There’s not a lot to eating for a good physique. It’s not that complex. In fact, here’s all you need to know, in one simple rule.
THE GOLDEN RULE OF EATING: Eat less calories than you burn.
If you do that, you’ll look good. If you don’t, you’ll look bad. Not too much to it.
The reality of our situation in America is that the vast majority of people are morbidly obese. As a result, they cost themselves (and their families) dearly in terms of health, finances, lifestyle, etc. It’s not because they don’t know how to eat properly. For the most part, everyone knows that rule above. It’s not about knowledge, education, theory, whatever. It comes down to making a decision to look good because (a) you want to look good and (b) you have a duty to be a useful, capable man.
Ok, if it’s so simple, why isn’t everyone fit? It’s because it takes effort and disciple. There’s a lot that can pull you off track. I want to focus on what will keep you on track, in the form of 10 principles that if you follow, will result in you looking good. It’s a no-frills system that will drive results…if you follow the principles below.
Principle 1: It’s All About Calories
Principle 2: You Must Track Calories
Principle 3: You Must Test Bodyfat
Principle 4: You Can’t Workout Enough to Counter a Bad Diet
Principle 5: Eat Your Desired Bodyweight times 15 in Calories
Principle 6: Eat Your Bodyweight in Grams of Protein
Principle 7: Choose a Macronutrient Count That Works for You
Principle 8: A Simple Diet is the Best Diet
Principle 9: No Processed Foods
Principle 10: Carbs Can Be Good and Bad
Principle 11: Eat Meat, Eggs, Fruits and Veggies…Little Else
Principle 1: It’s All About Calories
I’m going to start by reiterating the Golden Rule of Eating. Your success with your physique will begin and end with calories. If you eat more calories than you burn, you’ll be fat. If you eat less calories than you burn, you’ll be thin. Simple as that.
Note that I’m not saying that if you eat less calories than you burn you’ll look great. Just not fat. You could still look terrible, because you don’t lift, don’t eat enough protein, eat too much sugar, etc. But you won’t be fat..
By the same token, you could have the perfect lifting plan, even supplement with excellent cardio, and still be fat because your eat too many calories. Look at powerlifters. Strong, impressive lifts. But they have terrible physiques, all because of too many calories. Now, if you’re worried about winning powerlifting meats, by all means do so. But this is about getting a physique that will get you ahead in life, the Executive Physique.
This rule is steadfast, and can’t be broken. There’s a million trends in fitness. Some people say you need butter in your coffee. Some say no carbs after lunch. Intermittent fasting. Keto. South Beach. Zone. Mediterranean.
Guess what, it all works, and it all doesn’t. What matters is eating more calories than you burn. You may find that some of those diets works better for you, and some work worse, go ahead and try them if you want. But they all come down to the same thing, eat less than you burn. If you go vegan and eat 1000 more calories each day than you consume, you’ll be fat. If you eat less than you consume, you’ll be thin.
Even alcohol is a simple question of calories. I get that there’s some scientific evidence that alcohol causes fat retention and destroys muscle more than other drink choices, but let’s be realistic, beer guts are caused by calories, not chemical reactions
Do you get it yet? Eat less calories than you burn. It’s really that simple.
Principle 2: You Must Track Calories
If calories are so important, how can you possibly know how you’re doing unless you track your calories? You can’t, and as such you must track your calories.
In the old school days, bodybuilders would track their calories with a notebook. This forced them to keep their diets extremely simple, because it would be difficult to track calories beyond whole food staples like chicken, steak, eggs, etc. That’s probably a huge advantage in itself, as I discuss below.
Nowadays, we’re lucky enough to have apps like myfitnesspal and others that allow you to track a wide variety of foods automatically. Your favorite protein bars? It’s in there. Lunch at McDonalds? In there. Your favorite bourbon? You can track that too.
As with most modern luxuries, there’s good and bad to these e-trackers. The good news is convenience and a huge database of foods. The bad news is that the ability to track large varieties of foods can lead you to seek too much variety in your diet, and accept eating dangerous processed foods as long as you’re under your total calories and within your macronutrient count. This is a mistake, as processed foods will cause you to still be hungry and can easily cause you to blow your diet.
Yes, use these apps to track calories and make sure your macronutrients are in proper proportion, but don’t allow their vast database to pull you into poor food choices.
Principle 3: You Must Test Bodyfat and Weigh Yourself
Brutal honesty with yourself is crucial for improvement in life. This is just as true when it comes to physique. You must be honest with yourself as to just how much of a fat-body you currently are, so you can make the proper adjustments to diet to get yourself to where you need to be.
Skin calipers can be bought for less than $10, and are an essential tool that have been used for decades. An accurate scale is another great tool that allows you to track your progress easily on a daily basis to make sure you’re progressing.
Many people will tell you that a scale is not a good reflection of progress, and that you may be missing the picture if you’re actually adding muscle at the same time you’re losing fat. I’m not going to get into questions of whether you can add muscle at the same time you’re losing fat (the answer is maybe), but I am going to say that a scale is generally going to give you good results from a tracking mechanism. I will also say that most people who use this phrase are trying to sugarcoat the issue. For most people, the number on the scale needs to be going down, because you’re overweight. Period.
Combining a scale with body fat testing is going to be an excellent means of accuracy, because it will put context (body fat composition) behind content (your weight). The ultimate goal is losing body fat while gaining muscle, and you need to do both to get a good physique.
You should weigh yourself each day. Tracking body fat is a little more involved process, but is not that inconvenient, because you can do the calculations involved using free online calculators. Therefore I’d say once or twice a month is fine there, as body fat doesn’t change that fast. You should enter both of these numbers in your calorie tracker.
Principle 4: You Can’t Workout Enough to Counter a Bad Diet
One of the most harmful fallacies in fitness is the assumption that you can workout more to counter a bad diet. This is false. If you’re eating and drinking like a pig, you’re going to look like a pig, no matter what. Working out more will likely lead to overuse injuries, and you’ll be even worse than when you started.
There are many people who are “in shape” (from a lifting and even a cardio perspective) who simply look terrible. This is especially true in CrossFit, where you’ll often see people with excessive amounts of body fat doing extremely well in WODs. Success in CrossFit WODs is not directly correlated to physique. You need to dial in the diet to look good.
What about building muscle? Yes it’s true that eating more than your maintenance level of calories is necessary to add muscle. However, if you look at successful bodybuilders throughout time, their approach to overeating to gain muscle is still very disciplined, involving proper proportions of macros (protein, carbs, and fats). They’re not just binge eating donuts and drinking beer all day.
In addition, I’d say most men I come across need to work on reducing body fat before they worry about building muscle. For beginners or men who haven’t lifted in a while, the good news is that you’ll likely build strength and (some) muscle at first even if you’re in a caloric deficit as long as you eat enough protein (more on that later).
Principle 5: Eat Your Desired Body Weight Times 15 in Calories
OK, you’re tracking calories. You’re weighing yourself each day and tracking your bodyfat once a week. How much should you eat each day? Here’s a good rule of thumb. Take your desired body weight, and multiple by 15. That’s the number of calorie grams you should eat each day. Say you’re currently 220 pounds, and you want to get down to 190. Take 190, and multiply by 15, to come up with 2,850 calories. That’s a good starting point for getting down to 190.
What we’re doing with this method is having you eat at the proper maintenance weight for 190 pounds. That’s less than your maintenance weight for 220, and you’ll lose weight as a result. The reason is that your eating the proper amount for a 190 pound man, so you’ll eventually weigh 190 pounds.
Note that this assumes you’re working out 4-5 times a week lifting weights for an hour a day. If you’re not working out at all, the proper amount of calories is more like 12 times your desired bodyweight. Fill in the gaps using 13-14 times if you’re working out less than I described above.
A word of caution here. I wouldn’t go below a 30 pound weight drop using this method immediately. So in our example above, imagine if your starting weight was 290, rather than 220. I would suggest finding your maintenance calories for 260 lbs, which is 3900 calories, and start there. The main factor is comfort with your current level of calories, so you may find you can trim calories even before you hit 260 lbs, but be careful, because it’s easy to trim calories so much that you crash and blow your diet. Then when you hit 260, go ahead and lower your maintenance calories to 230 (3,450 calories). Continue the process until you reach your desired weight.
If you’re trying to cut massive amounts of weight, it’s tempting to go super low in calories. If you’re at the very beginning of your weight loss journey, it’s certainly possible to eat a super low amount of calories for a while, say 2-3 months. However, it’s tough to do that for very long. If you’re cutting calories and you want to jump start by going lower than my 30 pound rule, fine. In the summer I drop to as low as 2100 calories, which is more appropriate for a 140 pound person, and do just fine. But if you find yourself slipping, adjust immediately so you don’t fall off the wagon.
By the same token, if you’re trying to gain muscle, you need to increase your calorie intake. Generally, I’m shooting for 180 pounds (2,700 calories) in the spring and summer and 195 pounds (2,925 calories) in the fall and winter, although I frankly drop down as low as 2100 calories (equivalent of 140 lbs) when I’m cutting for jiu jitsu tournaments. I also go up to 3500 calories (233.33 pounds) for November and December when I’m really trying to build strength and muscle.
This is all a starting point, not a hard and fast rule, you may find you have a slower metabolism, especially if you’re older, and need to eat only 14 times your desired body weight in order to see results. On the other hand, you may need to eat 16 times or else you see weight and strength fall off too fast. Start with 15 times your desired body weight in calorie grams, and go from there.
Another thought here. Sometimes it’s nice to have one day of the week where you eat more calories than normal. This is especially true of low carb diets, where it’s good to take 1 day and eat about 20% more in calories (all coming from carbs) to refuel. Therefore I like to think of the calorie count as an average weekly total. This means you eat 20% (or whatever you’re comfortable with) on one day, and eat slightly less on the other 6 to compensate. This works really well for me personally, especially in the spring and summer months when I’m looking to cut some fat.
Principle 6: Eat Your Bodyweight in Grams of Protein
Once you’ve figured out the number of calories you should eat each day, the next step is to make sure you eat at least your actual body weight in grams of protein each day. Failure to do this will prevent you from (a) gaining muscle if you’re trying to get bigger or (b) keeping muscle if you’re trying to lose fat. It’s a big no-no, so make sure you don’t violate this rule, or you’ll end up looking skinny fat, even if you’re eating the correct amount of calories.
Protein can come from a number of sources, but the best way to get to your body weight in protein grams is lean meat and eggs. Meat like lean pork and chicken are great for this purpose. Steak is my personal favorite choice, because I feel like it boosts my testosterone and energy levels the best out of all the possible choices. The challenge with steak is that if you eat too fatty a cut, it’s tough to keep under your calorie count for the day. I prefer round steak for breakfast and lunch, with a bit tastier cut, like top sirloin, for dinner. When I’m trying to gain muscle, the fattier cuts like ribeyes and new york strips are my preference.
Canned tuna is extremely convenient for storage purposes. This had been a bodybuilder staple for years for this reason. Canned chicken and salmon work well too. Eggs (preferably pasture raised) should be an everyday occurrence as well. If the fat content of the eggs is too much for your diet plan and calorie count, use the whites only, which are pure protein.
I find it’s very difficult to get enough protein without a protein shake supplement. Getting 30-50 grams of protein in one shake once or twice a day makes hitting that bodyweight number of protein grams infinitely easier. That’s why protein shakes have been so popular among bodybuilders for decades. It’s difficult to recommend a specific protein powder, because it’s such a personal choice as to what works well for individual people. I personally use GNC Wheybolic. While I’m sure there’s better scientific formulas out there, Wheybolic is just about the only one (I’ve tried almost all) that doesn’t upset my stomach. Therefore it’s the choice for me.
What I can say about protein powders is that I would recommend straight protein, rather than one with too many additional calories coming from fat and carbs. While it’s the total number of calories that count, I find it infinitely easier to keep my hunger in check, especially when cutting fat, if I avoid processed carbs and fats. My point is that whatever calories come from carbs and fat in protein powders or meal replacement shakes are empty, and will not fill you up like real food. For me, literally the only value of the shake over real food is that it’s a quick and easy way of hitting my protein numbers. In addition, many meal replacement shakes have added sugar, the emptiest calories of them all, which you want to avoid like the plague.
Whatever form you choose, it’s crucial to your physique that you hit that magic body weight in grams of protein (or even more) every day. This will allow you to get stronger and build muscle while helping you keep off fat.
Principle 7: Choose a Macronutrient Count That Works for You
I want you to finish this Principle 7, and then go back and read 5,6, and 7 together because they form the basis of choosing a meal plan that will work for you. Here it is in a nutshell:
- Eat your bodyweight times 15 in total grams of calories (total calorie count);
- Eat your bodyweight number of grams of protein (minimum protein total): and
- With respect to carbs and fats, choose the combo that works for you based on the previous two principles.
You may have noticed that there’s a million and one books out there on diets. Atkins, South Beach, Zone, Carnivore, Vegan, just to name a few. They all follow a basic principle I’ve outlined in the Golden Rule of Eating above, eat less calories than you burn. You can follow that rule using any diet. The real question is which one works best for you.
Many of these diets say they’re the best because of the macronutrients you’re taking in, or the vitamins you’re getting. But you can supplement macros (protein) and use vitamins in any of these diets to achieve the same goal of eating less calories than you burn.
You can also follow my protein rule above with any of these diets. It’s probably harder with the vegan option, but there’s vegan bodybuilders out there, so don’t think you can’t possibly do it even if you’re eating no animal products.
The main question I consider for diet choice is which diet helps me achieve my physique goals at any given time. When I’m trying to cut fat, I find that a low carb diet consisting mainly of meat, eggs, and veggies works best. Thinking through that, this type of diet, with fat and protein as the main macronutrients, is typically going to be the most satiating for anyone. Most people are likely to stick to the 15 times your desired body weight principle using this method because they feel full. That’s not true for everyone, and maybe you’re the type that will be able to stick to a reduced calorie count using the Zone Method, which is basically 40% carbs and 30% each protein and fats. Everyone’s different.
When I’m trying to add muscle, I add carbs. Protein and fat content basically stays the same, and I add carbs to increase my muscle building capacity. Most bodybuilding coaches will follow the logic that you need carbs to increase muscle and strength. However, everyone’s different. A lot of beginners find that they can add muscle and strength with a low-carb or even keto diet just fine. That probably will tail off over time, but it’s worth experimenting. Just remember that you need to stay under 15 times your desired body weight in calories, and you need to get enough protein. Beyond that, do what works for you.
Principle 8: A Simple Diet is the Best Diet
The famous Vince Gironda, bodybuilding coach to some of the best all-time (and a fantastic bodybuilder himself), used to extoll the virtues of a steak and egg only diet. He claimed to have once gone on such a diet for 10 months, leading to him looking his best ever. Why such a simplistic diet?
Well, one reason is that simplicity is extremely easy to manage. This is especially true when you’re tracking calories. It’s extremely easy to count the number of eggs you eat and weigh a steak on a simple kitchen scale. This will take about 10 seconds to enter into your app.
As you get more complex with your diet, and add more and more foods, your life will become more difficult. Your salad with goat cheese, nuts, strawberries and tomatoes is a lot harder to track than a spring mix, carrot, and balsamic salad. Your acai bowl with 15 superfoods is a lot harder to track than a 8 oz. chicken breast with a side of a ½ cup of brown rice.
Simplicity will make sticking to a calorie count, and tracking that count accurately infinitely more likely. It’s much easier to get accurate weight measurements with less food. A breakfast of bacon and eggs is simple. 4 eggs and 3 strips of bacon. When you go with avocado toast with a fruit medley…more difficult.
Simple also generally works best in terms of nutrition and avoiding excess calories. This is true especially in potential trap foods like salads, smoothies, and bowls, foods that have a healthy reputation, but can often contain significant excess calories. It’s also easier to avoid processed foods with a simple diet, which is an important part of reducing hunger.
Eating simple will also help you when you’re eating out. It’s often really hard to determine how much of each ingredient is in complex dishes, not to mention if any oils and butters were used. It’s a lot easier to eat a steak with a side of asparagus or green beans. You can then easily add a tablespoon of olive oil or butter if that was used in the preparation of the dish.
All and all, it’s best for your diet that you stick with simple and easy for your diet. This will give you the best chance of sticking with your calorie tracking system, which is the key to ensuring you’re eating properly in order to lose fat and keep muscle.
Principle 9: No Processed Foods
Piggybacking on Principle No. 8., which was keeping it simple, I want to add that you should avoid processed foods at all costs. There’s two main reasons here, one long-term and one-short term. In the long-term, processed foods will lead to a number of health issues. In the short-term, processed foods will increase hunger and increase your chances for blowing your diet.
Long-term, processed foods will cause health problems when eaten frequently. Look at America in general, stuffing it’s collective face with fast food, packaged crap, and look at the general trend of health compared to 100 years ago. Terrible. To pretend that it’s not directly related to processed foods is crazy. As a result, we’re overweight and have terrible diseases and afflictions that were non-existent 100 years ago.
Processed foods, regardless of the content, and not as filling as their natural equivalent. Eating a breakfast hot pocket will not fill you up like bacon and eggs. Eating chicken nuggets from McDonalds is not the same as eating chicken breast. Eating candy is not the same as eating fruit. It is simply much easier to stay under your calorie count if you eat natural food, specifically meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables. Anything else will give you problems in terms of sticking to the calorie count that will get you to the physique and weight you want.
Realistically, I have to loosen this standard sometimes, especially when traveling. When I’m on the road and can’t cook myself, I’ll make use of (a) protein bars; (b) deli meat and cheese; and (c) fast food sandwiches (never with fries and a soft drink) to meet my caloric goals easily. But this is just temporary for convenience, cost, and necessity and ends when I get home.
Even with regular foods, like meat, eggs, fruit, and vegetables you can get a certain amount of processing. This is especially true with things like bacon, which can be loaded with nitrates. I personally have found that natural meat, without processed antibiotics, generally works best for me, as does pasture raised chicken eggs. I’m a little less stringent on the need for organic fruit and vegetables, as I believe that a lot of large farms are able to qualify for organic status because of their scale, without necessarily being healthier in fact. Likewise, many small forms are “organic” as all getup, but are unable to qualify for the certification necessary to claim this status. In general, most fruit and vegetables, when washed, are just fine for consumption in my opinion.
Principle 10: Carbs Can Be Good and Bad
Keto diets, which is basically an extremely limited carb diet with less than 50 grams of carbs eaten per day, have become all the rage lately. In reality, the diet has been around forever in various forms, such as the Atkins diet. Vince Gironda’s meat and eggs diet is a keto-style diet as well, although Vince wasn’t concerned with the state of ketosis, considering he suggested a carb refeed every 7-10 days (depending on whose account of this diet you read).
I do keto diets for long stretches at a time, with a carb refeed every 7 days. I find this helps me drop fat very efficiently while not losing muscle and strength. However, I really feel that the benefit, rather than ketosis (burning fat rather than carbs), is that it helps me hit a low calorie count while not getting hunger urges. It’s that simple for me.
You may find this is the case, or you may find that you do just fine with a 40% carb/30% protein/ 30% fat type diet. Everyone’s different, and you should experiment with what works for you. My main point in this section is that there’s little practical experience that suggests that keto is a magic pill (in and of itself) for every single person from a weight and physique perspective. Note that there is some evidence of other health benefits, especially as it relates to easing certain health problems, but that’s beyond the scope of this article. Again, you need to find the diet that makes you most likely to follow your correct calorie count.
I will say that personally I have a hard time getting stronger and building muscle while going low carb. In the winter, when I usually do a more strength and muscle growth oriented routine (i.e. 5 sets of 5, german volume training, etc.) I will up my calorie intake, and almost all of these increased calories are going to come from carbs. You may find this is the case for you as well.
Summary
Proper nutrition is not rocket science. I’m sure there’s not a ton I’ve written above that’s that enlightening to you. The fact is, everyone “knows” what they need to do…eat less calories than they burn. The problem is putting it into practice. Following the principles above, all 10 of them, will give you the best shot of actually following through with what you already know is the proper way to eat. Now you’ve just got to go out and do it!