I don’t blame them – the supplements companies have been immensely successful at creating a link between their products and getting bigger and stronger, or indeed slimmer and fitter.

Many people struggle to attain their goals in the gym and don’t make the progress they have been led to expect, so the idea that you might need aids and products to help you seems intuitively right. Surely ordinary food and ordinary training can’t bring extraordinary results?

Working out exactly how to eat and how to train isn’t easy; it took me years and I’m still learning. If you don’t know what you are doing and you are not getting results, you should really think about hiring a personal trainer who does – but in the meantime, back to those protein shakes you don’t know how to use.

What is a protein shake?

First of all, understand that protein is food and a protein shake is a food product. Protein shakes are generally made from whey or casein (milk protein) or a mixture of both.

Treat a shake like you would any other food. Consider it part of your daily diet, count it in your calories. The protein in protein shakes provides exactly the same amount of energy as the protein in a piece of steak or a pot of yoghurt, which is roughly 4 kcals per gram.

That said, there are reasons that many athletes and gym goers of all shapes and sizes utilise protein shakes. Protein shakes are a tool, like belts or gloves or kettlebells. They can be used successfully to reach goals, or they can be used abominably and create more problems than before.

Your goal is to understand what protein shakes are useful for, and then decide if there’s a place for them in your grand plan.

What are protein shakes for?

While nobody needs protein shakes, they are a useful tool in some situations, relating to one’s lifestyle, type of training or body composition goals.

Convenient: many sources of protein require refrigeration or need to be cooked/prepared in some way. If you lead the sort of lifestyle where you are rushing around, or don’t have access to a fridge at work, or can’t find somewhere decent for lunch, then keeping a tub of protein handy can be very useful. The powder is stored dry so will keep for a while, and only needs water adding to it to make a shake.

Fast acting: protein shakes are fast acting, particularly whey protein; they are processed by the body more quickly than other types of protein. For this reason, they are often used post-workout in order to start the muscle building and repair process as soon as possible. For people who care about muscle building or maintenance, this is important. However, having a meal that includes protein within an hour or two of training also does the job for most of us.

Low in saturated fat: many sources of protein, such as meat, eggs and dairy products, are also high in fat. So upping one’s protein intake (for training or body composition purposes) often means upping one’s saturated fat intake. Protein shakes don’t contain much saturated fat, so for anyone concerned about saturated fat intake, protein shakes can be an advantage over other sources of protein. Of course, there are sources of protein that aren’t high in fat, such as beans and legumes, but not everyone likes them or can eat them in the sort of quantities they need.

Easy to consume: for those who are bulking or need to increase their overall calories for some reason, eating enough food can be difficult. There may be times of day (such as first thing in the morning) where you simply don’t feel like eating. Protein is particularly filling, meaning that you might eat less of it. So adding in some protein shakes can be an easy way of increasing your calories without feeling stuffed all the time. This can be particularly useful for endurance athletes, who don’t want to train with a lot of food sloshing around but need to get the calories in.

But how much protein do I need anyway?

Ay, there’s the rub. For people training on a regular basis, the usual prescription is 1-2 grams of protein per kilogram of bodyweight per day. So a 70kg person would require 70-140g of protein per day. This amount is obtainable from normal food but, for some of the reasons above, a person may get some of it from a shake.

Someone training very frequently or doing a lot of resistance training would be at the top end of that range, 1.5-2g/kg. Someone training less frequently (2-3 times a week) and not doing much resistance training would be at the bottom end of the range, 1-1.5g/kg.

It’s worth noting that our actual protein requirements are controversial: scientists can’t agree on how much protein we really need, whether athletes require more than the general population, how much protein we can utilise at one sitting and so on. This is probably why the advice is so confusing. Anyway, the prescription given above is probably more than we really need, but won’t do any harm.

There are some people who swear by a much higher protein protocol. Lyle Macdonald, for example, recommends that strength/power athletes should aim for 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight per day (about 3.3 g/kg). However, there are studies that show that the body doesn’t use extra protein. Protein that is not used is simply excreted.

Nevertheless, there is evidence – both scientific and anecdotal – that:

“diets with reduced carbohydrates and increased levels of high quality protein are effective for weight loss. These diets appear to provide a metabolic advantage during restricted energy intake that targets increased loss of body fat while reducing loss of lean tissue and stabilizing regulations of blood glucose. Initial findings support use of dietary at levels above 1.5 g/kg during weight loss.”
- Protein Quantity and Quality at Levels above the RDA Improves Adult Weight Loss, Donald K. Layman, PhD (J Am Coll Nutr December 2004 vol. 23 no. suppl 6 631S-636S)

In other words, reducing carbohydrate and replacing it with protein seems to help us burn more fat. It is also known that eating protein burns much more energy than eating carbohydrate or fat (thermic effect of food).

Any downside of protein shakes?

The main downside is that flavoured protein shakes contain sweeteners, additives and what-not. If you are concerned about sugar intake, you might prefer unflavoured protein powder. It doesn’t taste that bad, although you can mix it with something else if you like.

Some brands of protein powder also add in other things like caffeine or green tea extract for ‘fat burning’, or carbs (e.g. maltodextrin) for ‘bulking’. You may or may not want this in your protein, so check the ingredients. It is very possible to get just pure protein, especially if you shop online.

Other than unwanted additional ingredients, there’s nothing wrong with protein powder; it’s a simple enough product. Just be aware that it doesn’t contain the myriad other good things, such as vitamins and minerals, that ‘real food’ protein does, so your diet should still contain good protein sources.

So where does all that leave us?

The chances are that you can get all the protein you need from your diet, but protein shakes might be useful when lifestyle dictates that you can’t eat as well as you’d like.

If you are trying to lose fat or bodyweight, be aware that protein shakes contain calories just like anything else and need to be factored into the overall diet plan, not just added in willy-nilly. There is evidence that higher protein (and lower carbohydate) diets do help fat loss.

Most ordinary trainees, that is, people who are not professional athletes or bodybuilders, can make best use of shakes around training (particularly post training) or to replace the odd meal or snack when nutritious food is not available. For hardgainers (people who find it hard to put on muscle) trying to bulk, a couple of regular protein shakes a day can be a useful boost to daily calorie intake.

I trust you have enough information to make your decision. Personally I have used protein shakes on and off for a while and find them useful, especially when cutting or when I have a very busy work schedule. Real food still rules though!

More from Guberntrix

What should I eat?

The low-fat myth

Why muscle building should be your top priority whoever you are

Too many goals?

Mmmm, food. I love food! Talking about it, shopping for it, eating it (I am not such a fan of cooking it, but I make an effort).

I finally got around to reading Michael Pollan’s In Defence of Food: An Eater’s Manifesto, having heard snippets from it for a few years. I’ve even quoted from it in this blog, without having actually read the thing.

Well I can tell you folks, it is worth reading the book. Even if you think you know what it’s all about and what Michael Pollan’s take is (as I assumed I did). This is the sort of book I would recommend to anyone; not just foodies, fitness freaks, serial dieters or fitness professionals.

Pollan has really put his finger on the issue behind our relationship with food, our growing obesity and unhealthiness, our food neuroses and our search for solutions in the shape of fad diets or bad science.

What I really like about this book, though, is that it is easy to read. Pollan isn’t trying to make a scientific point or unveil some new discovery, so he doesn’t have to trot out study citations (you can find a study to support almost anything these days) in order to sound convincing. He’s just trying to put us back in touch with what we already know instinctively as human beings but have buried under the weight of modern conveniences.

And, refreshingly, he doesn’t scaremonger. In fact, he’s doing the opposite – reminding us that good food is good food, as it always was. Butter = lovely! Eggs = great! Red wine = good for you!

The modern hunter-gatherer

We don’t have to kill our own meat any more, or dig up our own roots (although you can if you want to), but we should be spending a lot more time hunting for the right foods and gathering from different sources – rather than going to one big supermarket and throwing it all in the trolley.

How is the food made? Where did it come from? Who owns the farm, where is the farm? Do they farm organically? How far did the food travel? What has been added to it? What were the animals fed on?

Just as a hunter might teach her son how to track animals, we must teach our children how to read labels and understand where the most healthful food can be found – whether that is at a local farmers’ market, your own garden or the organic section at the supermarket.

A better understanding of where our food comes from and under what circumstances it was made will lead us to better health, a more sustainable lifestyle and a greater sense of community from understanding the food chain.

More from gubernatrix

• What should I eat?
• Staying focused over Christmas
• The low fat myth

Don’t you wish there was just a simple list of foods you should eat, without any of the complicated stuff about macronutrient splits and what cavemen ate? Well, this is that list.

It’s a quick trot around the different types of food and some examples of each. The information applies whether you are male or female, trying to gain weight or lose it. Simply adjust quantities to suit.

Fish

Any fish is good for you. Fish is high in protein and oily fish is high in good fats as well, so you really can’t go wrong with fish. Avoid fish in batter; breadcrumbs are okay unless you are trying to lose weight. Try to buy fish that is caught sustainably or not over-fished.

Meat

Meat tends to have a higher saturated fat content than fish but you can limit the amount of fat you take in if you choose lean cuts of meat. White meat is less fatty than red meat. Meat is high in protein so is generally a good thing from a diet point of view unless you are vegetarian or environmentally conscious.

Be fussy about meat, know where it has come from – eat free range, grass-fed etc. Avoid meat that has been processed or reconstituted, e.g. chicken nuggets. There could be all kinds of crap in there!

Beans/legumes

All beans are good for you. They are a good source of protein (especially for non meat and dairy eaters) and complex carbs.

Vegetables

Any vegetables, in large quantities, with every meal (yes, even breakfast if you can). Dark green vegetables in particular are good for you (spinach, broccoli). Potatoes don’t count!! (see Starchy carbs below)

Rule of thumb: whenever you make a meal, e.g. evening meal, lunchtime salad, include three different vegetables

Starchy carbs

Otherwise known as white foods and alarmingly high in the modern diet. They are not evil but try not to over-indulge. We tend to consume more carbohydrate than we really need, so limiting it where possible is a good thing. Brown or wholegrain versions are much better for you than the refined white versions, so opt for brown rice, wholewheat pasta, wholemeal bread and so on.

Rule of thumb: have as an accompaniment rather than the main bulk of the meal. For example, don’t have a dish that is mostly pasta with a few shreds of vegetables thrown in; have the pasta on the side and make sure the meal is mostly vegetables and fish/meat.

Dairy

Dairy products are high in protein. They also contain saturated fat but if you go easy on portion sizes you will be getting good nutrition without too much saturated fat. If you want to really cut down on the fat content, stick to egg whites and skimmed milk. Try to avoid ‘fat free’ yoghurt though as it is high in sugar and additives.

Rule of thumb: great in moderation – unless you are vegetarian, then you might need more to bump up your protein intake.

Nuts, seeds

Great source of protein, good fats and complex carbs. Eat in moderation as fat content can be high – unless you are trying to gain weight.

Fruit

Everyone knows fruit is good for you. But don’t make the mistake of eating fruit instead of vegetables and think you are getting your nutrition. You should eat more vegetables than fruit.

Beware of fruit juice and smoothies if dieting – they are nutritious but also fairly high in calories for a drink. It might be better to drink water and eat an orange than to drink orange juice.

Sweet things

Honey (great to add to yoghurt, porridge etc as a sweetener)
Dark chocolate (good for you in moderation!)

Supplements

Protein supplements are a very useful source of extra protein and are surprisingly filling. However they are usually very sweet and sugary as well. Protein shakes are better than protein bars, since the sugar content of bars tends to be high. Useful for non meat-eaters of course.

Many people supplement with fish oil. This is high in the good fat, omega-3, and very useful if you don’t eat much oily fish.

Don’t consume/severely limit:

• Alcohol (useless calories)
• Foods marketed as diet foods or low fat foods (low fat = high sugar!)
• Sweets, cakes etc
• Crisps
• Chocolate (apart from high quality dark chocolate)
• Takeaway pizza, kebab, curry
• Ready meals
• Any junk food really. C’mon, you know that.

Common misunderstandings

Soup is a good diet meal. Most shop-bought soups are predominantly carbohydrate with very little protein so they won’t fill you up and don’t contribute much to your diet, nutritionally or calorie-wise. Soup is often eaten with bread and butter – again not much protein, extra carbs which you don’t need. You would be much better off with a nice big tuna salad!

Diet foods are good if you are on a diet. Although they are trumpeted as low fat or fat free, the fat is simply replaced with sugar in order to make them palatable. They are also not very filling as they tend to be full of sugary carbs and not much else.

Fruit and nut bars/flapjacks. Although these are marketed as healthy and nutritious because they contain fruit, nuts and seeds, they generally have a very high sugary content (syrup, sugar, honey etc) and lots of carbs (oats, maybe chocolate etc) so they should basically be treated as sweets/cakes. If you want the goodness of fruit and nuts, just eat actual fruit or a handful of nuts.

Fat is bad. It isn’t all bad – there are ‘good’ fats and ‘bad’ fats and we need the good fats, so don’t automatically avoid all fat. See above for foods which contain ‘good’ fats (oily fish, seeds, nuts, olives). Even a moderate amount of saturated fat (egg yolks, butter) won’t do you as much harm as having cake on a regular basis. Avoiding dietary fat often leads people into eating excessive sugar, which will make you fat.

Pasta is a healthy meal. No it isn’t. Pasta itself has little nutritional value, it’s just starchy carbohydrate. You can have good stuff in a pasta dish (e.g. vegetables, chicken) but the amount is crucial. Pasta you get in a restaurant has – in my experience – very little else but pasta (great profit margins)! If you make it at home, pile in the veggies and protein and keep the pasta portion modest (70g per person), then it can be okay.

Toast is healthy. Again, toast is mainly carbs and a bit of fibre (but if you are eating plenty of vegetables you don’t need any fibre from bread). Not much nutrition, loads of carbs. Like pasta, it can be massively improved by eating it with the right things. A protein topping (peanut butter, sardines, baked beans, cheese, eggs) can be a nutritious meal/snack. But too often toast is eaten with jam or marmalade – not good.

What’s the issue with carbs?

Most people eat too much of them and they get stored as fat. It’s the nature of the modern diet. It’s really hard to avoid carbs, they are everywhere. So actively limiting them results not in low carb but in moderate carb.

Don’t forget that vegetables and fruit are excellent sources of carbohydrate. So you don’t need too much from other sources like bread, rice etc unless you are an endurance athlete with special nutritional needs.

If you focus on eating more protein, you naturally end up eating fewer carbs, because the protein makes you feel fuller and therefore less likely to fill the gap with carbs.

Women are unlucky because many more high carb foods are marketed specifically to women. Pasta, ‘diet’ snack bars, cakes, chocolate and so on are all targeted at women. So we need to be extra vigilant!

Classic example of what not to eat: Pizza Express has recently introduced a pizza with the middle cut out which they are marketing to women as a ‘healthy’ pizza. It is no such thing. It is just a pizza that is a bit smaller and has a side salad. It’s still full of saturated fat, salt and white carbs. Do have one if you want to, but please don’t kid yourself that there’s anything healthy about it. It’s like having half a cake instead of a whole cake – it’s still a cake.

And by the way, the same applies to that ‘skinny muffin’ – in fact anything labelled ‘skinny’ that is clearly a cake.

So…what should I eat again?

Food that you make yourself (so you know exactly what’s gone in it). Food that your great grandmother would recognise as food (so that doesn’t include pop tarts). Food that looks fresh, smells nice, looks like someone grew it or farmed it or plucked it out of the ocean.

If you want a cake on the odd occasion, have a cake. It’s only a problem if you have cake every day. Kidding yourself that it is ok to have one every day for breakfast because some clever marketing person labelled it ‘skinny’ is just asking for trouble.

Need a bit of inspiration? England rugby player Riki Fluety on his 30th birthday apparently had a chicken breast with a candle in it instead of a cake. There’s dedication for you!

More from Gubernatrix

Dieting rules of thumb
Staying focussed over Christmas
What’s your food personality?

A reader suggested I write about staying focused over Christmas. It’s a great idea and so I shall.

At this time of year there will doubtless be many magazine articles suggesting ways in which you can navigate the demands of the festive season, ‘survive’ the office Christmas party and all that nonsense.

My take is different: I say sod all that, why should Christmas be any different from the rest of the year?

It’s basically a big, fat excuse to be lazy about your health because you’ve got more shopping to do than normal. If you see Christmas as an opportunity to let it all hang out, you probably need to re-examine your motivations for better health and fitness.

Dan John tells a harsh story about a woman who was on a diet and in the last few days of her diet she said she was looking through cookbooks, presumably planning all the indulgent meals she was going to have once her diet was finished. As Dan says, “she failed”. Because what’s going to happen the day after she ‘finishes’ her diet? Or the month after? Or six months later?

If you’re looking forward to Christmas as a time to eat, drink and be merry excessively before knee-jerking into detox mode in January, then you’ve failed.

The ideal situation is to evolve a diet and training regime that can take the odd indulgent meal or party in its stride, and cope with the demands of family life, especially around holiday times. If you really can’t keep strictly to your usual routine – and I realise we all have people in our lives who simply don’t get this concept – then here are some things to think about:

Short, sharp workouts

Have some short, intense workouts ready that can be done in 10 or 15 minutes a day. If you can’t find 10 or 15 minutes a few times a week, you’re just not trying hard enough.

Burpees with a push up really get my heart rate going, so any routine incorporating burpees works a treat. Mix them up with push ups, air squats, swings with a kettlebell or dumbbell if you have them, some kind of overhead press and you’ve got a great circuit. Do 15-20 of each as many times as you can in 10 minutes. Or make up your own combination.

More workouts from gubernatrix:

• Bodyweight or bust!
• Deck of cards
• Workouts using a gymboss interval timer
• Quick and dirty push ups

Be inventive

You don’t have to have a kettlebell or a dumbbell. An overhead press with a bag of compost or something else from the shed (nothing sharp, people!) works just fine. Go crazy and make it a clean and press. Then add in some windmills or turkish get ups – which again can be done with many different implements if you haven’t asked Santa for a kettlebell this year.

Christmas parties/drinks

I’m not about to preach to anyone about alcohol but if you are serious about your health, diet and training, you gotta keep a lid on the drinking. Really. There’s no way around it. Drinking is detrimental to athletic performance, fat loss, muscle building, recovery – you name it.

It’s your choice how many times you drink but Christmas should not be an excuse for guzzling more alcohol than you do the rest of the year. I meet plenty of people who say that they are ‘not prepared to give up’ their drinking, or most of it. That’s fine, but they will find it much more difficult to achieve their health and fitness goals than those who do.

Get outside

I always go for a run on Christmas day before lunch. Not because I’m a huge running fan but because getting out in the fresh air on a national holiday is just nice. People smile more, the kids are excited. It freshens you up before lunch. If you can’t get out on Christmas day, Boxing day is always a good option. It’s generally the day when everyone gets up off their arses and goes out with the family, so make it an active one!

Start healthy Christmas traditions

My Christmas day workout/run has been a part of my Christmas tradition for a few years now and when I have kids, this will be part of our family tradition too.

It could also be a great way to keep the kids entertained after they have broken all their new toys. ‘Honey can you bench press the kids while I’m putting the roast on?’

In the UK countless families have evolved a ‘tradition’ of huge, belt-popping meal, followed by falling asleep in front of the Queen’s speech, followed by heading to the pub if they haven’t already passed out. Don’t let this be you!

Have a goal for the festive season

It’s easy to let goals lapse over the festive season. We tend, sometimes subconsciously, to plan for December to be something of a black hole where normal routines are concerned, knowing that we can ‘start again’ in January.

Be different this year. Have a plan that starts now and takes you right through the festive season. This will keep you on track better than that nagging voice telling you that you need to do ‘something’ to stave off disaster.

Have a goal for mid January, whether its fat loss or skill based or an increase in your lifts. You can achieve a lot in a month.

Need a bit more help to stay focused? Want a new toy?

A goal to be ready for your goals?

If you’ve let things slide recently, how about having an interim goal to be in shape for purusing your longer term goals?

So instead of starting off your new programme in January feeling fat and unfit, start it feeling reasonably good and ready for more. If you want to drop fat next year, perhaps have an interim goal to maintain over the Christmas period. If you want to improve your lifts, have an interim goal to work on some of your weaknesses in preparation. If you don’t want to push the heavy weights, use these few weeks to learn/improve a skill – the olympic lifts or leverage clubs perhaps.

I’m planning something along these lines myself. I’m refining my diet to get it in shape for the new year (I find it’s useful to ‘practise’ a new diet before getting into it properly), I’m getting in some practise on key skills that I want to develop in 2010 and getting outside for some short sharp workouts. Perfect!

What are your experiences of getting through the festive season unscathed?

That said, we might also harbour a notion of a corporeal geometry, a desired shape or look that bespeaks the things we want to project about ourselves.

Looks are important for two reasons, neither of which need have anything to do with vanity:

1. They are part of how we present ourselves to the world
2. They are often the first sign that something might be awry

It might seem noble not to care at all what you look like to other people, but turning up to someone’s wedding, for example, unwashed, unkempt, in your oldest jeans might be disrespectful to your hosts. So, on some level it does matter what you look like.

Likewise if you notice you are gaining a little extra podge, this might be a useful signal that you’ve let your discipline falter on your diet.

The great thing about training is that if you do it right (and that includes the recovery and eating part too), you’ll look better. But often it is helpful to have the visual signal to tell you how well you are doing…or not.

Body composition

Being sensitive to changes in your body, whether or not they are easily visible, is important in measuring and understanding progress. It’s not as simple as picking a number.

Take me, for example. I am stronger, fitter and hotter than I was ten years ago. As it happens, though, I am heavier in terms of scale weight and my body shape is different (hips are smaller, shoulders are bigger).

So if I’d said to myself back then that I wanted to be x weight and fit into x dress, I would have needed to take a different path. Frankly I probably wouldn’t look as good – and I probably wouldn’t be as strong, fit or happy about my physicality.

In other words, rather than picking a number, I just got on with it (“it” being getting fitter and slimmer) and used the changes I saw in the mirror as feedback with which to refine my tactics.

For me, visual feedback worked and it taught me a lot about body composition along the way. How did I truly comprehend, for example, that adding muscle mass actually makes it easier to lose fat? Because I saw the results in the mirror.

Visual indicators

I remember the first time my abs starting showing. I hadn’t been aiming for this as a goal and it took me by surprise. I’d been working hard (I was doing a lot of break dancing at the time) and counting my calories and suddenly there they were. So then I had a marker for what it takes to get to that point.

I’ve got a similar marker with diet. I wonder if any of you experience this? I can draw a conceptual line, a meridian if you like, where on one side I’m happy with the way I look and on the other side I am dissatisfied.

This meridian isn’t in an unhealthy place; it’s a place where my weight is normal and my dress size is normal for my height. It’s even in a place where several bits of me aren’t exactly how I’d choose but I gave up those battles long ago.

This meridian denotes a place where I feel happy enough to walk tall, to dress up if I choose, not feel inadequate in social situations, smile, laugh and generally be relaxed in my own skin.

Staying on the right side of the meridian isn’t difficult but it does take some concentration and discipline. It requires the embedding of good habits to maintain.

Do you know what you need to do to stay on the right side of that meridian, without taking it to an unhealthy extreme? Do you know what your diet and training look like to keep you there?

Body image

There are obvious dangers to relying on visuals to tell you about yourself. People who become unhealthily obsessed with body image can end up with eating disorders or body dysmorphia.

There are some people who end up on the extreme side of the issue, like there are some people who exceed the speed limit, or train to exhaustion. There has even been a new disorder coined, orthorexia, for people who are obsessed with eating healthy food.

Obsessive-compulsive behaviour is rarely healthy, whether it manifests itself in how we eat or not stepping on the cracks in the pavement.

But a healthy interest in how we look can alert us to issues that might turn into health problems later. If my dad had been more concerned about his weight earlier in life, he might still be here instead of shuffling off this mortal coil at the age of sixty.

Grace

So how do we do it? How do we maintain a healthy relationship between our bodies and our psyche? Something written by Dr Steve Bratman, who coined the term ‘orthorexia’, caught my eye:

Orthorexia begins, innocently enough, as a desire to overcome chronic illness or to improve general health. But because it requires considerable willpower to adopt a diet that differs radically from the food habits of childhood and the surrounding culture, few accomplish the change gracefully [my emphasis]. Most must resort to an iron self-discipline bolstered by a hefty dose of superiority over those who eat junk food. Over time, what to eat, how much, and the consequences of dietary indiscretion come to occupy a greater and greater proportion of the orthorexic’s day.

That notion of accomplishing it gracefully is an interesting one. Whether it is health, body image, athletic performance or something else that motivates people to start paying attention to diet and training, if you go at it desperately, violently, guiltily or angrily, you might well become unhealthily obsessed or at least piss everyone else off in the process.

To follow the path with grace means both to accept yourself now and the better you that you want to become. We need to have patience with those around us who don’t understand what we’re trying to do and try to explain our actions while not imposing our views.

We need to be fair to ourselves too: it’s tempting to beat yourself around the head when you screw up, but that doesn’t seem to help in the long run although it relieves a bit of frustration at the time.

There’s also a need to accept the learning process. You probably won’t get it right first time and there’s no reason why you must. What else comes that easily in life? So learn, use feedback, keep an open mind and try things out. Over time you find out what works for you, and those things gradually become habits and are embedded into your life.

More from gubernatrix

• How to be a better version of yourself
• Is it really about looks?
• What’s your food personality?

Inspiration and motivation in neat little packages!

• A philosophy of strength training – Lecture DVD by Dan John
• Strength Rituals – Training methods and movement philosophy DVD from Bodytribe
• Everything’s over my head – Training methods DVD by Dan John

I have just taken part in a Myers-Briggs exercise at work (INTJ in case you were wondering) and this got me thinking about how my personality dictates my approach to exercise and dieting – particularly dieting.

For those who aren’t familiar with it, Myers-Briggs is a system for identifying your personality type, based on the work of Carl Jung. A simple test (free version here) establishes your four-letter type. There are sixteen types altogether and you can read a pretty good explanation of the types here.

Personality in dieting

Nutritionists or psychologists out there will be able to say much more about this topic than I can but it is clear even to a lay person like me that there is much more to food and eating than just fuelling up.

The aptly-named Donna Fish, a social worker specialising in eating issues, explains:

“Just like we have different temperamental traits, genetic endowment with body type, different hair and eye color, we can have different ‘food personalties’. Some of us like to eat small meals all day long, some of us can go for hours without eating. Some of us hate to eat breakfast despite hearing that it is the most important meal of the day, and some can’t stop eating past dinnertime.”

We have an emotional relationship with food that starts with how we obtain it (from growing your own to purchasing habits and food choices) to how, when and why we eat (body composition goals, eating disorders, social rituals) and how we deal with the consequences of this process.

I believe that your personality type dictates to a large extent which dieting strategies will work best for you. Roberta Schwartz Wennik has written a book on this very topic, Your Personality Prescription, which I haven’t read but the idea makes perfect sense to me. I can see for example how calorie counting could appeal very well to certain personalities but put other people off completely. In the latter category it is not because these people are too lazy or uncommitted to count calories, it is more that their personality doesn’t respond well to that strategy.

Types of dieters

I am sure there are many official ways of categorising dieters but I have my own classification of types based on years of observation, particularly in the office environment! How many of these do you recognise?

The Planner
Plans meals, counts calories, takes a very organised approach to dieting. Can be quite self critical and if motivation is lost or a slip up is made, it can all go wrong very quickly. This type of person has an emotional relationship with food and is trying to control it by being very organised. Develops good knowledge about nutrition but can become a bit of a diet bore, obsessed with macronutrient splits and so on. Can also be rather intolerant of other types of dieters, believing that their way is the most effective.

The Disciple
Likes to follow a diet that has been planned out for them to the last detail. Has a tendency to believe that they have found the One True Way and follow it with almost religious fervour, proselytising to friends about their amazing discovery. Often successful because they are able to follow the diet to the letter, have good discipline and are not easily distracted.

The Special K dieter
Often a comfort eater like the Planner but tries to control it through a punishment-reward system rather than by a plan, for instance by not eating for hours and then ‘rewarding’ themselves with a slice of cake. Not often successful in the long term because they will not fundamentally change their approach or behaviour. Will tend to seek solutions that don’t require them to take responsibility, such eating foods advertised as healthy or low fat without trying to find out for themselves. Vulnerable to advertising, celeb or fad diets.

The Laid Back dieter
Will make simple modifications such as cutting down on junk food and alcohol, getting their 5-a-day and so on, but won’t follow a strict diet. They respond well to a few simple rules or guidelines which don’t require much preparation or time. This tactic can sometimes deliver the results they want, especially if they are quite active, not too overweight and not too bothered about looking buff. This easygoing type doesn’t have a particularly emotional relationship with food and sometimes has trouble understanding those who have. Can be rather dismissive of people who take dieting more seriously.

The Eco Eater
Sustainable, organic, free range: the eco eater likes to be ahead of the crowd where moral and political issues are concerned. Thinks about the wider ramifications of diet and food but can sometimes be smug about it. Somewhat ascetic, this dieter finds it relatively easy to avoid over indulgence and is attracted by vegetarianism or veganism. Most other diet types find them a bit irritating but a lot of this is jealousy!

You can take all of those with a pinch of salt – I realise that there are some sweeping generalisations in there. I actually slot into one of those types myself (I’m pretty sure you can guess which one) and I come across many of these on the internet and in real life.

How does your personality affect the way you eat? Have you found your ideal dieting strategy? Are you one of these types?

More like this:

• Zone diet episode 1
• Dieting rules of thumb
• Good habits
• How do workouts make you feel?
• Donna Fish – eating styles (for kids but relevant to adults)

And the usual reaction from others is, ‘oh life’s too short to count calories/give up alcohol/not go out’.

I must admit that occasionally I start feeling this way. My training generally goes well and I really enjoy it but it is the lifestyle factors that let me down. For instance I find it very hard to stick to eating plans and I often don’t get enough sleep.

But anything worth having involves some kind of sacrifice. Many people who are not professional athletes achieve incredible things through hard work and sacrifice. I don’t want to be a professional athlete but I do want to achieve things that relatively few others can. So if that is the case, life’s too short not to make the effort.

There are actually many people who are prepared to put great efforts in. All the people who finish Ironman triathlons, for example, even the many thousands who run a marathon. So if you want to achieve something extraordinary, you need to work even harder than these people! It’s a good plan to assume that there’s always someone working harder than you, and inevitably that person will have a full time job, a family, all the usual challenges but will overcome them. Life’s too short not to.
 
The trick is to remember this at every moment where you have a choice to make. When someone offers you a muffin, or another pint or when there’s a good film on. These everyday, mundane issues are the ones that can make or break your effort. It’s not difficult for me to work hard during a training session. I love them, it’s great fun. For me, the challenge is to apply the same effort to the rest of my life, control the diet, the alcohol, the sleep – those details that can make the difference between a good result and a great one.

Whichever diet you are on, whether it is one you have devised yourself or one from a book, there are quite a few things you can do to increase your chances of success.

I call them rules of thumb because they are:

- not specific to any one diet;

- easy to remember;

- things that you can turn into habits not just something you do for 2 weeks before your summer holiday.

I’ve tried all of these while dieting and find them really helpful. I believe it is these small things that make the difference between making your calorie target and not.

Rule 1: Don’t give up what you like completely.

It’ll make you feel very virtuous for about five minutes but after that you’ll feel miserable and resentful and start sneaking behind your own back to get some. You want to eat better for the rest of your life, not just see how long you can go without your favourite thing.

Rule 2: If you don’t buy it, you can’t eat it.

It’s easy to fall into the trap of “I’ll buy that huge bar of chocolate but make it last a month”. Three-time World Ironman Champion Peter Reid takes this rule to extremes: always keen to be as light as possible for his endurance event, when dieting he would literally only buy enough food for one meal at a time. So there was never anything in the fridge, never anything in the cupboards to tempt him.

Rule 3: Out of sight, out of mind.

Food has a very strong visual attraction and the mere sight of food can make us want to eat. I suffer from this one in particular. Simply catching sight of a tin of biscuits makes me want to have some. So I put food away in cupboards out of sight. Buffets are a nightmare because everything is laid out in front of you. You just have to be prepared and exercise some self control.

Rule 4: Stay hydrated.

Often when you think you are hungry, you are actually just a bit thirsty. Have a drink of water or a cup of tea first and see if that deals with the hungry feeling.

Rule 5: Take your own lunch to work.

It is normally the meal we have the least control over because we are not at home. It’s also the meal that British people in particular seem to be most careless about. We rush out and grab something random from the nearest sandwich shop (or Cornish pasty shop, where I live!) without thinking about what’s in it. Making your own lunch gives you complete control over how many calories goes into it and you also save a lot of money each week. Bonus!

Rule 6: Distract yourself.

A lot of people (me included!) eat when they are bored or doing something very passive like watching TV. So avoid this situation by getting involved in other things. Now’s the time to take up that new hobby or pastime that will get you out of the house (and away from the biscuit tin).

Rule 7: Have smaller portions.

Rather than denying yourself all the foods you like, just have less of them. The only thing you don’t have to have smaller portions of is vegetables. In fact, you can use these to fill you up. It really works, especially if you eat most or all of the vegetables before you eat the other elements of the meal.

Rule 8: Go to bed early.

It is a great way to avoid late night snacking – plus your body will benefit enormously from the extra rest. Another good trick to avoid eating late at night is to brush your teeth after you have had your evening meal. This makes you feel a lot less like eating. Oh, and don’t have a blog either – it will keep you up till all hours!!

Rule 9: Count your calories.

This is the safest way to diet. If you religiously count everything you eat, you know for a fact that the ginger biscuit you want to have with your tea is going to take you over your target for the day. If you don’t know this, it is all too easy to think, “It’s only a little biscuit, it won’t matter”. But if you did that every day for a week, the calories would mount up. By the same token, you don’t want to undereat because you’ll just get tired and grumpy and eventually want to give up the diet. Eating as little as possible is not the way forward.

Rule 10: Avoid marketed ‘diet’ foods.

They are expensive, not very nice and they generally don’t work. What you need is proper food, just less of it. You need to make better food choices and have a grasp of the calorie and nutrient content of foods. Diet foods take that ability away from you. They also use all sort of synthetic methods to replicate the taste and sensation of high-calorie foods, rather than getting your palate used to the clean, fresh taste of healthy food.

Whichever diet you are following, these simple rules can be applied. But the most important advice is to take an interest in food and learn about its nutritional value. Dieting is only difficult when we don’t know what to look for, and this is precisely the confusion that companies exploit when they claim to produce food products that will help you diet. Find out for yourself and you won’t need them.

Read more

The low-fat myth
Myths about food
Zone diet: episode 1

Anyone who has delved into current theories of nutrition has probably heard that the low-fat obsession of the last few decades has largely proved unhealthy and damaging.

The new culprit in today’s western diet is carbohydrate – more specifically, high glycemic index carbohydrate.

Of course, if you do have an inkling of any of this, you are much more informed than the average punter. You’ve either spent some time finding out, or you’ve been lucky enough to come into contact with someone who has given you good information.

And anyone who has tried to follow an eating plan based on this new thinking about the low-fat myth has probably been subjected to at best, puzzlement and at worst, ridicule and anger.

That’s because the vast majority of people still fervently believe that low-fat diets are the key to good health and weight control. A friend commented recently on a forum:

“I’m known at work for eating strange things at lunch. Yes, chicken breast, broccoli and cauliflower constitutes strange in my office where as the salesman who sits at his desk eating supernoodles on toast is considered normal.”

This  struck a chord with me: in my workplace at lunchtime you can’t move for all the supernoodles, pasta, fruit and toast!

Why are low-fat diets unsuccessful?

“A low-fat diet is, by definition, a high-carbohydrate diet”
- Gary Taubes, author of Good Calories, Bad Calories

Low-fat diets are often unsuccessful in the long run because to replace the dietary fat, people eat more carbohydrate – often highly processed, sugary carbohydrate – which causes an insulin response resulting in excess carbohydrate being stored as fat. In the long term, this excessive insulin response can also lead to diseases like Type II Diabetes.

Low-fat diets also tend to be lower in protein because many protein sources are also fat sources – meat, fish, eggs, butter and so on – and in avoiding those fat sources, protein is also lost from the diet.

Protein is vital for muscle building and cell repair. Protein, together with fat, also makes it easier to cope with a calorie-restricted diet as it is filling enough to assuage hunger for several hours.

So a low-fat diet can often be a low-protein, high-carb diet. Not a healthy combination, especially for those interested in optimal health and body composition.

But aren’t low-carb diets just as bad?

Low-anything diets are not optimal or sustainable in the long term. But there’s a difference between low-carb and reasonable-carb.

In addition, not all carbs are created equal. Carbohydrates with a high glycemic index (highly processed or sugary carbs) cause a spike in blood sugar which results in a high insulin response but a correspondingly greater fall in blood sugar not long afterwards. Not only does this make you hungry again a short time after you have eaten, but the excess sugars consumed are being stored as fat.

A lot of food that people perceive as ‘healthy’, such as pasta, rice and fruit juice, can cause this blood sugar spike. The healthiest source of carbohydrate is plants: fruit, vegetables, seeds, beans. Some fruit does have a high glycemic index but the nutritional value you get from the fruit in the form of vitamins is worth the small amount of fructose absorbed!

“Eat food. Not too much. Mostly plants.”
- Michael Pollan, author of In Defense of Food

Photo by tobo

Vested interests

It is clear that there is a lot of confusion about ideal nutrition and has been for decades. And when you think about it, this leaves plenty of scope for vested interests to get involved in what people are advised to eat.

It is important to talk about these in the context of diets and food, as today’s revelations may well be tomorrow’s deceptions.

The carb pushers

During the late 20th century, food became more and more productized, convenient and cheap. Having convinced consumers that buying a food product was better than buying actual food, the food industry was well-placed to exploit any attempt by the authorities to get people to eat a certain way, by simply producing a food product that appeared to do the job.

“When the federal government began pushing low-fat diets, the scientists and administrators, and virtually everyone else involved, hoped that Americans would replace fat calories with fruits and vegetables and legumes, but it didn’t happen. If nothing else, economics worked against it. The food industry has little incentive to advertise nonproprietary items: broccoli, for instance. Instead…the great bulk of the $30-billion-plus spent yearly on food advertising goes to selling carbohydrates in the guise of fast food, sodas, snacks, and candy bars. And carbohydrates are all too often what Americans eat.”
- Gary Taubes, The Soft Science of Dietary Fat

The food industry has benefited massively from the growth in junk food consumption and – just when it seemed latterly that junk food consumption might decline – the explosion in low-fat diet products.

What’s the betting that a cornucopia of low-carb products will be coming soon to a supermarket near you? They have been pushed in the fitness and supplements industry for years but have yet to take over the shelves of the local grocery store.

The protein military complex

Otherwise known as the meat and dairy industry (thanks to Physical Subculture for the nomenclature!). If you think the carbs and cereals industry are the only baddies, think again.

“The American Heart Association realized early on that saturated fat was something that raised blood cholesterol levels…Then the advice was to eat less of the sources of saturated fat. And then you were in political trouble, because the main sources of saturated fat in American diets are meat and dairy products, and meat and dairy products have huge lobbies that don’t like the American government or heart association or any health agency telling the American public that American animal food commodities are bad for health.”
-    Marion Nestle, from an interview in 2003

A recent diet promoted in Australia has come under fire because it was funded by the meat industry and has protein at the centre of the eating strategy. A critic of the diet, Dr Rosemary Stanton, points out

“It encourages this total preoccupation with protein or carbohydrates, with nutrients rather than food.”

I think that is a very useful concept to dwell on in conclusion: food not nutrients. While I don’t wish to sound too folksy (as the nutrient debate interests me), it certainly helps to take food at face value. A lot of the carbohydrate and fat in our foods is hidden in processed or productized food trumpeted as ‘healthy’ in the marketing material. But when you’re talking about broccoli or strawberries or chicken, you don’t have to worry about the ingredients list.

We can never be sure exactly what has gone into our food unless we grow or raise it ourselves, but taking an active interest in the debate is the best way to progress. People who sit back and say, “I just want to be told what to eat” are, in this politicised age, just asking to be lied to.

Sure as eggs is eggs.

Further reading

Sickly sweet – an overview of sugar, insulin and the glycemic index

What if it’s all been a big fat lie? – Gary Taubes’ controversial article in the New York Times

Frontline interview with Marion Nestle, author of Food Politics: How the Food Industry Influences Nutrition and Health

Why I’m a High Carb Girl – the value and benefits of plant and legume carbohydrates by a vegan nutritionist

10 foods you probably think are healthy but aren’t – from Stronglifts.com

I have rarely used them up till now as I have been unconvinced of the need for supplements for myself.  I reckon I eat a pretty healthy, balanced diet. Even if there has been a bit too much of the bad stuff in the past, there’s also been a lot of good stuff. I don’t see people dropping dead because they didn’t pop a vitamin pill and I am naturally sceptical of anything that claims to be ‘good for you’. After all, haven’t unscrupulous people been peddling tonics and potions for centuries?

However, plenty of people disagree with this take! In some circles, supplements are pretty much standard practice. I’m not talking about naïve trainees who will simply stuff anything down their throats if its got a picture of a six pack on the bottle, but people who have exercised some discernment and come to the conclusion that there are things that they feel they are not getting, or not getting enough of from their food.

As I’ve recently overhauled my eating, I have been thinking about the whole supplements issue and I am even considering using a protein supplement.

So what are your thoughts on the issue? Do you use supplements? Why do you think you need them? What benefits do you get from them?