I’ve dieted in the past, and while I kept to “healthy” foods, I still had trouble with adherence. Back then, I created a (mental) list of foods that I must avoid to prevent me from blowing my diet.

These were 10 of those foods:

1. Nuts – Pure Calorie Bombs
2. Nut butters – peanut butter, almond butter, whatever, contains “butter” I’m not eating
3. Breads – white bread, wholemeal bread, rye, pumpernickel, it’s out
4. Full Fat Yogurt and Ice Cream – takes 10 seconds to down a scoop
5. Eggs – I could literally swallow these in seconds
6. Fatty Meat – same as eggs
7. Rice – Used to down bowls of this as a fat teenager; too easy to overeat
8. Fatty Sauces/Dressings – Mayo gives you heart attacks
9. Cereals – don’t get me started
10. Oatmeal - I dunno why this never really satisfied me, but I kept it there because it was supposed to be “power food”

So many “healthy” foods were foods that didn’t really satisfy me, and yet I kept them in my diet because so many people said they were great dieting foods. I failed to recognise that the best diet is one that you can stick to. The corrollary is that the best dieting foods for me were foods that I could eat and feel satisfied afterward.

But where could I start? I was entrenched in all that bodybuilding dogma (bullshit) and didn’t DARE to venture out. Long story short, I finally got fed up, and searched for an alternative. That’s when I found Martin Berkhan’s leangains system.

That wasn’t the be all end all solution though, it simply gave me the mental clarity to ask myself the right question. It was then that I proceeded on the long path of experimentation to find the foods that I liked.

Back then, I knew couldn’t stand fatty foods and craved carbohydrates. Still, some forms of carbohydrates (listed above) are simply trigger foods for me. On the other hand, I do find full-cream milk to be particularly satisfying.

We can argue all day about how this is affected by insulin sensitivity and a whole host of factors, but the sure-fire way is to dive in, try something, and note your response. You won’t get anywhere without being willing to ask yourself these questions, and then really diving in and tasting it (literally).

Over time, I developed a sense of the foods that I could live with in the long term. That list includes things like fresh fruit, potatoes, lean meats, corn cakes etc. But for someone else, that list may contain full fat dairy, nuts and the like. With total caloric content being equal and protein requirements settled, it really is a matter of taste.

With all that said and done, you can now take your list of foods you hate, and your list of foods you love, and slowly work your way to that happy middle ground.

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Scale weight is simply that – the weight that you see when you step on a weighing scale.

TV shows like ‘The Biggest Loser’ have shown that we’re obsessed with scale weight. As such, many people who embark on a diet use scale weight as the defining factor of reaching their goals.

That’s good, since it’s a goal that can be objectively measured. That’s fine so long as we behave rationally, but do we?

The problem is of course, that many people let their progress on a weight loss (or weight gain) diet be defined solely by the scale. They get elated when the scale drops by a pound, and then feel depressed when the pound is gained back the next day.

This is due to the changes in water balance in the body. Basically, the amount of water you’re holding in the body at any time is regulated by various hormones, which respond to various actions. Eg: eating more sodium (salt) than usual leads to more water being held to maintain cell water potential – water retention.

Hence the first step is to recognise that such weight fluctuations do occur.

The next step is to recognise just how big these fluctuations can be. After a binge, it’s not uncommon for a 70kg individual to be up by 4kg (9lbs) the next morning. If you think about it, that’s probably 2-3kg added food in the gut and then add some water retention to go along with it. Even with normal eating, it’s relatively easy to gain 2lbs overnight.

But who the hell thinks when they step on the scale. Despite the fact that we intellectually know that water fluctuations will occur, it’s hard not to feel disheartened by an overnight 2lbs gain on the scale. Sure, you tell yourself, “It’s just random water fluctuations”, but you could just as easily say, “Could I some of that weight (0.5lbs) really have been fat?”

In other words:

So what’s the solution? Don’t weigh yourself at all?

That’s not optimal since there is useful data to be gained from tracking weight. In fact, the more often you weigh yourself, the more data points you have, and the clearer a picture you can get about fat loss patterns.

In practice though, we don’t need to weigh ourselves that often. For most people, a once a week weigh-in will suffice. Just make sure that it’s under the same conditions. Eg: Monday morning right after going to the bathroom.

Still, this makes some people fret like crazy. “What if I don’t make my goal weight? Do I really have to wait a whole other week to see results?”

Two solutions come to mind at this point. First, Shut up and stop worrying. Second, let someone else do the worrying for you; entrust your diet and gauging of progress to someone else you trust.

For some strange reason, the latter option makes it easier for a lot of people to “let go” and let the body do its work. I guess it’s a by-product of our evolutionary success; the ability to cooperate and assist one-another in organised societies. Exploit it.

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Basically, it’s not the healthiest route forward. Regardless of whether you’re an athlete or an office worker, going vegetarian isn’t the smartest thing to do.

It’s Hard to Get Enough Protein

Protein has many benefits which I talked about in the recent article ‘How Much protein should you eat?‘. Unfortunately, getting enough protein from non-meat sources isn’t as easy. While foods like beans, milk and nuts do contain protein, their protein density is just too low.

For example, getting 20g of protein from chicken means eating 100g of chicken breasts, about 110kcal. Getting 20g of protein from milk means drinking 3 glasses of skim milk (300kcal), and getting that same amount of protein from kidney beans means eating 100g of dry beans (300kcal).

People just can’t eat enough food to hit a protein intake that is beneficial for health and fitness goals. Of course, some people are not interested in such goals. Others manage to get their protein through whey/rice/soy protein shakes. That’s fine, but…

You are bound to be missing out on some nutrients

Let’s talk about milk.

For some strange reasons, milk seems to be a nice aid in weight loss. It also seems that calcium from dairy is absorbed better for whatever reason.

Furthermore, milk seems to be a great post workout beverage. Interestingly, whole milk, despite it’s greater fat and lower protein, showed in this study to increase muscle protein synthesis even more so than skim or light milk.

The thing is, no one knows why milk does these things. Researchers can only speculate – Could it be that the proteins interact with calcium is a funny way? Could fat actually help amino acid delivery?

We presently can’t make a list of every single possible nutrient found in milk or in any other food. Of those nutrients that we do know about, the way they interact with each other in different foods continues to leave researchers perplexed.

The bottom line is: We can’t imitate nature; Food seems to be the best delivery mechanism for nutrients

What this means to vegetarianism

By cutting out meat entirely, you’re missing out on a certain class of nutrients that can potentially be beneficial for health.

Most Centenarians are not vegetarians

Whether it be the occasional fish in the Okinawan Diet, or the fine italian meats that the Sardinians enjoy weekly, the diets of the longest-lived people are not vegetarian.

Yes, they eat eat mostly plants, but that doesn’t imply that they don’t eat meat. Similarly, eating meat doesn’t imply being a friend of the abattoir.

On the Topic of Ethics

On a similar note, being against vegetarianism because of it’s nutritional downsides doesn’t mean that I’m an explicit supporter of the means used in “harvesting” animals for food.

I, like everyone else, have to weigh the relative value of my personal ethical values and nutritional needs, along with the power I have to control each domain, and come to a personal conclusion.

So yes, I admit to implicitly encouraging the culling of animals for food just so I can fulfil my nutritional needs. Like everything else in life, look at the costs and the benefits, and make a call without ever looking back with regret.

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Athletes are known to put strong emphasis on consuming dietary proteins. Lyle McDonald does a great post on how much protein athletes need.

That begs the question: What about everyone else?

Protein is one of the most important nutrients in the body, yet the general populus doesn’t seem to care about it. Here’s what their missing out on.

The Benefits

- It is the most satiating nutrient

Research has time and time again shown that people feel the most “full” and “satisfied” after eating a high protein meal.

- It spares lean muscle mass

Eating enough protein means that your body doesn’t need to derive it’s own source of protein; your muscles. Martin Berkhan believes in a high protein intake to maintain a ridiculously low body fat. For dieters, ensurring adequate protein ensures that what you’re exercising and dieting to burn off is fat and not muscle. For muscle heads, protein is going to ensure that your muscles have the building blocks to grow off.

- It supports immune function

Eating adequate dietary protein generally has a positive correlation with immune function. Interestingly, carrying around some added muscle seems to have a positive effect as well.

- It’s good for you okay!

How to do get these Benefits of which you speak?

Simple, eat enough high quality protein. Meats, fish, dairy, eggs, beans, etc.

Athletes typically eat at least 1g/lbs of their bodyweight of protein per day. Some go up to even 2-2.5g/lbs. That is anywhere from 200g-400+g for a 200lbs athlete every single day.

How much is that? Well, 1kg of raw chicken breasts provide about 210g of protein.

Governing bodies don’t think that the regular person requires such a high amount of protein though, and the Recommended Daily Intake of Protein set by the FDA ranges from 50-65g a day, a low figure that doesn’t take into account bodyweight or activity.

So how much should the regular person eat?

Well, that depends on how “regular” is defined. If you’re talking about a 70kg sedentary male, then maybe even 100g of protein is plenty. But that’s not what who we want to be, do we?

Basically, for the person getting the oft encouraged 3-4 hours of exercise per week, I think the 1g/lbs bodyweight (2.2g/kg) is a great target, even for the “regular” person.

500g of chicken - 110g of protein

Science Speaks

There is evidence that intakes of 2.8g/kg of protein per day has no negative side effects whatsoever, while conferring the benefits listed above.

Basically, more protein is potentially good for you, and is proven to do you no harm, so why not eat more?

The only group of people who should be worried about getting too much protein are those who have an underlying health issue like a kidney/liver disease.

But I’ve seen reports that the average American is eating more than enough protein

Probably true. And probably mostly from greasy burgers, burritos and other stuff like that. As Lyle McDonald points out, it’s largely a problem of too much calories rather than too much protein.

I’ve got nothing against getting proteins from fatty sources. In fact, there seems to be little problem with incorporating high fat protein sources into your diet.

As per everything else in life, moderation and portion control should be exercised. So if you’re not eating enough protein, consider bumping things up a little bit. You’ll be surprised by the difference.

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Caffeine is one of the most ubiquitous drugs you can find. Available over-the-counter for a low price, it’s indispensable to some, and detested by others.

Some (most) people claim that they can’t do without it, and others ardently claim that coffee is the root of all evil, citing anecdotal evidence of feeling much better without it.

Let’s face facts. Scientifically speaking, coffee and caffeine has shown to give numerous benefits. Most pertinent would be the boost to mental and physical performance, and it’s favourable effect on fat burning and insulin sensitivity. For a great summary of the benefits of caffeine, check out Lyle MacDonald’s post on Caffeine, as well as the corresponding research paper which examined numerous studies on caffeine.

But as with any compound, some is good, and more is toxic. Recommendations for caffeine consumption lie between 400-500mg of caffeine per day; that’s about 3 x 250mL cups of brewed coffee. Anecdotally speaking, some athletes have seen no negative side effects dosing caffeine at 600mg per day. Values above this may give rise to issues in the long run, though the research is a little sketchy.

So the take home message is this: Coffee is not evil. Use it if you wish, but don’t abuse it [1].

—

[1] To be more explicit, 3 cups of strong coffee (think starbucks long blacks) is about the limit which most people should go to. At that dosage, you will reap the benefits of coffee without any potential side effects. That said, the potential side effects aren’t known to a very certain degree. Personally, I’d stay on the safe side.

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For most people, any holiday is a time to eat and be merry. Obviously, all that extra food has to go somewhere.

Why is that in our interest? Because knowing that would better our understanding of how to deal with it. Indirectly, this gives the obsessive amongst us a certain peace of mind (instead of running off to the gym for 3 hours the next day in a panicked state).
There are two key questions we have to ask:

• Where does all that food go?
• How Fast can you gain fat?

Where Does the Food Go?

Main point: Not all caloric excess has to be stored as fat. In fact, there are three potential ways that excess energy can be used.

1. Store it
2. Burn it
3. MAGIC!

Storage

The first path is to funnel that caloric excess into storage.

What may surprise some people, is that storage does not automatically equal fat. In fact, many people practice structured refeeds as part of a fitness dietary regime whereby excess calories (mainly from carbs) are consumed.

I’ll talk about refeeds on another day, but what happens here is that muscles are trained in such a way that their carbohydrate stores (glycogen) are partly depleted. The excess carbohydrates then come in to “replete” these stores instead of being stored as fat.

The implication here is that training can potentially affect the way excess calories consumed after the training is stored.

That said, most people don’t train before a holiday binge (it’s time to relax), and the food is often greasy (refeeds work around carbohydrates), so we can assume that most (>90%) of the caloric excess is stored as fat.

NEAT

The second pathway is that it gets burned off sub-consciously.

What I actually want to refer to is this phenomenon called Non-Exercise Active Thermogenesis (NEAT), which happens in response to over-feeding. It varies from person to person, but essentially, subconscious activity increases after over-feeding and some people literally “fidget their calories away”.

While it never accounts for the entire surplus, it is possible that say someone with high NEAT fidgets off 300kcal from a 1000kcal surplus.

Remember, this is sub-conscious activity, and can be anything from shaking your limbs to feeling the “sudden urge” to take a walk.

The caveat is that NEAT has been shown to be largely genetic; a specific person increases his/her activity to a specific level given caloric excess. There is even a study showing that some people have decreased NEAT (moving around LESS). However, for most people, NEAT generally increases, albeit very slightly in response to feeding.

The implication of that is that for most people, they “lessen” the damage of their binge through NEAT.

MAGIC!

For some strange reason, some calories seem to disappear! I’ll explain this in a second.

So Exactly How Much Damage Can You Do? ie: What Happens in the Real World?

Theoretically, weight gain should reflect the caloric surplus. That is, if you ate 7000kcal above your maintenance caloric intake, you should have gained almost 2lbs of fat.

However, this doesn’t seem to be the case in the real world. What seems to be the case is that in short term (<24 hours) overfeeding, some of the caloric surplus seems to be lost. In other words, more often than not, if someone eats 7000kcal over maintenance, they may find out that they in fact only gained a pound of fat.

Why people often claim that it’s magic is because studies have yet to find out why this is the case. Whether it be because of behavioural changes (eating less after the binge), or inefficiencies with digestion (which seems not to be supported by the science), or any other way, we don’t know why this is the case. We just know that it happens.

The Answer

So the answer is actually slightly comforting, and this is that you may do less damage than you think from that holiday binge. Of course, this doesn’t by any chance mean that you’ll not experience significant fat gain, just not as significant as you might think.

Yes, you will probably be retaining water and looking puffy due to all that sodium. Yes, you will be 3kg heavier the next morning due to the extra weight of food.

The first thing to do, is to remind yourself that it’s just a temporary state, and get on with your plan.

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In one sentence: as fast as your protein requirements let you.

First, there are stupid ways to do this. Some of those ways (juice fasting, relying on designer shakes, etc) are stupid at best and dangerous at worst. I am interested in the scientifically and anecdotally verified method of losing fat as fast as possible, doing so in as safe a manner as possible.

There are a couple of concepts one should know when it comes to this topic. First and foremost: We want to lose fat mass, not lean mass.

Lean mass is basically everything else that isn’t fat. If you weigh 80kg and have 20kg fat mass, then you have 60kg lean mass. That includes water, and thus becomes a very fickle measure due to changes in the body’s water balance. I won’t go into water balance now, but just to give the layperson a sense of scale, some athletes routinely drop 10kg of water for contest weigh-ins. Even an average 60kg person can lose 2kg of water on a low carbohydrate diet.

Do note that losing water isn’t too big a concern as long as negative dehydration effects are avoided. In this case, one can easily “put back the water” after dieting is done. What we are more interested in are our muscles. [1] With that goal in mind, we should then ask ourselves how do we prevent muscle loss; to elicit a protein sparing effect.

Protein Turnover

The body basically has a certain level of protein turnover determined by various factors. Labcoats would be familiar with net nitrogen balance. What this says, is that the body requires a certain amount of protein every day for regular function. More accurately, there is a demand for various nitrogenous compounds, which are derived from protein. The higher the demand for such compounds, the greater the amount of protein being “processed”.

Various factors affect our need for protein. Of most relevance to our topic today, would be an energy deficit. Essentially, the greater an energy deficit we are in, the higher our protein requirements.

So the scenario is that when one goes into an energy deficit, protein requirements go up. If protein intake from the diet does not increase, the body will find other sources of protein. It gets this from lean tissue; you’re using your muscles to meet your protein requirements. [2 - note to labcoats]

Why bother with sparing muscles? I Just Wanna Lose WEIGHT

First, the way such a diet is set up (to prevent muscle loss) is arguably the safer way to commence a rapid fat loss diet.

Second, question again why you want to lose fat. Be it for aesthetic reasons, health reasons or otherwise, retaining lean mass is usually the healthier and ultimately more fulfilling option. [3]

However, I will admit that sometimes, weight is all that matters. The best example would be athletes needing to make weight for a certain weight class. I will leave it to the reader to think of other possible scenarios.

So What Does One Need to Do?

Eat enough protein and lift heavy weights.

Again, the reason for the first point is to ensure that our body gets enough protein from our diet to meet requirements, therefore sparing muscle tissue.

How much is enough? For the average untrained individual, a value of 1g of protein per pound bodyweight every day is a good place to start (That’s 180g of protein for a 180lbs individual). For more experienced trainees, a value up to 2g/lbs Lean Body Mass is the value that is used.

The second point is a wholly complicated topic in it’s own right, but a simple explanation can get the point across.

Essentially, training a muscle “tells it that it is needed” and swings the balance in favour of keeping it in its current shape. Don’t train the muscle, and it is seen as “unessential”, and prone to being used to meet protein requirements. In fact, a training stimulus is probably our greatest ally in preventing muscle loss, and it does so through a whole bunch of processes which ultimately lead to increased protein synthesis within the muscle itself.

How much training is needed? For those who already do resistance training, strength retention in the 5-8 rep range is your best indicator. For a general routine, view this link. For those who don’t, its a good time to get started.

Back to the Original Question

Now that I’ve explained several concepts, we can finally answer the original question. Note that one’s protein requirements depend of various factors. One important factor is the amount of body fat a person is carrying.

That makes sense, since the more fat there is in the body, the easier it is to derive energy from that fat, and  less protein is required. That also explains why the fatter one is, the faster one can lose fat. The reverse also holds true.

That said, using the principles above along with some other specific recommendations, it is possible for relatively lean individuals (15% body fat for males, 24% for females) to lose 1kg of fat per week.

Proceed with Caution

Rapid fat loss approaches aren’t easy, and if you have never paid attention to diet and training, it is unlikely that you can succeed without the relevant knowledge. While I cover a few basics here, they are far from enough. To get the full info, you will have to get ‘The Rapid Fatloss Handbook’ by Lyle McDonald. I can vouch for the effectiveness myself, having routinely dropped 1kg/week without muscle loss.

Even after that, actually sticking to the plan isn’t easy. Low calorie diets are stressful and draining. While it is possible to rapidly lose fat, it may not be (usually is not) the smartest thing to do.

Example Diet

Just to give an example of the macronutritional ratios of such a diet, let’s use a 80kg man with 65kg lean mass, and a 60kg woman with 45kg lean mass, both with training experience.

Male:
1300 Calories
65 x 2 x 2.2 = 286g protein
10g fat
20g carbohydrates

Female:
950 Calories
45 x 2 x 2.2 = 198g protein
10g fat
20g carbohydrates

Very high protein, basically nothing of everything else. You will have to see ‘The Rapid Fat Loss Handbook’ for the actual details.

Final Words

My recommendation to avoid rapid fat loss approaches still holds. Bear in mind though, that nothing has to be black and white, and the principles here can still be used to good effect; adhering to a less extreme version of the examples I give above can give some really good results.

More importantly, ask yourself why you want to lose fat quickly, and then ask yourself if you’re willing to do what it takes to do it safely.

–

Notes:
[1] When I say muscles, I really mean everything that is essential to their function. This includes connective tissues and the like.

[2] Yes, I will admit, what I just said bears hardly any scientific merit.  Bear with me in the simplistic explanation.

[3] Note: with some very obese people, there is “extra” lean tissue which is not muscle. A combination of water, connective tissue etc may be lost without harm (it may in fact be good).

Another scenario is probably with athletes who have non-functional muscle mass, and would like to reduce that. Eg: Cyclists arguably don’t need big arms and a huge chest. That said, such athletes wouldn’t go about doing that through diet alone, and neither would we be anywhere near the sillyness of some fad diets nowadays.

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If you ask a room full of 100 adults about their experiences on taking Math in school, there’s a high likelihood that the responses will fall on the edges of the graph.

In other words, people usually either hate or love doing Math.

You would likely find the same trend with people who embrace a certain diet. Be it a low carb, high carb, vegan, raw food, or any one of the thousands of diets out there, you’d usually find the same sort of opposites in opinion.

That is, either, “This diet is the best! I feel invigorated and ready to take on the world!” or “This diet sucks and has done nothing for me!”. Of course, you can guess which one of these types of remarks designers of any diet choose to publish, but that’s a different topic.

So why do people fall into such camps?

It boils down to one fundamental concept: The individual is trying to embrace / learn / take up something completely unnatural to his/her current state of being.

What this leads to, is a barrier to adoption. In math, you have to know what numbers are, then you can graduate to the basic operators (-, +, *, /). At the high end of things, we can talk about completely abstract and seemingly inapplicable-to-daily-life concepts like Gaussian elimination and Hermitian Matrices.

Assuming that a person starts off like the typically person, eating ad libitum (basically, to whatever limit he/she naturally would), he/she would have to grasp the basics concepts of the diet. If it were the Atkins diet, they would be counting carbs. If it were the South Beach Diet, perhaps they would be sticking to the macronutritional ratios of the specific phase. In any case, the individual has to grasp some “rules” and “concepts” and then apply them directly to his/her life.

We can now easily see that the amount of effort, or the difficulty in adopting the diet is directly proportional to the gap between what the person was originally doing and the new task at hand. As simple as this sounds, failure to act upon it reflects a failure in understanding.

This isn’t helped at all, by the fact that healthy eating is such a debatable concept. Not to mention the tons of bad journalism and differing opinions being broadcasted in mainstream media. What results are people looking for a quick fix and not finding it.

Like doing math, I believe that healthy eating can be broken down into simpler equations. I think that one must do so, and have some personal rules to live by. If you have some sense of healthy eating, I’d encourage you to set some of your own rules. If not, start with some simple guidelines.

Just like doing math, it pays to have these guidelines written down. Be reminded of them constantly. A mathematician facing a problem has to work on it from the bottom-up, and therefore must have his fundamental principles ready on the tips of his fingers. So is true for dieting, at least in the initial stages when it is unnatural to you.

Unlike doing math, there is no perfect answer.

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This is a topic which I have some fondness towards, mainly because I have gained many benefits from its practice.

What intermittent fasting is, is a regular scheduled period of time whereby no food is consumed; a fast. This can be done in various ways. With popular approaches being fast5, the warrior diet, eat stop eat, and leangains approach.

This post is simply a short primer on how to set up an intermittent fasting protocol. I’d note first of all that I’m biased towards the leangains protocol, mainly because it serves as a set of principles geared towards my current goals of fitness. [1]

But First, Why Intermittent Fasting?

Firstly, there is some research supporting some health benefits from intermittent fasting. Firstly, it seems to confer the same benefits as regular fasting (on the order of days). In other words, you can gain some benefits of prolonged fasting in a shorter and less disruptive way. There are also some indicators that intermittent fasting brings about some of the benefits of caloric restriction.

On top of that, there seems to be little to no muscle loss on an intermittent fasting regime if done properly, while markers such as levels of catecholamines, as well as insulin sensitivity seem to be improved.

The second and more significantly experienced benefit is psychological. In general, this is because people tend to gain more focus during the fasting period, both from psychological reasons like not thinking about food, to physiological reasons like the elevated levels of catecholamines (of which adrenaline is one of).

More importantly however, not eating for a period of time implies that when you do eat, you get to eat bigger and more fulfilling meals, given that total daily caloric intake remains the same. This is incredibly beneficial to some people, especially those looking to lose some weight. This is because hunger is usually not present during the fast [2], and yet one could eat enough to satisfaction during the feeding period, even while maintaining a daily caloric deficit.

For more benefits, check out this ebook from the iflife.com.

The Leangains Protocol

Basically, you eat in a 6-10 hour window, which implies a 14-18 hour fast, on a daily basis. You may choose to eat from 12pm – 8pm, and then not eat the rest of the time. Water and non-calorie beverages can be consumed during the period of the fast.

Now, what I have just said is a very simplistic summary of the actual protocol. The creator of the protocol, Martin Berkhan, has various other guidelines and Q&As which can be found on his leangains website.

I would encourage anyone who is interested in giving the protocol a try to first read all of the above posts to gain the needed knowledge to maximise the effectiveness of such a protocol towards whatever goal you may wish to pursue.

—

Notes:

[1] The creator of the protocol, Martin Berkhan is first and foremost a fitness consultant, having worked with many elite-level bodybuilders, all the way down to the average person looking to improve their body composition for the sake of looking good naked.

[2] This has got to do both with the hunger blunting effect of elevated catecholamines, as well as the temporal-specificity of hormones which raise hunger like ghrelin. For a full explanation, I highly recommend that you search leangains.com for the term ‘hunger’.

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In my original Chinese New Year Goodies post, I gave a brief look at the differing caloric density of various foods. This post is the long version. It is for the people who want a deeper discussion into the vagaries of holiday eating.

What I want to talk about today is not the traditions of this particular festive season, but the very common phenomenon during festive seasons which is evident in many cultures of the world: the phenomenal binges which many people partake in their time of fun and laughter.

This post comes with a message and value judgment, but the key goal I would like readers to leave with is some added perspective. I will be talking about the problem of portion sizes, and some philosophies on eating during any festive season.

A Short Introduction

It is customary for the Chinese to go visiting during the Chinese New Year. Friends, family, distant cousins and the like fall under the list of people to visit. Children are especially happy, for it is customary for them to receive a red packet containing some money from the man and woman of the house. And of course, our topic for the day, the abundance of snacks and other goodies.

The Problem

The danger here is obviously consuming more calories than one can expend, and this is made much easier during the Chinese New Year season due to 2 major factors in my opinion: the abundance of high caloric density foods, and the constant social pressure to consume them.

What I mean by high caloric density, is that a food contains many calories per unit weight. 1 tablespoon of peanut butter may weigh only 25g, but it can easily pack on more than 100 kcal (kilocalories). Compare that to an apple, which may weigh 200g, and have the same 100 kcal.

Given that most people eat ad libitum (basically, eating any which way they want) during festive seasons, we are going to eat to a level of temporary satisfaction.

This is a problem, because satisfaction has to be placed in its context, in this case, a highly social one. Basically, every visit to a relative’s place brings with it a new set of expectations to be satisfied, often with New Year treats. Multiply that over the number of relatives and friends to visit, raised to the power of the variety of treats available (and some must-try home-made ones), and you get a very large number of calories.

Let’s make this a little easier to understand. I was sent a link to an article from the Singapore Straits Times just on this issue. It presented the average caloric values of some common Chinese New Year treats, presented as calories per 100g portion. It then gives some recommendations to prevent holiday weight gain.

Let’s look at the caloric values first, quoted here directly from the AsiaOne source:

Roasted cashew nuts (salted) Calorie count: 611	Prawn rolls Calorie count: 506
Kueh lapis (layer cake) Calorie count: 490	Pork bak kwa (barbecued pork) Calorie count: 410
Love letters Calorie count: 430.8	White Rabbit candy Calorie count: 412.5
Kueh bangkit (tapioca flour cookie) Calorie count: 383.3	Melon seeds Calorie count: 258
Kueh baulu (mini sponge cake) Calorie count: 377.8	Pineapple tarts Calorie count: 410

I must say that they are fairly accurate. However, the pictures in the article do not represent 100g of the food item in question. That leads to confusion; a lack of comparison between the different food items. So I decided to do my own side-by-side comparison of the food items.

100g of Cashews: 611 calories

100g of Prawn Rolls: 506 Calories

100g of Bak Kwa (Barbequed Pork): 410 Calories

100g of Melon Seeds: 258 Calories

100g of Love Letters: 430 Calories

100g of Kueh bangkit (tapioca flour cookie): 383 Calories

100g of Pineapple Tarts: 410 Calories

What you see above is 100g of each food item. Now we got some perspective, and can easily see that 100g of kueh lapis (layered cake) is much “less” than 100g of love letters. From there we can draw the conclusion that it is likely easier to put down 100g of kueh lapis as compared to 100g of love letters. Therefore, you would consume more calories if you were eating kueh lapis.

A simplistic recommendation would then be to avoid eating kueh lapis, and other calorie-dense foods during your visits. That is one way. But it requires conscious effort that very likely compromises the spirit of the holidays (what is X festival without Y?).

In other words, given that most people eat however they like during the holidays, this strategy isn’t going to work.

Instead, let’s try to put eating during a holiday in it’s proper context. Namely, how much of each food would you consume on a regular visit to a relative. To answer that question, take a look at the picture above again and try to imagine eating all of one type of food. Then try to think about how satisfied you would be after eating it.

I know I can’t. I can’t imagine eating a 100g serving of whatever food item at X relatives place at Y time on the second day of Chinese New Year (There are 15). The caloric values serve as arbitrary units of measurement which do not take into account the context of the eating. At the same time, numbers are absolute, and therefore need to be counted, not something I’d wager people want to be doing during the holidays.

That brings me on to the standard recommendations for dealing with holiday weight gain: (Quoted from the online version of the Straits Times Article @ healthexchange.com.sg)

Dieticians advice

• Do not leave home on an empty stomach as this may lead to overeating. Have a healthy snack such as wholemeal crackers or a low-calorie barley drink beforehand.
• Spend your time chatting with others rather than focusing on the food.
• If you cannot resist the goodies, sample a little and put the rest away.
• Try healthier snacks such as oranges, which are especially beneficial for the immune system, and pistachio nuts, which may help lower the risk of heart disease.
• Ask for low-calorie drinks such as tea without sugar or diet soft-drinks.
• When meal-time starts, watch the fat by limiting fried foods and avoiding rich sauces, gravy and salad dressing.
• Load your plate with vegetables, which are high in fibre and low in calories.
• Keep your first helping small, especially if your host expects you to have seconds.
• Eat slowly – putting your utensils down between each bite helps – to know when you are full.
• Always leave some food on your plate so the host does not top it up.
• Watch your alcohol consumption – keep within the recommended three standard drinks a day for men and two for women.
• Finish your meal with fruit or fruit agar agar.

Basically your standard run-of-the-mill recommendations which we know work for some and fail for many. The reason they don’t work is simple, they are someone else’s recommendations, trying to be imposed on your diet, your visiting schedule, your social context, your eating habits, and your desires.

I’ve shared my way of dealing with huge caloric intakes in my Christmas post, whereby I state my opinion that we should eat and be merry during the holidays, and deal with the fat later (I mean REALLY deal with the effects later, not put it off for another month – and another holiday). Martin Berkhan also wrote to a similiar theme in his post “How to Look Awesome Every Day“. You’re welcome to try these approaches out, but the only one that will work without friction is your own.

But please, don’t think in Black and White and use this to mean that you should eat “however you want”. That isn’t going to solve the underlying problem anyway. Always ground your actions in basic principles first; consuming more calories than you expend will lead to weight gain.

Conclusion

As I said before, this post was simply written to provide some perspective. I gave some examples of how portion sizes and caloric values are just arbitrary values, bent to the vicissitudes of the individual’s holiday schedule.

I also gave a terse reminder that, despite arbitrary portions sizes, total caloric intake is objective, and if you consume more than you expend, be prepared for weight gain. In other words, do what you may, but you’re not going to cheat the laws of physics.

Finally, I briefly shared my philosophy on dealing with the holidays, and with it now comes my message. How likely is it to maintain weight (not over-eat) during the holidays? What does that say of any strategy which tries to achieve that? What is your strategy? How likely are you going to stick to it? [1] And finally, what result will you be satisfied with?

—

Notes:

[1] A rule of thumb I live by: Take the worst possible scenario that you think is possible, and remember that what will happen is going to be worst than that.

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