IIFYM Part 2 - Fad diets & incorporating IIFYM

Is IIFYM a fad diet? No it is not, IIFYM is an approach to dieting that removes the pain, the restrictions and generally makes dieting a far easier part to fit into your life. It's a diet that lets you lose weight without having to give up food that you love the taste of. Most importantly it is completely sustainable once the diet is over unlike fad diets such as -

• No/low carb diets (atkins)

• Paleo diets

• Baby food diets

• Liquid diet
• The latest and greatest celebrity diet

There's many more but you get the idea. The important thing to note about these diets is the following -

• They are pretty bland to follow
• If you attempted to stick to them for life you would go insane
• They are a quick fix, not a lifestyle change
• Last and most importantly, the majority of people on a fad diet regain the weight very quickly once they are 'done' with the diet by rewarding themselves with... FOOD to make up for the blandness and hardship of said diet.

A large majority of fad diets are based upon eating low amounts of carbohydrates and this greatly contributes to the irrational reasons that carbohydrates are feared and associated with rapid weight loss/gain. The rapid weight loss/gain that occurs is because of the water retention that comes with storage of carbohydrates (glycogen). When 1g of glycogen is stored, so is 3g of water, most people can store between 500-600g of glycogen, this alone is enough for you to see a weight loss of 2-3lb within a day just by exhausting these stores. How much of this is fat however? Pretty much none of it. How effective are these diets in the long term? No more so than a balanced diet that allows freedom, but only those with a huge amount of will power will be able to keep the weight off after a fad diet. Ever notice how most celebrities gain and lose weight like a YO-YO on these diets?

Two more things of note involving carbohydrates and bodyweight -

1. Those over eating on fast food carbohydrates or smothering their food in salt will also most likely have higher sodium levels than usual too, this means they will lose even more weight as sodium also effects water retention levels.
2. Low carbohydrate diets also negatively effect the levels of the hormone Leptin. Leptin is the hormone responsible for regulating fat storage.

How to incorporate IIFYM into your life -

1. Determine a calorie goal for the day
2. IF IT FITS IN YOUR MACROS (the calorie goal) EAT IT, this can be sweets/mcdonalds/your comfort food of choice.
3. If you go over calories for one day, reduce them for the next.

Providing the correct amount of calories are selected, you will lose weight regardless of the type of food you eat. The only thing you must do, is eat the correct amount of calories and macronutrients. One of the best macronutrient splits is roughly 40% protein 30% carbohydrates 30% fat, this works out to about 200g protein 150g carbohydrates 66g fat for a 2000 calorie diet. This is great for retaining lean body mass while dropping as much fat as possible due to the high protein count, it is also likely to be far more filling with a lot less calories because of this.

The calculations below are calorie amounts that will work for a large majority of people. I can't emphasise enough that the most important thing with IIFYM is the calories.

Calories to eat per day on IIFYM =

- Dirty Bulk – Bodyweight in lbs x 18

- Lean Bulk – Bodyweight in lbs x 15

- Maintenance – Bodyweight in lbs x 12

- Weight Loss – Bodyweight in lbs x 10

Multiply the total calories by 0.8 if you're a woman.

To lose 1 lb/week you need a 3500kcal deficit, if you are not losing weight then lower the calories further.

One last thing to bear in mind when following an IIFYM diet, you still need to account for vital minerals and such, through supplements or vegetables/fruit etc. While IIFYM for weight loss will be identical with 'clean' vs 'good' calories and you could even go as far as to eat McDonalds every day providing it is correctly accounted for within the calorie limits, this is still not good for your overall health.

An ending note to make your life even easier, http://www.myfitnesspal.com/ is great for tracking calories and most phones also have a handy little app that syncs with the website that allows you to scan the bar code of most items that you can buy in a super market. If you are familiar with weight watchers points and don't like to count calories, substitute the calorie values with 1 point per 50 calories. This works out to about 40 points for 2000 calories and will provide very similar results.