Restraint is a crucial ingredient in any long term pursuit.
When looking to achieve particular body composition goals, dietary restraint is no different. The problem is, most of us tend to think of dietary restraint in black and white terms.
As an on/off switch.
We switch between extreme restraint and no restraint.
We’re on a diet, eating only a select list of “clean” “superfoods.” Or we’re off the diet, eating pretty much whatever takes our fancy.
It’s either an unregulated diet full of heavily refined carbs or a diet where carbs are banished because even looking at that loaf of sourdough will have your waistline expanding.
Where we rate foods as either “good” or “bad,” healthy or unhealthy, “clean” or “dirty,” without any consideration of context. Where we get anxiety about social occasions that include foods that might not fit our diet.
We tend to think in extremes because it’s easy. It saves our brain time by creating shortcuts rather than having to think about the particular circumstances of the situation.
By bouncing between dietary extremes, we make our goals a lot harder to achieve and then maintain. With no restraint, we may not be consistently doing the behaviours that work towards our goals, and with too much restraint we’re likely to burn out due to the immense time and effort invested.
The answer seems simple. Choose an appropriate level of restraint and flexibility for our particular needs. That way we can avoid wasting time, effort and increase ADHERENCE.
Adherence is the big daddy of dietary success. Alongside energy balance, dietary adherence is the largest predictor of weight-loss. Therefore it’s essential to consider what degree of dietary restraint is going to optimise adherence and allow progression at an optimal rate.
How do we determine how much dietary restraint is necessary?
Rather than an on/off switch, I like to think of dietary restraint like a dimmer dial.
Just like we’d adjust a dimmer switch depending on the type of mood we were trying to set, we need to adjust our dietary dimmer dial to reach our goals. Set it too bright and you might find your way to bed, only to be greeted by an elbow from an unappreciative partner who was seconds from sleeping. Too dark and you’re walking blind straight towards stubbed-toe-city.
So we can ramp the dial up, and we see increased dietary restraint, reduced dietary flexibility and increased accuracy of measurement methods. Or turn the dial down and see increased dietary flexibility, decreased dietary restraint and less accurate measurement methods.
How do we determine what’s optimal?
First of all. It’s not just set and forget. The dial needs to be tweaked and turned, adjusted based on a number of important factors such as:
1. Your Goals
Are you looking to gain muscle, lose fat, improve health markers? An athlete in a weight class based sport, striving to drop 10 kilos in 12 weeks is going to need a lot more restraint, will need to apply highly accurate methods of dietary tracking and can’t afford the same dietary flexibility as someone just looking to shed a few kilos for summer. Similarly, an individual attempting to identify what foods may be causing them GI distress will likely need to show more dietary restraint, track their intake more accurately and likely won’t have the flexibility of someone just looking to improve their health. The more specific or extreme your goal is, the further you’ll have to turn the dial.
2. Total daily energy expenditure
The lower your total daily energy expenditure, the brighter the dial will need to be. I’m sorry smaller individuals, ladies, and sedentary folk but you just don’t have the same energy budget as larger, more active individuals. Having a smaller energy budget means that you’re always going to need to have a slightly brighter room (less flexible, more restrained) than the those with a larger energy budget.
3. Personal preferences
There are the odd people out there who just like a bit more rigidness. They tend to thrive on structure. If you think you’re one of those individuals, that’s cool. Do what works for you. But if you’re bouncing between binge and restrict cycles then you’re likely not one of these people, and it’s time to re-evaluate.
Now we know why setting the dial correctly is important and what we need to consider when setting it, all we need to know is how to adjust it.
It’s a simple 3 step process:
1. Implement change
2. Review
3. Adjust as needed
For example:
Greg comes to me looking to reduce his body fat. We get an accurate baseline using our InBody Scanner and then go over his current dietary behaviours. Greg hasn’t paid much attention to his nutrition before, so starting out may just require improving food choices. We don’t need to crank the dimmer dial to 100% restraint in this scenario, in fact, we just tweak it a little and suggest making some whole food substitutions and cutting down on soft drink consumption. Naturally, this decreases energy intake resulting in fat loss.
Eventually, fat loss slows down as the body adapts and we need to REVIEW the behaviours Greg’s been implementing, looking for consistency. We decide to ADJUSTour methods, turning the dial a little further to continue progression towards Greg’s goals. We have a look at Greg’s total energy intake/portions, proceed to track intake for a period and make some adjustments to his meals such as increasing his protein intake and reducing his fat intake to recreate an energy deficit.
Greg loves the transformation he’s seeing and decides he wants to have abs when he goes to the beach this summer. To reduce his body fat low enough we have to turn the dial further. We get Greg to start tracking his food more accurately and provide macronutrient targets for him to aim towards. We advise him on the optimal time for him to consume foods around his exercise and make him aware that in order to reach his goals by summer he may have to reduce the number of meals he purchases out.
As you can see, as Greg’s goal becomes more specific and further from his comfortable baseline, the further we turn the dial.
Fine tuning the dietary restraint dimmer is where an experienced practitioner can help. While we can’t do the work for you, we can guide you down the path of least resistance. We can advise you on what behaviours are necessary or un-unnecessary for particular goals.
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