Authors: [[Mike Israetel]] - [[Jennifer Case]] - [[Trevor Pfaendtner]] Publication date: October 1, 2019 Tags: #book #practical *** - [[#About this book|About this book]] - [[#The Pyramid of a healthy diet|The Pyramid of a healthy diet]] - [[#Healthy eating as behavioural change|Healthy eating as behavioural change]] - [[#Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet|Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet]] - [[#Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet#How much to eat?|How much to eat?]] - [[#Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet#What to eat?|What to eat?]] - [[#Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet#When to eat? (And other miscellaneous items)|When to eat? (And other miscellaneous items)]] ## About this book *** This is a practical book. It aims to provide the reader with a comprehensive overview of what a healthy diet looks like from a scientific perspective and of course how to start implementing it. It is structured by the author as follows: 1. Deep-dive on all diet leverages prioritized by impact 2. Behavioural approach on healthy eating 3. Debunk of common fallacies ## The Pyramid of a healthy diet *** **6 leverages towards a better diet** (13) All diets are a combination of the six following factors: 1. Caloric intake 2. Food composition 3. Macronutrients ratio 4. Meal timing 5. Hydration 6. Supplementation Improving one's diet basically consists of optimizing all these parameters adequately for your own personal need. **Biggest leverages on your diet** (16) While you can make many small improvements to your diet, the 80/20 to get right is to keep your calorie balance in check, and to eat mostly healthy foods. If you do this correctly, your diet is very likely to be healthy, regardless of other parameters. ## Healthy eating as behavioural change **Roadmap towards healthy eating** (88-91) Key to implement some changes towards healthy eating is to take baby steps, such as: 1. Improving food composition for most meals while keeping calories and weight in light check 2. Get your macros right 1. Build every meal around a protein source 2. Add veggies & fruits 3. Optionally add whole grains and/or healthy fats 3. Start standardizing your meals **How to avoid diet fatigue** (23) Diet fatigue happens when your motivation towards your diet gets lower and lower until it finally wears off. And you end up breaking your diet. The key to avoid diet fatigue is to adopt a 'done is better than perfect' mindset and to leave room for a bit of junk food and indulgence hear and there, so that you stay motivated towards your diet. ## Breakdown of the pillars of a healthy diet ### How much to eat? **Calories 101** (26) Calories are basically the source of energy you get from food that fuels your body. The baseline is simple: if you eat more calories than what you need, you'll gain weight and excess calories will be stored as body fat. If you eat less calories that you need, you'll draw energy from your body fat and lose weight (and body fat). **Watch your bodyweight!** (27-31) Too high or too low bodyweight is overall bad for your health. Is you're bodyweight is healthy and stable, the amount of calories you're ingesting on average is likely to be appropriate for your energy needs. Your bodyweight is a key marker to keep that in check. Keeping you calorie balance adequate is the biggest leverage in terms of diet towards better health. **Everyone has a different caloric need** (33-35) Every individual has different needs, which depends on various factors. For instance, a 166cm man's healthy bodyweight is somewhere between 48kgs and 82kgs. If you hit a healthy bodyweight and you maintain it over the course of a week, your average daily caloric intake is likely to be your maintenance caloric need. ### What to eat? **4 pillars of healthy food composition** (45) Independantly of the quantity of food consumed, food composition accounts for roughly 20% of how healthy our diet is. It builds upon the four following pillars: 1. High quality proteins 2. Carbs from whole grains, fruits and vegetables 3. Balanced source of fats with and emphasis on healty fat from vegetal sources 4. Minimally processed food **Best sources of proteins** (46-48) High quality proteins are easy to digest and to use by the body. Pure whey is the best, followed by eggs and lean animal sources of protein. **Best sources of carbs** (49-50) Healthy carbs are the one that doesn't spike your glucose level immediately, which means they are relatively low on sugar. On top of that, they promote effective satiety. According to these two factors, vegetables, fruits, potatoes and whole grains are very healthy (and probably best) sources of carbs. **Best sources of fats** (51-52) Consuming healthy fats means balanced sources of fat. While getting some animal sources of fat in moderate amounts is a good idea (dairies, cheese, butter, fish and so on), most of your fat intake should ideally come from vegetal sources (olive oil, nuts, avocado and so on). **Macro requirements** (58-62) Getting a minimal amount of both proteins, carbs and fats is rather important for you overall health. 0.3 grams of each per pound of bodyweight is recommended. For a man of 60 kgs, it would mean around 40g per day of each three macronutrient. The rest is up to you, which allows great flexibility with everyone's diet, as long as food composition remains relatively healthy, most of the time. ### When to eat? (And other miscellaneous items) **Meal timing doesn't matter** (73) Meal timing doesn't have a significant impact on our health in terms of diet. Thus we should pick our eating patterns depending on their impact from the perspective of sleep, training and so on. **Water intake is not a big deal** (77-78) As long as you stay hydrated, there is not much to optimize in terms of water intake. Signals of good hydration is high volume of clear or light yellow urine most of the time. **Be careful with labels** (96-99) Labels such as processed vs unprocessed foods are large buckets that are not specific enough to be useful. Try to avoid relying on them to decide what to eat or what not to eat. In the end, good food is about what nutriments are in it. Another example are labels such as bio, OGM and local eating might have some advantages but in terms of health, there is little to no literature for or against any of those. **Preparation methods** (108) Cooking methods don't have much of an impact of your health, simply make sure to take those calories into account and to use healthy fat sources.