What Does the Research Tell Us about Flexible Dieting?
Meule, Westenhöfer and Kübler, (2011) found that rigid controlled dieting lead to failure whereas flexible dieting was a predictor of success. Contrarily, flexible dieting didn’t predict food cravings but rigid dieting increased cravings. Much of the lack of success behind rigid controlled dieting could be attributed to the increase in cravings. This is significant because who doesn’t want to have a successful, craving free, sustainable diet?
Further Stewart, Williamson and White, (2002) found that people who implement rigid dieting strategies are more likely to have an eating disorder, high anxiety and mood disturbances. Furthermore, researchers also found that people who flexibly dieted had a lower BMI and no symptoms of eating disorders. This is important as lower BMIs are positively associated with cardiovascular health. A Lower BMI may also predict more favourable body composition (and it usually does at a population level) but that’s still up for debate and beyond the scope of this short post.
Lastly, Stotland and Beauchemin (2011) suggest that moderation is an effective alternative to restrictive diet behaviours in the treatment of obesity.
It still baffles me why coaches and trainees push false nutritional ideals on new gym-goers and young athletes. A calorie is a calorie (Buchholz and Schoeller, 2004). Total daily energy intake and hitting macronutrient and micronutrient goals are the most important things in a diet.
Should I do flexible dieting?
I’ve been a bit hard on “clean” eating and meal plans. Some people love meal plans. The idea that they don’t have to think and simply look at a food list to guide their nutrition is attractive to some however this type of diet behaviour is “rigid” and restricts eaters to said foods possibly forming an overreliance with one food. Further it has lower retention rates and leads to cravings.
Alan Aragon recommends eating 80-90% “clean” food and 10-20% “dirty” food in order to beat yearnings and attempt to ensure that you meet the NRVs (nutrient reference values) and therefore optimise macronutrient and micronutrient consumption (Aragon, 2015).
On days you drink alcohol cut back on the carbs and fat but keep protein the same.
Flexible dieting and alcohol
One question that often arises about flexible dieting is “can I drink alcohol?” Yes, you can but there are some things you should consider that may affect your health before buying and consuming a slab each weekend. Alcohol is 7kcal’s per gram and is the second most energy dense nutrient. It has a thermogenic effect greater than carbs and fat but smaller than protein at up to 20%. A lot of myths surround alcohol such as you can’t mix different types of alcohol at the risk of becoming more drunk and that alcohol is a stimulant when in fact it’s a diuretic. The research on whether or not consuming large quantities of alcohol on the weekend will lead to fat gain is inconclusive. However, there are other ill health and poor behaviour effects associated with drinking in large quantities (Emond et al., 2014). From personal experience and anecdotal evidence I can assure you that you can’t trump a calorie deficit. Drinking alcohol but been within your calorie limit will not lead to excessive weight gain. The reason people gain weight when they drink is because they have a decreased sense of control and go and binge on everything in sight when they’re drunk. In fact, you’re more likely to drink and binge eat if you’re depressed and anxious (Sonneville et al., 2013). Anxious from let’s say the restrictions of a rigid eating protocol? And yes, that’s definitely from personal experience. So, when you go out drinking have a large meal consisting of more fat and protein before you drink so you don’t become ridiculously drunk and hungry.
Calculating macronutrients when you go out
A big gripe amongst people is that when you go out and can’t weigh out food it makes it very hard to track macronutrients. After you’ve weighed out a lot of different foods you should be able to “eyeball” your macros and estimate from there. You now know what 200 g of rice looks like and understand how much 125 g of scotch fillet steak is. When you’re tracking macros on the go I like to overestimate fat and carbs and underestimate protein and fibre. For example if you think a meal is 60 carbs, 40 fat and 30 protein I would bump the fat and carbs up 5-10 g and lower the amount of protein I think is in the meal by 5-10 g. This is because it’s easy to overconsume calories for carbohydrates and fat and meeting protein requirements is important for muscle growth. Further, evidence suggests that protein helps control hunger (Ortinau et al., 2014; Leidy and Racki, 2010; Leidy et al., 2010).
References
Aragon, A. (2015). Research Review: The Dirt On Clean Eating Written By Nutrition Expert Alan Aragon | SimplyShredded.com. [online] Simplyshredded.com. Available at: http://www.simplyshredded.com/research-review-the-dirt-on-clean-eating-written-by-nutrition-expert-alan-aragon.html [Accessed 4 Mar. 2015].
Buchholz, A. and Schoeller, D. (2004). Is a calorie a calorie?. The American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, [online] 79(5), pp.899S-906S. Available at: http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/899S.full [Accessed 4 Mar. 2015].
Emond, J., Gilbert-Diamond, D., Tanski, S. and Sargent, J. (2014). Energy Drink Consumption and the Risk of Alcohol Use Disorder among a National Sample of Adolescents and Young Adults. The Journal of Pediatrics, 165(6), pp.1194-1200.
Knowles, K., Paiva, L., Sanchez, S., Revilla, L., Lopez, T., Yasuda, M., Yanez, N., Gelaye, B. and Williams, M. (2011). Waist Circumference, Body Mass Index, and Other Measures of Adiposity in Predicting Cardiovascular Disease Risk Factors among Peruvian Adults. International Journal of Hypertension, 2011, pp.1-10.
Leidy, H., Armstrong, C., Tang, M., Mattes, R. and Campbell, W. (2010). The Influence of Higher Protein Intake and Greater Eating Frequency on Appetite Control in Overweight and Obese Men. Obesity, 18(9), pp.1725-1732.
Leidy, H. and Racki, E. (2010). The addition of a protein-rich breakfast and its effects on acute appetite control and food intake in ‘breakfast-skipping’ adolescents. Int J Obes Relat Metab Disord, 34(7), pp.1125-1133.
Meule, A., Westenhöfer, J. and Kübler, A. (2011). Food cravings mediate the relationship between rigid, but not flexible control of eating behavior and dieting success. Appetite, 57(3), pp.582-584.
Ortinau, L., Hoertel, H., Douglas, S. and Leidy, H. (2014). Effects of high-protein vs. high- fat snacks on appetite control, satiety, and eating initiation in healthy women. Nutr J, 13(1), p.97.
Sonneville, K., Horton, N., Micali, N., Crosby, R., Swanson, S., Solmi, F. and Field, A. (2013). Longitudinal Associations Between Binge Eating and Overeating and Adverse Outcomes Among Adolescents and Young Adults. JAMA Pediatrics, 167(2), p.149.Stewart, T., Williamson, D. and White, M. (2002). Rigid vs. flexible dieting: association with eating disorder symptoms in nonobese women. Appetite, 38(1), pp.39-44.
Stotland, S. and Beauchemin, A. (2011). Restraint, moderation and the stages of weight self-regulation: Implications for CBT for obesity. Canadian Journal of Diabetes, 35(2), p.154.
