Dieting 101 Live Tutorial Transcript

Note: This tutorial video was recorded as a live Facebook event. The text below is an edited transcript of the tutorial intended to provide members with a convenient means of referring to and further researching the topics and content detailed in the video.

Transcript

Happy Sunday, JYM Army. I will, as usual, allow a few people to notice that I'm here, because I do these without any real notice. This is going to be my Dieting 101 tutorial, for those of you who aren’t familiar with my Dieting 101 diet article and diet plan—where I literally teach you how to build your own diet based on my obvious recommendations.

Dieting Isn't "One Size Fits All"

But you can't really force-fit a diet on everyone. I can't tell you precisely how many calories, how many grams of carbs, and protein, and fat altogether to take, and tell a million people to eat the same exact thing. Doesn't work that way.

With dieting, obviously body size comes into play so calorie requirements are going to vary. But also, where is that individual? Even among that individual—forget about the differences between people when you're talking about diets and trying to create a diet that fits for everyone—there's not just individuality amongst people but then you have, within that person's own individual dieting cycle, there could be a period where you're eating 4000 calories—but another period where you only eating 2000 calories. If you start a diet, it's going to be completely different depending on where you are in your own diet.

So what's really important—and what I really teach in Dieting 101—is you basically pick your own starting point. It's going to be different. It's going to be different for you, different for me, different from this next guy—it might even be different from the last time you did it. If you've done Dieting 101 before, and then you sort of forgot and fell off the diet wagon, if you will—sort of got out of the habit of worrying about what you eat, and now you want to get back on—you might not fall under the same exact calories and carbs this time around, because it depends on where you are, how many calories you're currently eating. That's the thing.

What I teach you in my Dieting 101 article—and today—is that it all matters where you are right now, where you're starting. What we'll do is I'll teach you that. Hopefully, you guys can see everything well because, as I've been learning with these live sessions, I'm not able to watch the actual video monitor and do it live, because it'll flip it for you. All the words will be mirror image, particularly if you watch it later on. So I'm not sure who thought that's a great idea, to have a mirror image when you flip the camera around and broadcast it that way, but it's absolutely ridiculous.

Right now my only option is set the camera facing away; I have no idea if there's glare on the board right now, if you guys can see—if I'm blocking the board, I apologize. This is what we're working with right now, so I'll obviously try to get these tutorials going a little better and easier for you guys, but they're real simple. It just allows me to come on and you then you can watch this any time. Post your questions and I'll get you your answers.

Dieting 101: Know Where You Are Now to Get Where You're Going

Dieting 101. Make sure—for those of you who aren't familiar—you read my Dieting 101 article. But I'm going to break it down for you in real simple terms. Like I said, the most critical thing is your current calorie intake. So what you're going to do with Dieting 101—the very first step—is you're going to get a snapshot of what you typically eat. You want to do about a 3 day—what they call a dietary or diet recall, where basically you're just going to record everything you want to eat. Usually we recommend two weekdays and one weekend day. That's where you're going to start.

You want to see what you're currently eating, and the key here is don't all of a sudden switch up your diet. If you're getting up in the morning and driving to McDonald's, eating an egg McMuffin—and hash browns, and an orange juice—every single morning on your way to work? When you start writing this diet down, don't change that. It's not going to do you any good. Be honest to yourself. This is going to be—that's where your starting point is. That's good, okay? Don't lie here. Where you are is important. We want to get all these calories in, so eat as you normally would.

And then what you're going to do here is—how you want to do this is up to you. You can go to JimStoppani.com, I have my database of foods where I break down how much per ounce or so for let's say a steak, or chicken, or a medium orange or whatnot. This is based on the USDA's numbers. And you could argue who has the most accurate weight. You could do that and use those numbers to calculate—I usually put it in an Excel spreadsheet and do my diets that way; they just calculate everything for me. I pick the food and then it has the calories, the protein, the carbs, the fat.

Or you can use—in this day and age—your phone. You can use an app. Do the best you can at calculating what you're eating. The most critical thing you want to get here is calories. That's really all that matters, right now. You want to get in the habit of calculating your macros—your protein, carbs, and fat—because that's going to be important as you start this diet. But right now you don't have to worry about how many grams of protein you're eating, or fat—that doesn't matter right now.

Starting Out: The One Time Calories Matter Most

We're getting a starting point of your calorie needs. This is just a good assessment of how many calories your body needs. And so let's say—we're going to use a 200lbs athlete here, 200lbs guy—and you found that on average out of those 3 days you eat—and we'll do a couple of high end and the low end—so let's say, let's do this for—I'm going to show you, once you've gotten your snapshot of your starting point, what your goal would be—what you're going to do next for dropping body fat.

So let's just say you average around 4000 calories a day. That's what you find you're eating. 200lbs, right? 4000 calories, you're eating about 20 calories per pound. If your goal is fat loss, the good news here is that we've got a lot to play with. So you're averaging 4000 within those 3 days—remember you're going to take the average of the 3 days. You want to do 3 days, and then get around an average, okay? Higher side is better because you want to start on the higher side. Now we have 4000 calories to play with.

Dietary Constants: Calculating Protein and Fat Targets

Well, most of you know—for those of you who don't know—I have certain recommendations on how much protein and how much fat you're consuming. These are important: I typically recommend somewhere around 1.5 grams per pound in protein; and then the fat is around 0.5 grams. So that 200 pounder would want to be consuming at least 100g of fat a day; protein, the bare minimum here is 1g—you really want to be shooting for, particularly if muscle mass and fat loss is your goal, you want to be going higher than the 1g, about 1.5g.

And for those of you who hear all these experts say, "No, you never need to eat that much", well there's actual data that they're missing. There's actual data showing a difference in even the 1.5 and 1g, particularly for the muscle mass. And some of the confusion over protein stems around the fact of how it's studied: there was a pretty brilliant review done on protein—what they call "protein spread"—and what they found was that to really show a difference in the studies, the difference in the protein intake had to be significant. It couldn't be 1 vs 1.2g, it had to be at least 1.5g.

The other thing is, when they were comparing individuals who change to eating a higher protein diet—they need to eat a certain amount more than they were currently eating. When you do bump it up, you not only enhance—or at least the capability to enhance—muscle growth, but it also—as we now know, the research is coming in—showing benefits for fat loss.

With this here, I've got the 4 calories per gram, right? Protein is 4 calories per gram; carbohydrates are 4 calories per gram; and fat is somewhere around 9 calories per gram. If we do the math here—you could even just play with the 20 calories per pound here, if you wanted to subtract it out right here—we're eating 20 calories per pound, right? We want to be eating 1.5g of protein per pound. Since there are 4 calories per gram and we want to be eating 1.5g, we're essentially going to be getting about 6 calories per pound from protein. So 6 calories per pound for protein, let's see, we'll do—I'm trying to make this the easiest for you guys to understand here.

Playing here with 20 calories, like I said, 4 x 1.5 is going to give us 6 calories from protein per pound, right? 6 calories. Fat is half a gram we're going to need, at 9 calories per gram that's going to be about 4.5 calories. So we're up to a total of 10.5 calories per pound left over. Now, if we did this so that you could see the calories, a 200lbs person eating 1.5g per pound is eating 300g of protein, times 4 we have 1200 calories counting from protein.

Then from fat, with half a gram we're doing 100g for the 200 pounder. So 100 x 9 calories there, we're about 900 calories from fat. And that leaves us here—this is where we're going to get our carb allotment from, basically. So we're taking our calories—our average calories over those three days, 4000—and then we're taking my recommendations of protein at 1.5g, and fat at 0.5g, and calculating it by calories to then figure out how many grams of carbs you're going to be allowed.

Calculating Carb Targets

We've got 1200 calories from protein, 900 calories—almost 1000 calories—from fat, so that's 2100 calories. We're going to subtract that from the 4000, and that is going to leave us—we're going to be left with about 1900 calories to play with in our carbohydrates.

And so like I said, we have about 10.5 calories per pound, or 1900 calories in carbs. Like protein, each gram of carbs provides about 4 calories. So 4 into—what we'll do here, to make this easier on the math, we're just going to call it 10 calories left, because we'll also lower our calories a bit at the start of the diet. So just for roundness and to bring it down—so 10.5, because we had 4.5 calories here—we're going to call this 10 calories per pound.

Basically it's allowing you, for carbs—which is going to go into 10 2.5 times—that's going to leave us 2.5g basically of carbs, per pound of the body. Now that's a lot of carbs, okay? So if we do the math, at 400—2.5 x 400; 400 x 2 is 800, that's 1000—what do we have, 1000 calories for—1000 here on our carbs, now. We'll go back here to recalculate it, because I think my scribbling is getting a little confusing here for you guys.

So 4000 calories: We're getting 1200 calories from protein—1.5, again, grams x 4 giving us 6 kilocalories per pound. But when we do it on the 200lbs person over here we're getting 300g x your 4 calories, being 1200 calories. With the fat, we're getting 0.5 x 200, that would be 100g, 900 calories. That's 2100. You subtract that from our 4000 and we're left with 1900. Now, if we do it at 1900, divided by 4 we can get how many grams of carbs we're allowed, because we know that there's 4 calories in each gram of carbs, and we're allowed 1900 calories coming from carbs.

So if you divide 4 into 1900, we are getting 400—somewhere around the 400g mark, somewhere close, like I said—400 to 500g, right around there. Which is nice because it's a lot to play with. So we're right around—let's call that almost 500g of carbs to play with.

On your dieting here, we now have 300g of protein—this is for the 200lbs athlete—we have 100g of fat, and we'll have almost 500g of carbs. So we know that 800, 500 from the carbs and the protein—each are 4 calories per gram—so if we go with 800 x 4 that's our 3200 calories. And then we have 100g of fat, that's going to give us our 900 calories. And so there we are, right around 4100 calories.

Sound Like Too Many Calories or Carbs? It Isn't – Here's Why

So here's your starting point. Sorry, this is getting a bit messy here on this whiteboard; I'm running out of space. This is probably making this even more confusing, I'll bet. Here's our starting point for your Dieting 101. 300g of protein, 100g of fat, 500g from carbs. Now, you would say, "Should I really be eating that many grams of carbs?" Yeah, because you're currently eating that many grams of carbs, at least—because you're probably not eating that much protein and fat in your diet.

So all you have to really do from the starting point is not even worry about your total calories and changing your total calories—it's just adjusting your macros. And that's really the whole point of the Dieting 101 thing, is just doing the math to figure out your macros, your starting point, so you're making sure that you're falling in the 1.5g of protein and the 0.5g of fat. What's left is based on your current calorie intake. You then figure out the calories that are left over—once you've done the math here based on your bodyweight—and then you know how many grams of carbs you can start with.

Where to Go from Here – Adjusting Carbs for Goals

Now, here we do one of two directions, that's where we go, “What is the goal here?” Right now, what I've put you in by adjusting your macros is a better, more optimal sort of carb ratio for both muscle gain, strength gain, as well as—not necessarily fat-loss, but keeping you lean by bringing up your protein high enough, and your fat, and then you start adjusting your carbs down.

From here, you have a couple options—and it's all going to be based on this carb number. So let me rewrite it up here: 300g from protein, 500g from carbs, and then we have the 100g coming from fat. It's this [carbs] number that we play with, because you really want to be focused on getting enough protein—it's going to help with both fat loss, muscle mass gain—you want to make sure you're getting enough fat. Remember both protein and fat have essential fats and essential amino acids—that's what makes the protein. There are no essential carbs. No essential carbs. Your body makes carbs, just really needs glucose. Can make that from protein; can make that from fat. It's very good at it, there are no essential carbs. So we play around with carbs.

When Your Goal is Fat Loss

Now, if you want to lose body fat, what you start doing is manipulate carbs down—450g. The last thing you really want to do—this is why I'm not a huge proponent of keto diets—there are many days I personally eat—I follow a keto diet—but I wasn't eating 600g of carbs yesterday and the day before and then just decided—just axing all my carbs out. No, I slowly get down. It's about diet manipulation.

If you're up here at 500g of carbs, the last thing you want to do is go down to zero. You'll lose a lot of body fat, trust me. A lot of body fat. But eventually you're going to hit a plateau. You're also going to lose a lot of body fat by just dropping down to 450g of carbs. You won't be able to stay there—you'll have to keep lowering as your body adapts to that new calorie intake, which is what the body does. But if you just cut all the carbs out, you're kind of screwed.

So we're going to whittle away at the carbs. If you're trying to drop body fat, step one like I said is just get your macros in order by doing a 3-day dietary recall, figuring out your calories, and then what you do is you take my recommendations of 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight, and 0.5g of fat per pound of bodyweight. Work that into the calories, and multiply protein by 4, fat by 9, and then it tells you how many carbs you're allowed to play with. That's your carb starting point, okay? And this will all fall into the same calories, right around, that you're currently eating.

You don't even have to drop calories—in fact you can even eat a little more, as I showed you. Just by manipulating those macros around, you're going to start seeing change in your body. You're going to start losing body fat. Then you can adjust your carbs down in steps by about 50g or so. Drop down 0.25g per pound of bodyweight or so—for the 200 pounder, that's about 50g—until you hit a plateau, when you stop seeing fat loss. Then you drop it again—400g of carbs. Eventually you might even get down to 50g or less, which would be considered in the keto range. But you don't want to just go from 500 down here to 50. That's stupid. There's no need—you want it in these steps, because you're going to hit a plateau.

When Your Goal is Muscle Gain

Now on the other side of the coin, what if you're trying to gain muscle mass? Same sort of rule applies but it's in the other direction now. So now you've got—like I said, I put you—Dieting 101, regardless of what your goal is, mainly fat loss or muscle mass—it's putting you in an optimal range of macros for both, because we want lean muscle mass. I don't want to teach you how to get fat. That's not mass gaining. Mass gain is getting lean muscle and getting lean isn't dropping muscle, just bodyweight—it's not getting skinny, it's dropping body fat.

So what this allows you to do is understand where your carbs are. You're getting ample protein for maximal muscle growth, and ample fat. You don't need any more of that. If you're not gaining enough muscle at this point, it's time to start adding more carbs—mainly low-glycemic, except post-workout—but more carbs. However, too many carbs and you start gaining body fat.

So this way you start here: you know where your carbs are, and then you can start bumping them up in the opposite direction of the person who wants to lose body fat. 550g, see how that goes. Are you gaining muscle and strength but no body fat? Perfect. After a couple of weeks of that without gaining body fat, maybe it's time to go up to 600g. See how—it's better than just going, "Oh eat 1000g of carbs", yeah you're going to gain a lot of muscle and strength, but you're also going to gain a ton of fat.

So just like with fat loss, you don't want to just make a big, huge jump up in your carbs if you're worried about body fat. That's the key. You would want to make a big jump in protein if you're not eating enough. You're eating well under 1g, jumping up to the 1.5 will make a massive difference in your muscle mass.

Dieting 101: A Quick Review

Well anyway, this is really my sort of quick rundown on Dieting 101. I kind of ran out of room on this board. Next time I'll make sure I have the eraser so I can erase and save some room so it's not so confusing. But remember, like I said, the main point here is to—you're taking your bodyweight, and then you're getting your calories that you're currently eating now. Calculate your calories.

From there, you're going to fit in 1.5g of protein per pound of bodyweight every day—that's going to be 300g for a 200 pounder, or 1200 calories—and then you're going to fit in 0.5g of fat per pound of body weight per day—if you're 200lbs, that's about 100g of fat or 900 calories—You're fitting that into your allotment, whatever calorie allotment you have. If it's only 3000, then you know to subtract 3000 from the 1200 calories from protein and the 900 from fat. Those are going to be the calories you're allowed each day from carbs. Then you can divide that by 4 and get basically how many grams you're allowed for that day. And then you can even do more math and calculate your bodyweight in there if you want to know how many grams per pound of bodyweight you're eating.

But it's really about getting those calories at the very start—it's the most critical point of Dieting 101. Just get a few days—use an app or whatever—put in your food, just make sure you get everything. Do the best job of estimating what size and all that—but just get a good snapshot of where you are. That's the most critical. How many calories are you currently eating? Then you go to my Dieting 101 and you break it down into those macros, and if you need help just ask me, guys. I'm there on social media. Come to Facebook, come to Instagram, Twitter, I use mainly as a quick Q&A. it's really simple to get an answer.

Or go to the JYM Army Facebook group page, and I'm sure that, now that I'm doing more of these sort of live tutorials and talking about how we use some of these things and simplifying that, you'll find in the JYM Army page other JYM Army members sort of teaching you how they made sense out of it. Because for me, I already know how to break this down—this is what I use all the time for myself. But the way you guys learn is going to be different for each person. So you may find that another JYM Army member is out there saying, "You know what? I was confused too, but you know what I found? I did this, and I used this app." Go to the JYM Army Facebook group page if you have any confusion about Dieting 101.

But like I said, this is the key to learning how to really build your own diet and understand your own body, macros, and how your body really responds to different levels.

Hope you guys are enjoying these “whiteboard tutorials”, as I'm calling them. This is my little classroom, here in my home gym. But expect more. What I'll get into next in nutrition—look for a live session—is my personal, how I use my Intermittent-Fasting Carb-Cycle Diet, because I'm always shooting, I'm always on the road, always on the go, but I'm always at events where it's a photo shoot or it's an expo where I have to look my best. So how do I use my intermittent fasting carb cycle diet to do just that? And it makes life so much easier and still able to live lean and mean. Stay JYM Army strong, guys. Thank you guys. Have a great weekend.

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