I had an extreme diet and not the average extreme. Over the last few years, I ate the same thing for breakfast and lunch. More than half of my calories came from one food item. I obsessed about eating efficiently for more than ten years, optimizing for effort. I took pleasure in the dogmatic sacrifices I had to make: bland food, no variety, missing out on socializing over food… It didn’t matter. My time and mental energy were better spent elsewhere. I adored the idea of my diet, and it worked until it didn’t - until I became more serious about fitness. I saw a dietician who convinced me that my diet was interfering with my goals.
This is what the dietician prescribed. This is the habit I grew. This is my diet.
My diet problem
I need easy, healthy meals with no-effort tracking.
To achieve my goals, I must eat “healthy”, track calories & protein, and hit calories & protein targets. And I have to be consistent, week after week. All that can take a lot of effort, but I’m not going to stick to a diet that feels like a lot of effort.
Will my diet apply to you? A key part of any fitness goal is awareness of your calorie and protein intake. If you find tracking calories unsustainable (like me), concepts from this diet can build your intuition. The whole diet can solve that problem, although your target calories and protein will be different than mine.
My diet layout
My weeks are consistent.
The meals are interchangeable - they have the same calories and protein.
The hardest part for me, calorie counting, is so trivial that I do it once every two weeks in my head:
Not gaining bodymass? Add half a meal per day (300kcal / day) and revisit in two weeks.
Not losing bodymass? Remove half a meal per day (300kcal / day) and revisit in two weeks.
5 x meals + 1 x shake = one day of food
5 x 640kcal + 300kcal = 3500kcal / day
| Weeks | Measurement | Action |
|---|---|---|
| 1-2 | losing bodymass | increase to 5.5 meals, 3800kcal / day |
| 3-4 | plateau (maintaining bodymass) | increase to 6 meals, 4200kcal / day |
| 5-6 | gaining bodymass | maintain 6 meals / day |
| 7-8 | plateau (maintaining bodymass) | increase to 6.5 meals, 4500kcal / day |
| 8-9 | gaining bodymass | maintain 6.5 meals / day |
| 12-13 | gaining bodymass | maintain 6.5 meals / day |
| 14-15 | plateau (maintaining bodymass) | increase to 7 meals, 4800kcal / day. |
When bulking, I need ~2.2g of protein per kilogram of bodyweight. For my starting bodymass of 80kg, I needed ~180g protein / day. That’s about 700kcal / day or 20% of my calories.
Growing the habit
More on how I build habits here.
I want to look better. That’s the long-term reward of the diet. There are other rewards, but they don’t inspire me. Before pursuing this diet, I struggled to gain lean muscle mass. The last two times I bulked, I gained 5-8kg more bodyfat than I should have.
First, I invested in meeting a dietician. Following their advice, I revamped what I eat and I ate measured amounts with planned consistency. I began to buy the right foods and avoid the wrong foods. I stopped eating outside the diet: junk food, dessert, takeout, delivery, and restaurants. I made easy meals available at home and at work. I committed to the lifestyle change and now identify as “someone who is on a strict diet”. I iterated on making my diet more convenient, and now it’s sustainable.
Every day, I make three food decisions: morning at home, midday at work or on-the-go, and evening at home. I don’t have the willpower to make hard decisions every mealtime every day. I need the best choices to be the most convenient ones. In the morning and evening at home, the process is foolproof.
I stand at the kitchen counter.
I pick two from the list of meals.
I “cook” for five minutes.
I eat for ten minutes.
One minute later, I’ve cleaned up. 15-30 minutes invested.
My midday meal has a higher risk of derailing the habit. I may have less than ten minutes to eat and I may not have any place to prepare food or store perishable ingredients. I may feel peer pressure to get takeout food with friends or colleagues. I need ultra convenient options - portable meals with seconds of preparation time.
Fast option #1: Nuts and chocolate.
Fast option #2: Oat bars.
Fast option #3: Oat flapjacks (baked in advance and frozen).
And that’s my diet habit. Those meals satisfy every craving. They fit any schedule. They’re always the best choice in the short-term. They’re also good choices for my long-term goals.
I don’t follow this perfectly. Close to it, though. Other people always pressure me to eat or drink off-plan. My natural response is, “no thank you” - especially for people I know well. For people that don’t know me as well, I hesitate to express my dogma. Refusing to eat with someone is relationship-ending. When food is the medium of socialization and there’s no way to avoid it, I at least make good choices. If they seem open to this way of life (about half are), I will slip my diet into conversation. Maybe build enough interest to read this, maybe more converts to a good diet.
Thanks to David, Issy, and Lukas for reading drafts of this.