"Which Protein Bar Should I Buy?"

Let's chat briefly about protein bars.

We all know what it’s like to casually stroll into the health market section of a grocery store in search of a protein snack just to be met by a seemingly endless selection of sometimes 50 or more protein bars.

It can be intense, overwhelming, and discouraging, and I wouldn’t be surprised if some people wind up leaving those aisles just as soon as they’ve entered in hot pursuit of a Cosmic Brownie and a bag of chips instead.

So, which protein bars should you buy?

That’s a great question, but let’s first talk about what I mean when I personally use the word “should.”

Every “should” you will ever hear from me will be accompanied by a disclaimer that answers the question, “Why?”

I’m a big believer that anyone telling anyone what they “should” do would be well-suited to have a good reason for suggesting such things. In other words, when there’s a “should,” I always provide a “why.”

So, the only sense in which you “should” take my advice on which protein bars to buy is if you want to optimize your body composition in the most efficient and sustainable way possible.

I want to be clear that buying and consuming protein bars without a nuanced understanding of the goal behind the behavior is not an automatic ticket to “looking better naked” or even being a healthier person overall.

And, remember I don't write for general fitness or health tips usually - this is about body recomposition, which means gaining muscle and losing body fat over the long term to reshape the integrity of your body.

Sound good?

So if you want to change the shape of your body by ditching body fat and building lean mass over the long term, this is my advice to you regarding protein bars.

Tips for Buying Protein Bars When Body Recomposition Is the Goal

Tip 1 - Try to get 20-40g of protein if possible.

To me, the most important thing to look for is that you're getting at least 20g of protein from the bar or that you're eating the bar with another protein source that gets you to that 20g minimum threshold.

We don't need to get too much into the science, but research tends to show that eating protein in doses of 20-40g per eating event stimulates near optimal muscle growth signaling through muscle protein synthesis.

Basically, if you’re going to eat protein, you might as well eat at least 20g of it per sitting to make it worth your while.

That being said, it's not an on/off switch, so you haven't "failed" if you only get something like 15g or 17g. That is certainly better than no protein at all.

In fact, most mainstream protein bars won't have 20g, which means you’ll probably have to do a bit of searching.

It'll be the ones that seem to be marketed a bit more to the bros that have 20-35g, which actually makes a lot of sense.

Bros want muscle, so bros eat more protein. You want muscle, so now you're a bro by a loose application of the transitive property, which means it’s time to level up your protein consumption per meal.

Why settle for 17g when you go for something more optimal?

So make sure you’re getting 20-40g of protein from your bars if you’re interested in maximizing your lean tissue accumulation.

Tip 2 - Do the calories fit your goal and overall eating strategy?

Make sure the calories make sense in context of your full day of eating, which needs to be tailored to your overall goal.

For example, you might find a protein bar that passes the protein test of 20-40g, but it might also be packing way too many calories if your goal is fat loss.

That means that bar isn't a good fit for you!

I have the perfect, real-life example.

Check out these Super Cookie Crunch Bars from MET-Rx that Josh and I used to pound.

You'll notice that they advertise a robust 32g of protein, which is great, right? It ticks our first box.

But they aren't advertising the calories, which are a hefty 420 calories per bar.

Yikes!

And although I can't offer anyone a magical number of calories that an ideal protein bar “should” contain, I can tell you with confidence that 420 calories per bar is probably going to be too many calories for most fat loss dieters (even men) unless you’re using it as a meal replacement bar as the brand recommends.

Even then though, the numbers just don’t add up well, and I’ll show you how.

Let's take some of my exact numbers for example. At the tail end of my diet when I was peeling back the layers for the photoshoot you see at the top of this article, I was eating 1,800 calories per day, which wasn’t much food for someone who was around 170 pounds.

In that case, spending 420 calories on a single bar would have been 23% of my entire day of eating but only 16% of my protein target.

That’s a meaningful percentage of my caloric allotment for the day from a processed brick of pseudo-Oreo happiness, which means it just probably wouldn't have been a good fit in context of the bigger picture.

In other words, it would have been a better idea to replace those calories with whole food option likes lean proteins, vegetables, fruits, whole grains, and healthy fats for a more complete nutritional profile.

Now, apply this same bar to the life of a 110-pound female who is dieting on 1,300 calories per day, and it's now 32% of her daily calories.

You get the point.

It's probably not going to be a good bet just because it likely won't fill you up as much as whole foods would, which is ultimately a poor overall strategy for sustained diet adherence.

Could you do it though? Absolutely. The key is simply to make an informed decision for yourself.

You have to make sure the calories in the bar fit your goal.

Oh, and one last thing: You're probably realizing how a lot of people can actually gain weight eating what they thought would make them "fit."

Remember Regina George from Mean Girls?

Yeah, perfect example. Don't get duped like Regina.

Tip 3 - Are you okay with the ingredient list from a health perspective?

Some people like the idea of keeping the ingredient list as short as possible for personal preference and health.

If that's you, do it!

Just remember that pursuing general health and pursuing a body recomposition goal aren’t necessarily always intimately intertwined, so this consideration is less relevant when it comes to building muscle and losing fat in a direct sense.

For more on that, check out this article.

And, as a bit of a pro-tip, keep in mind too that protein bars are usually processed by nature, so if you're an ingredient purist you've sort of been kicked in the knee before you ever set foot in the aisle.

As far as I know, protein bars don’t grow on trees next to the bananas nor in the soil alongside the yams.

I would also mention that if you're vegan you'll want to make sure your bar's protein is sourced with a soy or pea protein instead of whey.

Tip 4 - Does it taste good?

If taste matters to you, make sure the bar you are buying on a consistent basis tastes good!

That's probably a no-brainer, but it's worth mentioning as a quick fourth point.

When it comes to a fat loss diet, sustainability and adherence are the most important factors for success, so be sure you at least somewhat enjoy the protein bars you’ve chosen to help you reach your goals.

At the same time, don’t expect them to taste like your favorite childhood Halloween treat.

My Personal Recommendations

I know what some of you are probably thinking...

"Just tell me which one to get, dude! I don't have time to think about this stuff!"

Fine.

Although I have to be honest in that I originally published this article before I adopted a plant-based diet.

So, instead of completing reworking the article to be more plant-predominant, I’ve just sprinkled in a few disclaimers here and there to help nuance my new position.

My Ex-Protein Bar

For a long time, my favorite protein bar was the Pure Protein bar for the following reasons:

1. They pack 19-21g of protein depending on the flavor, which means you could either eat 2 in order to hit the 40g of protein mark or happily settle for just one. First rule checked!

2. The Chocolate Deluxe variety only has 180 calories, which means the macros are really great for body recomposition purposes. Keep in mind that the calories have to go up as the protein content goes up, but that's okay! You want your calories to come from protein when you're eating a protein bar, right?

So even when I would eat 2, I was only eating 360 total calories, which is something I could personally afford even when eating like a peasant for fat loss. Second rule checked!

3. The ingredient isn't impressively short like an RX Bar, but I was personally okay with it. Third rule checked!

4. I personally loved the taste. Fourth rule checked!

5. They were very affordable. Fifth rule checked!

Walmart carries these bad boys if you need to make a sprint after work, and I'm definitely not sponsored by them.

Should you buy this one? If it makes sense for your life and your goals!

My Current Protein Bar

There are only two protein bars I regularly consume now that I eat a completely plant-based diet.

The first and most common one is the Clif Builders bar series.

They’re a bit more calorically dense than they whey-based bars I used to consume, but they make up a very small portion of my diet now, so I simply make it work as needed.

These are still great for busy moments, so I try to keep a few in my gym bag or in my vehicle at all times.

The second bar I utilize from time to time is the NuGo Slim Chocolate Mint bar.

It’s a bit more calorically-friendly than the Clif Builders bar, but I try to eat them in pairs since each bar contains 17g of protein.

Curious about what else I eat as a part of my plant-based diet? I’ve got you covered.

Be sure to click on over to my article called Vegan Bulking: My Most Common Meals for Building Muscle on a Plant-Based Diet.

I hope this write-up helps you think about how to navigate the millions of protein bar options you've probably been presented with when shopping.

If you have any specific questions, just email me at ivry.fitness@gmail.com and we can have a humanizing chat about it.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

Deceptively "Healthy" Choices That May Hinder Your Fat Loss Goals

It’s funny how my concept of “healthy” has evolved and grown over my lifetime. I can remember grouping foods into “healthy” and “not healthy” in my head for a long time. For example, I used to think of the following foods and food groups like this:

• Fast Food = “Unhealthy”

• Salad = “Healthy”

• Pizza = “Unhealthy”

• Fruit = “Healthy”

And, you can probably see where I’m going with my list.

This is how I thought about “healthy” and “unhealthy” for a long time. To be fair, learning to categorize foods to some extent is a great educational place to start, but as I personally learned more about nutrition, my definition of “healthy” evolved into something much more specific (for the better).

The reason that my view of “healthy” vs “unhealthy” foods evolved is because:

1. Whatever I had been practicing for my nutrition for a long time was not working. How did I know that? Because I wasn’t getting the results I wanted.

2. I wanted a more wholistic view of the word “healthy” from an educational perspective.

3. My goals became more specific, and thus my nutrition had to be more specific as well.

What I learned about my assumptions between “healthy” and “unhealthy” was striking - especially regarding some of the apparently “healthy” choices I had been making that actually turned out to be setting me back in a powerful way.

My goal with this write-up is this: I want to present a consideration of a handful of diet choices we commonly make that appear “healthy” on the surface but might actually be a hindrance to our diet goals when misapplied.

#1: Ordering or Buying Products that Contain “Superfoods” or are Ambiguously Thought of as “Nutritious”

This was a big hurdle for me personally.

When I was in high school, I remember starting to care more about my diet choices for the first time. I was an athlete and I wanted to make choices that wouldn’t “slow me down” on the field.

At least that’s how I thought about it.

So, I would put avocado on everything when given the option because the internet said avocados contain healthy fats, which they do, but that was my only thought about avocados at the time. Healthy foods will make me a better athlete, right?

I had also heard that nut butters were a good source of healthy fats, so I gave myself the green light on those as well.

Now, this increase in fat intake was great for me in high school because I looked like a scrawny alien twig, but if I were to implement that same viewpoint now as an adult while making a focused effort to lose body fat, it would most likely be setting me back due to the excessive caloric intake alone.

For that reason, it’s always a good idea to know the macronutrient content of your foods along with the micronutrient breakdown that may qualify a food as nutritious.

Because in my opinion, the last thing you want to be doing when trying to lose body fat is eating foods you think should be helping you when they are actually slowing down your progress or even pushing you in the wrong direction. Unfortunately, plenty of well-intentioned people unknowingly make that mistake all the time.

On a coaching note, part of what Andrew and I do with our clients is educate them on basic nutrition while providing structured macronutrient goals so that we can be as optimal as possible with their body recomposition goal. In other words, we try to guide you through a calorie-controlled approach to your goal without ignoring the overall importance of eating nutrient-dense foods.

#2: Blindly Ordering Salads at a Restaurant as Opposed to Another Entrée

Back when my novice definition of “healthy” sat on the nutrition throne of my brain, I began to order salads out at restaurants.

Because salads are healthy, right?

Actually, yes! Salads can be amazingly healthy for us, but that doesn’t mean you can’t get fat from eating too many nutrient-dense salads.

Think about it. When most of us order salads at restaurants, we cover them in things like:

• Croutons - Mostly carbs and extra fat

• Cheese - Contains protein, but generally an equal amount of fat or more

• Fatty Dressings - Most salad dressings contain a LOT of fat.

• Avocado - High fat content, even though they are nutritious

• Fatty Meats - A lot of salads (especially Italian salads) can pile on heaps of salami, pepperoni, bacon, prosciutto, etc.

• Nuts (especially candied/glazed) - While nutritious, these nuts contain a lot of fat. And, if they are candied or glazed, they will also include a lot of sugar which equals extra carbs.

Realistically, if you have a caloric plan in mind or are keeping a mindful eye on your macronutrient intake, you could add a few of these to your salad and still reach your goal.

But, these toppings become a problem if you decide to add three or four of these to one salad because it dramatically changes the caloric total of the entire meal. It’s the cumulative calorie effect that results in weight gain.

Some things to add to your salad instead of some of the ingredients above to add another element could be:

• Grilled Chicken - high in protein and will help fill you up with a much needed macronutrient, especially if trying to hold onto hard-earned lean muscle tissue

• Vegetables - For me personally, texture is a big deal, so adding veggies with a little crunch to them is great! You could even try chipped cucumbers, celery, broccoli, carrots, and/or peppers next time.

• Egg Whites - Whole eggs can be great as well, but I prefer hard-boiling an egg and then chopping up the whites for some easy extra protein

• Beans - Rinse out a can of your favorite beans and add some extra protein to your diet. This is a great option for those that eat plant-based diets.

• Fresh Herbs and Spices - Talk about taking flavor to another level without adding any unwanted fats! Try using some basil, mint, dill, or cilantro with your salad. Just make sure you know the herb you choose will pair well with your other flavors.

• Lemon Juice - I like using just a little bit of oil and then squeezing fresh lemon juice onto my salad as a dressing. As it turns out, a little bit of citrus can go a long way.

Again, depending on your goal, any of the options above could be a good substitution or mindful addition.

#3: The Misapplication of Intermittent Fasting

I have been effectively using intermittent fasting in my current fat loss phase, so I’m certainly not making intermittent fasting the enemy here.

I still consume three to four large meals during my “eating window” (which is 10 hours for me instead of the commonly recommended eight-hour window), and I also consume several high-protein snacks.

But, where does it go wrong for some people?

In my opinion, here are two common ways intermittent fasting is frequently abused:

1. You’re narrowing your eating window to less than eight hours and only giving yourself time for one or two large meals.

   • When we do this, we can sometimes negotiate with ourselves and eat foods that are less nutritious or have unfavorable macronutrient compositions since we are sacrificing an entire meal. In other words, we lose sight of nutrition in favor of a game of calories and calories alone. Just because you could eat a plate of nachos and cheese for 1500 calories doesn’t mean that is going to lead to the body recomposition outcomes you want.

   • I’ve also found that intermittent fasting can lead to more snacking, and generally the snacks we tend to pick aren’t as nutrient-dense or macro-friendly as something we might cook for a proper meal.

   • Eating one large meal can also make people feel sluggish and lethargic.

2. Your protein consumption might not be as optimal as it could be.

   • If your goal is to lose fat while maintaining lean muscle tissue and you choose to enter the intermittent fasting world, you may not be able to eat all of the protein you could benefit from according to most evidence-based guidelines.

     • And, as I mentioned above, typical snack foods tend to be high in carbohydrates and fats and generally low in protein. So, if you tend to be a snacker while practicing intermittent fasting, your snacks may be a limiting factor in your progress.

     • If you need more clarity about how you could go about calculating your own protein intake, check out this blog.

Again, intermittent fasting doesn’t have to be the enemy, but it is often touted as a very healthy diet strategy even though it can easily be misapplied.

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Feeling Motivated?

Like I said at the beginning of the article, it’s probably a good idea to be very careful about making sure that the “healthy” choices we are making are actually choices that help us move toward our goals rather than push us further back.

I also mentioned that part of a coaching relationship with an IVRY Fitness coach is a personalized macronutrient goal to help you reach a specific body composition goal. So, if you have always wanted to make a change but have continuously felt stuck because nothing you have ever tried in the past has worked, consider reaching out to us.

We have open coaching slots and are looking for highly motivated clients that want to make a significant change in their body composition.

Click here to learn more, The journey always has to begin somewhere, so why not here and now?

"How Much Protein Should My High School Athlete Be Eating?"

You’ve got a smaller-framed high school athlete that needs to put on muscle, and you’ve finally made the decision to get serious about their weight gain goal.

Congratulations! Now you just have to wade through all the hype surrounding diet.

And, if you are at all like most parents, you probably have a lot of questions about protein in particular.

• “Does my athlete really need to be eating a lot of protein to put on muscle?” 

• ”If so, how much? Is there a magical number?”

• “And does this mean I should have them drinking protein shakes after their workouts?”

We hear you and we’ve got answers for you. Let’s get into it.

How much protein should your athlete be eating per day?

We’ve found that aiming to consume around 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) per day seems to be one of the most commonly accepted practices for athletes that want to achieve that lean, athletic physique. And, to be honest with you, most people aren’t really taking that LBM stipulation to account at all.

In other words, in most cases it’s going to be a decent idea to simply use their bodyweight instead of that LBM figure for the sake of keeping things as simple as possible.

It’s also worth nothing that while some experts recommend a bit more protein per day (1.2g or more per pound of LBM) and other researchers and gurus allow for a bit less (as low as 0.7g per pound of LBM), this “1g per Pound Rule” still seems to be the most popular pick. 

But, why?

I think it’s because that 1:1 ratio of grams of protein to bodyweight is just a really easy way to calculate your daily protein intake. And, let’s be honest: “Easy” works really well for most people because “easy” is usually adherence-friendly and sustainable long-term.

Think about it this way. People like basic math, and basic math is easy.

If your athlete weighs 125 pounds, they’d eat around 125g of protein per day.
If your athlete weighs 150 pounds, they’d eat around 150g of protein per day.
If your athlete weighs 175 pounds, they’d eat around 175g of protein per day. Simple, right?

I think you get the point.

What does it look like to eat that much protein?

Depending on the size of your athlete and their protein target, it essentially comes down to eating 20-40g of high-quality protein every 3-5 hours.

Just because I know people like specifics, take a look at how I would personally split up my protein meals throughout the day if I were a 180-pound high school athlete with a traditional high school schedule.

SAMPLE DAILY Protein SCHEDULE as a Student-Athlete

6:30AM - Breakfast: 2 whole eggs and 140g of egg whites with oatmeal and toast for 38g of protein

9:30AM - Morning Snack: 43g of whey isolate and an apple for 35g of protein

12:30PM - Lunch: 6 ounces of lean protein, rice or potatoes, and a vegetable for around 36g of protein

3:30PM - Pre-Practice Meal: 43g of whey isolate and a bagel for 44g of protein

7:00PM - Dinner (Post-Practice Meal): 6 ounces of lean protein, a high-carb source, and a vegetable for around 36g of protein

This entire day of eating would yield about 190g of protein from mostly high-quality sources, which would be an amazing start to most 180-pound high school athletes’ pursuit of optimal muscle gain.

But as a quick note, you and your athlete can’t only think about protein and get the results you want. Protein, after all, is just one piece of the bigger puzzle. For a hearty write-up on all the things you’d need to consider, we’ll have a full description of that coming out soon.

Also, if your athlete is smaller than 180 pounds, be sure to tweak those protein quantities to fit their adjusted goal. On average, female athletes will probably need a bit less protein simply due to the fact that they will likely weight less than their male peers. If you’d like help making those decisions for your athlete, don’t hesitate to email us and ask about coaching.

Lastly, keep in mind that this is just how I would structure my own eating. If your athlete has food allergies or preferences against any of the foods mentioned, know that there are plenty of other meal options we could discuss with you.

Although we are not registered dietitians, we can certainly help provide resources to guide you in the dietary choices you make (including those who are vegetarian or vegan).

Does everybody need to be eating that much protein?

Of course not. I want to be clear that these recommendations aren’t for everyday Joe’s and Jane’s – they’re for high school athletes who really want to start taking their muscle gains seriously.

In other words, I’m not suggesting your sweet Grandpa Bob should be shotgunning 60g of whey protein after his mid-morning gardening session to support optimal hamstring and glute development. That would be, well, quite unnecessary (and also hilarious) because Grandpa isn’t trying to get a scholarship as the future star running back of the Alabama Crimson Tide.

Protein recommendations for people less interested in getting jacked and lean are, of course, much lower because they aren’t loading up their bodies with heavy loads with the focused intent of developing the size and density of their muscles.

Since proteins are widely considered the buildings blocks of muscle repair and growth, it makes sense to be eating more protein if you want to be more muscular.

Simply put, if you have an athlete that wants to get jacked and lean to support their sport performance, they are going to need more protein relative to the person that doesn’t.

So, let’s just make sure we’re clear about that.

What does it mean to be “taking things seriously” as a high school athlete?"

I’ve come up with the following checklist to help you make sense of that question for yourself.

Your son or daughter is probably ready to take their physique development “seriously enough” if they are:

1. Willing to train intelligently with resistance for hypertrophy 3-6 (or even more) times per week as a supplement to their sport specific weightlifting at school.

2. Willing to eat purposefully in a caloric deficit, a caloric surplus, or at maintenance for the desire body recomposition outcome.

3. Willing to prioritize their protein intake across 3-6 meals per day if/when possible.

4. Willing to get the majority of their calories and protein from nutrient-dense foods while saving “junk foods” for treats and special occasions.

5. Willing to optimize their rest and recovery as much as possible.

Is that your son or daughter? If so, you might give hiring a personal coach some serious consideration.

Playing sports in college can be a lot of fun, and - in my opinion - there’s no need to let your athlete’s lack of attention to diet and nutrition in high school be the difference between continuing the love of the game and letting it go forever once they graduate.

If they have a real chance at playing in college, why not optimize the odds?

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1. We think it makes the most sense to keep your young athlete’s calculations of protein intake as simple as eating 1g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day if you’re hoping to look as lean and mean as possible this summer assuming you aren’t considerably overweight or even obese.

2. Remember that there is no “one size fits all” amount of protein your athlete should be consuming, but there are evidence-based ranges that are likely to optimize your progress toward your physique goal. These ranges are calculated on an individual basis based on your current level of leanness. For more detail on that, check out this article of ours.

3. And, just as a bonus takeaway, no, your athlete doesn’t necessarily need to be drinking protein shakes, but it sure does make hitting their protein targets much easier on a consistent basis. I would personally recommend utilizing shakes once or twice a day if you have a serious goal to build muscle - prioritizing them pre-workout and post-workout when possible.

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If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to another parent of a promising high school athlete. And, of course, we encourage you to take the time to flip through some of our other recent posts for additional content as well.

You can also find a different set of semi-daily content being posted to our Instagram at @ivry.fitness.

Lastly, we do have coaching spots available if you’re interested in hiring a coach to guide your high school athlete toward their muscle building goal. If that’s you, reach out. We know it’s a lot to wade through as a parent, and we’d be happy to walk you and your entire family through the process.

Until next time,

-Andrew

Keys to a Successful Fat Loss Diet

I thought it might be time that we put some big ideas that we really believe in writing just so we had a list in one place for us and for you all. 

The internet is saturated with posts like these, and often a lot of them miss really big ideas that are crucial for a successful diet. 

So, we decided to set the record straight with what our keys to a successful diet are.

THE ESSENTIALS

The following three points are what we are going to call “essential.” These are three big points we really believe almost everyone should be taking part in while dieting.

Key #1: Be at an Energy Deficit

If you want to lose weight, the golden rule of fat loss is to be at an energy deficit, which means you need to be burning more calories than you consume.

This first point isn’t really a debatable topic as it is, well, true. 

Most people will have to exercise in some fashion along with trying to hit a specific calorie goal in order to achieve this while others will be able to feel it out naturally.

Key #2: Eat Enough Protein

This one tends to be fairly neglected among people who haven’t been floating around the fitness space for very long (including me as little as two years ago).

Thankfully, Andrew has already written a fantastic blog about how much protein you should consume, so check that out here if you want a deeper look into how you could go about calculating your own protein needs.

The reason you might need to consume more protein than you have been is because protein is the macronutrient that aids in muscle recovery. If we want to keep working out and allow our muscles to mend and grow, we need to give them the resources they need to do so.

For those that are trained, eating enough protein can also allow you retain as much muscle as possible as you begin to cut body fat.

Also, for those who have been untrained for a while, the right amount of protein could aid in overall body recomposition as you build a little bit of muscle and lose fat at the same time.

Key #3: Have a Workout and Nutrition Plan That You Can Stick To

Adherence is arguably the most important part of your diet because, if it’s something you don’t want to do or aren’t motivated/disciplined enough to follow through with, then you won’t.

So, the solution to any potential fallout of adherence is to have a workout and diet plan that you know you will be able to continue on with for a long period of time.

This may need to happen in phases in that you may have to slowly adjust your calories along the way as you lose more weight, so it is important to create a reasonable and reachable goal from the onset. 

If you are completely clueless about how to do this, you can check out some of our content on Instagram and learn a ton from that. 

And that’s one great thing about having a coach. We help you create those things if you still feel overwhelmed and confused by the misleading info on the internet.

If you think that would be helpful, give us a shout here!

SECONDARY KEYS

We think that the following points are also important for a successful diet, but they didn’t quite crack the top three. Andrew and I both apply these “secondary” keys as much as the “essentials,” but the previous points probably carry a little more weight.

Key #4: Prioritize Recovery

If you are at an energy deficit and also working out pretty hard, you can potentially put yourself at risk of injury if you are not recovering well enough.

A big piece of recovery is eating enough protein for muscle recovery, which I talked about in point two. 

Another important piece is sleep. I am all too hypocritical in talking about this and I struggle to get enough sleep myself, but I have found that getting 7-9 hours of sleep is so beneficial for recovery.

At risk of trying to talk as a scientist who studies the subject, your non-REM sleep or “deep sleep” is apparently the key. From what I understand, your brain slows down so much during this state that extra blood carrying oxygen and nutrients goes to other parts of your body to aid in recovery.

So, if you find yourself constantly waking up thinking about work or just unable to sleep, you may be hindering your body’s recovery process. 

In addition to that, stress often can keep us from sleeping too, so another thing to try to help your recovery is to do your best to limit stress throughout the day or find a way to de-stress before bed.

Key #5: Meal Timing Becomes Important

If we decide we are going to eat less and continue to workout, we are still expending the same amount of energy as before, but we are consuming less. 

So, one way to try and keep the intensity of our workouts high is to eat appropriate meals around the workout. 

Something I will do is eat a high protein and high-carb meal about two hours before working out. This gives my body time to digest the food before I begin my workout while also providing plenty of energy to get me through it.

Post-workout, I will try and eat another high-protein and high-carb meal within an hour of my workout, or I will consume some kind of protein within 30 minutes (maybe a protein shake) if I know I will not get a meal within the hour.

This means that a lot of my daily calorie intake is consumed right before and after my workout. So, if I’m planning my diet well, my other meals/snacks will generally have to be lower in calories.

Key #6: Listen to Your Body to Avoid Injury

This one is more geared towards injury prevention, but it’s definitely an important key for everyone. 

If you have been lifting a while, you know what it’s like to be sore in a good way. The feeling that your muscle has used all of its energy and it aches to be fully recovered. 

If you’re new to lifting, you learn relatively quickly (arguably after your first day in the gym) how muscle soreness feels. 

Now, say you are completing a lift or walking on the treadmill and you begin to feel a sharp pain that you feel like causes discomfort and not just muscle soreness. In that case, stop immediately to prevent further injury.

As I said previously, your body is more susceptible to injury while in an energy deficit, and even something like sleeping on your neck wrong can lead to an injury if you try to work through the pain. 

Lastly, it’s almost always a good and safe idea to take a day or two off to let small muscle and joint pains like that heal before you injure yourself and end up out weeks instead of days.

In Summary

If you are just beginning your fat loss journey, trying to follow and remember all of these keys may be hard, but try sticking to the essential keys first:

1. Be at an energy deficit.

2. Eat enough protein.

3. Find a diet and workout program you can adhere to.

The latter three keys can also be very important to help maintain a longer diet and will allow your body to be more efficient throughout the process.

So meal timing, prioritizing recovery, and listening to your body to avoid injury also become an important part of a prolonged fat loss phase.

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If you found this article helpful but feel that you would love the support of an exercise program and nutrition suggestions, we are looking to add clients to our roster! Click here to learn more.

Cheers,

Josh

3 Nerdy Ways to Calculate Your Protein Intake

As a general rule of thumb, the easiest and most common way to go about calculating your protein needs is simply to play by the "1g per Pound of Bodyweight Rule” - assuming you’re within striking distance of being somewhat lean.

But, also I know that there are plenty of analytically-minded people out there that might enjoy a slightly more mathematic approach, so I’ve thrown together three additional ways you could go about calculating your protein needs on a more granular level - the one common theme here being that these methods give greater consideration to this idea of your lean body mass (LBM) rather than your overall bodyweight.

What is lean body mass?

Although most people think of their LBM as just “how shredded you are underneath it all,” your lean body mass is actually the sum composition of all of your non-fat bodily structures including your muscles, bones, organs, tissues, and even water.

How do you measure lean body mass?

Well, if you want the most accurate number possible, you’d probably have to get what’s called a DEXA scan, which stands for dual energy x-ray absorptiometry.

But, don’t drown yourself in the alphabet soup.

All you need to know is that it’s a fancy machine that some high-level athletes and fitness influencers utilize from time to time to measure their body fat percentage and lean body mass.

But, this isn’t typically what “regular” people do (although you totally could).

Practically speaking, the best way to figure out your lean body mass is to crunch a few numbers based on your estimated body fat percentage, but we’ll explore that idea in more detail a bit later.

Now that we’ve defined a few terms, let’s get into the methodology of how you might calculate your protein based on your estimations of LBM.

The “Goal Weight Method”

The first method you could use to calculate your protein intake based on your LBM is to think about your LBM loosely as your goal weight if your goal is to lose body fat.

In other words, how much would you weigh if you were beach lean with visible abs?

To use myself as an example, I’m currently 185 pounds, but I know that getting beach lean would require me to be weighing in around 175 pounds.

That means my goal weight in this case would be 175 pounds, which takes the place of this LBM number in that it represents a very lean (but obviously not completely fat-free version of myself).

It’s “close enough” for our purposes - if you will.

In my case, it also helps to know that my driver’s license when I was a skinny 16 year-old soccer player listed me at a weight of 172 pounds, so I know that 175 is probably a decent number to aim for as a fat loss goal.

So, by this “calculation,” striving for a maximum of 175g of protein per day would be a pretty good idea based on what the whole of evidence-based research seems to indicate at the moment, which is that eating between 0.7-1.0g of protein per pound of LBM per day is a great way to optimize a lean physique.

One Important Stipulation

Note, however, that this method doesn’t apply if you are a leaner individual who is trying to gain weight. Why?

Because in this instance, your goal weight and your lean body mass would no longer be similar numbers.

In fact, they drift farther and farther apart as you gain both lean tissue and body fat in a gaining phase.

So, if you are already lean and your aim is to bulk up, it makes more sense to use your current bodyweight in pounds as your target protein intake (in grams per day).

And although some hypertrophy experts might encourage leaner individuals who are trying to mass to bump their protein intake to 1.2g of protein per pound of LBM, I personally think this is unnecessary.

The “True Lean Mass Method”

The second method actually requires you to do a bit of math using your estimated body fat percentage to identify your true lean body mass.

This method, however, can easily be overwhelming, so use it with caution.

Truthfully, I only recommend using it if you are the type of person that actually enjoys crunching numbers (which I personally do).

If that’s not you, you might consider skipping it altogether and sticking with The Goal Weight Method for the sake of simplicity. 

Here’s how this one works: Being 185 pounds right now, my best estimate of my current body fat percentage is probably around 15%.

This is based on pictures and opinions of trusted friends, but I openly admit this is a bit of a fool’s errand.

Let me explain.

WHY EYEBALLING YOUR BODY FAT PERCENTAGE IS DIFFICULT

Body fat percentages are extremely difficult to eyeball because everyone holds their body fat in different ways.

Some people can appear leaner than they are while others can appear heavier than they are simply based on where how your fat is distributed across your body.

For example, some guys can sport a raging six-pack all the way up to 15% body fat while some guys have blurry tummies around 12%.

Similarly, some women can appear leaner or “look hotter” because they store their fat in the breasts and their bums instead of on their stomachs.

For a little visual help, I think the graphic you see here from Legion Athletics is the best graphic on the internet for this sort of thing.

Nonetheless, this method does a good-enough job of providing a ballpark estimate that you can adjust in practice as you see fit.

In practice, if my estimated body fat percentage is 18% right now, that means 82% of my body composition should (in theory) be lean body mass. Then we just do a little math to figure out what my lean body mass since we now have a decent guess of what my fat mass is.

185 pounds x 0.85 (as a percentage of estimated lean body mass) =

157.25 pounds of lean body mass

Right away, you can see that this number is quite a bit different from the number we got from The Goal Weight Method, and this is for good reason.

The first one is a real-life anticipation of what I might weigh if I lost all the body fat I want to lose, while the True Lean Mass Method is a prediction of what I’d weigh if I had no body fat at all (which is impossible).

So, by the True Lean Mass Method, I would be eating around 158g of protein at 185 pounds and an estimated body fat percentage of 15%.

Getting Cheeky with Your Manipulation of the True Lean Mass Formula

Interestingly enough, you could easily adjust that formula to reflect what you might weigh at any given “aesthetically pleasing” body fat percentage you might desire.

For example, in the physique space, people tend to consider that 6-8% body fat range (for men) to be the “golden zone” of looking pretty darn lean.

And for women, you can generally bump those numbers by 7-10 percentage points as a general rule.

Given that we’ve already got an equation in place that allows for the manipulation of body fat percentage, it’s easy to make a calculation that lands us specifically in that golden zone for looking like a movie star on the beach.

I call this the 8% Method.

The “8% Method”

If I wanted to set my sights specifically on being 8% body fat by the end of my fat loss phase, I would do the following:

185 pounds x (0.85 + 0.08) = 172 pounds of lean body mass

If you’re wondering how that equation works, let me break it down for you quickly.

The 0.85 figure represents my predicted LBM based on my estimation of being around 15% body fat.

100% - 15% = 85%, which is the LBM figure here.

Eighty-five percent reflected in decimal form is 0.85.

Now, to add back that 8%, we simply adjust the decimal from 0.85 up to 0.93 by adding the 0.08, which leaves us with the configuration you see above.

And that’s that! You get an estimation of being 172 pounds at 8% body fat.

You could, of course, do this calculation based on any desired body fat percentage. Here, 8% just functions as a common example of what would leave most men looking pretty diced.

And, if you wanted to bring all of this information back around to protein intake, our calculations from the 8% Method would have me eating around 172g of protein per day at 185 pounds.

Let’s wrap it up.

We’ve now got three numbers here to compare.

1. The “Goal Weight Method” – 175 pounds of lean body mass

2. The “True Lean Mass Method” – 157 pounds of lean body mass

3. The “8% Method” – 172 pounds of lean body mass

Which one do we pick then?

For the sake of keeping things simple, I would just aim to consume between 157-175g of protein per day since it reflects the range of all three of these calculations.

In fact, this is exactly what I do.

One Last Disclaimer

Remember, however, that all of this protein talk still assumes a proper training program for hypertrophy – we’re just not discussing the training piece of the physique puzzle at this time because our focus is on daily protein intake.

Apart from brilliant genetics, you can’t only eat protein and “get jacked” without working out to initiate the growth. If you can, congratulations! You are a genetic anomaly.

Curious about the training portion of how all this works?

Skip on over to this article about seven simple rules of thumb when it comes to training for maximal muscle growth.

“HOW DO I EAT THIS MUCH PROTEIN?”

Ah, yes! The next logical question as we think about the big picture of building muscle…

Fortunately, I’ve got you covered with a list of 9 Sneaky Ways to Get More Protein Into Your Diet.

So check that out and get to eating!

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew

"How Much Protein Should I Be Eating to Maximize My Summer Body?"

Summer is almost here, and you’ve finally made the decision to get serious about your physique goal. Congratulations!

Or maybe it’s some other random time of the year and you’re looking to get peeled like a banana for some other warm-weathered trip.

Either way, that’s awesome and I’m excited for you and your new goal.

Now you just have to wade through all the hype surrounding protein.

And, if you are at all like I was when I first started, you probably have a lot of questions.

“Do I really need to be eating a lot of protein to look lean and toned?” 

”If so, how much? Is there a magical number?”

Trust me, I hear you and I’ve been there, so let’s get into it.

How much protein should you be eating per day?

I’ve found that aiming to consume between 0.7-1.0g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) per day seems to be one of the most commonly accepted recommendations for people who want to achieve that lean, summer-ready physique.

If you’re in a time crunch, feel free to let that last sentence be your practical takeaway from this article and get back to your regularly-scheduled life.

LEAN BODY MASS VERSUS TOTAL BODYWEIGHT

But for those who want more nuance, know that most people aren’t really taking that LBM stipulation to account at all.

In other words, most people simply use their bodyweight instead of that LBM figure for the sake of keeping things as simple as possible (and this is totally understandable).

Why?

Because estimating your LBM isn’t always easy unless you have access to a DEXA or an InBody scan.

So, while some experts recommend a bit more protein per day (1.2g or more per pound of LBM) and other gurus push for a bit less (as low as 0.7g per pound of LBM), this “1g per Pound of Bodyweight Rule” still seems to be the most popular pick. 

Did you catch that detail? What I’m saying is that although using your lean body mass in your calculation is probably a bit more accurate, most people will use their total bodyweight instead.

But, why?

Well, I think the most obvious reason is because that 1:1 ratio of grams of protein to bodyweight is just a really easy way to calculate your daily protein intake.

And, let’s be honest with ourselves.

“Easy” works really well for most people because “easy” is usually adherence-friendly and sustainable for the long-term, which is extremely important.

Think about it this way. People like basic math because basic math is easy.

If you weigh 125 pounds, you’d eat a maximum of 125g of protein per day. Easy.
If you weigh 150 pounds, you’d eat a maximum of 150g of protein per day. Simple, right?
If you weigh 175 pounds, you’d eat a maximum of 175g of protein per day.

You get the point.

So, although I do think it’s slightly better to calculate your daily protein intake using your lean body mass, I think it’s also fine to use your total bodyweight in most (but not all) cases.

For a deeper dive on this, I’d encourage you to reference this article I wrote on a very other ways to calculate your protein needs.

Does everybody need to be eating that much protein?

Of course not. I want to be clear that these recommendations aren’t for everyday Joe’s and Jane’s – they’re for people who really want to start taking their body recomposition effort seriously.

In other words, I’m not suggesting your sweet Grandma Margaret should be shotgunning 60g of whey protein after her mid-morning gardening session to support optimal hamstring and glute development.

That would be, well, quite unnecessary (and also hilarious) since Grandma probably isn’t trying to look jacked and lean at the pool by mid-June.

Protein recommendations for people less interested in getting jacked and lean are, of course, much lower because they aren’t loading up their bodies with heavy loads with the focused intent of developing the size and density of their muscles.

Since proteins are widely considered the buildings blocks of muscle repair and growth, it makes sense to be eating more protein if you want to be more muscular.

Simply put, if you want to get jacked and lean, you need more protein relative to the person that doesn’t.

So, let’s just make sure we’re clear about that. If you’ve decided you want to be more jacked and lean, you’re in a different category of recommended protein intake now.

But, what does it mean to be “taking your body recomposition effort seriously?”

I’ve come up with the following checklist to help you make sense of that question for yourself.

You’re probably taking your body recomposition effort “seriously enough” if you are:

1. Training intelligently with resistance for hypertrophy or something like CrossFit 3-6 (or even more) times per week.

2. Eating purposefully in a caloric deficit, a caloric surplus, or at maintenance based on the specific goal at hand.

3. Prioritizing your protein intake across a minimum of 3 meals per day in most cases.

4. Trying to get the majority of your calories and protein from nutrient-dense foods while saving “junk foods” for treats and special occasions.

5. Optimizing your rest and recovery as much as possible.

6. Minimizing or eliminating alcohol consumption.

But back to protein and how much you should be consuming per day.

As wonderfully as the “1g per Pound Rule” works in most cases, there is one semi-exception worth mentioning.

An Exception for Very Overweight or Obese Folks

As we just discussed, that “1g per Round Rule” is based on your lean body mass (LBM), which isn’t the same as your total body mass (bodyweight).

So the implied exception is this:

The more overweight you are, the more important it is to calculate your daily protein intake based off of your lean body mass rather than your total bodyweight.

For example, if you’re a 180-pound female but you’d probably be a lean, healthy version of yourself at 130 pounds, I would argue that eating 180g of protein a day just isn’t necessary unless you really love eating protein.

But even then I would make the argument that those calories would be better spent on nutrient-dense carbohydrates or fats to aid in both day-to-day energy availability for quality training and optimized recovery.

And just to be clear, in this example, the 130 pounds represent a number that would be a much closer estimation to your lean body mass based on the Goal Weight Method, and thus a better figure to be using in your calculation.

The bottom line is this:

You don’t get bonus gains for eating more protein once you’ve met the evidence-based requirement, so make sure you aren’t consuming unnecessary amounts of protein as person who might be considered overweight or obese.

In fact, it can even be a detriment to your overall dietary pattern if your protein consumption starts to crowd out other important foods that provide macronutrient and micronutrient diversity.

So, what’s the takeaway here?

1. I think it makes the most sense to keep your protein intake as simple as eating between 0.7-1.0g of protein per pound of lean body mass (LBM) per day if you’re hoping to optimize your body recomposition effort. I like this approach because it accounts for people of varied amounts of body fat due to the use of the lean mass figure. I regularly consume toward the 0.7 multiplier of LBM and continue to see great progression in strength, performance, and muscle mass.

2. Remember that there is no magical amount of protein you should be consuming, but there are evidence-based ranges that are likely to optimize your progress toward your physique goal.

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Thanks for reading, everyone! I sincerely hope you enjoyed the content and learned something.

If you feel like this blog brought you any value at all, consider sending it to a friend or family member!

And, if you're interested in working with me one-on-one, visit The Vegan Gym and apply for coaching. I’ve had nothing but success in guiding people toward their fat loss goals.

Cheers, everyone!

-Andrew