Depending on how you want to feel about rice, you can point to either of the following studies:
People that live in Okinawa (home to Mr. Miyagi!), with the highest life expectancy on the planet, eat a lot of rice.[1] Rice HAS to be good for you then. Team Rice!
People of the Marshall Islands, home to one of the highest rates of Type 2 diabetes on the planet, eat a lot of rice.[2] Rice is the devil! Team No Rice!
Feel free to pick one of the above studies to show that you’re right and superior compared to the other team. It’s like opposing political parties (rice vs no rice) that staunchly follow party lines.
Now, if you haven’t made up your mind on rice (you’re an independent!), or you’ve been avoiding it because you’ve gone Paleo, keep reading. Or maybe you’re up for, gasp, changing parties!
Let’s dig into this election! Feel free to listen to “Hail to the Chief (but just the part you know)” while reading the rest of this.
What exactly is rice?
Rice is technically a seed of the grass species. It comes in many varieties, it’s a grain that doesn’t contain gluten (unlike some other grains), and its macronutrient breakdown is generally something like (in 1 cup of cooked rice):
200ish calories
0-1 gram of fat
45ish g of carbohydrates
4-5 grams of protein
Now, depending on how you currently view your diet, you might have a few key thoughts looking at that list above. “45 grams of carbs! That’s bad! Carbs are bad because I read it somewhere! Rice? Ah!”
The reality is this: carbs are neither inherently good nor bad. Kind of like The Force in Star Wars; the Force can be used for good or evil purposes, but it’s inherently neutral:
Meaning quantity and quality matter.
Rice can be part of a bad (unhealthy) or good (healthy) diet completely dependent upon your goals and lifestyle:
Are you in the process of building muscle and getting bigger? Rice is a cheap source of high calorie, high-carbohydrate food, easily digestible, and helpful in running a caloric surplus.
Trying to lose weight? You might be trying to lose weight and find that eating a lot of rice is putting you over your calorie and carb goals for the day, so you may choose to eat less or avoid the food entirely.
Let’s chat about that last point a little bit more.
Is Rice Fattening?
At the end of the day, consuming more calories than you burn will add weight to your frame in the long term, and vice versa.
This is Food Science 101, and it will be on your midterm exam.
Here’s the thing: there’s nothing special about rice that will make you fat. It will contribute to your total daily calories just like any other food.
However, we should address this: rice is easy to overeat if you don’t understand portion sizes.
Carbohydrates like potatoes, bread, and rice are often overconsumed, which can lead to extra calories without realizing it.
It’s a point we strike hard in our Guide to Healthy Eating. That’s why understanding portion size is everything when it comes to carbohydrates like rice.
Here are some images to help you learn proper portion sizes (thanks to SafeFood):
Again, that cup of rice would be about 200 calories.
Another good indicator of portion size would be your hands, as demonstrated by our friendly neighborhood web-slinger:
The morale of this section: whether or not eating rice is fattening depends on how much you eat.
In fact, this is true with just about any food you consume, unless you’re hanging out in Neverland:
If you’ve been having trouble losing weight, analyze your servings of carbs. With our coaching clients, it’s often the case that those who are having trouble losing weight are eating more than they realize.
What’s the Difference Between Brown Rice and White Rice?
“Does getting white rice at Chipotle instead of brown rice make me a bad person? Everybody tells me brown rice is better!”
There’s a prevailing thought in society that eating the brown option of a certain food is better than the white option:
Wheat bread instead of white bread
Whole wheat pasta instead of regular pasta
Brown rice instead of white rice
Like many things, this sentiment has been oversimplified to the point of being unhelpful. What you really want to know is this:
If this was a rice presidential election – a Rice-idential election, if you will, who should I vote for?
Let’s start here: what makes white rice white and brown rice brown, other than color? It all depends on the milling process. You can see here highlighted by Riceland, which is less fun than Disneyland but probably safer than Zombieland:
In milling, brown rice loses only a bit of the top layer above; the non-edible hull goes, but the bran, and germ remain. White rice removes it all; the hull, awn, bran and berm are all gone, leaving behind the endosperm.
So let’s take a look at our two candidates for the Rice-idency: On one side of the ballot, we have 1 cup of Enriched White Rice:
On the other side, we have 1 cup of Brown Rice.
They both are running on the platform of “Make carbs great again!” but they have some distinguishing characteristics that make their campaigns slightly different.
Here’s how cooked white rice and brown rice compare:
Brown rice has 43 more calories per cup than white rice.
Brown rice has 7g more carbohydrates per cup than white rice.
Brown rice has more micronutrients: magnesium (79mg vs 19mg), more phosphorus (208mg vs 68gm), and more potassium (174mg vs 55). It also has a lot of manganese, selenium, and copper.
Brown rice has a lower glycemic index than white rice, meaning it is broken down by your body slower – and causes a lower insulin response.
Now, you’re looking at those things above and probably thinking:
“Okay so brown rice has more calories and carbs, that’s bad and I don’t want to vote for that candidate!
Wait, it has more micronutrients and a lower glycemic index. I think that’s good and I should vote for that candidate.”
And then your head explodes.
Like any election, there are positives and negatives to either candidate, and as you’ll see soon enough – neither one is an angel. In this election, the differences in nutritional terms are negligible from the highest macro-level (aka the big policy points). So from a purely caloric and macro-nutrition standpoint, we recommend simply letting your tastebuds decide if you choose to vote:
If you like the taste of brown rice more than white rice, eat that.
If you like the taste of white rice more than brown rice, eat that.
That’s the simplified way of looking at it. If one digs into the nitty-gritty of both campaigns, we’ll discover that there’s more than meets the eye.
Like Transformers.
Speaking of rice and all of this good stuff, we’ve built a 10-level Nutritional System that you can follow along with for free – it’ll help you level up your nutrition slowly over time so you can lose weight permanently without driving yourself crazy! You can get our free guide along with a bunch of others when you sign up in the box below!
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
White vs Brown Rice: Our Recommendation
For those wanting to nerd out, welcome to the full coverage of the upcoming Rice-idential elections!
Our candidate Brown Rice is running on a platform of more micronutrients for every citizen, something White Rice can’t claim.
However, like any campaign, the whole truth isn’t being represented.
In fact, my research led me to believe that there are two key problems with Brown Rice that keep me from casting my vote for Brown.
You see, brown rice contains something called Phytate, an anti-nutrient that minimizes our body’s ability to absorb the beneficial nutrients.[3]Phytate (phytic acid) is found in most seeds, legumes, nuts, and grains…including rice.
Phytic acid is contained in the part that’s removed from white rice. So brown rice has it, and white rice doesn’t.
This is when White Rice comes in to say “I don’t have any of this stuff, vote for me!”
On top of that, because White Rice is enriched, it closes a lot of the gap between micronutrients, and because there are no phytates around, these nutrients can be fully absorbed by the body. [4]In the end, White Rice has a pretty good argument that it’s stronger on the “micronutrient issue.”
As this study over in PubMed explains, results show that “despite higher nutrients contents of brown rice compared to white rice, experimental data does not provide evidence that the brown rice diet is better than the diet based on white rice.” [5]
“White rice actually has an equal or better nutritional yield & also has a better nitrogen-retentive effect than brown rice. This is because the fiber & phytate content of brown rice act as antinutrients, reducing the bioavailability of the micronutrients it contains.”
So, does this mean we should proudly cast our ballot for White Rice?
In our hours and hours of research, chats, hangouts, and debates that went into creating this article, we stumbled across some troubling news for both candidates’ campaigns for the Rice-idency: a history of arsenic and a possible diabetes scandal!
(Feel free to audibly gasp at this point; we encourage it.)
Should I Worry About Arsenic in Rice? Does Eating Rice Cause Diabetes?
We head out to the debate in which the candidates are fielding questions from regular folks (with totally not staged questions).
Mike, a retired teacher and single parent from Vermont asks, “I heard about rice and arsenic – should I be concerned?”
Arsenic is a metalloid, and extremely small qualities of “organic arsenic” is essential as a dietary element. However, inorganic arsenic (from rocks and soil) is a different thing – and this is the stuff that causes poisoning in large enough quantities. Typically we’re only concerned with this if the exposure is a lot over a short term, or a little over a long term. [6] So with rice, it starts to become more and more relevant if you are eating rice “every day for years and years.”
The catch is, for millions around the globe, this situation is a reality.
In the long term, taking in too much (inorganic) arsenic has been linked to all sorts of problems: cancer, [7] vascular disease,[8]high blood pressure,[9]heart disease,[10] and diabetes.[11] In short, over time (if we’re consuming moderate amounts regularly), arsenic can act like a slow poison to our bodies.
AND here comes White Rice to respond with a vicious attack:
“Consumer Reports found that Brown Rice has 80% more arsenic on average than white rice of the same type!”[12]
Our moderators are telling us this is a crucial turning point towards a White Rice victory.
Suzy, a happily-married steel-worker from Ohio asks, “What about diabetes, I heard that is an issue with rice!”
It’s here that Brown Rice steps up and starts slinging some mud as well. The candidate proudly proclaims, “ignore that negative nonsense about my arsenic count, White Rice gives you diabetes! ISN’T THAT RIGHT WHITE RICE!?”
A meta-analysis found that “higher white rice intake is associated with a significantly elevated risk of type 2 diabetes, especially among Asian populations… In addition, the dose-response relations indicate that even for Western populations with typically low intake levels, relatively high white rice consumption may still modestly increase risk of diabetes.”[13]
Now if you’re watching this debate at home, you’re probably asking,” I’m in the ‘at risk for type-2 diabetes’ group, would swapping out white rice for brown rice improve my future?”
Researchers found in an observational study that people who consumed five or more servings of white rice per week had a 17% increased risk of diabetes, compared to people who ate less than one serving per month.[14]But eating two or more servings of brown rice per week was associated with an 11% reduced risk of developing type 2 diabetes, compared to eating less than one serving of brown rice per month. Fitness Skeptics, be sure to look closely at this one.
Either way, in true election fashion, we now have two imperfect candidates.
So, who the heck do you vote for!?
When to Eat Rice (Next Steps)
This is Steve Kamb, reporting live from Nerd Fitness News, and we feel confident enough to make our endorsement in the Race for the Rice-idency.
This campaign has been ugly as hell; both candidates are running on a very similar “Rice is great” platform, which we have no problem with (in moderation).
Let’s break it down for voters out there:
Again, our official recommendation is to vote for whatever candidate you think tastes better (okay, our metaphor might be breaking down at this point). But for those of you at home who want to make the most informed decision as possible or are concerned about a specific health issue, here’s our detailed recap:
Here’s our official recommendation:
Rice can be a healthy part of a diet, but it’s the rest of it that will determine if you’re healthy or not. Plus, rice is great if you’re really hungry and want to eat two thousand of something. Boom. Hat-trick! (Thanks Steven!)
Not eating rice is fine too, provided you’re eating some sort of healthy starch/carb source (we love veggies!).
We feel that for most people, you should pick what you like best and eat it. Done! If we had to pick one generalization in our nerdy, non-doctor opinion, we would guestimate that white rice is (only slightly) a better option for most people, due to the phytate and arsenic levels in brown rice.
If you are eating lots of rice or other arsenic-containing foods regularly over a long period of time, consider white rice, looking at specific brands, and preparation methods to mitigate these risks.
If you are struggling with weight and or a sedentary lifestyle and thus concerned with diabetes, consider brown rice in moderation over other unhealthy foods. Don’t delude yourself into thinking you’re being healthy by eating buckets of brown rice though. Clyde Wilson, Ph.D, a nutrition professor in the Stanford University and University of California, San Francisco schools of medicine, puts it succinctly: “The reality is that eating too much of any carbohydrate, including brown rice, can lead to diabetes.” [15]
No matter what candidate you vote for, we urge you not to get WHITE RICE or BROWN RICE tattooed on your forehead, giving yourself a green light to eat 1,000s of calories of it (rice, fruit, anything!). Moderation, as always, is a boring lesson that we urge voters to be mindful of.
TL;DR #50 – Eat rice in moderation if you choose to eat it. If you are bulking up intentionally, rice can be a great part of your diet. Trying to lose weight? Consider minimizing rice consumption. If you’re gonna eat rice regularly, white rice is probably healthy for you in the long run. If you are a type-2 diabetic (or at risk), minimize consumption of grains and carbs, but IF you do eat rice, go for brown rice.
Tune in after this commercial break where we’ll answer the question: is the monster under your bed trying to kill you?
The answer may shock you!
Still tuned in?
Amazing!
If you’re looking to take it further, I have three great options for you!
#1) Check out our 1-on-1 Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.
You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the image below for more details:
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community (with many like-minded people embarking on new diets), group challenges, and much more!
#3) Enlist in the Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so.
I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Now, I want to hear from you!
Do you regularly eat rice?
Did you vote for White Rice or Brown Rice?
Any awesome tips or recipes you can share?
Let me know in the comments!
Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to Chipotle!
-Steve
PS: If you want to get the lowdown on other types of food (potatoes, fruit, dairy), then make sure you check out The Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating.
Read, “Elevated risk of hypertension induced by arsenic exposure in Taiwanese rural residents: possible effects of manganese superoxide dismutase (MnSOD) and 8-oxoguanine DNA glycosylase (OGG1) genes.” Source, PubMed.
Read, “Arsenic exposure and cardiovascular disorders: an overview.” Source, PubMed.
Read, “Arsenic and diabetes and hypertension in human populations: a review.” Source, PubMed.
The Mediterranean Diet is a way of life that involves eating real food: vegetables, fruits, whole grains, legumes (beans), some fish, and a whole lotta “healthy” fat.
Plus a little red wine.
It gets its name from a few key countries on the coast of the Mediterranean Sea, and studying the dietary patterns of the people who live long lives in that area.
When experts discuss the Mediterranean Diet, the words “heart-healthy” will almost certainly be attached.[1]It’s the reason the Mediterranean Diet shines like a crazy diamond, because who DOESN’T want a healthy heart?
So why does this diet make your heart healthy, and why do people tend to lose weight on it?
Simple: Every item listed above falls into the REAL food category. When I say real food, I mean stuff that came from the ground, grew on a tree, grazed on a field, flew through the air, or swam in the water.
Here’s another way to put it: If your great-grandma from the old country wouldn’t recognize it as food, it probably doesn’t fit into the Mediterranean Diet.
Sorry Pop-Tarts, Big Macs, and Coca-Cola.
Logically, the reason this diet gets good grades makes sense. Of COURSE a diet composed of REAL food like the Mediterranean Diet would have REAL health benefits.
And those benefits are awesome!
The diet has been linked to a plethora of benefits, including a reduced risk of heart attack,[2] and even the retention of cognitive abilities to help stave off dementia.[3]
At this point you might be wondering:
“Steve, I like the cut of your jib, and this diet sounds pretty good. So, just eat real food, got it. But what about all these benefits I hear about olive oil? And I thought pasta was unhealthy. That’s a crucial part of the Mediterranean Diet too, right? Tell me more.”
I got you, boo.
Where did the Mediterranean Diet Come From? (The Mediterranean Diet Pyramid)
Believe it or not, this diet wasn’t created by a goat herder in the Greek countryside.
It was actually theorized by an American scientist back in the 50s, and started gaining popularity in the 90s.
Have you heard the name, Ancel Keys?
He’s a doctor from back in the day (think 1950s) often credited with popularizing the idea that saturated fat leads to deadly heart attacks, a la high cholesterol levels in the bloodstream. We went in-depth on this very controversial subject in “A Beginner’s Guide to Cholesterol,” so I won’t rehash it here.
The reason I bring Keys up is that he was one of the early founders of the Mediterranean Diet.
Keys formulated this diet after poring over data and research and identified that people in Greece and Italy statistically lived longer than other populations he studied. Farmers working until the age of 100 wasn’t uncommon on the Greek island of Crete.
So what was the big secret?
Are the people of Crete actual descendants of Atlantis with special DNA and olive oil running through their veins?
Not really.
Keys noted these Mediterraneans had a low saturated fat intake, getting their fat from olives and fresh fish. He also noted low instances of heart disease, and thus declared something like, “low saturated fat consumption causes fewer instances of heart disease and leads to a longer life.”
Now, if you’re a nerd like me, you are hopefully aware that “correlation does not prove causation,” that even though two variables are correlated, it doesn’t mean that one causes the other.
But it was a great story, backed up by logically sounding data from an accomplished researcher, and the hypothesis became “fact.” Thus, the hypothesis of the “Mediterranean Diet equals long life” continued to gain steam, and Keys work went on to define a huge portion of America’s nutritional guidance over the past 60 years.
Fast forward to the 1990s, and the Mediterranean Diet story reached the mainstream media with the help of a group of researchers, who decided it was time to popularize and proselytize its benefits.
In a controversial and complicated part of the story that’s much lesser-known, these researchers focused on Greece and Italy, ignoring data from any other Mediterranean population that didn’t fit their narrative.
Together, under Walter C. Willett from Harvard School of Public Health, they came up with the ‘Mediterranean Diet Pyramid.”
I know what you’re thinking. Yes, this DOES look just like the food pyramid you were taught in grade school! But with more real food. And wine. And dancing.
I told you Keys’s work was very influential in the guidelines we all grew up with! So that concludes today’s history portion of the article.
Back to getting weird:
What Do You Eat on the Mediterranean Diet? (Food List)
As I already pointed out, the Mediterranean Diet focuses on REAL food that’s found in the Mediterranean (duh).
It’s one of the things I love about it!
Below are our recommended types of food, examples of each, and substitutes in case you don’t happen to live on Sicily or Santorini:
Vegetables. Common Mediterranean Diet staples are artichokes, arugula, Brussels sprouts, celery, and peas, but seriously any vegetable you enjoy is good enough! So go wild. Hate veggies? I got you.
Fruit. Figs, mandarins, tomatoes (yeah it’s a fruit), and pomegranate are common to the area, but fruit like apples and oranges works too. We’re fans of fruit, just don’t eat 5,000 calories of fruit and wonder why you’re not losing weight!
Whole Grains. Barley, buckwheat, oats, rice, and wheat, in the form of fresh-made wheat pasta, whole wheat bread, and pitas. Whole grains are encouraged in just about every article on the Mediterranean Diet. When we say “whole” we mean minimally processed, and are consumed in significantly smaller portions than you’re probably used to.
Legumes. Think beans and lentils: a great sources of protein and fiber that also happen to be delicious. Hummus, a dish from the Mediterranean, is made out of chickpeas (a legume).
Dairy. Remember that pyramid from a moment ago? You’ll see that dairy is higher up, meaning to consume in smaller quantities. Why? because researchers were concerned about saturated fat. With the Mediterranean Diet, dairy tends to comes from cheese like brie, feta, and parmesan, and Greek yogurt (though I assume there they just call it “yogurt,”).
Fish. Fish are packed full of Omega-3 fatty acids (good!), which tends to be deficient in most American/Western diets and has been linked to health ailments.[4] Fish like cod are found in the Mediterranean, though you could go with options like tuna or salmon too.
Poultry. Factoid: Did you know there are roughly three chickens on Earth to every person? Roughly 20 billion fowl share the planet with us. I’ve been sitting on that statistic for a while and was antsy to share. Anyways! Go ahead and eat your preferred poultry, which could also include turkey and duck.
Healthy Oils. Olive oil. If there is one specific food linked to the Mediterranean Diet, it’s olive oil. Olive oil is touted for its monounsaturated fat, unlike the saturated fat of say butter. Personally, I think both are fine. But I encourage people to eat plenty of healthy fat, as demonstrated by our “Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Diet.” So go ahead and use olive oil.
How much of each category should you eat? That’s a good question, and depending on your quantity of each category, you may or may not lose weight (I’ll cover all of this in a section below).
In addition to that, everybody does the Mediterranean Diet differently:
Some argue that dairy shouldn’t be in the Mediterranean Diet at all, because it contains saturated fat.
Others would say red meat should be listed above, because Mediterranean dishes often include lamb.
Depending on which country in the Mediterranean you pick, your “diet” will be very different.
You’re never going to get a straight answer on this, and that’s okay!
This diet is loosely based on a region, in a moment in time, as interpreted by researchers with an agenda.
The reason I’m telling you this: I don’t care where the diet came from, or the story told around it. The same is true for Paleo (I don’t care about cavepeople!) – we don’t care about the story; we only care if the story helps people make healthier food choices.
Don’t get bogged down in the details or the dogma or the history. Instead, look at the list of food above. Shift your eating and go for big wins, by eating protein and real food as listed above, and you’ll be much better off than you are currently.
Which brings me to my next point…
What Foods Are Not Allowed on the Mediterranean Diet?
Yup, there are definitely “you’re doing it wrong” foods when it comes to the Mediterranean Diet. If you’re gonna go Mediterranean, please cut wayyyy back on the following:
Added sugar. This. If all you did to improve your diet was cut out added sugar, you’d be well on your way to improved health. Ditch the candy, soda, and ice cream and you’ll make me very happy. I’m generally pretty happy, but this will really put things over the top.
Refined grain. Oh Mediterranean Diet, you do get me. The second thing I would tell people to do to improve their diet would be to cut out refined and processed grains. Your body’s blood sugar can react to it almost the same way it does to sugar.
Refined oils. Dump out all rapeseed oil, soybean oil, and canola oil. When they’re heated, like they do when undergoing refinement, they create free radicals. Which aren’t as fun as they tend to sound, because of the whole “not good for your health” thing.[5] Science, you should really think of a less awesome name here.
Processed meat. High-quality meat will have better nutrients and fatty acid profiles than their processed counterparts. So cut back on uber processed deli meats and hot dogs. As for bacon, that’s your judgment call, partner.
Now, the above shouldn’t be too much of a shocker. Are you starting to see why the Mediterranean Diet is popular and reputable? It keeps things simple!
Eat real food.
Avoid unhealthy food.
Use olive oil.
Of course, this is ALL easier said than done, and whether or not you’ll lose weight on the diet is juuuuust a bit more complex than the above.
Will I lose weight on the Mediterranean Diet?
Short answer: It’s certainly possible.
Longer answer: If you currently eat a standard American diet full of processed food and sugar, the Mediterranean Diet will probably help you shed body fat if you can stick with it consistently and follow it intelligently.
I’ve talked about this extensively in our “Beginner’s Guide to Healthy Eating,” but the trick of any self respectable diet rests on eating REAL food and eliminating the bad food.
It focuses on real food that people in Mediterranean Europe have been eating for generations. Fresh vegetables, fruits, and fish are nothing new to the people of Greece! If you went back into the days of antiquity, after slaying a minotaur, you’d bask in a feast of fish, olives, and berries.
Of course, ALLLLL diets come with a big fat caveat:
Knowing you should eat fresh veggies, fruit, and fish is VERY different than actually sticking with it when life gets in the way, your kid gets sick, and you have to pick up a second job.
We all know we should eat better. But HOW to eat better, consistently, permanently: that’s where lasting weight loss and decades of healthy living happen.
This is the big reason why we put such an emphasis on nutritional planning for each person in our 1-on-1 coaching program: you have to make the diet work for YOUR specific life situation!
So, the reason the Mediterranean Diet works is the same reason other diets work: eating real food makes you more likely to consume fewer calories on a consistent basis, and you can’t defeat thermodynamics. Eating 5,000 calories of pasta and fish, though technically allowed on the Mediterranean Diet, will still result in weight gain.
So yes, if your current eating habits aren’t great, moving towards a Mediterranean Diet would be a solid move, especially if it helps you change your relationship with food and teaches you about portion sizes!
I’ll admit there’s controversy on how the Mediterranean Diet was formulated, but it ALSO encourages people to eat more real food, in smaller quantities, and has a good chance of weight loss if your changes are permanent.
Just remember: temporary changes create temporary results. If you follow a Mediterranean Diet to lose a few pounds and then go back to how you eat now, you’ll end up right back where you started!
We want small wins, permanent changes, and momentum!
Our entire coaching program is based on helping busy people make these small lifestyle changes. Nothing too scary, but impactful enough that their lives can be quite different in six months to a year.
Should I eat whole grains, dairy, and legumes on the Mediterranean Diet?
Should you eat grains, pasta, rice, etc, as allowed on the Mediterranean Diet?
If you can keep your portions under control, sure.
As we cover in our Guide to Healthy Eating, carbs and fats (cheeses) are often calorically-dense, meaning you’ll have to be careful not to over-consume if you’re managing a daily calorie goal.
My recommendation: treat yourself like a scientist and treat this as an experiment:
If you are following a Mediterranean Diet and consuming dairy, grains, and legumes and you’re getting results and a clean bill of health from your doctor, GREAT! Keep doing what you’re doing.
If you are following a Mediterranean Diet with dairy, grains, and legumes and NOT losing weight, try minimizing your consumption of some/all of these things to see if that changes things.
I know how tough it can be to eat just HALF of something on your plate, or eat a smaller portion of a food you really enjoy, so I’m gonna share with you a diet that is picking up some steam and might be a good experiment for you to consider.
Should I Consider a Low-Carb Mediterranean Diet?
What happens when you cut out the grains and dairy from a Mediterranean Diet?
You end up with a low-carb Mediterranean Diet.
This diet has actually been tested and named, in what is referred to as the Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet or Spanish Ketogenic Mediterranean Diet (SKMD).
The fat mostly comes from olive oil, there’s still red wine (I swear I’m getting to this), with plenty of green vegetables and salads for carbohydrates. Plus fish for protein.
Lot’s of fish.
In Spain, fish is a main component of their diet, hence the Spanish in the SKMD.
And who would have thunk it, it works!
The SKMD has been shown to help improve fatty liver disease and metabolic syndrome.[6] Not to mention the SKMD is effective for weight loss and waist circumference shrinkage.[7]
I’ve already covered the Ketogenic Diet extensively, so I won’t get into it (seriously, go read that post – it also has cute animal gifs) here. If you are going to pick a modified version of the Mediterranean Diet, the SKMD would be the optimal choice in my opinion.
Overwhelmed with Mediterranean, saturated fats, keto, or SKMD?
I hear ya.
Navigating all of these diets can be really tough. And maybe you’ve even tried the Mediterranean Diet before and couldn’t get the results to stick. That’s because diets are challenging, and life gets in the way.
If this is you, and you don’t have time to figure out how to make food work for your busy lifestyle, Nerd Fitness has a pretty sweet 1-on-1 Coaching Program to create custom solutions for each client that fits their life!
You can schedule a free call with our team to learn more by clicking on the image below!
Easy Mediterranean Diet Recipes
Need some help figuring out what all this will actually look like on a plate?
After all, just having a list of foods is like having the ingredients of a cake. It’s definitely not the same as having a cake.
Sorry for making you think about cake. I’ll go do 10 push-ups as punishment.
And I’m back.
Because I like you as a person, I did some research and found some super simple recipes for the “standard” Mediterranean Diet:
If you have other favorite recipes or resources, leave a comment below so I can add them here to this list!
Why Is the Mediterranean Diet so Healthy? (Other Lifestyle Considerations)
So far in this article, we’ve only focused on what to eat. Which is logical, because the Mediterranean Diet is first and foremost an eating regiment.
Whether you live in midwestern Ohio or Timbuktu, you can mimic the nutritional strategies of a centenarian Mediterranean thanks to global markets.
However, I’d be an idiot if I didn’t also mention all the other lifestyle benefits certain Mediterranean people have that ALSO factor into their longevity:
Mealtime as a social event. In a traditional Mediterranean household, friends and family come together over food as an experience. This allows a conversation to integrate into the meal, which extends the amount of time spent consuming food. The faster you scarf down food, the more of an insulin response you’ll create, and the more likely you’ll be to overeat when more food is available.[8] It takes your body time to realize it’s full, which happens too late when you are scarfing down food mindlessly in front of a screen.
Smaller servings. When comparing Western meals to those of Europe, one thing becomes plainly obvious in most situations: we tend to eat more food than our friends across the pond. Our plates are bigger and our servings are larger. And all other things being equal, the bigger the portion placed in front of you, the more you’ll probably eat.[9]. Want to eat less to help drop some body fat? Eat smaller servings by using smaller plates! You can trick your brain into eating less food. Here’s the study where they demonstrated just that.[10] Boom, science.
Move naturally. Think of life in the Greek islands back in 1950s – how many of these people spent an hour in a car commuting to a desk job where they worked 60 hours a week? Probably not many! Instead, it was a LOT more walking and local living. You can replicate this by spending more time walking and less time sitting! Every step starts to add up to a lot of physical activity. Plus, wine can add to spontaneous dancing like Zorba the Greek (seriously, the next section is about wine, you’re almost there).
Take a nap. It’s not uncommon for people in the Mediterranean to take a nap after lunch. This could help with their waistline. I know this is common knowledge, but getting plenty of sleep is important in your weight loss journey. Lack of shuteye has been shown to interfere with insulin responses after meals.[11] That’s right, you could be eating well, but still wreak havoc on your blood sugar by sleeping poorly.
Okay. You made it.
I’m proud of you.
You waited patiently, through this whole article and now we are at….
Can I drink wine and alcohol on the Mediterranean Diet?
Yes, you can enjoy a little wine on the Mediterranean Diet.
Hip hip hooray!
But seriously, let’s chat about this because I too enjoy adult beverages.
Drinking wine is customary throughout the Mediterranean: it’s served during dinner, to be paired with food and to encourage good conversation. Is it the wine itself that leads to better health? Or does wine add to the experience of dinner, creating an event to be remembered?
(It’s totally the latter.)
Real talk on alcohol: so many people consume alcohol that any diet that says “you cannot drink any alcohol ever” is doomed and nobody would stick with it. So in this made-up diet that claims to mimic old ways of eating, it recommends consuming wine in moderation.
I see this in every diet:
Paleo dieters drink tequila.
Keto dieters drink whiskey.
And Mediterranean dieters drink red wine.
We’ve talked about alcohol extensively here at Nerd Fitness, and one of our preferred drink recommendations is red wine. As long as you are keeping your calorie consumption under control, occasionally enjoying adult beverages can be part of your strategy.
We cool? Cool.
Exercise and the Mediterranean Diet (Workout Recommendations)
There’s nothing complicated about training under the Mediterranean Diet.
Depending on your goals, your “Mediterranean Diet” will vary:
If you’re trying to lose weight, you’ll need to watch your total calorie intake. This might be easier with the Mediterranean Diet Food List, as the focus on whole foods will generally be a diet higher in nutrients and lower in calories.
If you’re trying to gain muscle, you’ll need to consume an adequate amount of protein. You’ll likely eat a lot of fish, chicken, and eggs.
If you’re going to start a running practice, you might need some extra carbs to burn off. You may find yourself eating some whole grain pasta here and there.
The definition of the Mediterranean Diet is so broad, that you’ll be able to tailor it to any workout goal you may have.
You’ll just need to be able to define your strategy (by picking your workout goals), so you can create a version of the Mediterranean Diet that fits you!
“Steve, what are some resources to help me start working out? Can you help me begin an exercise practice?”
You betcha!
Here are some resources to help you start training on a Mediterranean Diet:
Beginner Bodyweight Workout: designed for a newbie in mind, many a Rebel have used the workout to springboard their strength training. If you don’t know where to start, start there.
6 Beginner Gym Workouts: are you like a lost sheep when you step foot in your fitness facility? Wander aimlessly no more! We’ll show you the most effective gym workouts in our comprehensive guide.
The other thing to consider would be our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. A Nerd Fitness Coach can create a custom-made workout plan to fit your life and situation!
7 Common Questions on Starting the Mediterranean Diet
1) “Steve, I had a grandfather who grew up on the Mediterranean and he ate differently than this. Henceforth, this diet is null and void. GOOD DAY, SIR.”
Okay, that’s not really a question. And kind of rude. But I’ll address it. I want to stress again that the Mediterranean Diet may or may not be exactly what people in the Mediterranean back in the 1950s actually ate.
And I also want to stress again that it DOESN’T matter!
We only care about results, and that comes from permanent changes to somebody’s relationship and decision making with food.
So if the idea of “Eating like a Mediterranean person” makes sense to you, great!
And if your grandfather ate differently, great! Eat like him and let me know how it goes!
2) “Steve, Italy is on the Mediterranean. Pasta and pizza come from Italy. So I can stuff my face with pasta and I’m gonna lose weight and be really good looking, right?”
Solid question. Sure. Consume whole-grain pasta while on the Mediterranean Diet, but do so in a MUCH smaller quantity than you’re used to consuming if you are trying to lose weight.
Pasta is generally a side dish in the Mediterranean. It won’t be served to you in a huge giant bowl like it is in the United States. If you do decide to eat things like pasta, do what they do in the Mediterranean, and use it to complement a dish, not BE the dish.
3) “What’s up with goat milk?”
Goats are badasses in the Mediterranean, with their ability to travel over rocky terrain. Sorry cows, step up your game.
This explains why goat dairy is quite common in the Mediterranean.
If you are deciding to consume dairy, a goat might be your new friend.[12] The milk generally contains more fat than from a cow, which fits into our SKMD strategy. Also less lactose, ie sugar. Structurally, some people have an easier time processing goat’s milk than traditional dairy.
Granted, some people find the flavor of goat’s milk off and don’t like it. But Steve can only solve so many problems. I try.
4) “Will olive oil make me live forever? The future is gonna be rad.”
Yes. It will also give you superpowers. Okay, not really. But extra virgin olive oil is great. It’s my go-to for salads. Add in some vinegar and you’re crushing it in the “flavorful, healthy salad” department.
However, I don’t think it’s the secret ingredient of the Mediterranean Diet. Most praise of olive oil comes from the fact that it contains no saturated fat. Which is one of the main reasons the Mediterranean Diet became so popular. But it’s still very high in calories, so pouring tons of healthy olive oil on everything could be the reason why you’re not losing any weight!
I personally enjoy and use olive oil, grass-fed butter, and/or coconut oil depending on the meal. So, if you love olive oil and put it on everything, great. Just know that it won’t do your laundry, wash your dishes, or tuck you in at night. Or make you live forever. It’s oil from olives.
5) “Steve, can I use canola oil instead of olive oil?”
Despite what other sites suggest with the Mediterranean Diet, I would advise minimizing canola oil consumption and seek out other solutions where possible. Canola oil is a vegetable oil mostly derived from rapeseed, it’s often heavily processed, and actually creates a small amount of trans fat.[13]Bad news bears. If you need a substitute for olive oil, go with avocado or coconut oil.
6) “Do I HAVE to eat seafood? I don’t enjoy the taste of fish, and I believe that “fish are friends, not food.”
I get it. Fish isn’t for everyone. I actually don’t like fish myself, despite growing up in a fishing town on Cape Cod.
I know, sacrilegious.
No, you do not need to eat fish to follow the Mediterranean Diet. The reason seafood is recommended on the Mediterranean Diet is because it’s generally low in saturated fat and plentiful in that region. But again, I’m not a big supporter of reducing saturated fat intake at all costs. So if consuming fish makes you gag, don’t torture yourself. Stick with chicken or turkey. Or…
7) “Should I really limit red meat on the Mediterranean Diet?”
I may be summoning the wrath of the Mediterranean gods with this one (forgive me Zeus), but limiting red meat may be a goal without merit. I know. I can see the clouds and lighting bolts forming now.
And that includes the conventional wisdom of limiting red meat. Yes, I remember that Harvard study that says red meat causes cancer, and I disagree with the fear-mongering that resulted. [14]
If you do decide to partake, go with good quality sources for your red meat (grass-fed wherever possible).
Also, as we’ve mentioned earlier, diet differs quite a bit throughout the Mediterranean, and meat can actually be pretty prominent in the form of lamb, goat, and beef. Even pork. Again, the Mediterranean Diet as opposed to what people in the Mediterranean actually eat.
So be true to yourself and do what feels right for you.
My advice: everything in moderation. Including moderation.
However, I apologize in advance if you get struck by lighting after eating lamb chops.
Resources to help you start the Mediterranean Diet
You’re convinced you want to start the Mediterranean Diet today – congratulations!
Need more help?
William Willett, who helped create the Mediterranean Diet Pyramid I showed above, has a book where he lays out all his thoughts on why the diet works. Check out Eat, Drink, and Be Healthy for his argument.
The organization Oldways is more or less responsible for the modern way we understand the Mediterranean Diet, and you’ll never run out of their recipes. I’m still not entirely convinced the organization doesn’t solely exist to sell more olive oil, but that could be paranoid Steve being paranoid. Let me adjust my tinfoil hat…
Also, I’d be remiss not to mention Nerd Fitness Prime. It contains 6+ months of at-home workout routines, a nutrition course, and a snazzy app to help align your mindset to make sense of everything. If you’ve never stepped foot in a kitchen outside of grabbing milk from the fridge to drink out of the jug, we’ll help!
And if you’re just looking for basic nutritional guidance, we have a free 10-level nutritional blueprint that you can download, print, stick on your fridge, and start leveling up right now.
You can get it when joining our Rebellion mailing list below:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Next Steps on Beginning the Mediterranean Diet (Plus a Challenge)
Just in case you skipped to the end of this article, or you’re looking for a quick recap, I hear you.
Pros of the Mediterranean Diet.
A focus on REAL food. All of the recommended food choices of the Mediterranean Diet are minimally processed. This is most of the battle on the war on diet. If you minimized the processed food on your plate, you’d be doing most of the heavy lifting when it comes to healthy eating.
Plenty of veggies, fruit. Eating vegetables is the least controversial recommendation on a diet that has ever existed. No one questions the advice. This is less true on fruit, but come on. If all the sugar in your diet came from fruit, you’d be in rockstar mode.
Lots of healthy fats. The Mediterranean Diet is not a low-fat diet. This is great. You need fat in your diet. Olive oil and fish are a great way to get there.
Cons of the Mediterranean Diet:
Saturated fat may be limited unnecessarily. Without saturated fat, there’s really only a handful of sources left to get fat intake. Granted, as addressed a few sentences ago, fish and olive oil are solid choices. But still, meals will need to be quickly rotated without saturated fat as an option.
Grains, even whole, might not be the greatest idea for some. They are high in calories and can derail even the best-laid plans, so only eat if it fits your goals and lifestyle.
Dairy isn’t exactly a homerun if you over-consume. Like I mentioned earlier, not everyone handles dairy well, it can contain plenty of lactose (sugar), and calories.
Doesn’t address portion size or calorie amounts. People can DEFINITELY gain weight on the Mediterranean Diet if they eat 5000 calories worth of pasta each day. You have to be smart about portion sizes and not just eat all day every day (which is true of every diet).
It doesn’t address overall lifestyle changes or human psychology. We all know we need to eat healthier – the problem is actually sticking with it! So having a list of food to eat is great. But learning how to make it fit into your lifestyle is even more important.
If you have been nodding your head at the Mediterranean Diet and are planning on going all-in with it – you have my permission!
If you are already eating a keto or paleo-ish diet and were wondering if you should switch to this diet, I’d only suggest it if you were struggling with compliance, not losing weight, and not getting results.
YOUR MISSION THIS WEEK: cook a Mediterranean meal for a friend or loved one this week, and make the dinner an event!
Send them this article and explain that Steve gave you direct marching orders to make a meal for a friend or loved one. Together, you can complete this mission. You can even have a little wine if it suits you. And make a toast. OPA!
I suggest making the Avocado Hummus referenced earlier. It’s seriously just cutting up three ingredients, adding lemon juice and olive oil and mixing them in a bowl. Serve them with whole-grain pita chips or sliced veggies.
If all of this is overwhelming, or you need help with making better food choices, you are not alone!
Like I said earlier, we have a community of people who are busy and looking to live better, and a whole team dedicated to helping those people!
If you want help moving on from here, I have three options for next steps. Actions you can take today to jumpstart your fitness journey. I’ll share them with you, but only because you laughed at my cheesy minotaur joke earlier:
#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching program: a coaching program for busy people to help them make better food choices, stay accountable, and get healthier, permanently.
You can schedule a free call with our team so we can get to know you and see if our coaching program is right for you. Just click on the image below for more details:
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community (with many like-minded people embarking on new diets), group challenges, and much more!
#3) Enlist in the Rebellion! We have a free email newsletter that we send out twice per week, full of tips and tricks to help you get healthy, get strong, and have fun doing so.
I’ll also send you tons of free guides that you can use to start leveling up your life too:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
Alright, enough babbling from me…
Let’s hear from you: After you’ve completed your mission, leave a comment below and I’ll buy you a plane ticket to Santorini. Okay not really. But I will give you a high five if we ever meet on a fishing boat off of Crete. Deal?!
If you started the habit of cooking for company, you’d make Steve a happy camper.
Let me know if you have any more questions, and I hope you can get started on your Mediterranean lifestyle today.
Now pass me the corkscrew!
-Steve
PS: I want to give a shoutout to Nina Teicholz and her book The Big Fat Surprise, whose chapter “Selling the Mediterranean Diet” served as a reference for this post.
If you have questions about the Keto Diet, well my friend, you’ve come to the right place!
We help our coaching clients completely overhaul their nutrition, including going low-carb, and today we’ll give you everything you need to start a Ketogenic Diet.
We’ve learned a lot by helping people begin the Keto Diet: there’s plenty of good, there’s plenty of bad, and there’s plenty of ugly.
Today, we share with you what we’ve discovered.
Here’s what we’ll cover in our GINORMOUS Guide to the Keto Diet (click to skip to that section):
Whew. It’s a lot to cover. Even just typing out the Table of Contents was exhausting.
But hang in there!
You’ll learn how to do Keto right, plus I’ll share cute animal gifs to make sure you’re still paying attention, like this one:
If you don’t have a lot of time, but do want an exact plan to follow, I got you. Since this is a MASSIVE article (the longest published on Nerd Fitness!), if you’d rather read it in a snazzy digital guide form, you can download our Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Dietfree when you sign up in the box below:
Download Our Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Diet
55-page Keto Diet guide: how to start today!
Learn the benefits and pitfalls of going Keto.
Keto recipes, snacks, resources, and more!
And yes, that is an egg wearing a cape of bacon.
Okay, let’s get into KETOOOOOOOO…
What is the keto diet or KetoGenic Diet?
The Ketogenic diet, or Keto diet, is a food strategy in which you drastically reduce your carbohydrate intake and replace it with fat in order to get your metabolism to a state called ketosis.
In ketosis, your body converts fat to fuel to burn for energy like Tony Stark burns Captain America for being uptight.
Don’t worry, the jokes will only get worse from here.
When you’re in ketosis, your body is burning fat for fuel, and this can help create a series of big wins for you in the “get healthy, lose weight, look good naked” department.
In order for ketosis to happen, the body needs to be absent its preferred fuel source: glucose (sugar!).
This can happen in one of TWO ways:
Fasting: by not eating at all, your body will burn through your glucose stores and be forced to start converting fat to ketones for fuel.
Eating in a “Keto” way: essentially, only fueling your body with fat and avoiding consumption of foods that can be readily converted to sugar.
Where does that sugar usually come from? Generally speaking, carbs.[2]
And boy do we love carbs.
A typical American diet is more than 50% carbs. And more than 60% of our country is overweight. Is one causing the other? Or are they just correlated?
I’d argue both.
And I’m the nerd writing this.
So, there.
Eat carbs, burn carbs, store sugars, lather, rinse, repeat. Very little fat-burning is taking place – and you’re adding to your body’s sugar storehouse, and that’s what eventually winds up packing the fat onto your body!
This is an overly simplified video explaining the process:
So what happens if you get rid of those carbs and replace them with another fuel source? That’s when you start burning fat.
Compare a typical carb-heavy American diet to somebody who is “Keto” – they eat a diet very high in fat, with moderate amounts of protein and minimal amounts of carbohydrates.
Still with me?
Great.
So if you do an extended fasted period, or only eat foods that line up with the Keto Diet, your body is going to be forced to burn fat for fuel.
Another thing to note: when you eat carbs, your body produces insulin to deal with the increase in sugar/glucose in your bloodstream. When you minimize carbohydrate consumption, this can result in less insulin production, and your body can become more insulin sensitive, which has a host of health benefits.
Depending on how strict you are choosing to be with Keto, you’ll probably pick one of the following strategies:
Less than 50g of carbs
Less than 20g of net carbs
5% of your total calorie intake
Which one is for you? We’ll get to that. Just know that everybody is a unique snowflake, and everybody will be different when it comes to entering ketosis and staying in ketosis.
There’s no hard and fast rule to which “Keto Diet” strategy you need to follow, but it helps to start with one to get the ball rolling.
In short, you’ll need to pick the one that puts you into ketosis, which requires you to pay attention, track your results, and act like a scientist.
When you’re in ketosis, this can lead to ramped-up weight loss for some, and increased physical potential, lower insulin levels, increased brain function, and other awesomeness for others.
Allow me to answer your next question.
What are ketones?
If you don’t care what ketones are and are just here for the weight-loss stuff, skip to the next section. If you do care about ketones, strap in and let’s get weird.
When your body doesn’t have carbs/glucose to burn for energy, you’ll need to dig into your body’s fat storehouse to get fuel.
Enter the hero of this story: your liver.
Yes, the same liver you abuse during dollar draft night at O’Houlihans.
In the absence of glucose, your liver takes your stored fat and breaks it down into usable compounds called ketone bodies, or ketones.
These ketones can be used by your body and your brain for fuel! In addition, “increased blood ketone levels may directly suppress appetite.”[3]
The reason many feel differently on a Keto Diet is that their brains are being fueled by a completely different source than at any point in the past.
There are three types of ketones, which is important to know if you want to sound pretentious at parties:
Acetoacetate
Beta-hydroxybutyrate
Acetone
It’s also important to note that ketones are different from a keytar, which is what Michelangelo used to defeat Shredder in the cinematic masterpiece, Ninja Turtles:
If you are wondering, “Steve did you write this entire section just so you could make a keytar joke?” you wouldn’t be wrong.
But let’s get back on track: There are two ways for your body to fuel itself off of ketones:
It can make the ketones itself during periods of fasting or due to the consumption of fat and the absence of glucose. Woot for home-cookin’.
Consume actual ketones – these are called “exogenous ketones,” which I’ll cover later in the article.
This concludes our boring sciencey section about ketones and allows us to get back to the real reason you’re here.
Will I lose Weight on the Keto Diet? What are the Other Benefits of Keto?
Great question.
The answer: Probably.
One of the tenets of the Nerd Fitness Rebellion is “You can’t outrun your fork,” which means we believe nutrition is 80-90% of the “lose weight” battle.
So let’s dig into how the Keto Diet factors in here.
When your body is consistently in the process of breaking down fat into ketones, you enter ketosis.
Imagine you have a pile of coal (stored fat) for the winter – when you shovel some of the pile into the furnace for heat (energy), your pile of coal gets smaller. In ketosis, YOU are getting smaller.
You can find study[4] after study [5] after study [6]in which people on a Keto Diet lost weight and improved tons of health markers.
There’s also another reason most people lose weight on the Keto Diet.
Thermodynamics.
I discuss this in great detail in my “The Perfect Diet” article, but I’ll give you the summary here:
When somebody eats a Keto Diet, they are nearly eliminating an entire macronutrient: carbohydrates.
And what foods are primarily made up of carbohydrates? Bread. Pasta. Candy. Soda. Chips. Bagels. Fruit smoothies. These are calorically dense, nutritionally deficient foods that people tend to overeat.
When you eliminate all of these bad foods in a restrictive diet like Keto, you’re going to consume fewer calories overall.
And when you burn more calories than you consume, day in day out, for weeks or months at a time, you’re likely to lose weight.
This is why most calorie-restricted diets result in weight loss regardless of the composition of the food consumed.
Note this ignores the concept of quality of food, muscle synthesis, body composition, etc. and JUST focuses on a smaller number on the scale.
Anecdotally, once some people become keto-adapted, they feel satiated on fewer calories – which results in easier weight loss.
And yes, the opposite is true: one can ALSO overeat on Keto in order to GAIN weight. So don’t expect to eat 6000 calories of butter, avocados, and bacon and lose weight.
In addition to helping with weight loss, the Keto Diet has been used to treat epilepsy[7], help with Type II diabetes[8], polycystic ovary syndrome [9], acne [10], potential improvement in neurological diseases (Parkinson’s[11] and multiple sclerosis[12]), certain types of cancer[13], and reduces the risk factors in both respiratory and cardiovascular diseases[14]. Emerging studies are digging into its effects on Alzheimer’s [15]and other conditions as well.
Here’s a video specifically related to Keto and cancer:
NOTE: I’m not a doctor. I don’t play one on TV. I did not stay at a Holiday Inn Express last night.
I am not advocating Keto as a panacea for all of your ailments.
I simply point out the above studies as STARTING points for you to conduct your own research and discuss with your doctor if switching to a Keto Diet is an experiment you should attempt.
What’s the Difference Between Keto, Atkins, and Paleo?
I’ll cover this quickly!
Keto, Paleo, and Atkins are all considered “low carb” diets, though “low carb” means different things to different people, different groups, and different studies.
They each have different things that are important as well:
Keto targets low carb (less than 5% of your total), and focuses on a very high-fat content – 70% of your diet. It eliminates grains, tubers, and most fruits due to the carb content. You need to be diligent in your tracking and can measure if you’re in ketosis.
Paleo targets low carb through focusing on protein and fats, eliminates dairy, but doesn’t limit fruit or sweet potato intake. In this diet, you don’t track but rather eat until you’re full.
Atkins has different tiers of adherence, focuses on low carb, high protein, high fat. You eventually add more nuts, low carb vegetables, and low carb fruits back into your diet.
I’ve written a monster guide on the Paleo Diet, which I recommend you read in addition to this article if you’re trying to decide which option works best for you. You can also check out our post specifically comparing Keto and Paleo.
Like every diet, you can absolutely do any of these diets and still gain weight and get unhealthier – so they each come with caveats, and require you to understand the food you’re putting in your body.
Deal? Deal. Here’s an otter with a baby otter, you’ve earned it:
How Do I Do the Keto Diet?
“Steve, I want all the potential benefits and potential good-looking side effects of going Keto. I also want a million dollars. But for now, I’ll settle for the benefits of Keto. How do I do it?“
In my opinion, there are two reasons why somebody wants to go Keto, and that should dictate your level of dedication to the Keto cause:
If you are just trying to lose weight, it doesn’t really matter whether or not you’re actually in ketosis – provided you are consuming fewer calories on average compared to how you were eating before. This can be aided by minimizing carbs and upping your fat intake.
If you are treating this as an experiment and are tracking your ketosis compliance, then you need to be more diligent in your tracking and actually make sure you’re in ketosis.
I imagine most people fall into Group A, but we’ll cover both Group A and Group B moving forward – and tracking your results is the best way to make progress.
So let’s say you’re “going Keto.” This can be a few different things depending on your situation:
Tracking net carbs: 20 net grams per day or less
Tracking regular carbs: 50 grams per day or less
As a percentage: 5% of daily calories
Although people adjust their ratio of protein and fats, the hard and fast rule tends to be around the severely restricted consumption of carbohydrates.
Ruled.Me has a fantastic Ketogenic Macro Calculator that simplifies the heck out of this process, but I’ll also show you the math if you want to nerd out:
#1: Determine your total calorie intake goal. Calculate your “basal metabolic rate” (how many calories you burn per day). I am 6’0″, 185 lbs, and my BMR is roughly 1814 calories. I am active, so I’m multiplying this number by 1.375 to get to my active daily calorie burn: 2814 – let’s make this an even 2800.
#2: Take 5% of that number for your total amount of carbs. Divide by 4 (there are 4 calories per gram of carbohydrate). Some people stick to a rule of “Less than 50 grams total” or “20 net carbs total.”
I have 140 calories for carbs, divided by 4, equals 35 grams of carbs. That’s a nice round number so we’ll stick to that.
#3: Next, calculate your protein requirements. If you are active, Target 0.8-1.2 g of protein per pound of weight. This is a simplified version of a complex calculation you can do, which is dependent on your lean body mass, how active you are, etc. If you have a lot of weight to lose, you’ll want to adjust this number down to more like 0.5-.6g per pound (consult the above calculator) You can multiply this by 4 to see how many calories total that would be.
I’ll again keep it simple and make it 180g for me. 180 x 4 = 720 cal. Which means so far I have used up roughly 860 calories of my 2800 calories, so I have 1940 calories remaining.
#4: What’s leftover? Fat! There are 9 calories per gram of fat. So divide your remaining calorie count by 9 to see how many grams of fat you should eat per day.
In my example, I have 1940 calories remaining, divided by 9, which means I need to consume 215g of fats per day. Yup. This is a lot of fat.
#5: Put it all together, write it down, start tracking your food, sucka! I’m sorry for calling you a sucka, I didn’t mean it. In my example, I’m looking at 215g of fat, 180g of protein, and 35g of carbs.
This should be a good STARTING point. You’ll need to adjust along the way based on how your body responds, but it can get you going.
Next, you’ll create a meal strategy of sorts – examples later in the article – that pick the foods in the previous section and combine them in a way that fits your particular strategy to enter ketosis.
And that means you gotta know your food!
For everything you eat, you want to know the following:
Number of calories
Grams of fat
Grams of protein
Grams of carbs
Grams of fiber
With carb intake requirements being very low, many ‘healthy’ foods would still be enough to knock you out of ketosis depending on how many of them you eat. Which means you need to be hyper-aware of your carb count.
Let’s quickly talk about the concept of “net carbs,” and why this is so important:
A vegetable that is 5 grams of carbs and has 3 grams of fiber will have a “net carb” total (subtract the fiber number from the carb number) would be 2.
Here are a few examples showing the ‘net carb’ effect:
Asparagus: 7g carbs, 4g fiber = 3g net carbs
Kale: 7.3g carbs, 2.6g fiber = 4.7g net carbs
Broccoli: 11g carbs, 5g fiber = 6g net carbs
WHY THIS IS IMPORTANT: Fiber is really good for your body, and oftentimes when somebody goes from eating hundreds of grams of carbs per day to less than 50g, they are eliminating a lot of high fiber foods they used to eat (bread, whole grains, etc.).
By consuming leafy greens like kale or veggies like broccoli, one can still get enough fiber and remain in ketosis.
Of course, no good healthy eating strategy goes unmarketed, why you’ll see plenty of “Keto-friendly” snacks that advertise “zero-net carbs” even though they have many grams of carbs in their nutritional breakdown – it’s countered by the fiber.
In addition, a lot of “high fiber” protein bars or “low carb snacks” often contain sugar or artificial sweeteners that could knock you out of ketosis.
Which means two things:
Consuming a pile of “Keto-friendly” processed snacks all day long could absolutely knock your body out of ketosis. Check the ingredients, and try to focus on eating REAL food.
If the occasional Keto snack keeps you from getting hangry (hungry plus angry) between meals, and keeps you from overeating during your regular meals – knocking you out of ketosis – then snacks are fine.
What Can I eat on the keto diet?
“Steve, I appreciate you talking to me like I’m 5 years old and walking me through this process step by step. I don’t care what everybody on the internet says about you, you’re an okay guy.
I now have my macros. What the heck do I get to eat on a Keto Diet?”
As I explained above, in order to be in Ketosis you need to eat a diet that has minimal carbs, high fat, and adequate amounts of protein.
Following this type of nutritional strategy can result in ketone body production and increased fat-burning. We talked about this in our Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet. Although fat gets a bad rap, fat is an essential nutrient and it’s not actually the fat that’s making us fat.
Here’s a look at the things you should primarily be eating on Keto:
Meat. This includes red meat (like steak) as well as pork products (sausage and bacon and ham) and white meat (like chicken and turkey). Fatty meats can be helpful in a Keto Diet.
Fish. Look for high-fat fish, like tuna and salmon.
Eggs and dairy. If you think there’s nothing better than butter and cheese, you’re in luck! Eggs, butter, and cheese are all a big part of eating Keto. You’ll want to make sure your items are as unprocessed as possible, so stick to cheeses like cheddar, mozzarella, and blue, and look for butter and egg products that are organic or come from free-range animals.
Healthy fats. Nuts, seeds, and avocados are your keys here. Almonds, macadamia nuts, Brazil nuts, and nut butters.
Dressings and oils. Greek dressing, caesar dressing (though check the ingredients), ranch, aioli. When you need an oil, stick to extra-virgin olive oil, avocado oil, coconut oil.
Veggies. Cruciferous greens like spinach, kale, broccoli, cauliflower, that sort of thing.[16]
Meatless proteins. Tempeh, tofu, and seitan can take the place of meats in a vegetarian or vegan Keto Diet. Not as optimal in this nerd’s opinion, but you do you, boo.
This is an overly simplified breakdown of what you can eat, but it will serve as the foundation for the rest of the article. And yes, I’ll get into specific meals soon.
Still here? I’m proud of you.
What foods Can’t I Eat on the Keto Diet?
We covered what you CAN eat.
Now let’s cover all of the foods you should avoid while eating Keto:
Sugars. This can include desserts like cake and ice cream and cookies. And don’t forget to watch out for hidden sugars in things like ketchup! Your body LOVES to burn sugars, and if it has those, it’s not going to create ketones out of fat to burn.
Liquid calories. Soda, juices, smoothies, and any beverages that contain carbs and sugar.
Starches. This means pasta, potatoes, sweet potatoes, rice, bread, cereals, and anything made with wheat or cornflour. They’re big sources of carbs, and once again, they’ll stop your body from entering ketosis. It also means corn, which is a grain, not a vegetable.
Diet foods. We told you to avoid sugars, but “diet” foods are big red flags on Keto as well (and on most healthy eating plans!) They’re heavily processed and high in sugar and tend to wreak havoc on your body.
Fruits. What, no fruit? Fruits tend to be high in fructose (a sugar). High sugar = no ketosis. (I feel like maybe I’ve said that already). A few berries can be OK, but only if you’ve planned for their net-carb intake into your daily total.
Beans.Wait, what? Steve, I thought beans and legumes were healthy! You even eat them as part of your Paleo-ish diet! They can be, but they’re also higher in carbs and can potentially cause inflammation that works against weight loss.
Unhealthy fats. Healthy fats, like those in olive oil and nuts, are great. But that big glob of mayonnaise in your tuna, or the canola oil you’re frying in? Stay away from them on Keto.
Does this sound like a lot to eliminate all at once? It’s because it is. This is where most people fall off the wagon.
They see that list and say “I could never give up (insert your favorite non-Keto food here).”
If you’re already overwhelmed and worried you can’t stick with this diet, I got ya. I made a free 10-level Diet Blueprint (think like leveling up in a video game) that walks you through eliminating many of these foods through a series of small changes you can make that won’t freak you out, and isn’t nearly as restrictive as the Keto Diet.
For a lot of members of the Rebellion, these incremental changes are a great place to start while you get your feet wet and start to learn about the food you’re cramming down your piehole. I’ll send it to you free when you sign up in the box below:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
How do I KNOW I’m in Ketosis?
If you’re going to follow a Keto Diet, you probably want to learn how to determine if you’re actually in ketosis, right?
I believe there is something more important here to consider:
Are you getting results?
Does it matter?
If you are aiming for a “look pretty good, feel pretty good” strategy – as laid out here – an 80% solution that results in a decent physique when combined with strength training and exercise.
So if you “go Keto” and you are losing weight and feeling better, does it REALLY matter if you’re in ketosis or not? I don’t want your success derailed because you panic about the exact amount of ketones in your bloodstream!
“Steve, I hear you. But I’m doing this Keto thing as an experiment, or I want to see if I get other benefits too. Tell me how I can measure my ketone levels!”
Okay okay okay, fine! We’ll do all the things that YOU wanna do.
There are three ways to determine whether or not you’re in Ketosis:
Test your breath
Test your urine
Test your blood
In my research, I found that testing one’s breath is the least popular of the options – I only found poorly reviewed expensive testers. So if you happen to LOVE this method and have an inexpensive testing option you want me to link here – put it in the comments!
Blood testing options are accurate but do require a blood sample (duh) and thus are less convenient than the next option…
I bought these Ketone Testing Strips and they seem to be getting the job done for testing the level of ketones my body is producing. I simply pee on the strip and then match the color at the end to the side of the bottle to determine the level of ketones in my urine.
For the first week or two of becoming keto-adapted, testing your ketone levels daily (or once in the morning and at night) is reasonable. Don’t test your levels multiple times throughout the day, especially after just eating, and then freak out if the number isn’t what you wanted it to be.
NOTE: Once your body becomes fat-adapted, it might use ketones more effectively which means fewer ketones are excreted through your urine/breath. For this reason, your tests could show lower ranges of ketone levels than the actual amount your body is producing. This is normal, expected, and not a problem.
“WHAT ARE THE DIFFERENT RANGES FOR KETONES!?”
Ketones are measured in terms of millimoles per liter in your blood:
0-0.4 mmol/L = regular American diet (50%+ carbs)
0.5-7 mmol/L = prolonged fasting / ketogenic diet
15-25 mmol/L = Diabetic ketoacidosis = danger, Will Robinson!
When you’re in ketosis, you’ll hang out in the second range. Depending on what you’re eating, if you’re supplementing with exogenous ketones, if you fasted, and how long you’ve been in ketosis, where in that range might vary for you – but that’s okay!
My research also showed that there’s no particular benefit to having a higher ketone amount as long as you are in ketosis.[17]
Let’s quickly talk about ketoacidosis – it’s a condition in which the body produces too many ketones that can’t be used, rendering the bloodstream too acidic – it’s a concern, but for a small percentage of people.
Diabetics in particular are at risk for diabetic ketoacidosis, and they should work with their doctor before adjusting their medication or adopting a Keto Diet strategy.
If you are STILL panicked, speak with your doctor. And relax. Look at these sleeping puppies, calm yourself down, and then we can get back to work:
The Killer Combo: Fasting + Keto Diet
As previously stated (like, 5 minutes ago), there are two ways to ensure you get into ketosis:
Fasting
Eating in a way that induces ketosis (low carb).
As many will tell you in the Reddit’s /r/Keto – and even members of our own Team Nerd Fitness:
Eating Keto + Intermittent Fasting = a great combo for simple weight loss.
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, decided to go Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis (click on the image for his story)!
Only eat during a certain window of the day. The most popular version (and the one I follow) is ‘skip breakfast’, and only consume calories between Noon and 8PM.
Occasionally do a 24 hour fast: eat dinner one night, and then don’t consume more calories until the following dinner. Some people actually do this every day, they call it OMAD (one meal per day).
Men and women are affected differently by intermittent fasting, and your results may vary.
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones. Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. It’s one less decision I have to make, it’s one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, it’s an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis. You’re also tempted to overeat. So, by skipping a meal, you’re eliminating one meal, one decision, one chance to screw up.
Note: if you’re thinking “Steve, am I losing weight because I’m skipping 1/3rd of my meals for the day, AND eliminating an entire macronutrient?” – Yes. Now, both Keto and IF have secondary effects that could also be factoring in.
Your value may vary!
You need to decide what works for you: If going 24 hours without eating would make it hard for you to be successful on Keto, similar results have been seen when starting the diet without a fast, so don’t worry if that’s not doable right now!
Some people find success in eating ONE big meal a day, others do 16/8 fasting, and other people eat throughout the day.
It comes down to total calories consumed, total carbs consumed, and your level of misery while adjusting!
Keto needs to work for you, not the other way around. And if you want to try Intermittent Fasting, you can download our free IF Worksheet to track exactly when to eat and not to eat!
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
How to Avoid the “Keto Flu” and other negative side effects
So here’s the bad news: While ketosis is a great state for your body eventually, it can feel crappy at first.
Keto-induction, or the period where your body is entering ketosis, is a pretty big shock to the system, especially if you’ve been eating a lot of carbs. It can come with side effects that feel like the flu (fatigue, upset stomach, aching, insomnia and more), but it’s not caused by the ketosis itself.
Keto flu actually comes from carbohydrate withdrawal. That’s right; your body can basically be addicted to carbs, and have trouble dealing with a reduction in them!
It takes time for your body to become “Keto-adapted.”
Think of it this way: your body is a spoiled toddler who has been happily fueled by candy and soda for the past 3 years.
You suddenly tell the toddler: “no more soda, no more candy. You’re going to eat broccoli and grilled chicken like a big boy.”
How do you think this kid is going to respond?
Poorly.
Temper tantrums, mood swings, crying, and rage at the lack of delightful sugar. Eventually, this kid will be better off in the long term as a result…but it’s gonna take some time.
This ‘carb withdrawal’ can be so dramatic for some people that it ruins them for days or weeks, and they give up.
In these instances, the love affair with Keto ends prematurely, and the person goes crawling back to the comforting, delicious, but ultimately unfulfilling carb-heavy comfort foods.
Remember that list of ‘worst’ diets with Keto at the top? It’s for reasons like this: people give up on the diet quickly, and it’s tough to stick with long term.
“STEVE, HOW CAN I AVOID THE KETO FLU?”
For MOST people, the Keto flu and getting headaches comes down to the body adjusting to becoming fat-adapted, dehydration, and electrolyte imbalances. When you eliminate carbohydrates from your diet, you might also be removing the consumption of certain electrolytes:
Sodium
Magnesium
Potassium
When you specifically try to add these electrolytes back into your diet, you’ll be able to offset some of the chemical changes in your body and compensate for the lack of those electrolytes that you used to consume as part of your old diet.
How does one do that? For sodium, you can simply add salt to your food (heyyyy sodium!), and for potassium and magnesium, you can eat kale, other leafy greens, avocado, nuts.
And in BOTH instances, you can add electrolyte supplements to a bottle of water!
I have many friends who struggled through the first few weeks of Keto and found that electrolyte supplementation made the process significantly more bearable.
Which brings us to another important topic:
This momma dog and her puppies:
And THIS important topic…
Can I strength Train and Do Keto? Cardio and Keto? Crossfit and Keto?
“Steve, I’m down to try Keto. But I don’t just want to lose weight, I want to build a physique I’m proud of. Meaning I wanna look good nekked.”
We’re going to approach this section with three caveats:
I don’t care what the “optimal” way to eat or train is. Unless you are an elite-level athlete or trying to build a specific physique, being “good enough” will suffice. This is true for your nutrition, for your training. The OPTIMAL way for you to train and eat is whatever method you will actually stick with long enough to build the habit!
We’ll look at what happens to your body on both cardio and strength training. You’ll be covered no matter what kind of exercise you follow.
You might suck at everything for the first few weeks of Keto. As pointed out in The Ketogenic Bible: “Significant declines in physical performance after one week of following a Ketogenic Diet; however, performance levels are restored after about six weeks, although it sometimes takes longer.”
The jury is still out on all of this –studies have suggested that reducing carb consumption dramatically could impact performance negatively depending on the activity, and below I’ll show you studies that present the exact opposite conclusion.
#1) “Steve, I like Strength Training. What does Keto look like for me?”
Great. I do too. In fact, I train in a fasted state four days per week. When you strength train or train intensely, your body starts to use up the glycogen stored in your muscles.
And you’re probably wondering “Steve if I don’t consume carbs, which becomes sugar, which my muscles store as glycogen…am I gonna run out of glycogen and my strength training might suffer?” Good question. Maybe.
“Does eating in a Keto way alter your body’s reliance on glycogen stores in the muscles? Does it change how much glycogen your muscles use or how quickly these stores are replenished?” Maybe. We’re still learning.
I did find multiple studies in which strength training was either not impacted or positively impacted by a Keto Diet:
A 2012 study put 8 male gymnasts on a 30 day Keto Diet – they lost more fat mass and increased lean body mass while. Suggesting Keto can help with body composition, which is probably why you are strength training to begin with.
A 2016 study looking at CrossFit programming showed no significant difference in muscle mass or performance between a Keto group and a control group.
A 2017 study worked with 25 strength training men – both groups gained muscle mass, while the Keto group lost more fat.
Now, this isn’t law, more studies are being done as we speak, and your results may vary. What this simply means is that there have been studies done that show one can do resistance training or CrossFit while eating Keto and not lose gains or muscle mass. Other studies show the opposite. Which means…
Your results MAY vary. Make sure you give it enough time to push through the Keto flu, performance-suckage phase to get a true answer for your situation.
Also: unless you’re a competitive athlete or compete in powerlifting competitions, this might not matter as much! Athletic performance is often negatively impacted once somebody gets to a low enough body fat percentage, but it doesn’t stop people chasing that “ripped” six-pack abs look!
#2) “Steve, I’m a runner/biker/etc. and I always carb-load. Sounds like Keto isn’t for me, right?”
Maybe not. Your body can only store 1600-2000 calories worth of glucose at any time – but might have 40,000+ calories worth of fat stored in the body. So instead of having to consistently eat gels and goos and snacks to keep the glucose levels high, what happens if you switch to “Keto-adapted” and fuel yourself with fat?
Let’s go to the science:
Earlier studies had suggested that a moderate-carb diet provides better endurance by increasing the concentration of glycogen in your muscles, but newer research seems to be swinging more in the direction of Keto.
As it turns out, the Keto Diet has been tested in ultramarathoners, Iron Man trainees, and endurance athletes in multiple studies, and in all cases, ketosis resulted in enhanced body composition and some of the highest rates of fat-burning ever recorded!
A 2016 study looked at 20 ultra-marathoners and Ironman distance triathletes – half of which were instructed to be on a fat-adapted diet for at least 6 months and the other 10 were on a traditional carb-focused nutritional strategy. The results:
Both groups had the same perceived level of exertion during a 3-hour trial run.
The Keto group had a fat oxidation rate of 2.3 times higher than the carb group, at an average of 1.5 grams per minute.
There were no significant differences in pre- or post-exercise glycogen concentrations.
Just like with strength training, this MIGHT work for you – or you might better off as a carb-adapted runner and athlete. You have to do what works for you.
My above caveat still stands: unless you are an elite athlete, this should be less of a concern for you – follow the diet that makes you look and feel good, and then base your training progress off your previous day’s results!
#3) “Steve, I’m not a competition-level ANYTHING, but I like exercising and want to look good.”
While dietary changes make up at least 80% of your weight-loss efforts, exercise will help you stay healthy and build a body you’re proud to look at in the mirror.
So track your workouts, track your nutrition, and work on getting better with it – running one second faster, doing one more rep, lifting 5 more pounds, etc. Compare yourself to your past self.
#4) “Steve I read this study that says Keto + Athlete = good/bad/ugly.”
Fair. Do what works best for you! In my research, and in learning from people that I trust and admire in this space:
Studies are often focused on short term ketosis (a few days or weeks), which could result in adverse performance in athletes who have not become fully Keto-adapted yet.
We are all unique snowflakes and your mileage may vary depending on your physiology. So who cares if you lift 5 pounds less! If Keto works for you and makes you look better, keep doing that.
If you are going to try Keto + Strenuous Exercise, consider the following advice: Keto might work for you! It might not!
Eat enough protein to ensure your muscles are getting the tools they need to rebuild themselves.
See how your body responds – course-correct as necessary.
Elite performance chaser? Consider “targeted ketogenic dieting” – which we discuss in our guide on the Keto Diet and Exercise.
Supplements and Keto – Exogenous Ketones!
You’ve read this far, learning about how our body has to work hard to create Ketones for energy.
And you’re probably thinking what I’m thinking: “What’s the airspeed velocity of an unladen swallow?” “Can’t I just ingest ketones directly?”
They refer to these as “exogenous ketones,” if you were wondering.
You weren’t, but that’s okay.
Caveat: I have not consumed exogenous ketones, though I have heard they can taste like jet fuel. And they can be pricey – though coming down in price thanks to Keto’s popularity.
So, if you LOVE to drink expensive jet fuel for some potentially better results or higher athletic performance, best of luck to ya.
This 2017 study showed “exogenous ketone drinks are a practical, efficacious way to achieve ketosis.”
In addition, A 2018 study showed that consuming Ketones lowered ghrelin [18] and thus our appetite.
I would put exogenous ketones in the “only if are aiming for strict ketosis” category, if you’re an elite athlete, or seeking a specific outcome of a medical condition under professional supervision.
If you really want to nerd out about exogenous ketones, consider this article from somebody I respect and trust, Dr. Peter Attia, on his experiences with them.
I won’t delve too much deeper into the topic until I can experiment with them myself and report back!
“What about other supplements Steve? I can’t get enough fat in my diet!”
In the previous section we discussed electrolyte supplementation, and for somebody that’s an athlete or unable to get enough protein in their system, a high-quality protein powder can help – just note the carb content!
Many people struggle to get enough fat in their nutrition, and have found success fat supplementation with MCT (medium-chain triglyceride) oils and powders.
MCT oil can cause digestive challenges and make you immediately run to the bathroom, while the powder version might not cause as much of an issue. This was my experience.
Your mileage (to the bathroom) might vary! Start with small amounts of MCT before increasing the quantity.
Outside of these suggested supplements, the best “supplement” is a healthy eating plan. I know I know, a cop-out answer. If you need more sodium, first try adding a little salt to your meals. If you need more potassium, eat some spinach before you head to the supplement aisle at the grocery store.
Not only will these methods help you feel better, but you’ll be setting yourself up for better long-term eating habits.
Our overall stance on supplementation here at Nerd Fitness: supplements cannot replace the effects of a healthy diet and regular exercise. But for some people, these might be the right fit.
Homestretch! Now we just have delicious food and fun stuff to discuss. Yayyyyy!
Keto Meal Plans and Keto Recipes For the Wins!
“Steve I know I can eat things like meat, cheese, and vegetables, but I’m gonna go ahead and need you to do the heavy lifting for me. Give me a sample day on Keto and links to recipes.”
I considered saying “Let me google that for you” when it comes to “Keto recipes”, but I’m too nice of a guy.
CONDIMENTS: Ruled.Me has some great resources on what Keto condiments you can use to spice up your dishes without losing ketosis.
Here’s a quick list:
Coconut Oil
Olive Oil
Heavy whipping creme
Full fat cream cheese
Full-fat sour cream
Mayonnaise
Mustard
Full fat Ranch, Caesar, Bleu, Cheese, Italian
Depending on your macros, you might be adding butter, ghee, fatty dressings or oils, or supplementing with MCT/Coconut oil to hit your macros for the day.
This should at least get you started in thinking that you can still eat AMAZING food while eating Keto.
Everybody loves snacks. Unfortunately, most of the snacks you’ll encounter anywhere are definitely not Keto-friendly.
I’m firmly on Team No Snack, as I do practice intermittent fasting and try to eat BIG meals instead of lots of small ones – as I point out in the Intermittent Fasting article, the number of times you eat throughout the day won’t impact your waistline as much as the total quantity of calories.
That’s right, your metabolism isn’t “stoked” by eating small meals or grazing throughout the day. You can get in trouble if you eat big meals and then eat snacks between those big meals.
What matters is overall compliance – if snacking in between meals allows you to NOT overeat during your big meals, and ALSO you stay under your caloric intake goal for the day, then snacking is more than okay.
As far as dessert goes, the same holds true: if you save room in your macros and calories for a low calorie, Keto-compliant dessert, go crazy. Just don’t delude yourself into thinking that eating 5,000 calories of “Keto cookies” and “Keto ice cream” is going to make you healthier.
Got it? These snacks and desserts need to fit into your macros/calorie goals in order for this whole “I went Keto” thing to actually work for you.
EASY KETO SNACK IDEAS. If you want a bunch of Keto Snack ideas, check out our MASSIVE 60-snack guide on the subject. However, go ahead and think about these for now:
You’re gonna need to be super diligent with your carb counting when it comes to your adult beverage choices.
A Sam Adams has almost 20g of carbs, enough to knock somebody out of ketosis after just one. As a Bostonian, this makes me sad.
This is even worse for mixed drinks! No more rum and Cokes. No more margaritas. No more old fashioneds with simple syrup. No more daiquiris or mai tais or piña coladas.
Instead, you need to do your research into the carb content and calorie count of your favorite alcoholic drinks:
If you’re drinking spirits, mix with club soda (NOT tonic, which is loaded with sugar) or learn to drink neat.
If you’re drinking beers, opt for the low-carb variety! Just Google the beer brand you’re considering and go from there.
Just like with desserts and snacks, you need to make alcohol work for your macros and your calorie counts for the day.
Other things to note about alcohol: you might get drunk much faster as a result of being in Ketosis, you might have a worse hangover, and you might wake up in a chicken costume covered in sriracha on the other side of town if you drink too many “Keto-friendly” whiskeys.
Not that I would know. Shut up.
Where can I Learn More About the Keto Diet?
Phew. This article was focused on telling you everything you need to know so that you can confidently get started with Keto.
I want to give a HUGE shout out to the book, The Ketogenic Bible, by Dr. Jacob Wilson and Ryan Lowery, which was my first stop in my Keto research.
If you’re a super nerd and want to learn about all of the science behind this stuff, or if you’re intrigued by the research into Keto + certain health conditions or improvements, it’s absolutely worth a read.
If you’re interested in going further with your Keto adventure, consider all of the following below!
OUR COACHING AND COURSES:
Pardon my shameless self-promotion, but we have helped a few hundred thousand people through Nerd Fitness over the past decade, and we have some key resources that can help people adapt or adopt a more Keto-friendly lifestyle:
1-on-1 Coaching with Nerd Fitness: partner with one of our trained coaches who will build you a custom workout program, and help you make better nutritional choices. We’ll have you take photos of each meal you consume, guide your decisions, and help you hit longer-term goals. Our average client stays 9-10 months!
The Nerd Fitness Prime: Learn the right mindset, be surrounded by a supportive online community, follow the workout programs, complete boss battles and quests, and level up your character as you level up your life. Although our courses, like the NF Academy, aren’t Keto-focused, we have a TON of NF Prime members doing Keto who would love to support you.
KETO RECIPE AND OTHER RESOURCES – In addition to simply googling “Keto recipes” which I know you can do because you’re a big boy or big girl, here are three of my favorite resources:
PODCASTS ABOUT KETO: If you love to listen instead of reading, I’m doubly proud of you for making it all this way. Here are three of my favorite podcast episodes on the subject, in order of complexity. The science versus is the most approachable:
Your First Week on the Keto Diet – Start With This
Okay, you’re here because you’ve committed to going Keto, and now there’s just one final step: actually doing it.
So how do you get started? What’s next for you between reading this article and 30 days of Keto success? A plan!
Fear not, for I have built a step-by-step plan for you right here:
#1) Take before photos and measurements.
Take front and profile photos of yourself. You don’t need to look at them or share them anywhere, but I PROMISE you’re going to want those.
Record your weight and take any measurements you want.
Write this stuff down and keep it secret, keep it safe.
#2) Calculate your calories and macros. You can do the math as I explained above, or simply use the calculator over on Ruled.Me. Know your number of goal:
Calories
Carbs
Fat
Protein
#3) Go shopping for your Keto foods, and order your Keto snacks on Amazon. Look at the recipes above and pick the ones that don’t scare you to make. Keep snacks readily available in case of “holy crap I am so hungry and I just want to eat a damn pizza and spaghetti and snort Pixy Stix.”
#4) Consider picking up an electrolyte supplement to help you through the first few days/weeks of grogginess/lethargy as you move through the Keto flu stage. You can also look into the urine test strips or blood testers – I find that knowing I’m in ketosis, it helps keep me accountable and motivated that all these changes are actually working!
#6) Tell somebody. The biggest problem with Keto is simply sticking with it. If you have roommates or a significant other or friends you can speak to and get them on your team to support you. In fact, send them this article and recruit them to try it with you! That way they’re not enabling you to slip up, they’re keeping you accountable!
Don’t have anybody to tell? NF Prime has the most supportive community on the internet.
7) Consider kickstarting your week with a fast. This is going to be a mental and physiological challenge. Consider skipping breakfast tomorrow – it’s one less meal you have to prepare, one less chance to knock yourself out of ketosis, and can help kickstart the Keto-adapted phase!
8) Throughout the week: Focus on big wins, allow yourself to be miserable – Keto flu is REAL, giving up carbs is hard, and your body is going to hate you:
Lean on your support group. Talk to others who have been where you are, ask questions, share your struggles!
Eat snacks when you are miserable. I’d rather you eat some snacks and slightly overeat on your calories than be so miserable that you give up.
Track your adherence. Use MyFitnessPal (though not their recommended macronutrient breakdown!) to track every meal you eat – this is very important in the first week as you’re educating yourself dramatically.
Do your best – you might slip up with one meal or realize you accidentally ate carbs. This is not the end of the world. Forgive yourself, learn the lesson, and get right back at it with the next meal.
9) Keep going, or adjust. Depending on your body, your environment, the way you used to eat, and your physiology, this first week will either be “hey, not too bad” or “Never again.”
Either way, you’ll learn something. I do hope you push through this for a full 30 days and see how your body responds once it’s out of the Keto Flu stage!
10) At the end of the month, take more photos and measurements and compare them to your starting “before” stats. Do you feel better? Do you look better? Did you enjoy the process? great! Keep going. Hated it? Great! You found a method that doesn’t work for you. Adjust and create your own strategy.
Other Frequently Asked Questions about The Keto Diet.
1) Who should NOT attempt the Keto Diet?
Very important question. We all know this article is NOT medical advice, and regardless of your health you should discuss your nutritional strategies with your doctor or dietitian.
As pointed out in The Ketogenic Bible, going into Ketosis is not recommended for:
Carnitine deficiency
CPT I/II deficiency
Beta oxidation defects
Impaired gastrointestinal motility
Pregnancy
Kidney failure
Type 1 Diabetes
Pancreatitis
Gallbladder disease
Impaired liver function
Impaired fat digestion
Gastric bypass surgery
Abdominal tumors
If you’re concerned about your health with regards to Keto, speak with your doctor and consider a Keto Diet under supervision.
2) Do I have to count calories on Keto?
Not necessarily, but it certainly helps when starting out. That is true whether you’re doing Keto or just trying to eat healthier. In fact, I would almost make it a requirement until you learn the basics about everything you eat.
The most important thing you’ll need to track is your carb and fiber intake. You’re trying to eat less than 20-50 grams of net carbs each day, and making your diet 70% fat. Not all calories are created equal when it comes to healthy eating and weight loss, so they’re not a focus on Keto.
3) Eating all of this fat and cholesterol is going to make me fat and block my arteries, right?
Wrong! Dietary cholesterol has been shown to not increase blood cholesterol – check this article here. And fat is healthy when consumed as part of a nutritious meal. As pointed out in this study, a Low Carbohydrate Diet resulted in decreased bodyweight, abdominal circumference, diastolic blood pressure, triglycerides, insulin, and an increase in high-density lipoprotein cholesterol (the good stuff).
It’s when fat is combined with carbohydrates in diabolical combinations that we start to get into trouble.
4) I’ve heard my breath and my urine might smell funny on Keto. Is that true? What do I do about it?
Look, we don’t want you to be self-conscious about how your pee smells. But it’s true; as part of the byproducts produced through the creation of ketone bodies, you may notice a fruity smell in your urine and on your breath.
This is totally normal, and it comes from the acetone that’s produced through ketosis. Acetone isn’t used for energy, so it’s excreted in urine and breath.
Not only is this not bad, but it’s a sign that you are fully in a ketogenic state.
But you probably don’t want your breath to smell like a slightly weird fruit salad, right? The easiest answer is to brush your teeth often, and to wait it out. This effect usually goes away once you’re on the diet for a while as your body learns to use more ketones.
5) Can I eat Keto if I’m a vegetarian/vegan?
Yes. We mentioned above in our list of foods to eat that you can substitute meatless proteins for meat in a vegetarian Keto Diet.
If you also want to remove the dairy and eggs to make a vegan Keto plan, in addition to the vegan meat options, consider adding mushrooms and “vegan dairy,” such as full-fat vegan cheeses, as well as a larger quantity of healthy fats like coconut oil.
You can follow the low-carb principles of keto along with your vegetarian or vegan eating plan. Also, if you’re interested in following a Plant-Based Diet in general, make sure you check out our massive guide on the subject.
6) Does this mean no carbs forever and ever? How long am I supposed to go Keto for?
You will get results from Keto for as long as you stay Keto. If you go Keto and lose a bunch of weight, but then go back to how you were eating before…you’ll end up right back where you started.
So, our advice would be to give this a true attempt: stick with Keto for 30 days as an experiment. You might find that you LOVE how it makes you feel and want to stick with it.
Also, as your body learns to become keto-adapted, you can start to mix in sliiiightly higher carb days here and there with minimal adverse effects.
If you go Keto and decide that this is not the best strategy for you, that’s cool too. Pick the parts of it that work for you, take what you’ve learned, and start to experiment and build your own diet.
Should You Do the Keto Diet?
If you’ve read this far, congratulations! You get the Medal of Heroes, and you definitely know enough to get started on the Keto Diet.
You’ve unlocked this gif of a turtle eating a raspberry:
The Keto Diet COULD work for you…if you can stick with it. And even if you stick with it, it might not be the right diet for you. It isn’t for me.
I do think learning about the Keto Diet, learning your macros, and getting a better understanding of how you fuel your body is a good thing in the long term.
So here’s what I would recommend: Be less concerned about “staying in ketosis” and instead concern yourself with how to find a nutritional strategy that fits YOUR life.
If you’re adamant about going Keto, try it out for 30 days. If you have health concerns, discuss this with your doctor first. Take measurements and before and after photos, and then determine after 30 days if it works for you. And if it does or doesn’t, adjust and course correct.
The worst thing to do would be to go Keto for 30 days to try to lose weight quickly, just to go back to how you were eating before.
Instead, we want you to make permanent progress. So find a path that allows you to be pretty damn good, nearly all of the time.
Whether or not Keto is for you, keep looking around here at Nerd Fitness. Maybe Paleo or Intermittent Fasting is a better fit for you, or you’d prefer to work with a coach to help combine all of the above into a system that fits your exact lifestyle.
Whatever it is, I’m glad you’re here. And I’m glad you’re trying.
WHAT OTHER QUESTIONS DO YOU HAVE?
What other questions do you have about Keto?
Have you had a great experience with Keto?
Have you had a BAD experience with Keto?
Favorite snacks or resources?
Leave your experiences in the comments below!
-Steve
PS: If you liked this guide to Keto but need more guidance, check out our 1-on-1 coaching program and schedule a free consultation to see if we’re a good fit for each other!
PPS: I guarantee I probably pissed off half the internet for some reason with this article.
Whether it was a typo, the fact that I referenced a particular study that didn’t line up with your already deeply-held view on Keto, or because you don’t like my jokes. I hope we’re still cool.
If you want to rage and call me an idiot for whatever reason, email me at thatsnotnice@jkdontemailme.biz
PPPS: Feel free to download this article in good-lookin Digital Guide form. It’s free when you sign up in the box below, Cheers!
Download Our Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Diet
55-page Keto Diet guide: how to start today!
Learn the benefits and pitfalls of going Keto.
Keto recipes, snacks, resources, and more!
###
ALL Photos Sources can be found in this footnote here[19]. Special shout outs to Clement127 and Black Zack who have two amazing streams you should check out!
Footnotes ( returns to text)
He’s also my hero, so BACK OFF
Yes, eating too much protein can knock you out of ketosis too, but I’ll address this later.
A Ketone Ester Drink Lowers Human Ghrelin and Appetite – a Study.
Long-term effects of a ketogenic diet in obese patients study
Metabolic impact of a ketogenic diet compared to a hypocaloric diet in obese children and adolescents: study
A low-carbohydrate as compared with a low-fat diet in severe obesity: study.
Ketogenic diet and other dietary treatments for epilepsy: study
Low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet to treat type 2 diabetes: study
The effects of a low-carbohydrate, ketogenic diet on the polycystic ovary syndrome:study
We have ALSO have a fun Intermittent Fasting Plan you can use to plan out your next few weeks of eating!
Join the Rebellion – our online community – and I’ll send you our fasting guide free:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
What is Intermittent Fasting?
“Conventional wisdom” isn’t that smart.
We’re going to take two widely accepted healthy eating “rules” and turn them on their head:
RULE #1: You HAVE to eat first thing in the morning: Make sure you start off with a healthy breakfast, so you can get that metabolism firing first thing in the morning!
“Eat breakfast like a king, lunch like a prince, and dinner like a pauper.”
There are even studies that show those that eat earlier in the day lose more weight than those who ate later in the day or skipped a meal.[1]
RULE #2: Eat lots of small meals for weight loss. Make sure you eat six small meals throughout the day so your metabolism stays operating at maximum capacity all day long.”
In other words, “eat breakfast and lots of small meals to lose weight and obtain optimal health.”
But what if there’s science and research that shows SKIPPING BREAKFAST (the horror! blasphemy!) can help with optimum human performance, mental and physical health improvement, maximum muscle retention, and body fat loss?
That’s where an Intermittent Fasting Plan comes in.
Intermittent fasting is not a diet, but rather a dieting pattern.
In simpler terms: it’s making a conscious decision to skip certain meals on purpose.
By fasting and then feasting deliberately, intermittent fasting generally means that you consume your calories during a specific window of the day, and choose not to eat food for a larger window of time.
There are a few different ways to take advantage of intermittent fasting, which I learned about from Martin over at LeanGains, a resource specifically built around fasted strength training:
INTERMITTENT FASTING 16/8 PLAN
What it is: Fasting for 16 hours and then only eating within a specific 8-hour window. For example, only eating from noon-8 PM, essentially skipping breakfast.
Some people only eat in a 6-hour window, or even a 4-hour window. This is “feasting” and “fasting” parts of your days and the most common form of Intermittent Fasting. It’s also my preferred method (4 years running).
Two examples: The top means you are skipping breakfast, the bottom means you are skipping dinner each day:
You can adjust this window to make it work for your life:
If you start eating at: 7AM, stop eating and start fasting at 3pm.
If you start eating at: 11AM, stop eating and start fasting at 7pm.
If you start eating at: 2PM, stop eating and start fasting at 10pm.
If you start eating at: 6PM, stop eating and start fasting at 2AM.
INTERMITTENT FASTING 24 HOUR PLAN
Skip two meals one day, where you take 24 hours off from eating. For example, eat on a normal schedule (finishing dinner at 8PM) and then you don’t eat again until 8PM the following day.
With this plan, you eat your normal 3 meals per day, and then occasionally pick a day to skip breakfast and lunch the next day.
If you can only do an 18 hour fast, or a 20 hour fast, or a 22 hour fast – that’s okay! Adjust with different time frames and see how your body responds.
Two examples: skipping breakfast and lunch one day of the week, and then another where you skip lunch and dinner one day, two days in a week.
Note: You can do this once a week, twice a week, or whatever works best for your life and situation.
By the way, both those weekly charts above come from our free Intermittent Fasting Plan (with printable worksheets).
Most people struggle with knowing exactly when to eat and when to stop eating, and actually sticking with it. We address all of that in the Nerd Fitness Intermittent Fasting Guide you get free when you sign up for our email list in the box below:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
Those are the two most popular intermittent fasting plans, and the two we’ll be focusing on, though there are many variations of both that you can modify for yourself:
Some people eat in a 4 hour window, others do 6 or 8.
You’ll need to experiment, adjust to work for your lifestyle and goals, and see how your body responds.
Let’s first get into the science here behind Intermittent Fasting and why you should consider it!
How Does Intermittent Fasting Work?
Now, you might be thinking: “okay, so by skipping a meal, I will eat less than I normally eat on average (2 meals instead of 3), and thus I will lose weight, right?”
Yes.
By cutting out an entire meal each day, you are consuming fewer calories per week – even if your two meals per day are slightly bigger than before. Overall, you’re still consuming fewer calories per day.
In this example, you’re eating LARGER lunches and dinners than you normally do, but by skipping breakfast you’ll consume 500 less calories per day.
And thus, weight loss!
This is highlighted in a recent JAMA study[2] in which both calorie restricted dieters and intermittent fasters lost similar amounts of weight over a year period.
That doesn’t tell the FULL story, as the timing of meals can also influence how your body reacts.
Intermittent Fasting can help because your body operates differently when “feasting” compared to when “fasting”:
When you eat a meal, your body spends a few hours processing that food, burning what it can from what you just consumed.
Because it has all of this readily-available, easy to burn energy (thanks to the food you ate), your body will choose to use that as energy rather than the fat you have stored.
During the “fasted state” (the hours in which your body is not consuming or digesting any food) your body doesn’t have a recently consumed meal to use as energy.
Thus, it is more likely to pull from the fat stored in your body as it’s the only energy source readily available.
Burning fat = win.
The same goes for working out in a “fasted” state.
Without a ready supply of glucose and glycogen to pull from (which has been depleted over the course of your fasted state, and hasn’t yet been replenished with a pre-workout meal), your body is forced to adapt and pull from a source of energy that it does have available: the fat stored in your cells.
Why does this work? Our bodies react to energy consumption (eating food) with insulin production.
The more sensitive your body is to insulin, the more likely you’ll be to use the food you consume efficiently, and your body is most sensitive to insulin following a period of fasting[3].
These changes to insulin production and sensitivity can help lead to weight loss [4] and muscle creation [5].
Next: Your glycogen (a starch stored in your muscles and liver that your body can burn as fuel when necessary) is depleted during sleep (aka during fasting), and will be depleted even further during training, which can lead to increased insulin sensitivity.
This means that a meal following your workout will be used more efficiently: converted to glycogen and stored up in your muscles or burned as energy immediately to help with the recovery process, with minimal amounts stored as fat.
Compare this to a regular day (no intermittent fasting): With insulin sensitivity at normal levels, the carbs and foods consumed will see full glycogen stores and enough glucose in the bloodstream, and thus be more likely to get stored as fat.
Back to fasting: growth hormone is increased during fasted states (both during sleep[6]and after a period of fasting). Combine this increased growth hormone secretion:[7], the decrease in insulin production (and thus increase in insulin sensitivity [8]), and you’re essentially priming your body for muscle growth and fat loss with intermittent fasting.
The less science-y version: Intermittent fasting can help teach your body to use the food it consumes more efficiently, and your body can learn to burn fat as fuel when you deprive it of new calories to constantly pull from (if you eat all day long).
TL/DR: For many different physiological reasons, fasting can help promote weight loss and muscle building when done properly.
I know Intermittent Fasting can be overwhelming for many, which is why we work with our 1-on-1 coaching clients to help them understand what’s going on, and how to make it work for THEIR life.
If that sounds like you, click the button below to learn more about how our program works:
Should I Eat 6 Small Meals a Day?
There are a few main reasons why diet books recommend six small meals:
1) When you eat a meal, your body does have to burn extra calories [9] just to process that meal. So, the theory is that if you eat all day long with small meals, your body is constantly burning extra calories and your metabolism is firing at optimal capacity, right? Well, that’s not true.
Whether you eat 2000 calories spread out throughout the day, or 2000 calories in a small window, your body will burn the same number of calories processing the food [10].
So, the whole “keep your metabolism firing at optimum capacity by always eating” sounds good in principle, but reality tells a different story.
2) When you eat smaller meals, you might be less likely to overeat during your regular meals. I can definitely see some truth here, especially for people who struggle with portion control or don’t know how much food they should be eating.
However, once you educate yourself and take control of your eating, some might find that eating six times a day is very prohibitive and requires a lot of effort. I know I do.
Also, because you’re eating six small meals, I’d argue that you probably never feel “full,” and you might be MORE likely to eat extra calories during each snack.
Although grounded in seemingly logical principles, the “six meals a day” doesn’t work for the reason you think it would (#1), and generally only works for people who struggle with portion control (#2).
If we think back to caveman days, we’d have been in serious trouble as a species if we had to eat every three hours. Do you think Joe Caveman pulled out his pocket sundial six times a day to consume his equally portioned meals?
Hell no! He ate when he could, endured and dealt with long periods of NOT eating (no refrigeration or food storage) and his body adapted to still function optimally enough to still go out and catch new food.
A recent study (written about in the NYT, highlighted by LeanGains) has done a great job of challenging the “six-meals-a-day” technique for weight loss [11]:
There were [no statistical] differences between the low- and high- [meal frequency] groups for adiposity indices, appetite measurements or gut peptides (peptide YY and ghrelin) either before or after the intervention. We conclude that increasing meal frequency does not promote greater body weight loss under the conditions described in the present study.
Factor in the potential physiological benefits listed in the previous section, and you got yourself some damn good science-backed evidence to consider trying Intermittent Fasting if you want to decrease body fat and build muscle.
Should I Try intermittent fasting? (6 Things to Consider)
Now that we’re through a lot of the science stuff, let’s get into the reality of the situation: why should you consider Intermittent Fasting?
When you fast, you are also making it easier to restrict your total caloric intake over the course of the week, which can lead to consistent weight loss and maintenance.
#2) Because it simplifies your day. Rather than having to prepare, pack, eat, and time your meals every 2-3 hours, you simply skip a meal or two and only worry about eating food in your eating window.
It’s one less decision you have to make every day.
It could allow you to enjoy bigger portioned meals (thus making your tastebuds and stomach satiated) and STILL eat fewer calories on average.
#3) It requires less time (and potentially less money). Rather than having to prepare or purchase three to six meals a day, you only need to prepare two meals.
Instead of stopping what you’re doing six times a day to eat, you simply only have to stop to eat twice. Rather than having to do the dishes six times, you only have to do them twice.
Rather than having to purchase six meals a day, you only need to purchase two.
#4) It promotes stronger insulin sensitivity and increased growth hormone secretion, two keys for weight loss and muscle gain. Intermittent fasting helps you create a double whammy for weight loss and building a solid physique.
#5) It can level up your brain, including positively counteracting conditions like Parkinson’s, Alzheimer’s, and dementia.
As explained here in this TEDx talk by Mark Mattson, Professor at Johns Hopkins University and Chief of the Laboratory of Neurosciences at the National Institute on Aging, fasting is grounded in serious research and more studies are coming out showing the benefits:
#6) Plus, Wolverine does it:
#7) Boy George is a fasting fan (and apparently reads Nerd Fitness!):
— Boy George (the truth is in your breath) (@BoyGeorge) May 8, 2017
So if both musicians and adamantium-clawed superheroes do Intermittent Fasting, it can probably work for you too, if you can make it work for your particular lifestyle and situation!
If you’ve tried implementing something like this in the past and not had success, or you’re just looking for guidance from a coach to help you implement it into your lifestyle, I hear ya!
That was the specific problem we set out to solve with our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program: helping busy people make lifestyle changes (like Intermittent Fasting) and also build the habit of exercise. You can schedule a call with our team to learn more by clicking on the image below!
What Are the Negative Effects of intermittent fasting?
In my own experimentation with Intermittent Fasting since 2014, I have found very few negative side effects with Intermittent Fasting.
The biggest concern most people have is that Intermittent Fasting will lead to lower energy, focus, and the “holy crap I am hungry” feeling during the fasting period and ruin them.
People are concerned that they will spend all morning being miserable because they haven’t consumed any food, and thus will be miserable at work and ineffective at whatever task it is they are working on.
The following are my thoughts and experiences, and your results may vary:
Yes, the initial transition from EATING ALL THE TIME, to intermittent fasting MIGHT be a bit of a jolt to your system; it was for me.
However, once I got through the transition after a few days, my body quickly adapted and learned to function just as well only eating a few times a day.
Although I fast for 16 hours per day with no issues, the following might help assuage your fears that skipping breakfast will cause your body to eat itself and your brain to implode:
After 48-hours of fasting in a recent study[12], “cognitive performance, activity, sleep, and mood are not adversely affected in healthy humans by two days of calorie-deprivation.” You’ll be fasting for far less time than that.
“So why do I feel grouchy and lethargic when I skip breakfast?”
In this nerd’s humble opinion, a good portion of the grumpiness is a result of past eating habits. If you eat every three hours normally, and normally eat as soon as you wake up, your body will start to get hungry every three hours as it is now used to consuming food every three hours.
If you eat breakfast every morning, your body expects to wake up and eat food.
Once you retrain your body to NOT expect food all day every day (or first thing in the morning), these side-effects become less of an issue. In addition, ghrelin (a hormone that makes you hungry [13]), is actually lowest in the mornings and decreases after a few hours of not eating too. The hunger pains will naturally pass!
Personally, I found this grumpiness subsided after a few days and now my mornings actually energize me.
It’s important to understand that Intermittent Fasting is NOT a cure-all panacea. Don’t delude yourself into thinking that if you skip breakfast and then eat 4,000 calories of candy bars for lunch and dinner that you will lose weight.
If you have an addictive relationship with food and you struggle with portion control, figure out your calorie goals and track your calorie intake in your meals to make sure you’re not overeating.
If you skip breakfast, you might be so hungry from this that you OVEREAT for lunch and this can lead to weight gain. Again, the important thing here is that with an intermittent fasting plan, you’re eating fewer calories than normal because you’re skipping a meal every day.
Think about it in caveman terms again. We certainly found ways to survive during periods of feast and famine, and that remains true today. Imagine if you needed to eat in order to be active and alert: what would hungry cavemen do?
They would go find food, and that probably required a ton of effort. It actually takes our bodies about 84 hours of fasting [14] before our glucose levels are adversely affected. As we’re talking about small fasts (16-24 hour periods), this doesn’t concern us.
AN IMPORTANT CAVEAT:Intermittent Fasting can be more complex for people who have issues with blood sugar regulation, suffer from hypoglycemia, have diabetes, etc. If you fit into this category, check with your doctor or dietitian before adjusting your eating schedule. It also affects women differently (there’s a whole section dedicated to that here).
Can I Build Muscle and Gain Weight While Intermittent Fasting?
I still eat roughly the same number of calories I was consuming before, but instead of eating all damn day long, I condense all of my calorie consumption into an eight hour window.
11 AM Work out with heavy strength training in a fasted state.
7 PM Consume the second portion of my calories for the day in a big dinner.
8 PM – 12 PM the next day: Fast for 16 hours.
In a different method, my friend Nate Green packed on a crazy amount of muscle while fasting for a full 24 hours on Sundays – so it is possible. [15]
I’m not kidding when I say this has revolutionized how I look at muscle building and fat loss.
Ultimately, this method flies in the face of the typical “bulk and cut” techniques of overeating to build muscle (along with adding a lot of fat) before cutting calories to lose fat (along with some muscle) and settling down at a higher weight.
I prefer this method to the bulk-and-cut technique for a few reasons:
There’s far less of a crazy swing to your weight. If you are putting on 30 pounds and then cutting 25 to gain 5 lbs of muscle, your body is going through drastic swings of body mass. Your clothes will fit differently, you’ll have different levels of definition, and your body will wonder what the hell is going on.
You’re consuming less food and thus spending less money. Rather than overeating to put on 1 pound of muscle and 4 pounds of fat in a week or two, you’re aiming to eat exactly enough to put on 1 pound of muscle without adding much fat on top of it. Yeah, it’s a delicate balance, but there’s far less swing involved. You are just slowly, steadily, and consistently building muscle and strength over many months.
There’s never a need to get “vacation-ready”: we all want to look good naked, right? When you are just adding muscle, you don’t need to worry about getting your body ready before by drastically altering your diet (avoiding a miserable crash diet like the Military Diet). [16]
You can make small adjustments and stay on target. Keep your body fat percentage low, build strength and muscle, and if you happen to notice your body fat creeping up, cut back on the carbs. Within two weeks you should be back at your preferred body fat percentage and can continue the muscle building process.
A note on BCAA consumption. Martin from LeanGains [17] recommends consuming Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA’s) as a supplement with regards to fasted training to aid your muscles through your workout.
Personally, I used BCAAs for about 6-8 months during my initial start with fasted training (consuming them before training), though haven’t used them in the past 2+ years. I didn’t notice any adverse effects to not taking them with regards to my performance. Your value may vary!
Now, it should go without saying that if you want to build muscle while fasting, you need to work out. Specifically, by lifting heavy.
If you want help building a workout routine designed to create muscle, I have 3 options:
#1) “Build Your Own Workout Routine” and get your hands dirty. Our guide will walk you through building a full body exercise program in 10 simple steps.
#3) Have a Nerd Fitness Coach do all the heavy lifting for you (not really, you still have to lift stuff), by having them build you a tailor-made workout routine:
Should You Do Intermittent Fasting and the Keto Diet?
By only eating fat and protein, your body must adapt to run on fat for fuel instead of carbohydrates. In the absence of carbs/glucose, your body converts fats to ketones and uses them for fuel.
This process is called “ketosis,” and there are two ways for a body to enter ketosis:
Eating in a way that induces ketosis (very low carb, high fat).
Fasting…Hey, that’s what you’re reading about right now!
We actually have an amazing success story here on Nerd Fitness, Larry, who followed our strategies, went Keto and start intermittent fasting. He ended up losing weight, getting stronger, AND overcame the challenges of rheumatoid arthritis (click on the image for his story)!
Here’s how the fasting portion of it works:
As your body enters a fast period when there are no sources of glucose energy readily available, the liver begins the process of breaking down fat into ketones.
Fasting itself can trigger ketosis.
Fasting for a period of time before kicking off a Keto-friendly eating plan COULD speed your transition into the metabolic state of ketosis, and fasting intermittently while in ketosis could help you maintain that state.
I personally love fasting for the simplicity: I skip breakfast every day and train in a fasted state. It’s one less decision I have to make, it’s one less opportunity to make a bad food choice, and it helps me reach my goals.
WHY KETO + IF WORKS = eating Keto can be really challenging. And every time you eat, it’s an opportunity to do it wrong and accidentally eat foods that knock you out of ketosis.
You’re also tempted to overeat.
So, by skipping a meal, you’re eliminating one meal, one decision, one chance to screw up.
Note: if you’re thinking “Steve, am I losing weight because I’m skipping 1/3rd of my meals for the day, AND eliminating an entire macronutrient?”, then you’d be right.
Both Keto and IF have secondary effects that could also be factoring in – physiological benefits which I explain in both articles.
Your value may vary!
You need to decide what works for you.
You probably won’t become “keto-adapted” (your body running on ketones) just skipping breakfast every day – your body will still have enough glucose stored from your carb-focused meals for lunch and dinner the day before.
In order to use fasting to enter ketosis, the fast needs to be long enough to deplete your carb/glucose stores, or you need to severely restrict carbohydrates from your meals in addition to IF in order to enter ketosis.
MORAL OF THE STORY: Experiment and try different strategies that will work for you.
By skipping a meal or minimizing carbohydrate intake, you’re more likely than not to lose weight:
You can do intermittent fasting without eating a Keto Diet and lose weight.
You can do a Keto Diet without intermittent Fasting and lose weight.
Any of those options could work for you, but you need to make it work for your lifestyle! If you want to more about the Keto Diet, definitely read my big-ass post about Keto.
If you’re in a hurry and want to download it so you can read it at your leisure, you can grab our Quick Start Guide to the Keto Diet for free right here:
Download Our Beginner’s Guide to the Keto Diet
55-page Keto Diet guide: how to start today!
Learn the benefits and pitfalls of going Keto.
Keto recipes, snacks, resources, and more!
Does Intermittent Fasting Have Different Effects on Men and Women?
The quick answer is: “yes, Intermittent Fasting can affect men and women differently.”
Anecdotally, we have many women in our online coaching program that swear by Intermittent Fasting, while others have had adverse effects.
Let’s dig into the science and studies.
A recent PubMed summary concluded that “fasting can be prescribed as a safe medical intervention as well as a lifestyle regimen which can improve women’s health in many folds [18].
Now, in that extract, many of the studies cited are focused on specifically calorie restriction (and not just fasting), and they also say that “future studies should address this gap by designing medically supervised fasting techniques to extract better evidence.”
Digging into the PubMed Archives brought me to the following conclusions [19]:
One small study (with 8 men and 8 women, all non-obese) resulted in the following: “Glucose response to a meal was slightly impaired in women after 3 weeks of treatment, but insulin response was unchanged. Men had no change in glucose response and a significant reduction in insulin response.”[20]
Another small study (8 women) studied the effects on their menstrual cycles after a 72 hour fast – which is significantly longer than any fast recommended in this article: “in spite of profound metabolic changes, a 72-hour fast during the follicular phase does not affect the menstrual cycle of normal cycling women.” [21].
Yet another study tracked 11 women with 72 hour fasts (again, longer than we’d recommend) and it found that “Fasting in women elicited expected metabolic responses – included increased cortisol (a stress hormone) – and apparently advanced the central circadian clock (which can throw off sleeping patterns). [22]
Those studies above, in working with small sample sizes, and different types of fasting than recommended here, would lead me to believe that fasting affects men and women differently, and that many of the weight loss benefits associated with intermittent fasting (that affect insulin and glucose responses) work positively for men and negatively for women.
There are also a series of articles[23] out there that dig into the potential reproductive health issues, stress challenges, induction of early-menopause [24] associated with fasting (and calorie restriction) for women.
Precision Nutrition – a great resource – recommends not attempting Intermittent Fasting as a woman if:
The challenge associated with all of this is that there aren’t enough long-term studies, with large enough sample sizes, specifically targeting female humans, with relation to the different types of Intermittent Fasting.
ALL OF THIS TO SAY: It does appear that men and women will have different experiences with intermittent fasting; we’re all unique snowflakes (yep, especially you), and your body will be affected by intermittent fasting differently than the person next to you.
There is enough evidence as cited in the articles and studies above that would give me pause to recommend Intermittent Fasting for women, especially if you are considering getting pregnant in the near term.
If you are looking to attempt fasting for weight loss reasons, my research has shown me that Intermittent Fasting could be less effective for women than men with regards to weight loss, and thus you would be wise to keep your efforts elsewhere:
Now, if you’ve read the above warnings, you are still curious about Intermittent Fasting, and you want to give it a try as a female, that is your choice!
You know your body best.
So, get blood work done, speak with your doctor and get a check-up.
Give intermittent fasting a shot, track your results, and see how your body/blood work changes as a result of Intermittent Fasting and decide if it’s right for you.
Your milage may vary, so speak with a doctor or find a doctor versed in intermittent fasting plans and treat it like an experiment on yourself!
If you’re not sure if an Intermittent Fasting Plan is right for you and you want to work with a coach to help you navigate your first month of fasting, we’re here to help!
Top 6 Questions about Intermittent Fasting
1) “Won’t I get really hungry if I start skipping meals?”
As explained above, this can be a result of the habits you have built for your body. If you are constantly eating or always eat the same time of day, your body can actually learn to prepare itself for food by beginning the process of insulin production and preparation for food.
After a brief adjustment period, your body can adapt to the fact that it’s only eating a few times a day. The more overweight you are, and the more often you eat, the more of an initial struggle this might be.
Remember, your body’s physical and cognitive abilities most likley won’t be diminished as a result of short term fasting.[25]
2) “Where will I get my energy for my workouts? Won’t I be exhausted and not be able to complete my workouts if fasting?”
This was a major concern of mine as well, but the research says otherwise: “Training with limited carbohydrate availability can stimulate adaptations in muscle cells to facilitate energy production via fat oxidation.”[26]
In other words, when you train in a fasted state, your body can get better at burning fat for energy when there are no carbs to pull from!
I’ll share some of my experiences, now doing heavy strength training for 3 years in a fasted state:
For my first “fasted” workout or two after starting an IF protocol, it was very weird to not eat before training. However, after a few sessions, I learned that my body could certainly function (and even thrive) during my training sessions despite not eating a pre-workout meal.
Here I am pulling 420 lbs. at 172 BW after a 16 hour fast:
3) “I like the idea of fasted training, but I work a regular 9-5 or a night shift and can’t train at 11AM like you do. What am I supposed to do?”
Depending on your training schedule, lifestyle, and goals, go back to the portion above where I talk about the 16/8 protocol and simply adjust your hours of fasting and feasting.
Don’t overthink this. If you can’t train until 5pm, that’s okay. Consume a small meal for lunch, or shift your Intermittent Fasting window to eat all of your meals in the 8 hours post workout. Better to do that than abandon it as a lost cause and have 0% compliance.
If you are an elite athlete, speak with a coach or nutritionist about your specific concerns and expectations. Otherwise, make intermittent fasting work for you Consider trying the 24-hour protocol below instead of the 16/8 protocol.
If you train later in the day (say, 7pm) but break your fast before training (aka Lunch), make it a smaller meal focused around fats and protein – which should be a solid goal even if you aren’t Intermittent Fasting! Try to time your carb and big meal consumption to happen AFTER your workout.
If you exercise BEFORE work, but then don’t eat until lunchtime: consider a protein supplement immediately after your workout, or simply wait until lunch to start eating. See how your body responds and adjust accordingly.
Do what you can, and don’t psyche yourself out! Get started and adjust along the way.
4) “Won’t fasting cause muscle loss?”
We’ve been told by the supplement industry that we need to consume 30 g of protein every few hours, as that’s the most amount of protein our body can process at a time.
Along with that, we’ve been told that if we don’t eat protein every few hours, our body’s muscle will start to break down to be burned as energy.
Again, NOT TRUE! Our bodies are quite adept at preserving muscle even when fasting [27], and it turns out that protein absorption by our body can take place over many many many hours.
Protein consumed in a shorter period of time has no difference on the body compared to protein spread throughout the day.
5) “What about my body going into starvation mode from not eating?”
Now, the thought process here is that when we don’t feed ourselves, our bodies assume calories aren’t available and thus choose to store more calories as opposed to burning them, therefore eliminating the benefits of weight loss with fasting.
Fortunately, this is NOT true.
Starvation mode is significantly overblown and sensationalized these days. It takes a dramatic amount of starvation, for a long, long, long time, before your body kicks into “starvation mode”. We’re talking about 24 hour or 16 hour fasts here, and starvation mode takes significantly longer than that.[28]
In other words: starvation mode should not be factoring into your decision here.
5) How much should I eat while intermittent fasting?
If your goal is weight loss, you still need to consume fewer calories than you burn every day to lose weight. If your goal is bulking up, you’ll need to consume more calories than you burn every day. Intermittent Fasting isn’t a cure-all, it’s a PART of the puzzle.
To start, begin intermittent fasting and eat your normal sized meals and track your weight and performance. If you are losing weight and happy with the progress, keep doing what you’re doing! If you are NOT losing weight, you could be eating too much. It’s a message I really strike home in our guide “Why Can’t I Weight?”
#1) Don’t freak out! Stop wondering: “can I fast 15 hours instead of 16?” or “what if I eat an apple during my fasted period, will that ruin everything?” Relax. Your body is a complex piece of machinery and learns to adapt. Everything is not as cut and dry as you think.
If you want to eat breakfast one day but not another, that’s okay. If you are going for optimal aesthetic or athletic performance, I can see the need to be more rigid in your discipline, but otherwise…freaking chill out and don’t stress over minutiae!
Don’t let perfect be the enemy of good when it comes to your intermittent fasting plan.
#2) Consider fasted walks in the morning. I found these to be very helpful in reducing body fat, and also gave my day a great start to clear my mind and prepare for the day.
Simply wake up and go for a mile walk. Maybe you could even start walking to Mordor?
#3) Listen to your body during your strength training workouts. If you get light headed, make sure you are consuming enough water.
If you notice a significant drop in performance, make sure you are eating enough calories (especially fats and protein) during your feasting window.
And if you feel severely “off,” pause your workout. Give yourself permission to EASE into intermittent fasting and fasted workouts. This is especially true if you are an endurance athlete.
#4) Expect funny looks if you spend a lot of mornings with breakfast eaters.
A few weeks back I had a number of friends staying with me, and they were all completely dumbfounded when I told them I didn’t eat breakfast anymore.
I tried to explain it to them but received a bunch of blank stares. Breakfast has become so enGRAINed (zing!) in our culture that NOT eating it sounds crazy.
You will get weird looks from those around you…embrace it. I still go to brunch or sit with friends, I just drink black coffee and enjoy a conversation.
#5) Stay busy. If you are just sitting around thinking about how hungry you are, you’ll be more likely to struggle with this. For that reason, I time my fasting periods for maximum efficiency and minimal discomfort:
My first few hours of fasting come after consuming a MONSTER dinner, where the last thing I want to think about is eating.
When I’m sleeping: 8 of my 16 hours are occupied by sleeping. Tough to feel hungry when I’m dreaming about becoming a Jedi.
When I’m busy: After waking up, 12 hours of my fasting is already done. I spend three hours doing my best work (while drinking a cup of black coffee), and then comes my final hour of fasting: training.
#6) Zero-calorie beverages are okay. I drink green tea in the morning for my caffeine kick while writing. If you want to drink water, black coffee, or tea during your fasted period, that’s okay. Remember, don’t overthink it – keep things simple! Dr. Rhonda Patrick over at FoundMyFitness believes that a fast should stop at the first consumption of anything other than water, so experiment yourself and see how your body responds.
If you want to put milk in your coffee, or drink diet soda occasionally while fasting, I’m not going to stop you. Remember, we’re going for consistency and habit-building here – if milk or cream in your coffee makes life worth living, don’t deprive yourself.
There are MUCH bigger fish to fry with regards to getting healthy than a few calories here and there during a fast.
80% adherence that you stick with for a year is better than 100% adherence that you abandon after a month because it was too restrictive.
If you’re trying to get to a minimum bodyfat percentage, you’ll need to be more strict – until then, however, do what allows you to stay compliant!
Track your calories, and see how your body changes when eating the same amount of food, but condensed into a certain window.
Sign up for the NF Email listand join the Rebellion and get your free Intermittent Fasting Starter Guide and Worksheets to track your progress.
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
Everybody will react to an Intermittent Fasting Plan differently; I can’t tell you how your body will react. It’s up to you to listen to your body and see how making these adjustments change your body.
#8) Don’t expect miracles. Yes, Intermittent Fasting can potentially help you lose weight, increase insulin sensitivity and growth hormone secretion (all good things), but it is only ONE factor in hundreds that will determine your body composition and overall health. Don’t expect to drop to 8% body fat and get ripped just by skipping breakfast.
This is just one tool that can contribute to your success.
Getting Started with Intermittent Fasting: Next Steps
Intermittent fasting can potentially have some very positive benefits for somebody trying to lose weight or gain lean body mass.
Men and women will tend to have different results, just like each individual person will have different results. The ONLY way to find out is through a conversation with your doctor and self-experimentation.
There are multiple ways to “do” an Intermittent Fasting Plan:
Fast and feast regularly: Fast for a certain number of hours, then consume all calories within a certain number of hours.
Eat normally, then fast 1-2x a week: Consume your normal meals every day, then pick one or two days a week where you fast for 24 hours. Eat your last meal Sunday night, and then don’t eat again until dinner the following day.
Fast occasionally: probably the easiest method for the person who wants to do the least amount of work. Simply skip a meal whenever it’s convenient. On the road? Skip breakfast. Busy day at work? Skip lunch. Eat poorly all day Saturday? Make your first meal of the day dinner on Sunday.
After that, get started! Take photos, step on the scale, and track your progress for the next month.
See how your body responds.
See how your physique changes. See how your workouts change.
And then decide if it’s something you want to keep doing!
4 years later, I have no plans on going back to eating breakfast. Sorry General Mills and Dr. Kellogg!
If you’re worried about all of this stuff, or aren’t sure when to eat and stop eating, it might be worth working with a professional that can help you make sense of all of these questions and help you incorporate Intermittent Fasting into your life.
We have a few options to help people out:
#1) Our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program. I’ve found a lot of people struggle with knowing exactly when to eat and not eat, keeping track of their fast and feast windows, which is where we can help.
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community, group challenges, and much more!
If you want to ask Nerd Fitness Coaches (and even me!) your questions about intermittent fasting, NF Prime would be the perfect place to do it.
#3) Join the Rebellion! Our free bi-weekly newsletter full of tips and tricks to help you lose weight, get stronger, and level up your life.
Join hundreds of thousands of members, and I’ll send you our free Intermittent Fasting guide too:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
But enough about me, let’s talk about you.
I’d love to hear what questions you have!
What are your questions with intermittent fasting?
What are your concerns?
Have you tried intermittent fasting?
Have you had success with it, either with muscle gain or weight loss?
Thanks for leaving your comment, I’m excited to get the conversation started.
-Steve
PS: I made an Intermittent Fasting Plan to help you condense this article into an actionable worksheet you can follow. You can get yours free when you sign up in the box below:
Download a free intermittent fasting guide and worksheet!
Complete outline of the Intermittent Fasting Protocol
Worksheets for tracking when you eat and how long you fasted
CAVEAT: I’m a dude and can only speak from anecdotal evidence in speaking with women who have done IF, parsing studies, and trying to draw some conclusions that will help you make a decision
Glucose tolerance when doing alternate day fasting: study
Short-term fasting in normal women: absence of effects on gonadotrophin secretion and the menstrual cycle: PubMed Extract
Endocrine and chronobiological effects of fasting in women: Abstract
Every bodyweight exercise involved utilizes multiple muscle groups, gets your heart rate pumping, and burns tons of calories.
Essentially, circuit weight training, or circuit bodyweight training, burns more calories than interval training, and that in turn burns WAY more calories than steady cardio.
Then, your body needs to spend hours and hours afterward rebuilding your muscles, which in turn burns even more calories (they call this the “afterburn” effect).
As we cover in our Coaching Program and the throughout Nerd Fitness Prime, nutrition will account for 80-90% of our success or failure when it comes to getting in shape, might as well spend our time exercising being efficient and strong, right?
If you’re trying to lose weight, spending hours doing cardio on a treadmill can be a really crappy, boring, inefficient use of your time.
If you’re a busy person (and I know you are), why spend hours doing something when you can be MORE efficient and build a better physique with less time?
Enter the Beginner Bodyweight Workout.
I’m going to take you through a basic home workout today that can be completed anywhere – in your house, apartment, out at a park, in your basement, on the moon, wherever.
Beginner Body Weight Workout Video & exercises
This is the Beginner Bodyweight Workout (3 Circuits):
20 Bodyweight squats.
10 Push-ups.
10 Walking lunges (each leg).
10 Dumbbell rows (use a milk jug or other weight).
In a circuit routine, you’ll do each exercise in succession without a break in between (if you’re able).
Once you’ve finished all exercises in the circuit, do it again.
If you’re still able after the 2nd run through, go for a third.
Because all of these exercises come one after another, you’re bound to get tired – and that’s okay!
It’s better to stop and take a break than to do an exercise incorrectly.
Before you start, don’t forget to do a Dynamic Warm-Up – Make sure to get your heart rate pumping and get your muscles warmed or you’re just asking for injury.
You can run in place, jump rope, do a few push-ups, pedal on a stationary bike, do some punches and kicks, jog up and down your stairs, and/or twist and swing your arms and legs to get them moving!
“HOW OFTEN SHOULD I DO THE BEGINNER BODYWEIGHT WORKOUT?”
Do this routine 2-3 times a week, but never on consecutive days.
You don’t build muscle when you’re exercising, you build muscle when you’re resting, so try not to do a strength training routine (of the same muscle groups) two days in a row.
In addition to checking out our Online Coaching Program, make sure you download the worksheet for this workout by joining the Rebellion (our free online community)!
I’ll send it to you right away when you sign up in the box below:
Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!
Complete this workout at home, no equipment required
Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises
Note: We have helped hundreds of 1-on-1 Coaching clients get started with strength training and other awesomeness – but EVERYBODY starts with bodyweight training like these movements and this workout!
An Important Note About Nutrition!
Along with this bodyweight routine, you need to make sure you’re eating properly!
You can either learn to track your food through counting calories (calculate your daily caloric needs here), or you can look into our healthy plate strategy:
We’ve actually developed our own 10-level nutrition system and mindset blueprint in Nerd Fitness Prime, but let me break this down into some basics:
Eat natural, whole foods whenever possible.
Leave the soda, candy, and junk food out of your system.
Cut back on sugar and liquid calories wherever you can. The stuff is in everything!
Swap out the grains on your plate for vegetables when you can.
Make sure you get enough protein each day (meat, chicken, fish) – this helps with rebuilding muscles and things like that.
You can download a Free 10 Level Diet Guide too when you join the Rebellion and sign up in the box below:
Download our free weight loss guide
THE NERD FITNESS DIET: 10 Levels to Change Your Life
Follow our 10-level nutrition system at your own pace
What you need to know about weight loss and healthy eating
3 Simple rules we follow every day to stay on target
The raw honest truth:how you eat will be responsible for at least 80% of your success or failure.
I’m not kidding when I say that. If you don’t develop a healthier relationship with food, no amount of exercise will get you there.
So if you’re doing this workout program because you’re interested in losing weight, know that training is only 10-20% of the puzzle!
The WORST is dutifully doing this workout routine for months or going to the gym for years and not getting results because you didn’t eat the right way!
That was me – I spent 6 years without results because I didn’t know how to eat correctly to go along with my training!
If you don’t have months or years to make mistakes, and just want your own Yoda to tell you what to do, you’re in the right place!
We’ve been helping busy people like you train at home and make better food decisions without hating life! It’s our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and it might be a great fit for you.
Schedule a call with us to learn more by clicking on the image below:
After the Beginner Bodyweight Workout: Next Steps!
Do this Beginner Bodyweight Workout for the next 4-6 weeks and focus on getting better.
If doing just one circuit of the workout was really challenging, no big deal!
Write down how you did, and try to do just 1 more rep or exercise next time through.
The whole point is “do a bit more than last time.”
I also have MULTIPLE options for you to take for your next step too. Pick the option below that best aligns with your goals and timeline:
1) If you want step-by-step guidance on how to lose weight, eat better, and get stronger, check out our killer 1-on-1 coaching program:
2) Exercising at home and need a plan to follow? Have questions you need answered? Join Nerd Fitness Prime!
Nerd Fitness Prime contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, a supportive online community, group challenges, and much more!
3) Join the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get the Beginner Bodyweight Workout sheet so you can print out the sheet and train at home!
Grab Your Beginner Bodyweight Routine Worksheet. No Gym Required!
Complete this workout at home, no equipment required
Avoid the common mistakes everybody makes when doing bodyweight exercises
Learn how to finally get your first pull-up
I’d love to hear how this workout went for you, and how else we can help!
This is what we’ve dedicated our lives to, and you’re now part of a killer community.
Welcome to the Nerd Fitness Rebellion!
You can do this, we got your back!
-Steve
PS: If you’re looking for more workout routines to follow, I got you covered:
Whether you’re comfortable on a yoga mat or you think a downward dog is just something your puppy does, you’re in the right place.
We teach yoga as part of Nerd Fitness Prime (we have a whole course on it!) and today we’ll share with you the top 21 poses for beginners
Our yoga poses are broken out into three levels, for you to progress in difficulty. What can I say, we love leveling up here at Nerd Fitness. Most of our poses are basic, Level One, in case you are completely new to yoga. However, we’ll include a few more advanced poses for further advancement.
We’ll start by discussing a little Yoga 101, in case you are totally lost right now and don’t know yoga from yogurt. If you wanna skip to your desired video or pose, just click on it.
Yoga means lots of different things to different people… like Windfarm Yoga apparently, to the woman in the photo above. As one commenter from Cracked pointed out:
“The only thing I know for sure about yoga is that whatever you’re doing when you practice it, you’ll be assured by someone that it isn’t “real yoga.”[1]
I’m not interested in that particular aspect of the yoga debate: people need things to argue about and get offended over because Internet. What’s important to me is getting more people interested in trying yoga out because it’s damn fun and can really improve your life.
After all, as Vox explains:
“Yoga seems to help alleviate lower back pain, improve strength and flexibility, and reduce inflammation in the body — which, in turn, can help stave off chronic disease and death.
Emerging research suggests yoga can increase body awareness, or attention to the sensations and things going on inside you. That’s no small matter: Researchers think heightened body awareness can improve how well people take care of themselves.”[2]
Science is essentially telling us: Yoga can help you become more flexible like Black Widow, improve your strength like the Hulk, extend your life like the elves of Rivendell, and give you mental awareness like Yoda.
The jury is still out as to whether or not it grants us telekinetic powers.
When I approached yoga years ago as an attempt to improve my flexibility and to combat poor posture, I was initially worried about looking foolish or finding some aspect of the exercise that didn’t sit right with me.
Instead, I found a complimentary, enjoyable activity that helped improve my flexibility and mobility, alleviated my lower back pain, opened up my hips to combat a lifetime of sitting, and even helped me quiet my overactive mind! Plus, it was like a power-up for my strength workouts.
It’s now an activity I do with regularity throughout my week, incorporating yoga stretches during the day in between desk sessions, after working out, and attending the occasional class to level up.
WHY SHOULD I CARE ABOUT YOGA?
If you read Nerd Fitness, you’re probably a skeptic. After all, one of the Rules of the Rebellion is to question everything!
So you might be thinking: “Steve, you’re not going to ask me to start speaking in mantras, chanting OMMMMMM, and work on improving my spiritual chi.”
As somebody who started yoga with the exact same reservations, I sit before you a changed man. For starters, if you decide the spiritual aspects of the practice aren’t for you, you’re not alone: research into yoga’s history can lead down an internet rabbit hole of controversy that is bottomless.[3]
So we’re not going to jump in that fight. Instead, what you will find when it comes to yoga is study after study showing that this form of exercise is incredibly beneficial:
1) A body prepared to handle anything: at Nerd Fitness, we are huge fans of strength training, and yoga is its perfect compliment. it elongates your muscles, improves your flexibility, can release tension in your neck and shoulders, and helps you do things like touch your toes![4] It can help you build stronger muscles, improve balance and stability (especially for our older rebels[5]), and make you more “antifragile” (one of my favorite terms).
As one study points out, “yoga subjects exhibited increased deadlift strength, substantially increased lower back/hamstring flexibility, increased shoulder flexibility, and modestly decreased body fat compared with control group.”[6]
2) Yoga is great for lower back pain: If you’re one of the 31+ million people like myself who struggle with lower back pain, yoga can help.[7] Yoga really helps those of us stuck at a computer all day long as well.[8]
3) Yoga can help meet weight loss goals when combined with a healthy diet. Look, we all know our diet is responsible for 80-90% of our success when it comes to weight loss. The other 10-20% of the equation is participating in physical activities that push your body outside of their comfort zone.
Yoga is a great way to burn a few extra calories and keep your brain focused on “I am doing healthy things and thus I should be eating healthy foods!” It can help improve our fight against cardiovascular disease, hypertension, and obesity.[9] It’s also a great rest day activity to keep you on track when you’re not doing your other workouts.
4) Speaking of which…yoga can be done every single day, and can be done anywhere. No gym required, no equipment required – no excuses! On top of that, because it’s a low-impact activity and doesn’t overly tax your muscles like a powerlifting session, you can do yoga every single day, anywhere you can find a soft place to sit down: your living room, a park, a beach, your bedroom, on the moon, etc.
5) Yoga can quiet an overactive mind: We live in a world with a distraction around every corner; we read Facebook or our favorite blog while checking email and texts… while trying to work a day job. If you’re anything like me, your mind races a million miles an hour, and trying to develop a sense of control and calm over your mind is like herding cats. We’ve already explained the benefits of Meditation for Nerds; yoga can be tremendously helpful with becoming more aware of our bodies and help with reducing stress and anxiety.[10]
Lastly, if yoga is good enough for badass Dhalsim from Street Fighter II, it’s good enough for me:
Alright, I’m going to assume at this point you are on board with yoga. If being able to completely demolish a car with your bare hands doesn’t convince you, nothing will.[11]
So let’s go over some yoga poses and routines.
A YOGA ROUTINE FOR BEGINNERS YOU CAN DO AT HOME
We’ll start out our explanation of different yoga poses by showing you what the end result can look like.
Here’s a complete routine covering some basic yoga poses:
The above video (Water Series – A) is taken from our course, Nerd Fitness Yoga (a part of Nerd Fitness Prime). If you like it, I’d encourage you to go browse the page and check it out.
Nerd Fitness Yoga is a course you can follow along within the comfort of your own home, and it’s built specifically for members of the Rebellion: easy to follow instructions, an inviting attitude, and as you can tell… some corny jokes from yours truly.
This course will work for men and women of all shapes, ages, and sizes, giving anybody the confidence to get started IMMEDIATELY. Follow it regularly and you can expect the benefits of the dozens of studies I linked above when it comes to yoga practice.
In addition to a HUGE pose library and step-by-step instructions, it also contains all of the following full-length yoga sessions filmed in HD:
Water sessions: Two beginner yoga videos (25 minutes each, first one was above)
Fire sessions: Two intermediate yoga videos (30 minutes each)
Star sessions: Two advanced yoga videos (40 minutes each)
Deep stretching routine (40 minutes)
6 supplemental mobility videos (that will help with lower back mobility, how to finally touch your toes, and so on. Two of which are below.)
All of these videos can be streamed or downloaded to any device as many times as you’d like so you can practice yoga wherever, whenever.
10 BEGINNER YOGA POSES (LEVEL 1)
Seated Cross Legged
One of the most popular yoga poses is simply Seated Cross Legged.
A seated position helps relax, reset, and open your hips up a bit.
Bring yourself down to a seat on the floor, whatever is most comfortable. Cross one ankle of the other in front of you and sit cross-legged.
Take a big breath in and straighten your spine as if there was a string pulling your head and neck up to the ceiling. Breathe out, but keep that upright posture.
Hands can rest on your knees, but shouldn’t push out or pressure your legs.
Table Top Cat-Cow
This is actually a series of a few poses (Table Top, Cat, & Cow) that is used in almost every yoga session to help reset your spines and warm up your back.
Start in Table Top, with your hands under your shoulders and your knees under your hips. Your spine should be parallel with the floor to start.
Exhale and slowly press into your hands as you abs up towards your spine. Round your spine to the ceiling as you bring your chin towards your chest. Gently push out your shoulders.
Inhale and relax your abs while you bring your hips back down. Lengthen your torso as your head comes up and looks towards the ceiling. Your chest should come forward slightly and your lower back should push into your pelvis.
Relax and return back to a neutral Table Top position.
Child’s Pose
Child’s Pose is considered a resting position. This means that any time you feel overwhelmed, overheated, or stressed about a particular pose or variation while doing yoga, STOP what you are doing and come slowly into a Child’s Pose to rest.
This pose helps lower stress, refocus your mind, and lightly stretch primarily your lower back, hips, and thighs.
Start by kneeling on the floor with your toes touching behind you. Widen your knees so they are just a little wider than your hips. Gently lower your body between your knees and hips.
Your arms will stretch out lightly in front of you and you can drop your shoulders to the sides and down.
A variation you can use (which may be easier or harder for you) is to tuck your toes under your feet, instead of having the tops or side of your feet against the ground. Do whichever variation is most comfortable and natural for your body.
Forward Fold
Forward Fold is another one of our most popular yoga poses. It’s primarily focused on stretching the lower back, hips, hamstrings, and calves.
Start standing and gently bend forward as you lengthen your torso and spine. As you fold towards the ground, keep your knees straight (but not locked out). If you can, grab the back of your calves and gently pull yourself deeper into the fold.
As you breathe in, you can lift slightly and extend your torso and spine forwards. As you exhale, you can fold forward again into the stretch.
To scale this down, you may use blocks to help raise the floor. Keep your knees straight and your spine long, and fold as far as you can comfortably go.
Standing
Standing pose is a resting and centering pose in yoga, but don’t take it for granted.
Even when we are standing in between poses, be sure to stay strong, active, and rooted through your feet. Your feet should also be flat and not rolled in or bowed out.
Activate your hips to prevent locking out your knees and keep your posture and spine tall and elevated.
Finally, your shoulder should be open and your chest broad. Neck in line with your spine (not hunched forward). Stretch tall from your hips through your head.
Standing Mountain
Standing Mountain is a great pose to warm up our shoulder and spine.
Start by staying strong and rooted through your feet (which are flat on the ground). Legs active, but not locked out. Shoulders open and neck in line with spine.
As you take a deep breath, bring both arms straight out in front of you and up overhead towards the ceiling. Make sure your shoulders aren’t hunched and close to your ears, but rather relaxed and released down.
Rooting through your shoulder blades, pull your spine and arms towards the ceiling.
Cobra
Cobra is a popular pose that almost always follows Plank as a transitional sequence in many yoga sessions.
This pose primarily stretches the shoulders, chest, spine, and stomach.
Start by laying flat on the ground on your belly, with the tops of your feet on the floor. Your hands should be positioned under your shoulders (much like you would imagine starting a pushup).
Slowly push down through your hands and straighten your arms to lift your chest up off the floor, but unlike a push-up, keep your hips, thighs, and tops of feet rooted and pushing down towards the ground.
Move your shoulder blades back, lift your chest, and look forward and slightly up. Hold for several seconds and then slowly release down.
To scale this pose down, only raise your chest and head to where you are comfortable. Be sure to keep your hips and thighs pushing down to the floor, even if that means you can only raise your chest a little.
Low Lunge
Low Lunge is a variation of Lunge that is a building block for several more advanced poses. It’s most commonly thought of a Lunge with your knee on the ground.
This pose will primarily stretch and strengthen the groin, hamstrings, and hips.
Often, you’ll get into a lunge by starting in a Forward Fold and slowly stepping one of your legs back behind you. If you need to, you can scoot your foot back several times until you are able to have your front knee directly over your front ankle.
As you bring your leg back, drop your back knee to rest on the ground. This will help support some of your weight, but the majority of your weight should stay pushing forward through your front knee and hips.
Bend your torso over your front knee and lengthen your spine forward. Your weight should be pressing down through your heels.
To scale down, you can use blocks on each side to balance yourself more without having to reach all the way down to the floor.
Knee Hug
This pose is used to compress and tighten your body. It’s often used right before Corpse Pose at the end of sessions to reset.
Start this pose by lying on your back with your arms and legs straight out. Take a deep breath and slowly bring your legs together and your knees lifted toward your chest.
As your knee comes up, wrap your arms around them and clasp your hands together. If you can’t quite wrap your arms you can reach down each hand and gently pull in your kneecaps.
Gently squeeze your knees into your chest, keeping your back flat on the ground and dropping your shoulders down. You can focus your eyes down the center of your body.
If for any reason you have trouble doing this, simply raise your knees towards your chest as far as they will go. Hold for a few seconds and release back down.
Corpse Pose
Everyone’s favorite yoga pose, and often a way to end a complete session! And while at first, it can seem like just lying on the ground, there’s more to it than that.
This poses is fantastic for calming the mind, relieving stress, and relaxing the body back into a neutral position.
You’ll have a desire towards the end of a session to skip over Corpse Pose and move on.
Don’t! Spend a few minutes coming back down and resetting your body in each session.
Start by laying on your back. Your arms should stretch down comfortably to each side, slightly away from your body. Both your legs stretched out and with a little space, as well.
Do your best to “release” your shoulders and neck and let them fall neutral as well (even when on our backs we tend to engage our necks).
Focus on your breathing and on relaxing any tight or sore areas of your body.
If you need to, turn onto your side and bend your knees (laying on your side completely). Wiggle your toes, ankles, hands, or wrists as needed.
8 BASIC YOGA POSES (LEVEL 2)
Downward Dog
This pose primarily focuses on stretching the shoulders, hamstrings, and calves.
The first few times you get into Downward Dog, you’ll want to start on your hands and knees (what we call Table Top), but with your arms a little bit forward of your head. Pushing into your hands and toes, slowly lift your knees off the ground.
If you can, slowly straighten your knees (don’t lock them) as you gently stretch your heels down to the ground. Once comfortable, you can work your shoulders back toward your tailbone.
To scale this down, you can lift your heels further off the ground and/or bend your knees for easy modification. You can also use blocks to elevate your arms as another alternative.
Crescent Moon
Crescent Moon is a variation of Low Lunge where we stretch upright towards the ceiling.
This pose primarily stretches and strengthens the groin, hips, chest, spine, and shoulders.
To start this pose, you’ll want to get into a comfortable Low Lunge. Usually, this means stepping on leg forward from Downward Dog or stepping one leg back from Forward Fold, and then dropping your back knee down rooted on the ground.
As you take a deep breath, bring your torso up from lunge to upright and stretch both hands straight up toward the ceiling.
Instead of arching your back, draw your hips down and forward and lean your shoulder back (keeping it straight and engaged).
To scale this pose down, you can just stay in Low Lunge and work on stretching without extending upward.
Bridge
Bridge is a backbend pose that primarily stretches and strengthens the back and spine, but also the chest, shoulders, and neck.
Start by laying flat on your back. Bring your feet flat on the ground as close to your butt as they comfortable sit. Arms should be flat and down to your sides.
Pushing down through your feet and arms, slowly lift your butt off the floor and into Low Bridge (around when your spine is straight with your legs).
If you are comfortable, you can bring your hands together under yourself. Continue to slowly push your hips and butt towards the ceiling, making sure to keep your knees over top of your ankles. Work towards parallel with the ground for full Bridge pose.
To scale this down, stop in Low Bridge if going further is uncomfortable. If Low Bridge is difficult, just practice moving your hips slightly off the ground from the starting position. As you gain more flexibility, you’ll work to hold in Low Bridge.
Half Splits
This pose primarily stretches your hamstrings, hips, and lower back.
To start this pose, get into a Low Lunge. Your back knee should be firmly rooted on the ground.
Slowly shift your weight as you move your hips and torso over your back knee. As you do this your front leg will go from bent at the knee to fully extended straight in a line.
If you need them, you can use blocks or a supporting prop on each side now to support your weight (if you can’t reach the ground here).
Slowly fold forward over the top of your extended front leg, with your hips staying rooted back and over top of your knee that’s on the floor.
To scale this down, use blocks on each side as suggested above. You can also stay upright (instead of folding towards the end). Stop in the progression whenever you lose comfort.
Lunge
The Lunge is a major building block for all sorts of yoga poses. Many poses are variations of or come in and out of the Lunge.
This pose will primarily stretch and strengthen the groin, hamstrings, hips, and knees.
Often you will get into lunges starting in a Forward Fold and slowly stepping one of your legs back behind you. If you need to, you can scoot your foot back several times until you are able to have your from knee directly over your front ankle.
Bend your torso over your front knee and lengthen your spine forward. Your weight should be pressing down through your heels and your back knee should be active with your knee straight throughout.
To scale down, you can use blocks on each side to balance yourself more without having to reach all the way down to the floor. At any time, you can also drop the back knee down to the ground coming into Low Lunge instead.
Ninja
One of the most fun poses to make sound effects while doing, Ninja is actually a series of movements rather than a single pose. You might also have heard it called a Side Lunge, but this is Nerd Fitness, so we’re going with Ninja.
This pose helps strengthen the entire lower body and stretch out the hamstrings.
Start by lowering yourself into a half squat (Frog Prep).
Choose a foot and turn your toes out a little wider. Walk your hands over to your foot. Bend deep into that side’s knee as you lift up onto the heel of your opposite foot. Point or flex that foot up towards the ceiling.
Bring your hands to prayer in front of your chest. Extend both arms out in an upward-facing arc and look towards your extended leg. Hold the pose and keep your leg muscles engaged.
Slowly come back up to Frog Prep (body in the middle) and slide over to the other side repeating the steps above.
Seated Side Fold
Seated Side Fold is a good, simple combination of a fold and a side stretch in one pose. Sometimes referred to this as “Half Dragonfly” as a nickname.
This pose primarily stretches your spine, lower back, hamstrings, and groin.
Start in a seated position, with your legs outspread wide in a V shape in front of you. About a 90-degree angle between your legs.
Bring one of your feet over to your other thigh, so that the bottom of your foot rests tucked in and touching your thing just above the knee.
Keeping your hips rooted down and your spine extended tall and towards the ceiling, you can gently fold over and use your arms to walk down your chest towards the ground next to the thigh and knee of your fully extended leg.
You should be slightly off-center, in line with your straightened leg (rather than a traditional fold which would come straight to the center).
To scale down this pose, you can stay in the original seated position with both legs out in front of you in a V. Gently fold forward a little to each side and you warm up.
3 INTERMEDIATE YOGA POSES (LEVEL 3)
Chair Pose
Chair pose is the basis for many of the more advanced moves found in yoga. It primarily stretches the chest and shoulders, while helping to strengthen your core and legs.
Start in Standing with your arms out in front of you. Slowly bend your knees, moving them gradually more forward away from your toes. At the same time, drop your hips and butt back as you try to achieve a 90-degree angle with your thighs and calves.
As you sit down, your arms will come straight above your head (next to your ears), pointing up with palms facing in.
To scale this down, you’ll find it a little easier to keep your arms out in front of you – or coming towards your chest forming a “ball of energy.” Like in Dragonball. Drop your hips only as low as you can comfortably maintain for a stable hold.
Warrior 2
This pose primarily strengthens your shoulders, arm, thighs and opens up your chest and shoulders.
Starting in Standing, exhale as you step one foot back. Align your back heel behind the other heel and then turn your back foot out 90 degrees.
Turn your hips out and align your forward thigh with your forward knee. Slowly raise your arm, one forward and one back, both parallel to the ground.
As you exhale, bend the right knee forward until it lines up straight over your right heel. Press your heels into the floor.
To scale this pose down, you can bring your legs slightly in closer together. You also have the option to bend forward a little less or bring your hands back down onto your hips.
Extended Side Angle
Extended Side Angle is one of our broader Warrior-sequence poses, often done together in pairs or sets with other poses from the same group.
This primarily stretches your groin, back, and torso. It also strengthens your thighs, hips, and legs.
Starting in Standing, spread your legs slightly apart with hips facing forward. Choose one side and rotate that foot outward about 45 degrees.
Bend the knee over the rotated foot and shift your weight to that side. Keep your stretched out back leg in place and keep pushing down through that foot.
Bring your elbow (same chosen side as the bent knee), down to rest on your bent knee. Your hand and arm coming out in front of you. Your opposite arm now extends high into the air straight overhead.
To scale this pose down, you can narrow your stance a little bit more and bring your hips a little higher in the air. Move deeper down as you get more comfortable.
If you are comfortable enough here to scale up, you can switch your eyes to look at your arm overhead and gently stretch that arm to the side (so it falls in line with your torso and spine).
This will deepen the stretch even further.
Rebel Warrior
Rebel Warrior is another pose in our Warrior-sequences that are often used in pairs or sets as transitions to one another. You’ll sometimes hear it referred to as “Peaceful Warrior,” but, you know…
This pose primarily stretches the groin, hips, check, and shoulders.
Start in Warrior 2. Bring the rear hand down to the back leg, palm facing down. Turn the front palm facing upwards towards the sky.
On an inhale, extend the front arm up towards the sky, palm facing towards the back of the room. Keep your hips open, but reach your heart up towards the sky. Keep the back of your neck long and your eye gaze pointing in the same direction as your heart.
Keep bending deeply into your front knee; try to keep the weight evenly distributed on your front foot.
To scale this pose, bring your legs in a little closer together to shorten the depth of the stretch. As you get comfortable you can ease back down into the full pose.
YOGA STRETCHES FOR DESK WORKERS
Work a desk job? Consider these two additional videos:
Wrist Mobility
Wrists are an often overlooked area of stiffness and soreness for many people. Whether you type on a keyboard daily or are looking to improve front squats and handstands you’ll benefit from this 6-minute yoga session:
Proper Posture
Hours hunched over a computer, stuffed into a car, or playing various games can cause some pretty awkward posture habits. This 6-minute yoga session will help you reset and improve your posture as you go through your day:
When you’re able to escape from your desk for a few, these short sequences are perfect to help stretch out your body and help prevent injury.
If you do find yourself stuck at a computer for most of the day, with seemingly no time to work out, we can help! We offer a 1-on-1 private coaching program to help busy people just like you level up their lives.
We will get to know you, your goals, and your lifestyle, and develop a workout plan that’s specific to not only your body, but also to your schedule and life. We can design workouts for at your desk, or a quick session before dinnertime. If you want to learn more about the program, click on the big image below:
TRY A YOGA POSE TODAY
If this kid can do Yoga, so can you!
I don’t care if you’re at home, in a cubicle, or an office, I want you to use 3 minutes of courage to hold a few of the poses above!
Even if you’re not interested in checking out NF Yoga and never attend a yoga class, try these four movements right now. Like, this very moment.
A big reason Nerd Fitness and the Rebellion are successful in getting people healthy is that we encourage people to take action immediately. Not tomorrow, not after breakfast, RIGHT NOW!
Try to hold each of the following positions for 30 seconds. Yes, even if you’ve never done yoga before and have no intention of doing it again… I’m challenging you to give this a shot right now!
I personally get up every 15-20 minutes and go through a few movements (Downward Dog is my favorite) to stay limber.
Crushed those four poses? Take it to the next level and run through our full sequence from the Water Series. It’ll take you a little over 20 minutes.
Want a little more help getting going?
You got it!
I have three great options on how you can continue your journey with us:
Option #1) Liked the yoga videos contained in today’s guide? Want a full course that you can follow along with?Join Nerd Fitness Prime!
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, group challenges, a supportive online community, and much more!
Option #2) If you want a professional coach in your pocket, who can do video form checks, provide feedback, and adjust your workouts based on your experience level, check out our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program!
For example, let’s say you have an old injury and couldn’t perform one of our flexibility exercises. A Nerd Fitness Coach can work with you to create a customized routine for your exact situation.
Personally, I’ve been working with the same online coach since 2015 and it’s changed my life. You can learn more by clicking on the box below:
Option #3) Become part of the Rebellion! We need good people like you in our community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion.
Sign up in the box below to enlist and get our Rebel Starter Kit, which includes all of our “work out from home” guides.
Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit
The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.
Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.
Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.
Alright, your turn:
I’d love to hear from you: did you REALLY complete the 4-movement yoga routine above? And where did you do it? An office? In your cubicle?
Remember, who cares if your coworkers think you’re weird – getting judged for doing something healthy is a badge of honor you should be proud of!
What makes me so confident you’ll be able to reach your little piggy wiggies?
Because we teach even the most “inflexible” of folks how to touch their toes in our 1-on-1 Online Coaching Program, and we’ll share with you all our secrets below.
Here’s what we’ll cover in our guide, How to Touch Your Toes:
If you want to increase your flexibility, you’re gonna need to stretch.[1] It’s how you make your muscles elastic and strong.
Why bother though? What’s the big deal about being able to touch your toes?
Here are some of the benefits provided by stretching:
Increase range of motion. If you can move a joint through its full range of motion, you’re gonna have more freedom of movement. Confidently navigating the physical world is a sign of a healthy nerd, which is why flexibility shouldn’t be overlooked. One of the best ways to become more flexible is to stretch.[2]
Improve posture.If you want to stop slouching so much, regularly stretching may help.[3] Stretching works to improve muscle imbalances, which in turn might help your posture.
Alleviate back pain.If you suffer from back pain, it might be worth starting a stretching routine .[4] The muscles in your back might be tight, restricting your range of motion, which causes pain. Stretching can help loosen up the area, plus strengthen the muscle. This might help prevent future injury.
Stretching, and the flexibility that comes with it, should not be overlooked when building a workout routine.
While there are many indicators of good flexibility, one of the most popular is undoubtedly being able to touch your toes.
After all, it was so important the President had all American schoolchildren perform the “Sit and Reach” test to see if they could grab their feet.[5]
Touching your toes might have been a struggle for you then. It might still be a struggle for you now.
What’s going on?
Why Can’t I Touch My Toes?
If you are unable to touch your toes, it’s most likely because of one of these four major reasons:
1) Shortened/tight posterior chain muscles. Although most people think not being able to touch our toes just means your hamstring muscles are inflexible, in reality our whole system (including the lower back) can play a huge role as well! As Mark Rippetoe explains in this video about the Romanian deadlift, what you may think is a lower back issue is also a hamstring issue (and vice versa):
You see, the posterior chain is an interconnected series of muscles that includes our back muscles, erector spinae (muscles along our spine), lower back muscles, butts, and hamstrings:
Weak mobility points in one place in the system can become debilitating (and often easy to spot) when we do compound movements like the deadlift.
If you’re somebody who sits at a desk all day and struggles to touch your toes, you probably aren’t strengthening or lengthening these muscles because the chair is doing all of the work for you.
2) You have relatively long legs compared to your torso and arms. People with long legs and short torsos will have a greater challenge than people who have short legs and long torsos and arms.
But fear not, you too can level up and get those toes touched.
3) You have too much body fat. If you are overweight and happen to have a big stomach, it can certainly make touching one’s toes more challenging. Because you already know that diet is 90% of the battle when it comes to weight loss, focus on nutrition to begin losing weight (here are the 5 rules of weight loss to help you begin). This may be a factor in making it easier to touch your toes.
4) You’re not warmed up yet. If you JUST woke up or spent all day in a car, you’re familiar with the rigidity that makes you feel like a steel girder. Your muscles act like rubber bands; the more they are used, the more they are warmed-up, and the further they can stretch. This is why we encourage people to go through a mobility warm-up before exercise!
Let’s put a plan in place to finally touch our toes!
Determining Your Initial Flexibility (We All Start Somewhere)
Before we can implement a strategy to develop more flexibility that allows you to touch your toes, we need to know your starting point.
As Peter Drucker said, “That which gets measured gets managed.” Or in this case, that which gets measured gets more flexible!
Stand straight with your legs about hip-width apart. You want your legs to be straight, but don’t aggressively lock out your knees either (this feels like a “microbend” to a lot of people).
Begin by bending and leaning forward towards the ground with your quads (front of your legs).
Let your body rest naturally, as if you were a ragdoll. Keeping your hands relatively close together, straighten your fingers and begin to stretch down slowly to the ground.
Do this 2-3 times to get warmed up. Try to keep your legs straight by flexing or activating your quads; keep your legs straight, without locking your knees.
Other than the microbend, don’t bend your knees to help you get closer to the ground! I’m watching you. If you’re videotaping yourself on these to track your progress, note that depending on your body (and your hamstrings) your legs may not look 100% straight.
When you are ready, reach towards the ground and hold it for a few seconds. Measure the distance in one of the following ways:
If you aren’t touching the ground, have a friend measure the distance from the tip of your fingers to the ground. If you don’t have a friend with you, place your hands on your legs and note where the tips of your fingers end up.
If you can touch the ground, you’ll want to flatten your hands as much as possible, and record the distance from the top of your head to the ground. As you can stretch further, the top of your head will actually get closer and closer to the ground.
If this seems easy, try hugging your calves and pulling your head in towards your body.
Record your measurement in a document or on a piece of paper (if you’re part of the flexibility challenge, we have a document you can print out), and/or save the photo/video to show how far down you are reaching.
The 4 Best Stretches to Touch Your Toes (Improve Your flexibility)
There are two key factors that will determine whether or not you are successful in gaining the ability to touch your toes as you practice over the next few weeks:
Actively stretching your muscles JUST past the point of comfort. Like strength training by adding 1 rep or a few pounds to an exercise, we want to stretch just beyond the point where we stretched last time so our muscles have to elongate.
Consistent practice and effort! You can’t improve your flexibility by stretching for 5 minutes once a month. You’d be better off stretching for 30 seconds spread out 10 times throughout the month.
That’s right. Studies confirmed that actively focusing on touching your toes for 30 seconds, 3 times per week was enough to lengthen hamstring muscles in 4 weeks. [6]
I‘m sure there’s an inappropriate joke to be made here about 30 seconds of effort, but I’m better than that (I think).
In less time than it takes to update your Facebook status, you could be touching your toes and make Gumby proud.
HOW TO TOUCH YOUR TOES (CONSISTENT FLEXIBILITY PRACTICE):
All I’m asking for is 2 minutes. 2 minutes! You can even spread these movements out throughout your day – I like to do them after I work out. After a long day at a desk, after driving, or upon waking up are all good times to work on flexibility!
Through each of the movements below, make sure you are breathing slowly and steadily.
You can follow along with all of the movements below that come from our really fun online course, Nerd Fitness Yoga (part of NF Prime). It’s essentially yoga for people that don’t do yoga.
THE 4 BEST STRETCHES TO TOUCH YOUR TOES:
Standing toe touch stretch – 30 seconds
Cat/Camel – 30 seconds (switch positions every 5 seconds)
Star stretch – 30 seconds (as many slow reps as you can)
Moon the sky – 30 seconds (as many slow reps as you can)
1) Standing toe touch stretch: Flex/activate the front of your legs, keep them straight, and bend over at the waist juuuust past the point of discomfort; hold that position for 30 seconds. Repeat this process every other day and hold it for 30 seconds.
2) We can loosen up a tight lower back by doing 30 seconds of moving back and forth every few seconds by doing a “cat” and then a “cow”:
3) You can also do what we call a star stretch to help stretch those legs out! Stand with your legs spread wide, and arms extended (hence the term Star!), and then reach down with one hand to your opposite leg; hold for five seconds, back to start, and repeat with the other leg.
4) Here’s another favorite movement of mine that helps improve my flexibility and mobility: the “Moon the Sky” stretch!
This is a great stretch to mix into your pre-workout warmup to get your legs, butt, and back prepared for work:
Squat down and put your hands under your feet
Slowly move your butt up with your hands remaining under your feet.
Raise your butt and try to straighten your legs
Go a TEENY bit higher each time until you can fully straighten your legs!
For any of the above moves, a good way to check your form would be to record a video of yourself and match it against the videos and gifs here. If they look close, you’re doing great!
If you want to have an expert review your stretches, our coaches can do just that in our snazzy app!
How to Become More Flexible (Next Steps)
It’s now time to train to touch your toes!
Test your toe-touching abilities before and after doing the 2-minutes of exercise above, and I bet you’ll notice a difference right away – just wait to see what you can accomplish in a few weeks!
The cool thing about flexibility is that any combination of the stretches above will help you improve your flexibility as long as you consistently work on it a tiny bit every day.
At the end of my day for a minute or two before bed
All added up, it’s less than 5 minutes of time, but it’s enough to show me some results!
If you follow our guide above, you’ll be well on your way to increasing your flexibility and touching your toesie wosies.
You just need to start!
Want some help getting going? A little extra push out the door?
We built three perfect next steps for increasing your flexibility!
#1) Work with a professional Yoda! If you want confidence that you’re following a program that is tailor-made for your busy life, situation, and goals, check out our popular 1-on-1 Coaching Program.
Many of our clients have “increased flexibility” as one of their fitness goals, and they take comfort knowing a certified NF instructor is guiding them there.
#2) Want to take part in our Mobility Group Challenges? That way you can work on touching your toes with others? Join Nerd Fitness Prime!
Nerd Fitness Prime is our premium membership program that contains at-home exercise routines, live-streamed workouts with NF Coaches, group challenges, a supportive online community, and much more!
#3) Join our amazing free community, the Nerd Fitness Rebellion! Not only is it free to join, but we’ll provide you with loads of free goodies when you sign-up:
Get your Nerd Fitness Starter Kit
The 15 mistakes you don’t want to make.
Full guide to the most effective diet and why it works.
Complete and track your first workout today, no gym required.
That should just about do it for our guide on How to Touch Your Toes.
Now, your turn:
Can you touch your toes?
Does attempting to “sit and reach” bring back horrors from grade school?
Any other tips or tricks for mobility training?
Let us know in the comments!
-Steve
PS: Make sure you check out the rest of our Mobility Training series:
Read, “Effect of an exercise program for posture correction on musculoskeletal pain.” Source, PubMed.
Read, “Stretching and strengthening are key to healing and preventing back pain.” Source, Harvard Health Publishing.
A practice that has now been discontinued.
Read,“The effectiveness of 3 stretching techniques on hamstring flexibility using consistent stretching parameters.” Source, PubMed. Here’s another study that shows 30 seconds of effort results in a more flexible frame!
from Blog – Nerd Fitness https://ift.tt/2opH0LN
via IFTTT
If you don’t care what ketones are and are just here for the weight-loss stuff, 
So you want to lose weight and get in shape, but you don’t want to leave your house?
