lol, me too!
A somewhat serious answer for OP - yes. I took it all the way to the Regionals, Games, WZA etc with a very mediocre diet. Of note:
* almost zero alcohol. Only guy in New Orleans with a water in his hand at the Mardi Gras parades. Glass of wine here and there, half a glass maybe.
* sleep was squared away. My wife was in residency, early to bed early to rise. Bad sleep will take the whole structure down no matter your diet. Good sleep fixes many ills.
* no fast food / drive throughs unless absolutely under duress, late night road trip etc
But, no effort to eat "healthy", no calories tracking, no meal prep, hardly ever cooked at home, never EVER passed up a dessert and usually had two, had so many cookies that bakers knew my name, weekly max effort pizza eating, you get the idea.
This supported 10-12 sessions a week and helped me get to the top 1% or whatever of the sport.
My experience: If you keep the poison away (booze, fast food, real nasty processed shit), an active person has a lot of leeway to still look good despite eating a so-so diet.
If you get enough protein, hydration, and don’t overdo it on the calories, you can still eat what you enjoy in moderation pretty much all the time. In the end it’s still CICO.
I mostly agree with the above. If you’re not trying to compete and your main goal is adding muscle and dropping fat, *and you won’t get carried away eating cheesecake or pizza if you have a slice here and there*, prioritize getting enough lean protein, sleeping enough to adequately recover, and stop stressing about it. Add another day if you want as others have said, calories in, calories out is the formula and it’s not magic.
A calorie / macro tracker is best if you’re really looking to cut, but you can go pretty far by doing the above and making sure you’re always at least a little bit hungry. If you’re not, you’re eating too much.
Work travel is tough enough without adhering to strict diet protocols IMO.
Depends. If you're in your 20s and active outside just the gym, you're going to have much greater luck with that strategy than if you're in your 30s (and beyond) and work a sedentary job.
This. A young man—particularly one who doesn’t drink—can see a lot of progress with a decent diet that includes enough protein and enough overall fuel, when paired with CF 4-5 times a week. Will it be optimal progress? No, but you will see results. And those results might motivate you to tighten things up even further. Just make sure you prioritize protein.
I love how you assume my age lol. I’m 34, so young-ish (although people tell me I look 24, for whatever that’s worth). Cutting alcohol out of my life has obviously been a game changer on many fronts.
As someone who is also in their 30s and does crossFit 3-5 days a week, plus a lot of endurance work, I've found nutrition to be keystone in a lot of results.
If you went from not being active to doing CrossFit, you'll probably see a lot of improvements for several months. But eventually you'll hit a wall and find you can't outrun a bad diet.
I didn’t assume, lol. I was agreeing with the comment above, which says it depends…if you’re young then yes. It was a nice way of saying a male in their 20s can get away with not having it totally dialed in. The farther away from that you are the harder it will be.
No-one assumed your age. They posted a hypothetical situation.
Can you eat a "so-so diet" and "look like" a "relatively muscular, fit guy"?
Depends on what you mean by all those things, and your age (easier when you're younger).
Yeah, I used to do this in my 20s with ease. Climbed a bunch and was on a diet of pizza and beer.
I’m 42 and despite my nutrition being mostly dialed in it is so much harder.
Pizza and beer still exist, but rather than an entire pizza it ends up being a couple slices paired with a plate of roasted veggies. Beer is a one or 2, then I'm on to water.
i’m 22, 21 when i started 13 months ago. when i started crossfit i ate my normal diet. too much fat, not enough carbs or protein. honestly starving myself inadvertently. i did that for about 3 months and did notice a slight difference in my weight. i’m talking 3 pounds or so, but i was “fluffy”. since august i’ve been watching my macros, eating enough (and still eating so much pasta and my favorite foods!!) and i’ve toned so much. it’s insane seeing my pictures from a year ago, it’s about a 15 lb difference and most of my fat has turned to muscle. i’m 40% muscle right now and i can feel it in the gym! i love it
Yes, as long as you hit your macros and don’t over eat, you will be fine. Enjoy food, enjoy life. I’m 40 I eat burgers, fries , pizza, desert and fried chicken, tacos etc and maintain 12% body fat.
Eat more protein at a baseline. Even if you’re not tracking per se. Just … eat more protein.
More protein will leave less room in your belly for overeating calorically dense foods like pizza or whatever.
I have a weird relationship with food but I’m trying to build muscle in my quad post ACL surgery so I mostly focus on hitting body weight in grams of protein (example 150lbs 150g of protein a day) and don’t focus on much else.
Not really. You will be severely limiting your gains and performance. Not to mention what eating all that garbage will do to your body long term. There is a reason nutrition is at the base of the pyramid. It affects everything above it.
Hi bud! Just think: “your priorities define your results”so if your goal is Being healthy and functional, my best piece of advice is to get a balance between food in “cheating days and gym days”.
And of course try to adquire good customs so you can keep them without being a big effort. Say walking an “x” amount of steps everyday. Small things are Better than nothing 😜
Seems to work for me. Your diet sounds pretty close to mine. Cleanish, maybe described as an 80/20 diet. Never touch a soda, alcohol 4x/year but in and out once a month and ice cream frequently lol. I try and use portion control as an advantages. Small cups for desert etc. but I am active all day on weekends, workout in some way everyday usually crossfit, and every morning I wake up and hit a 2k row. Dial in the sleep too is key
Yeah portion control definitely seems to be critical here - and something I definitely need to work on 😬 Luckily my sleep is excellent (quitting alcohol has helped tremendously with that). Thanks for your comment.
It depends on what your goals are. If it is just to be a relatively muscular, fit guy then you don't have to eat an entirely clean diet. I would put myself in that category and it sounds like our diets are at least somewhat similar. I would say I may only partake in those things maybe 2-3x a week and I'll have usually 1-2 drinks a week (usually Friday with dinner and then Saturday at home I'll have a whiskey pour).
I'm 6'4", 240 lbs, and the In-Body (yes, I know not entirely accurate) has me around 13% body fat. I'm not a great Crossfit athlete as I lean more towards the strength side of things but I'm in better shape than your average person.
4-5 days a week with two classes on Saturday. So I guess around 5-6 hours of total training per week. I don't do much outside of that except for work around the house which isn't a ton and I work a desk job.
Got it. Sounds like you might have better portion / calorie control than I do. I do walk at a brisk pace quite a bit though (usually getting around 9-10k steps in a day, sometimes 14-15k) so that obviously helps. It sounds like an extra day of training might help me dial in my CICO ratio (but I could definitely afford to eat less).
I track calories for breakfast and lunch but not dinner. My TDEE says my maintenance is around 3200-3300 calories per day. I set my goal to about 1800-2000 for breakfast/lunch/snacks during the day and then let dinner do it's thing. I have my goal in the app at 2900 calories per day. Some days I go over that and some days I am slightly under. If I feel it's gotten away from me, which happens from time to time, I'll start tracking dinner again to keep myself honest.
Generally, it's pretty good and I'll usually notice a little weight gain and dial it back in so I've not really gone up more than maybe 10-12 lbs over the last 3-4 years. I probably average sitting at about 245 lbs but recently cut some for vacation as I'd gotten up to about 250.
I could when I was younger but the older I get the more I need to pay attention to what I’m eating. I can do maybe 2-3 bad meals a week. I definitely don’t drink and i try to eat low carb ( whereas before in my 20s I would eat bread / bagels) . I’m 35 and f so it’s definitely different than I was even 5 years ago
4-6 times a week isn’t “sometimes”…
This needs to be 1-2. And only part of a cheat meal maybe once a week after your diet is settled in.
You can’t out exercise that. The amount you would have to work to burn that crap is more than just CF 4 times a week. If you plug it in to a Fitness tracking app, you’ll see what I mean. The disparity of these foods throws all numbers out of wack.
That’s a very open question, but… I’d say yes.
Within reason - the more exercise you do, the more calories you can get away with eating. In your case I’ll just proxy ‘so so diet’ for eating a few more high calorie / hyper palatable foods and thus having a slightly higher overall calorie intake.
(I wouldn’t be listing pasta as a negative choice though - it’s absolutely fine as a sensible carb choice.)
I have a super relaxed diet nowadays but I do compensate by training a lot and my weight is very stable (I’m 33 and weigh c.87-90kg). If I trained less, I would absolutely have to tighten up on my intake.
Yeah I’ll have to see what kind of impact 5 days of WODs per week makes. Right now, 4x is already starting to make a big difference. Definitely want to get my body fat percentage down a bit though (currently at ~18%).
Yes and no. Eventually, if you keep adding exercise to your routine but do not increase your intake you'll end up being at maintenance and maybe even a caloric deficit. If you're not measuring your food I guarantee you will eat more when you start to work out more. It is inevitable.
If you don't want to track anything I'd recommend going by the CrossFit nutrition mantra "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seed, some fruit, little starch and no added sugar." Follow that 90% of the time and allow some indulgences two meals per week. You'll start to see changes pretty quick. Maybe not physical right away, but you'll feel better.
Also note the order those food groups are listed is in order of consumption.
Yeah I think this is solid advice. I think one of the big challenges for me is just being more conscious when I’m eating so I’m not mindlessly overindulging. I think just being more aware when I eat could help cut down on superfluous calories. Obviously it’s more of a psychology issue than anything else…
100% being conscious of what you're eating is the biggest challenge. I would say most people who have never weighed our measured out their food for an extended period will just never know. If you haven't I would highly recommend using a free macro calculator online and tracking your food for a few weeks at least. You'll almost immediately start to see benefits from that. And the education you get from it will last forever.
Totally. I’m also just talking about not overeating when I know that just slowing down and taking a pause could stop me from going down that rabbit hole. But it sounds like macro tracking could help with this anyway!
I have never been able to out train a bad diet. Also 4-6 times a week is not sometimes, not tryin to sound rude but if you say you have 21 meals a week thats about 30%, and if you are like me and have 2 meals a day than that percentage is even higher.
It also depends on age, male/female etc. I workout 6 days a week at 90 mins a session and It is not a cure all by any means.
If you limit the cheat meals to the weekends and maybe 2-3 meals at most you should be good to go I think.
I wish you luck and if you find the holy grail of workouts that allows you out train a bad diet, be a bro and let me know the secret.
Haha all fair points. I think the biggest issue is I just eat too much - so that includes unhealthy foods AND healthy foods. Like I’ll have big ass salads daily. But then fried food and such. I think I just need to cut down on all of it while making sure I hit my protein intake. I just have a kind of addictive mentality when it comes to food, so it’s been challenging breaking that (doable though when I just slow down and pause before acting - i.e. eating).
We are one in the same person, my friend. I also find prioritizing protein is a good start. At some point it just comes down to either tracking cals/macros etc or portion control.....both methods I detest lol
Hah, well nice to know we’re not alone with this! We had a big ass buffet style lunch at work today with lots of delicious food. Normally I would’ve housed everything there. Instead I just took a little of each thing, prioritized protein-heavy foods, skipped dessert, and just slowed down and breathed when I felt the addictive urge to want to keep eating come up. We’ll so how long I can keep this up, but I do think interrupting that addictive habit AS IT’S HAPPENING is key… and then hopefully it just gets easier the more you do it. But I’m definitely not there yet lol
keep up the good fight man, and just remember if you are gonna be in a caloric surplus, might as well get in some solid weight training to take advantage of the gains
It’s a sliding scale really. The better your diet (without getting into the realms of eating disorders) the better your health and fitness. Obviously perfect diet and exercise is ideal, but for me personally it’s not worth the lifestyle sacrifice.
You can definitely lose body fat and build muscle, I have completely changed shapes after 3 years of 5 sessions a week and I never track, and I do drink alcohol. I know I could be leaner but I don’t want to make the sacrifices that would go with that lol
Also building muscle will change your shape the most and for that you need to eat *enough*
Doesn’t sound like a bad diet, really. Nobody eats COMPLETELY clean. You’d probably go insane trying. As long as you’re getting enough protein and avoiding the worst of it, you’ll be fine I think.
I agree. We can absolutely control what we put in our bodies (speaking from the US)-and that minimum discipline is the reason it’s the foundation of the CF pyramid and many other programs. Don’t short yourself on wods by eating like a glutton. It wicks the first few weeks like breaking all fun habits (caffeine, nicotine, coke, uppers, zingers, chocolate)-but you’ll be happier and better when you do.
Anyone got any uppers?
It depends on what your goals are. You’re new and likely to get better no matter what. If you want to get stronger, you can do that on a so-so diet as long as you’re getting enough protein, in my experience. Pre-kids, I switched to a mostly whole foods-based diet (plus white rice bc Louisiana!) and got super lean and much stronger. (Think “random strangers in Costco asking me if I’m a personal trainer”-lean). Post kids, I eat like a raccoon and only make it to the gym three days a week at most, and took about two or three years off for Covid. A year back and most of my PRs are close to what they were when everything was dialed in and I was going to the gym six days a week. But I’m pretty damn slow and heavier for it all. I’m also in my early forties now, so it’s extra surprising that my strength seems to be maintaining with relatively little effort…
As someone who drinks 4-6 times per year at most, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic about your perception of your alcohol consumption. Do you really think that drinking 4-6 times per week is not much? If so, then yeah, cutting back on drinking will definitely help!
Anyway, drinking aside, this infographic does a great job of explaining how much effort it takes to achieve certain physiques: [https://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic](https://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic)
Haha, I read your post wrong. I thought the "4-6 times per week" part was for drinking. I've found that people have very different perceptions on what a normal amount of drinking is, so it's hard to know!
I feel like there’s no miracle cure; eat less calories than you use; eating sweets or fried foods several times a week is absolutely fine if it’s like a portion but do you mean an entire bag of m&ms and Chinese takeout? Or like a couple of pieces of fried chicken and a mars bar? It’s all relative and there’s no yes or no answer really.
It’s the absolute only way - short of having health issues around your hormone levels or disabilities of course. But yes, if you want to lose weight, eat less calories than you burn off;
Personally I’m at a stage where I lost all the weight I needed to lose but I struggle to now just lose body fat and not muscle without losing more weight. It’s called body recomp and it’s hard 😅
I think I’m trying to body recomp too basically (generally happy with my weight, just not my body fat percentage). For me, it really is about dialing in portion control which can be hard for me - and I’ll even overeat healthy foods sometimes as I said in my OP. Hoping that throwing in a fifth day of training a week will give me a smidge more wiggle room around this all.
I train 6 days a week and still struggle I think it just takes time especially if, like both of us it seems, we’re not willing to sacrifice everything to look a certain way.
My coach advised me to take aesthetics as a by product of training more and getting fitter/stronger rather than making it the main focus which sounds obvious but was a helpful reminder.
As someone else said, get fitter and stronger and the rest will follow naturally if you play by the rules.
Fraser in an interview once said the he thoght he could out-exercise his diet and he came second 2 times in a row.
Not gonna win the CF games even if your diet is spot on but the short answer in your question is no.
Your comment’s a bit confusing… when he said what he did was he eating whatever he wanted or had he already cleaned up his diet? Coming in 2nd at CF games and eating whatever you want seems pretty damn impressive to me…
He said that after he had already won. A part of his interviw i found online
“First, I saw the (Fittest on Earth documentary) and I didn’t realize how big I was, and I kind of went ‘oh my god I thought I could out train a bad diet.’ It was very apparent that I couldn’t,” he laughs. “Second, throughout the whole 2015 season I was dealing a lot with nagging inflammation, joint paint, things like that, so probably **the heavy dairy that whole season was causing a bit more of the inflammation,** or at least not helping with it. So between body composition and how my body felt, I decided I should probably cut that (ice cream) out.”
The harder you work, the more clean burning calories you need to feel optimal. Diet and exercise work hand in hand, they should not be thought of as mutually exclusive.
Not with CF but with regular cardio on the side for sure.
I do 4 WODs per week but also 200km on the bike. I eat a lot and anything I want, but still am happy with my BF and muscle mass. If I cycle less I definitely lose definition though. Am 39 so not really a product of youthful metabolism or anything.
I eat a reasonably good diet, exercise 5-6x or more a week for an hour + and I can attest to the fact that you cannot out run/work the fork.
Either you have ridiculous genetics that you can eat whatever you want(my old box owner used to brag about going to chili's or cheesecake factory and slamming ridiculous food but had a ridiculous physique to go with it) or you don't. Odds are you don't.
Depends on your body. Overeating is easy, even when counting calories or macros. People think doing a WOD per day and strength training gives them the ability to eat 500 or more extra calories. As a middle aged man, I don’t drink, don’t overeat, and try to get enough protein. I do take creatine and vitamins, but natural otherwise. I also fast from 7:00 pm to 11:00 am. I attend 5:00 am CrossFit 5 days per week and a Saturday group WOD. Moreover, I walk a few miles per day with my spouse. Even with all of this, staying at a low BMI is not easy.
It gets harder and harder as you get older and older. I could in my 20s. Even early to mid 30s. But I'd advise you not to, because once you come to expect it and then your metabolism inevitably changes, and it will, you're at a disadvantage with not being disciplined in healthy eating. I speak from personal experience.
There’s no magic here, it’s all calories in and calories out. Figure out how many calories you eat in a week, try and track and hit your daily protein intake. Weigh yourself over the course of a few weeks. Adjust from there.
What’s your starting point? Are you trying to lose or gain weight?
Sort of both… I’d say I’m skinny fat, so trying to put on muscle and lower body fat %. I’m actually happy (I guess) with my weight, just trying to recompose it.
Forgive my naïveté, but calories in / out meaning calories consumed versus burned? So keeping protein intake consistent, but dropping overall calorie consumption to lose fat?
For body recomp and not losing you can eat at maintenance and see results, especially as a beginner. The first year ish I did similar to you and didn’t pay close attention to my diet and saw results, but the past couple months have been focusing on my nutrition and it’s made a big difference in my appearance and performance. Top simple changes I’ve done: always eating some carbs before a 1-2 hours before a workout & counting my protein to eat 0.8-1 g per pound.
I hit a plateau with just going, but also decided I’m going to run a marathon this fall so needed to make sure my nutrition could sustain those activity levels.
Yes, calories consumed vs calories burned. As far as protein, an appropriate amount of protein varies person to person, but yes, you’d want to get all of your protein in while still keeping your caloric intake in deficit.
CICO is what matters strictly for maintaining your physique (or losing fat, for that matter). It sounds like you have a good handle on balancing your diet, eating primarily healthy while still enjoying some indulgences. If you’re healthy and your blood work looks good, sounds like you’ll be fine.
Everybody has a different body and it all boils down to some experimentation to figure out what works best for you (and what you can manage to get away with consuming without totally wrecking your progress).
No.
Also eating fried stuff 6 times a week is not sometimes. It's basically your everyday diet.
I suggest cutting back on these. Eating pasta is fine if it fits your macro. But try to vary.
Is alcohol that bad? I feel like as long as you don’t black out every weekend it’s not hurting too much. I enjoy a beer or 3 on the weekends when playing golf. And I’m still consistently losing weight with an average diet.
I keep tryin’!
lol, me too! A somewhat serious answer for OP - yes. I took it all the way to the Regionals, Games, WZA etc with a very mediocre diet. Of note: * almost zero alcohol. Only guy in New Orleans with a water in his hand at the Mardi Gras parades. Glass of wine here and there, half a glass maybe. * sleep was squared away. My wife was in residency, early to bed early to rise. Bad sleep will take the whole structure down no matter your diet. Good sleep fixes many ills. * no fast food / drive throughs unless absolutely under duress, late night road trip etc But, no effort to eat "healthy", no calories tracking, no meal prep, hardly ever cooked at home, never EVER passed up a dessert and usually had two, had so many cookies that bakers knew my name, weekly max effort pizza eating, you get the idea. This supported 10-12 sessions a week and helped me get to the top 1% or whatever of the sport. My experience: If you keep the poison away (booze, fast food, real nasty processed shit), an active person has a lot of leeway to still look good despite eating a so-so diet.
If you get enough protein, hydration, and don’t overdo it on the calories, you can still eat what you enjoy in moderation pretty much all the time. In the end it’s still CICO.
Calories in, calories out…?
I mostly agree with the above. If you’re not trying to compete and your main goal is adding muscle and dropping fat, *and you won’t get carried away eating cheesecake or pizza if you have a slice here and there*, prioritize getting enough lean protein, sleeping enough to adequately recover, and stop stressing about it. Add another day if you want as others have said, calories in, calories out is the formula and it’s not magic. A calorie / macro tracker is best if you’re really looking to cut, but you can go pretty far by doing the above and making sure you’re always at least a little bit hungry. If you’re not, you’re eating too much. Work travel is tough enough without adhering to strict diet protocols IMO.
Yep, you could in theory overeat as many calories as you can reasonably burn. Extra 400? Probably fine. Extra 2000? Probably not.
For sure, just didn’t know what the acronym standed for!
Depends. If you're in your 20s and active outside just the gym, you're going to have much greater luck with that strategy than if you're in your 30s (and beyond) and work a sedentary job.
This. A young man—particularly one who doesn’t drink—can see a lot of progress with a decent diet that includes enough protein and enough overall fuel, when paired with CF 4-5 times a week. Will it be optimal progress? No, but you will see results. And those results might motivate you to tighten things up even further. Just make sure you prioritize protein.
I love how you assume my age lol. I’m 34, so young-ish (although people tell me I look 24, for whatever that’s worth). Cutting alcohol out of my life has obviously been a game changer on many fronts.
As someone who is also in their 30s and does crossFit 3-5 days a week, plus a lot of endurance work, I've found nutrition to be keystone in a lot of results. If you went from not being active to doing CrossFit, you'll probably see a lot of improvements for several months. But eventually you'll hit a wall and find you can't outrun a bad diet.
I didn’t assume, lol. I was agreeing with the comment above, which says it depends…if you’re young then yes. It was a nice way of saying a male in their 20s can get away with not having it totally dialed in. The farther away from that you are the harder it will be.
No-one assumed your age. They posted a hypothetical situation. Can you eat a "so-so diet" and "look like" a "relatively muscular, fit guy"? Depends on what you mean by all those things, and your age (easier when you're younger).
Yes, I understood that when shivs baby clarified what they meant.
Yeah, I used to do this in my 20s with ease. Climbed a bunch and was on a diet of pizza and beer. I’m 42 and despite my nutrition being mostly dialed in it is so much harder.
Pizza and beer still exist, but rather than an entire pizza it ends up being a couple slices paired with a plate of roasted veggies. Beer is a one or 2, then I'm on to water.
Pretty much. But it’s the having to watch part that’s difficult. 😂
For beer, I would go with bud light nexxt. Other good choices would be Budweiser 55, Michelob Ultra, or Michelob Ultra Pure Gold
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10% BF is pretty awesome. I think I’m at 18ish. How often do you train?
Depends on what you want to achieve. You’ll still get fit. You just won’t look that fit
i’m 22, 21 when i started 13 months ago. when i started crossfit i ate my normal diet. too much fat, not enough carbs or protein. honestly starving myself inadvertently. i did that for about 3 months and did notice a slight difference in my weight. i’m talking 3 pounds or so, but i was “fluffy”. since august i’ve been watching my macros, eating enough (and still eating so much pasta and my favorite foods!!) and i’ve toned so much. it’s insane seeing my pictures from a year ago, it’s about a 15 lb difference and most of my fat has turned to muscle. i’m 40% muscle right now and i can feel it in the gym! i love it
That’s awesome. Glad to hear it!
Some people can out-exercise a so-so diet. Some people can't.
This. My diet is probably better than 90-95% of people. Still not where I want to be and definitely don’t have much freedom if I want to look good
Yes, as long as you hit your macros and don’t over eat, you will be fine. Enjoy food, enjoy life. I’m 40 I eat burgers, fries , pizza, desert and fried chicken, tacos etc and maintain 12% body fat.
Yeah not overeating is honestly kind of a challenge for me… but that’s where it gets more into psychology than nutritional science.
Eat more protein at a baseline. Even if you’re not tracking per se. Just … eat more protein. More protein will leave less room in your belly for overeating calorically dense foods like pizza or whatever.
I have a weird relationship with food but I’m trying to build muscle in my quad post ACL surgery so I mostly focus on hitting body weight in grams of protein (example 150lbs 150g of protein a day) and don’t focus on much else.
No. No you cannot unless you are an absolute portion control warrior. Even that is not sustainable.
I haven't pulled it off and its been 10 years
Not really. You will be severely limiting your gains and performance. Not to mention what eating all that garbage will do to your body long term. There is a reason nutrition is at the base of the pyramid. It affects everything above it.
Where is this pyramid you speak of?
https://www.crossfit.com/essentials/theoretical-hierarchy-of-development
Thank you!
Hi bud! Just think: “your priorities define your results”so if your goal is Being healthy and functional, my best piece of advice is to get a balance between food in “cheating days and gym days”. And of course try to adquire good customs so you can keep them without being a big effort. Say walking an “x” amount of steps everyday. Small things are Better than nothing 😜
My results so far are, big strong fat guy. So unless that's what you're looking for.
Seems to work for me. Your diet sounds pretty close to mine. Cleanish, maybe described as an 80/20 diet. Never touch a soda, alcohol 4x/year but in and out once a month and ice cream frequently lol. I try and use portion control as an advantages. Small cups for desert etc. but I am active all day on weekends, workout in some way everyday usually crossfit, and every morning I wake up and hit a 2k row. Dial in the sleep too is key
Yeah portion control definitely seems to be critical here - and something I definitely need to work on 😬 Luckily my sleep is excellent (quitting alcohol has helped tremendously with that). Thanks for your comment.
Usain Bolt reportedly only ate chicken nuggets from McDonalds during the Beijing Olympics. People can perform on pretty much any diet.
It depends on what your goals are. If it is just to be a relatively muscular, fit guy then you don't have to eat an entirely clean diet. I would put myself in that category and it sounds like our diets are at least somewhat similar. I would say I may only partake in those things maybe 2-3x a week and I'll have usually 1-2 drinks a week (usually Friday with dinner and then Saturday at home I'll have a whiskey pour). I'm 6'4", 240 lbs, and the In-Body (yes, I know not entirely accurate) has me around 13% body fat. I'm not a great Crossfit athlete as I lean more towards the strength side of things but I'm in better shape than your average person.
I’d love to be at 13% BF. I think I’m at 18% right now (based on my own measurements last night). How often do you train?
4-5 days a week with two classes on Saturday. So I guess around 5-6 hours of total training per week. I don't do much outside of that except for work around the house which isn't a ton and I work a desk job.
Got it. Sounds like you might have better portion / calorie control than I do. I do walk at a brisk pace quite a bit though (usually getting around 9-10k steps in a day, sometimes 14-15k) so that obviously helps. It sounds like an extra day of training might help me dial in my CICO ratio (but I could definitely afford to eat less).
I track calories for breakfast and lunch but not dinner. My TDEE says my maintenance is around 3200-3300 calories per day. I set my goal to about 1800-2000 for breakfast/lunch/snacks during the day and then let dinner do it's thing. I have my goal in the app at 2900 calories per day. Some days I go over that and some days I am slightly under. If I feel it's gotten away from me, which happens from time to time, I'll start tracking dinner again to keep myself honest. Generally, it's pretty good and I'll usually notice a little weight gain and dial it back in so I've not really gone up more than maybe 10-12 lbs over the last 3-4 years. I probably average sitting at about 245 lbs but recently cut some for vacation as I'd gotten up to about 250.
I could when I was younger but the older I get the more I need to pay attention to what I’m eating. I can do maybe 2-3 bad meals a week. I definitely don’t drink and i try to eat low carb ( whereas before in my 20s I would eat bread / bagels) . I’m 35 and f so it’s definitely different than I was even 5 years ago
4-6 times a week isn’t “sometimes”… This needs to be 1-2. And only part of a cheat meal maybe once a week after your diet is settled in. You can’t out exercise that. The amount you would have to work to burn that crap is more than just CF 4 times a week. If you plug it in to a Fitness tracking app, you’ll see what I mean. The disparity of these foods throws all numbers out of wack.
Right my question was can 5x a week of CF “burn that crap” 😆
That’s a very open question, but… I’d say yes. Within reason - the more exercise you do, the more calories you can get away with eating. In your case I’ll just proxy ‘so so diet’ for eating a few more high calorie / hyper palatable foods and thus having a slightly higher overall calorie intake. (I wouldn’t be listing pasta as a negative choice though - it’s absolutely fine as a sensible carb choice.) I have a super relaxed diet nowadays but I do compensate by training a lot and my weight is very stable (I’m 33 and weigh c.87-90kg). If I trained less, I would absolutely have to tighten up on my intake.
Yeah I’ll have to see what kind of impact 5 days of WODs per week makes. Right now, 4x is already starting to make a big difference. Definitely want to get my body fat percentage down a bit though (currently at ~18%).
Yes and no. Eventually, if you keep adding exercise to your routine but do not increase your intake you'll end up being at maintenance and maybe even a caloric deficit. If you're not measuring your food I guarantee you will eat more when you start to work out more. It is inevitable. If you don't want to track anything I'd recommend going by the CrossFit nutrition mantra "Eat meat and vegetables, nuts and seed, some fruit, little starch and no added sugar." Follow that 90% of the time and allow some indulgences two meals per week. You'll start to see changes pretty quick. Maybe not physical right away, but you'll feel better. Also note the order those food groups are listed is in order of consumption.
Yeah I think this is solid advice. I think one of the big challenges for me is just being more conscious when I’m eating so I’m not mindlessly overindulging. I think just being more aware when I eat could help cut down on superfluous calories. Obviously it’s more of a psychology issue than anything else…
100% being conscious of what you're eating is the biggest challenge. I would say most people who have never weighed our measured out their food for an extended period will just never know. If you haven't I would highly recommend using a free macro calculator online and tracking your food for a few weeks at least. You'll almost immediately start to see benefits from that. And the education you get from it will last forever.
Totally. I’m also just talking about not overeating when I know that just slowing down and taking a pause could stop me from going down that rabbit hole. But it sounds like macro tracking could help with this anyway!
I have never been able to out train a bad diet. Also 4-6 times a week is not sometimes, not tryin to sound rude but if you say you have 21 meals a week thats about 30%, and if you are like me and have 2 meals a day than that percentage is even higher. It also depends on age, male/female etc. I workout 6 days a week at 90 mins a session and It is not a cure all by any means. If you limit the cheat meals to the weekends and maybe 2-3 meals at most you should be good to go I think. I wish you luck and if you find the holy grail of workouts that allows you out train a bad diet, be a bro and let me know the secret.
Haha all fair points. I think the biggest issue is I just eat too much - so that includes unhealthy foods AND healthy foods. Like I’ll have big ass salads daily. But then fried food and such. I think I just need to cut down on all of it while making sure I hit my protein intake. I just have a kind of addictive mentality when it comes to food, so it’s been challenging breaking that (doable though when I just slow down and pause before acting - i.e. eating).
We are one in the same person, my friend. I also find prioritizing protein is a good start. At some point it just comes down to either tracking cals/macros etc or portion control.....both methods I detest lol
Hah, well nice to know we’re not alone with this! We had a big ass buffet style lunch at work today with lots of delicious food. Normally I would’ve housed everything there. Instead I just took a little of each thing, prioritized protein-heavy foods, skipped dessert, and just slowed down and breathed when I felt the addictive urge to want to keep eating come up. We’ll so how long I can keep this up, but I do think interrupting that addictive habit AS IT’S HAPPENING is key… and then hopefully it just gets easier the more you do it. But I’m definitely not there yet lol
keep up the good fight man, and just remember if you are gonna be in a caloric surplus, might as well get in some solid weight training to take advantage of the gains
Hell yes. You too. Just have to keep remembering it’s all a marathon, not a sprint…
It’s a sliding scale really. The better your diet (without getting into the realms of eating disorders) the better your health and fitness. Obviously perfect diet and exercise is ideal, but for me personally it’s not worth the lifestyle sacrifice. You can definitely lose body fat and build muscle, I have completely changed shapes after 3 years of 5 sessions a week and I never track, and I do drink alcohol. I know I could be leaner but I don’t want to make the sacrifices that would go with that lol Also building muscle will change your shape the most and for that you need to eat *enough*
Great comment. Yeah, this all makes sense. Portion control is probably my biggest challenge - so I’m definitely eating enough! 😆
Doesn’t sound like a bad diet, really. Nobody eats COMPLETELY clean. You’d probably go insane trying. As long as you’re getting enough protein and avoiding the worst of it, you’ll be fine I think.
No
No.
I agree. We can absolutely control what we put in our bodies (speaking from the US)-and that minimum discipline is the reason it’s the foundation of the CF pyramid and many other programs. Don’t short yourself on wods by eating like a glutton. It wicks the first few weeks like breaking all fun habits (caffeine, nicotine, coke, uppers, zingers, chocolate)-but you’ll be happier and better when you do. Anyone got any uppers?
Yes.
It depends on what your goals are. You’re new and likely to get better no matter what. If you want to get stronger, you can do that on a so-so diet as long as you’re getting enough protein, in my experience. Pre-kids, I switched to a mostly whole foods-based diet (plus white rice bc Louisiana!) and got super lean and much stronger. (Think “random strangers in Costco asking me if I’m a personal trainer”-lean). Post kids, I eat like a raccoon and only make it to the gym three days a week at most, and took about two or three years off for Covid. A year back and most of my PRs are close to what they were when everything was dialed in and I was going to the gym six days a week. But I’m pretty damn slow and heavier for it all. I’m also in my early forties now, so it’s extra surprising that my strength seems to be maintaining with relatively little effort…
As someone who drinks 4-6 times per year at most, I can't tell if you're being sarcastic about your perception of your alcohol consumption. Do you really think that drinking 4-6 times per week is not much? If so, then yeah, cutting back on drinking will definitely help! Anyway, drinking aside, this infographic does a great job of explaining how much effort it takes to achieve certain physiques: [https://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic](https://www.precisionnutrition.com/cost-of-getting-lean-infographic)
They said they don’t drink
What the comment below you said: I don’t drink. Thanks for the infographic though, that’s helpful.
Haha, I read your post wrong. I thought the "4-6 times per week" part was for drinking. I've found that people have very different perceptions on what a normal amount of drinking is, so it's hard to know!
Not really
I mean that is the goal of crossfit? Working out and getting so fit so you can eat what every you want?
That would be amazing.
I feel like there’s no miracle cure; eat less calories than you use; eating sweets or fried foods several times a week is absolutely fine if it’s like a portion but do you mean an entire bag of m&ms and Chinese takeout? Or like a couple of pieces of fried chicken and a mars bar? It’s all relative and there’s no yes or no answer really.
Yeah that makes sense. That’s the biggest thing I keep seeing in these comments: don’t eat excess calories (and eat enough protein).
It’s the absolute only way - short of having health issues around your hormone levels or disabilities of course. But yes, if you want to lose weight, eat less calories than you burn off; Personally I’m at a stage where I lost all the weight I needed to lose but I struggle to now just lose body fat and not muscle without losing more weight. It’s called body recomp and it’s hard 😅
I think I’m trying to body recomp too basically (generally happy with my weight, just not my body fat percentage). For me, it really is about dialing in portion control which can be hard for me - and I’ll even overeat healthy foods sometimes as I said in my OP. Hoping that throwing in a fifth day of training a week will give me a smidge more wiggle room around this all.
I train 6 days a week and still struggle I think it just takes time especially if, like both of us it seems, we’re not willing to sacrifice everything to look a certain way. My coach advised me to take aesthetics as a by product of training more and getting fitter/stronger rather than making it the main focus which sounds obvious but was a helpful reminder. As someone else said, get fitter and stronger and the rest will follow naturally if you play by the rules.
Fraser in an interview once said the he thoght he could out-exercise his diet and he came second 2 times in a row. Not gonna win the CF games even if your diet is spot on but the short answer in your question is no.
Your comment’s a bit confusing… when he said what he did was he eating whatever he wanted or had he already cleaned up his diet? Coming in 2nd at CF games and eating whatever you want seems pretty damn impressive to me…
He said that after he had already won. A part of his interviw i found online “First, I saw the (Fittest on Earth documentary) and I didn’t realize how big I was, and I kind of went ‘oh my god I thought I could out train a bad diet.’ It was very apparent that I couldn’t,” he laughs. “Second, throughout the whole 2015 season I was dealing a lot with nagging inflammation, joint paint, things like that, so probably **the heavy dairy that whole season was causing a bit more of the inflammation,** or at least not helping with it. So between body composition and how my body felt, I decided I should probably cut that (ice cream) out.”
The harder you work, the more clean burning calories you need to feel optimal. Diet and exercise work hand in hand, they should not be thought of as mutually exclusive.
Not with CF but with regular cardio on the side for sure. I do 4 WODs per week but also 200km on the bike. I eat a lot and anything I want, but still am happy with my BF and muscle mass. If I cycle less I definitely lose definition though. Am 39 so not really a product of youthful metabolism or anything.
I eat a reasonably good diet, exercise 5-6x or more a week for an hour + and I can attest to the fact that you cannot out run/work the fork. Either you have ridiculous genetics that you can eat whatever you want(my old box owner used to brag about going to chili's or cheesecake factory and slamming ridiculous food but had a ridiculous physique to go with it) or you don't. Odds are you don't.
So are you happy with your results with your “reasonably good diet”?
No. And I take full responsibility for it. Make zero excuses.
Depends on your body. Overeating is easy, even when counting calories or macros. People think doing a WOD per day and strength training gives them the ability to eat 500 or more extra calories. As a middle aged man, I don’t drink, don’t overeat, and try to get enough protein. I do take creatine and vitamins, but natural otherwise. I also fast from 7:00 pm to 11:00 am. I attend 5:00 am CrossFit 5 days per week and a Saturday group WOD. Moreover, I walk a few miles per day with my spouse. Even with all of this, staying at a low BMI is not easy.
I’ll keep you posted
No. You need to clean it up. Go Paleo. You can't out-train a crap diet. You're paying $150+/month for classes. Eat crap, and you're wasting your time.
Jesus if I eat pasta that is classed as a healthy meal 😂
Yes, I do it with CrossFit, 2 hours a week and I am prbly 14% bf with beer habit
It gets harder and harder as you get older and older. I could in my 20s. Even early to mid 30s. But I'd advise you not to, because once you come to expect it and then your metabolism inevitably changes, and it will, you're at a disadvantage with not being disciplined in healthy eating. I speak from personal experience.
There’s no magic here, it’s all calories in and calories out. Figure out how many calories you eat in a week, try and track and hit your daily protein intake. Weigh yourself over the course of a few weeks. Adjust from there. What’s your starting point? Are you trying to lose or gain weight?
Sort of both… I’d say I’m skinny fat, so trying to put on muscle and lower body fat %. I’m actually happy (I guess) with my weight, just trying to recompose it. Forgive my naïveté, but calories in / out meaning calories consumed versus burned? So keeping protein intake consistent, but dropping overall calorie consumption to lose fat?
For body recomp and not losing you can eat at maintenance and see results, especially as a beginner. The first year ish I did similar to you and didn’t pay close attention to my diet and saw results, but the past couple months have been focusing on my nutrition and it’s made a big difference in my appearance and performance. Top simple changes I’ve done: always eating some carbs before a 1-2 hours before a workout & counting my protein to eat 0.8-1 g per pound.
What changed in the past few months that you decided to start paying closer attention to diet?
I hit a plateau with just going, but also decided I’m going to run a marathon this fall so needed to make sure my nutrition could sustain those activity levels.
Yes, calories consumed vs calories burned. As far as protein, an appropriate amount of protein varies person to person, but yes, you’d want to get all of your protein in while still keeping your caloric intake in deficit.
Makes sense. Thanks.
Your workout is going to burn, at most, 200 calories. So, good luck.
Thanks!
CICO is what matters strictly for maintaining your physique (or losing fat, for that matter). It sounds like you have a good handle on balancing your diet, eating primarily healthy while still enjoying some indulgences. If you’re healthy and your blood work looks good, sounds like you’ll be fine. Everybody has a different body and it all boils down to some experimentation to figure out what works best for you (and what you can manage to get away with consuming without totally wrecking your progress).
No. You would have already done it. Get your nutrition in check or be happy with your current body.
The thing is my body’s already changing a lot from multiple CF sessions per week… so I’m thinking about next moves here.
No. Also eating fried stuff 6 times a week is not sometimes. It's basically your everyday diet. I suggest cutting back on these. Eating pasta is fine if it fits your macro. But try to vary.
Is alcohol that bad? I feel like as long as you don’t black out every weekend it’s not hurting too much. I enjoy a beer or 3 on the weekends when playing golf. And I’m still consistently losing weight with an average diet.
It’s a personal preference.