This is an easy guide for using a laptop or PC to add “Friends” on My Fitness Pal and update your privacy settings to that your friends or coach can review your daily logs and see your progress.
Phone Guide: How to add your coach as a Friend on My Fitness Pal
Maintenance phases - What, why, when and how long?
What is Inflammation?
Reading Time
How do I reduce inflammation?
Are you sure you actually have an issue with inflammation?
If you are overweight, take steps to reduce body fat.
If you are a healthy weight, maintain your healthy weight.
Exercise regularly.
Eat a varied diet including whole grains, vegetables, beans/legumes, fruits, nuts and fish, including oily fish like salmon and sardines.
Inflammation, like gut health, is a hot topic in nutrition. Both are areas of developing research in which the experts say more research and time is needed before making specific recommendations.
Both are also areas in which ‘gurus’ are trying to make money from the hysteria and noise. Be very careful of anyone who claims to be sure about inflammation, dietary causes and dietary treatments. If you are considering spending any money on “inflammation reduction” from anyone who is not your doctor or medical professional, be sure to ask them which measures of inflammation they’re concerned about and exactly how their proposed treatment works for the particular inflammatory processes they believe you have. Then take that information to your medical professional before giving any of your hard earned money to a guru.
Now that the rant is done, let’s try to explain things as simply as possible.
What is inflammation
A complex biological immune response of body tissues to cellular injury
The purpose of inflammation is to eliminate toxic agents and repair damaged tissue
We want inflammation to happen, however we also want inflammation to go away when its job is done.
The resolution (removal) of inflammation once the job is done is also important.
eg. switching off inflammatory processes when the injury has been repaired.
Inflammation is a ‘friend’. However we can have issues if our friend overstays its welcome.
Acute inflammation
A great friend. Goes in and gets the job done. As soon as the job is done, leaves you in peace.
You get a splinter, the area becomes red and swollen as the inflammatory response heals you. The area goes back to normal as the inflammatory response is turned off after healing.
Exercise produces an acute inflammatory response and contributes to lower chronic disease risk. Not all inflammation is bad.
Chronic inflammation and auto-immune diseases
A foe. Overstays welcome, won’t leave and becomes damaging.
Eg: Celiac disease, Inflammatory bowel disease
Chronic low grade inflammation
The ‘hot topic’ inflammation people are telling you to reduce.
Widely observed in obesity.
There is an association between chronic low grade inflammation and:
metabolic syndrome
non-alcoholic fatty liver disease
type 2 diabetes
CVD (1)(2)(3)
Gut health
There is a link between gut health and low grade chronic inflammation
Interactions between the GI tract and gut bacteria influence immune function and inflammation
How to maintain a healthy gut to help with inflammation
Research is still developing and recommendations are tentative, however:
Eat a varied diet including whole grains, vegetables and fruits, nuts, and fish. This ensures you are eating fibre, particularly fermentable fibre (prebiotic), antioxidants and Omega-3 fatty acids. (1)(4)(5)
How do we test for inflammation?
We know that inflammation occurs in the body tissue, however we generally look at blood to find biomarkers and signs of inflammation. (6)
To give you an example of how many markers of inflammation show up, here is a chart from a review of research on dairy and biomarkers of inflammation.
Here is the key for the graph if you can see the bars:
significant anti-inflammatory change (black bars)
no significant change (grey bar)
significant pro-inflammatory change (white bars) (7)
The main purpose of the image above is to show how many markers of inflammation show up during these tests. Top researchers are unclear as to which markers are necessary to focus on. In fact it could actually be a combination of markers which determine if there is a level of risk or issue which needs to be addressed.
An expert group, organised by the Nutrition and Immunity Task Force of the International Life Sciences Institute European Branch, stated -
“Currently, there is no consensus as to which markers of inflammation best represent low-grade inflammation or differentiate between acute and chronic inflammation or between the various phases of inflammatory responses.” (6)
Despite this, there are ‘inflammation gurus’ out there claiming that they somehow know you have inflammation and obviously know how to fix it.
Foods with anti-inflammatory properties?
Rather than focusing on individual foods, it’s better to focus on eating a varied diet including whole grains, vegetables and fruits, nuts and fish. Focusing on one particular food and particular markers of inflammation may be too reductionist at this point.
Some studies indicate that Omega-3 supplementation (fish oils) appear to reduce markers of inflammation however not all positive results have been replicated in further studies. It could help reduce these markers but we are probably talking about a neutral to slight positive effect. (4)
Best way to reduce chronic low grade inflammation?
It appears that fat gain causes inflammation, not the other way around.
An increase in body fat is associated with an increase in inflammatory material.
Flip that and a reduction in body fat is associated with a reduction in inflammatory material.
Reducing body fat may have the greatest effect on lowering markers for low grade chronic inflammation. (8)(9)(10)(11)
This is an attempt to simplify chronic low grade inflammation and help you stay informed. To read a more in-depth review, check out the paper from the British Journal of Nutrition entitled “Low-grade inflammation, diet composition and health: current research evidence and its translation.” (1)
To learn more about how to lose and maintain your weight, contact us today.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4579563/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4612317/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4243532/
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S156816371730003X?via%3Dihub
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3575932/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23343744
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/26287637
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC296995/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19238154
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/12714437
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3342840/
5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle Whilst Dieting
Reading Time
Top 5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle Mass Whilst Dieting
Resistance training
Set your deficit
Protein target split across 4 meals / 4 hours apart
Measure progress, adjust deficit if needed
Consistently sleep at least 7 hours a night
Minimising muscle loss during a diet
The very simple answer is resistance training and protein at each meal. If you are not lean, don’t want to track food intake closely and your goal is to drop some body fat whilst minimising muscle loss, this is probably fine as a guide.
In nearly all cases of dieting and weight loss, the goal is actually to reduce body fat mass whilst maintaining as much muscle mass as possible. The loss of some muscle and strength during a diet is thought of as a reality of having a reduced amount of energy available for a sustained amount of time.
How to predict your rate of weight loss
A fairly consistent recommendation is to aim for a body weight reduction of about 0.5-1% per week during a diet, to try and minimise any potential muscle and strength loss.(1) The larger the deficit being the predictor of more muscle loss. (3). There is another school of thought that you may consider dieting as hard and fast as possible, get down to goal weight / goal leanness faster, then finish the diet earlier in order to be able to then start training again at maintenance energy levels.
First you need to have a good idea of your maintenance Calories. You could use an online calculator or track your food/drink intake and body weight for a couple of weeks. If your weight is fairly stable, you will have your average maintenance Calories.
The 3500 Calorie rule, as it’s known, is more of a general guideline which estimates that to lose 1 pound of fat (about 0.5kg) you need to a Calorie deficit of about 3500 Calories. So if you were 100kg and were aiming to lose 0.5% per week, you would estimate that you need to average a weekly deficit of about 3500 Calories. It is not an exact science though and may need to be altered over time depending on progress. (2).
The website of the USA National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases hosts a “Body Weight Planner” which is an interesting resource for looking at estimated rates of weight loss and could give you some insight and reasonable expectations about you goal and the length of your diet. (https://www.niddk.nih.gov/bwp)
Training
It’s a bit of a “use it or lose it” story with muscle. Continuing a resistance training program whilst dieting is more important than nutrition when it comes to minimising reductions in muscle and strength.(3)
Rates of weight loss and protein in studies
A major consideration is going to be your starting point.
In a study of overweight young men who were not regularly participating in resistance training, the study gave a great insight into “newbie” gains and gaining muscle while losing fat. Two groups were both set a 40% Calorie reduction for 4 weeks. One group consumed 1.2 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and the other group 2.4 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. Both groups lost the same amount of body weight, the lower protein group maintained lean body mass and the high protein group, despite a 40% reduction in energy intake, actually increased lean body mass. Also of note is the difference in average protein content per meal in the groups. The low protein group averaged 0.23 grams / kg body weight / meal whereas the high protein group averaged 0.48 grams of protein / kg body weight / meal.(4) The amount of the amino acid leucine per meal is a driver of muscle protein synthesis (muscle growth) and it is estimated that around 30-40 grams of protein per meal would be needed to reach a leucine threshold high enough to stimulate muscle protein synthesis (1).
In a study of track and field athletes, two groups were assigned either a 750 Calorie/day deficit (24% deficit) or a 300 Calorie/day deficit. Both groups consumed 2.1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. After the four weeks of dieting, the larger deficit group lost 2.2kg body weight on average, with 0.5 kg being fat free mass (body weight - bones and fat). The smaller deficit group lost 0.4kg body weight on average with 0.2kg being fat free mass. So with a larger deficit, a little more fat free mass was lost but significantly more fat mass. What is really interesting about this study is that athletes with a body fat percentage of more than 10% at the start of the study were able to preserve more fat free mass. (5) In practicality, except in very specific sports and physique competitions, it’s unlikely many people would (or should) try to diet into single figure body fat percentages anyway.
An interesting study of young athletes actually compared rates of weight loss, with one group targeting a reduction of 0.7% bodyweight per week and another above the mentioned guidelines of 1.4% bodyweight per week. The slower group had a 19% Calorie deficit and the faster group 30%. The slower group consumed 1.6 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and the faster 1.4 grams of protein / kg body weight / day. Both groups trained 4x per week. Both groups dieted to lose about 5.5% bodyweight. The fast group took 5.3 weeks on average and the slow group 8.5 weeks. The slow group actually increased lean body mass a little whilst losing fat and the fast group lost a tiny amount of lean body mass. (6) What would be interesting would be if this study had the fast group then consume their new maintenance Calories and continue training up until the 8.5 week mark to then compare the two methods. Would the fast group have regained that minimal loss and potentially gained some more muscle in those 3 weeks? There is also a difference, although slight, in protein intake and in reality, whilst the fast group was targeting 1.4% weight loss per week, they actually average 1%.
In a study of young athletes who were regularly resistance training (4-5x per week) they were seperated into a lower protein group 1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and a high protein group 2.3 grams of protein / kg body weight / day and a high. Both groups had a 40% reduction in energy intake for 2 weeks and lost a similar amount of body weight. The low protein group however lost about 5x more lean body mass than the high protein group on average. (7)
Those studies are some “food” for thought when considering the size of your intended deficit.
Protein
We’ve already touched on protein a little and the studies above have some interesting data on protein targets across a day and at each meal.
If dieting, the amount of protein consumed should be higher than someone focussing on muscle gain or re-comp. This is due to the Calorie restriction during a diet meaning that less carbs are available for energy and some protein may be broken down and used in place (3). How high this protein intake should be will depend on the individual circumstances. Looking at the above studies, 1.2 grams / kg body weight / day was enough to preserve lean body mass in untrained overweight males when combining diet with a new resistance training program. However under the same conditions, 2.4 grams / kg / day was actually better.
In athletic and training groups, the range of 1.6 - 2.3 grams of protein / kg body weight / day performed well in slow and faster diets in relation to the preservation of muscle.
A systematic review of protein intakes for athletes and resistance trained individuals gives a guideline of 2.3 - 3.1 grams of protein / kg body weight / day scaled up with the size of the energy deficit and leanness of the individual. (8)
Fats and Carbs
After choosing the size of the deficit you are going to aim for and your protein intake target, whatever Calories you have left to budget will go to carbs and fats. You probably don’t want to go below 20-25% of total Calories from fat, then the rest would probably be best spent on carbs as fuel for training. Remembering that training is most important for muscle retention. However personal preference really can determine these ratios. (3).
Sleep
Sleep and recovery will be important, not only so you feel as good as possible whilst dieting and can train well. It could also play a role in how much weight loss in a diet is fat and how much is muscle. A study of overweight and sedentary adults had groups with a sleep opportunity of 5.5 hours or 8.5 hours per night. The short sleep time resulted in 60% more weight loss from fat free mass compared to the longer sleep group. In the short sleep group, 25% of weight loss was fat mass, whilst in the longer sleep group 56% of weight loss was fat mass. These groups were not resistance training, however the results would certainly encourage giving yourself the opportunity to sleep longer. (9).
Summary and Recommendations
Be very clear with your goals, expectations, starting point, length of diet and best practice recommendations.
Have a resistance training program and stick to it.
Know or calculate predicted maintenance Calories.
Set your deficit based on step 1 and strongly consider the 0.5-1% weight loss guideline.
Set your protein between 1.6 - 3.1 grams / kg body weight / day depending your circumstances in step 1.
Spread protein intake out across your meals, with probably at least 4 meals and close to 30 grams of protein per meal as minimum.
Calculate your remaining Calories and distribute to fats and carbs, not going under about 20-25% of total Calories from fats (or about 0.5 grams / kg body weight / day).
Monitor progress with a number of methods, scale weight, hip and waist measurements, progress photos. Also monitor training performance, mood, sleep and take all into account regularly. You may need to change your plan at some point depending on all of these variables.
When happy with your body composition, calculate your maintenance Calories based of your new weight and start consuming that amount of energy whilst continuing to monitor the same measures of progress.
To learn more about how a nutrition coach can help you maintain your lean body mass whilst dieting, contact us today.
Muscle and Strength Pyramid - Helms, et al.
Realities of Muscle Gain
Reading Time
Hypertrophy is muscle growth. Resistance training performance is the most critical aspect to muscle growth and nutrition supports this as much as possible. Don’t get confused with this order of importance.
FNC guide for muscle gain:
Find a coach / good PT to write you a hypertrophy focussed gym program and make sure you know how to do all movements correctly.
Spend at least 2 weeks finding your maintenance Calorie number.
Set your Calorie target based on your goal and level of training experience.
Set a daily protein target.
Work out how many meals you can spread that protein target across, factoring in what is actually feasible for you do to consistently around your lifestyle. (Ryan’s favourite is the 4x4 formula. 4 meals per day, with about 4 hours in between each).
Have a rough (but flexible) guide for fat and carb targets.
Be consistent, be patient.
Hypertrophy Training
It’s all about training the muscles you want to grow and focusing on progressive overload, training the muscles frequently enough and close enough to failure. Over time, adding reps and/or sets and/or weight to your program as your muscles adapt to training. Your program will also need to be individualised to your level of training experience, as more advanced lifters will likely need more training volume to continue to build muscle
Rates of muscle gain
The rate in which you could expect to gain muscle is largely dependent on your level of experience with resistance training, and genetics. Gains are usually faster in beginners compared to those who’ve been weight training for years.
Beginner 1-2% body weight gain per month
Experienced 0.5-1% body weight gain per month
You might actually fit somewhere in the middle as well, these are just estimates to give some level of expectation.
So at 75kg, one could expect to gain between 375 grams and 1.1 kg per month depending on their weight training experience.
If you are gaining weight much faster than this, it’s likely that a lot of the weight will be fat mass, not muscle.
So don’t expect early gains to continue for a long time. You’re ability to build muscle will slow over time. The amount you can gain before this happens is likely to be very individual.
If you have previously gained muscle from a resistance training program, but have lost some of that muscle due to de-training (taking a massive break) you will likely re-gain muscle to the point where you stopped training reasonably quickly, similar to a beginner lifter.
Rates of muscle growth are also highly individualised. A 12 week muscle gain study showed huge differences in muscle gain rates in participants, despite them completing the same program.
Interference - Cardio Training
Participating in other forms of training, such as cardio or HIIT could interfere with your strength and muscle gains. It doesn’t mean you can combine different types of training and still build some muscle, it can just slow down the rate of muscle gain. If your ‘other’ training also means that when it comes time for your hypertrophy session you are sore, fatigued or have depleted your glycogen (stored carbohydrates) you are unlikely to train as well as if you prioritised the hypertrophy training alone. Remembering that resistance training is above nutrition in terms of importance for muscle gain, this is a significant consideration.
If you are going to do other training, alongside your hypertrophy training, you want to make sure the volume and impact is low enough so that you feel your best during each hypertrophy session, with adequate rest, energy and without soreness from cardio, Crossfit or other sports.
Calorie Surplus
Building muscle is an energy expensive process, so if your main aim is to build as much muscle as possible, averaging a small Calorie surplus is best. Ideally, you would first have a good idea of your maintenance Calories and then aim for a surplus relative to your weight training experience.
Muscle itself is more metabolically expensive than fat, meaning we burn a few more Calories from muscle mass compared to fat mass.
The surplus need not be large though. Body fat gain is a reality of consuming a Calorie surplus over time, however, a study was published in 2010 showing that a small surplus built the same amount of muscle over 12 weeks, with ⅕ of the body fat gain of a larger 500-600 Calorie surplus.
An advanced lifter might only consume a very slight surplus of 100 Calories average per day. A beginner might go for something closer to a 10-15% surplus above maintenance. This is because, as mentioned, beginners are likely to build muscle at a faster rate, and with muscle being more ‘metabolically expensive’, a larger surplus is likely to be more useful without a huge amount of fat gain. These figures are absolutely just ballpark guidelines and the dynamic nature of metabolism will need to be accounted for over time. Checking progress over time and making adjustments to Caloric intake will be required to optimise hypertrophy.
Re-composition (re-comp)
Re-comp basically refers to reducing body fat while increasing muscle mass. It is absolutely possible, just likely to be slower than going through some dedicated cycles of focussing on increasing muscle, then reducing the body fat gains that come along with it.
However, if your goal is to re-comp, it might be a legitimate thing for you to consume a slight Calorie deficit whilst maintaining resistance training. In a study of elderly men who participated in a resistance training program with protein supplementation, one group consumed a very slight deficit and over 16 weeks lost about 2.4 kg of fat mass whilst increasing about 1.7 kg of muscle. Over 4 months, for beginner lifters, this amount of muscle gain is not fast, however if your goal is re-comp, it’s great to know that it is possible.
Nutrition and macros
When aiming for re-comp or maximising muscle gain, less protein is needed compared to protecting against muscle loss during a diet (that’s a whole other topic for another day). Something in the range of about 1.6-2.2 grams / KG of body weight / day is a good aim.
Fats and carbs then come down to a bit of personal preference, however aiming for about 20-30% of Calories from fats and the remainder all going to carbs is a pretty good guideline. Favouring fats too heavily will reduce the amount of Caloric budget available for carbohydrates which can negatively impact strength training performance.
Remembering that training is actually the number 1 priority for muscle growth, it makes sense to ensure that carbs are as high as possible within that personal preference. We break carbs down to glucose and glucose is the body’s preferred fuel source for intense resistance training.
Nutrition timing
Once total daily protein is taken care of, the next consideration is to split that protein intake across about 3-6 meals during the day. More than this is totally fine, less than this is probably not ideal for maximising muscle growth.
Those protein intakes would ideally each contain 20-40 grams of protein and be spaced about 3-4 hours apart.
If choosing plant based protein sources, the portion may have to be a little higher, around 1.5x more.
For hypertrophy training, the timing of carbohydrates is unlikely to be a huge consideration apart from, once again, personal preference. Unless training the same muscle group more than once within 24 hours, stored carbohydrates in the muscle (glycogen) should be sufficient again no matter the timing of carbohydrate consumption each day.
However, looking at optimisation and best case, it makes sense to have carbohydrates before training just to ensure all glycogen levels are “topped up”.
Again, with training being the most important factor, consider if you feel and train better with carbohydrates in the meal before training.
To learn more about muscle building, check out some of our other blogs:
10 Protein Tips for Muscle Growth
5 Tips for Maintaining Muscle whilst Dieting
Muscle Growth without Tracking
Making nutrition easy and automatic is a big part of muscle gain. It’s a goal which takes time and consistency and having a coach there to keep you on track, look at your results objectively and help guide you towards the easiest path can really help.
Non-tracking diet methods
Reading Time
A DIETING METHOD THAT WORKS FOR THOSE WHO PREFER NOT TO WORK WITH NUMBERS AND DATA.
If you're someone who just doesn't mesh well with numbers and data, tracking Calories and macros probably isn't a viable option as a longer than short term dieting strategy. Not everyone can get away without tracking anything, but looking into a non-tracking method of dieting might be a good idea if the aforementioned sounds like you.
There are many non-tracking dieting methods out there that can be used in combination. Using food selection to manipulate automatic Calorie intake is easily one of the most prominent methods.
So what is it, and how does it work?
Focusing your food selection mostly on 'low-Calorie-per-bite', voluminous or filling foods allows you to eat a filling portion of physical food for not a lot of Calories. The high food volume, surface area or mass you're able to ingest will stimulate greater appetite satisfaction for fewer Calories than more Calorie dense options. The result being an automatic reduction in Calorie consumption with very little to no impact on meal hunger satisfaction. This automatic reduction in Calorie consumption will often place a dieter in a Calorie deficit leading to weight loss outcomes.
Typically these filling foods present themselves in the form of plant matter being fibrous fruits and vegetables. But the idea of low Calorie per bite food swaps extends further to meats, dairy and grains.
Practical examples that reduce Calories per bite and encourage a lower consumption of Calories include the following:
Fatty steak ➡️ lean steak
Full fat yogurt ➡️ nonfat yogurt
Pasta ➡️ potato
White rice ➡️ kidney beans
Olive oil ➡️ avocado
Noodles ➡️ ‘zoodles’
Coke ➡️ Diet Coke
You can also change the ratios of ingredients within single meals to reduce the Calorie density. An example would be increasing the fruit to oat ratio in your morning protein oats.
Typically speaking edging towards a lower fat, higher plant, higher fibre approach to food selection will result in reductions in the Calorie content of your food without really changing the physical amount of food you can actually eat.
It’s worth considering if you want to diet but don’t prefer the idea of tracking numbers and data and/or are suffering from heightened hunger levels during a period of intended Calorie restriction.
To learn how to use non tracking methods to help you move towards and maintain your goals, click the button below