freedom.
It's being able to go to arestaurant with friends without
anxiety and say no, I can't havethat, I can't have that, I
can't have that.
It's about enjoying birthdaycake without guilt.
It's about building asustainable relationship with
food that serves you for lifeand not just the next dieting
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phase, and that, more than anymacro split or food rule, that's
what separates the people whomaintain the results long-term
from those who end up yo-yodieting forever.
There you go.
All right, if you enjoyed thisepisode, I want you to check out
episode 194, why macros mightbe all you need to streamline
your nutrition.
It's an interesting one.
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That sounds contradictory towhat I talked about today, but
it's actually a gateway intothis idea of flexible restraint
from both angles from the macrosangle and from the food quality
angle.
So I think it's a goodcompanion to the discussion
today about finding that balanceLink is going to be in the show
notes to that, to episode 194.
Until next time, keep usingyour wits lifting those weights,
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and remember the most radicalthing you can do in today's
extreme dieting culture is to beboringly moderate.
I'll talk to you next time hereon the Wits and Weights podcast
.