The Self-Help Basics: Nutrition

INTRODUCTION

A good diet is so important, for both your health and your performance in life. You need a good diet if you want to be fully present and loving, you need a good diet if you want to be better at entrepreneurship, you need a good diet if you want to be stronger at the gym or improve your VO2 max.

You might think I'm exaggerating but it's logical. Imagine a car, running on fuel. One day, it needs to be filled with fuel, and, instead of giving it the right one, you pour the wrong fuel inside of it. What do you think will happen? Will the car show its best performance, or will it not even be drivable anymore? I think it's option two.

And, the same goes for our bodies. We put our bodies through stress and tensing all day long, contracting our muscles and using vitamins and minerals and digesting protein and all that kind of stuff. And, if we don't fill our body with enough good energy throughout the day, if we fill it with bad energy that basically does nothing to help us and even aggravates our bodies, how can it run properly? Well, it simply doesn't.

Just so you realize, a good diet can help you in every area of life. Be it your relationships, down to your studies, your work, your purpose, even your mental health, your physical health of course, your sports performance, your life expectancy, your body fat percentage, your hormonal system, your overall productivity, your mindfulness (presence in the present moment), etc. There might not be a direct link (I eat an apple and I instantly am more mindful) but it does help.

And, often times when we speak of nutrition we speak of dieting. Not all the time, but oftentimes. So, you might naturally ask yourself, "What diet plan should I follow?". And, to answer this, I want you to understand something.

There is no "particular diet" that is better than the other, it just depends on your overall goals. If you want to prioritize fitness, eat a high protein high carbs diet with medium to high fat. If you want to prioritize brain performance, eat a carnivore diet.

But the real mindset change here is the following: a diet isn't a period of your life where you eat particular foods, a diet is simply what you eat daily. So, for example, let's say every day you eat processed, high-sugar foods, and that is your diet. It doesn't mean you're dieting, but it's your diet. So, instead of focusing on any particular "diet method to lose weight in one month", focus on changing your current diet to a new one with more healthy foods. Your baseline should be eating healthy.

And, this starts by implementing healthy foods bit by bit, not all at once. I see so many fat people being so incredibly delusional. They've been eating unhealthy foods for the vast majority of their lives, and when they want to lose weight, they think they can just give it their all and unlock their ultimate selves in a second.

To make real dietary and lifestyle changes, it at least takes half a year to a year and a half, and to really be the person you ultimately want to become in every single domain of life, it takes your whole life. So why still waiting for one day a miracle to happen? Why not put your ego aside and start your sustainable diet now? I lost the weight so I know the shit I'm speaking about, that's the best way to lose weight.

But hey, you might say all of this is cool, but you still haven't gotten any tangible way to improve your diet. Well, let me give you this simple rule. This rule is so simple that the results it brings are incredible. This rule reads as follows:

Eat a diet composed of 90-100%, 100% natural foods.

This is the most important rule you can get out of this article. Literally, our goal, our ultimate goal, will be to make you eat only 100% natural foods, or at least 90% natural foods in your day-to-day life, and these foods should be 100% natural. This simple rule gives outstanding results, outsized results even, and it's what really helped me to find a diet that I can sustain for years, that I enjoy, that is tasty and good for my health, and that is flexible so I can work around it. And, it improves my brain performance. And, it improves my physical performance.

Before continuing with this rule, I wanted to share with you a few definitions that could be of massive help in reading this long-form, self-help basic article.

CALORIES: Each food has energy, and this energy is estimated in kJ (kilojoules), which is the measure of energy, and it is also estimated in calories (kilocalories). So, calories are the energy found in each food. You have a daily calorie limit depending on your weight, sex, height, and activity levels, but for most people, it's around 2500 calories. Click here to figure out which one you have.

CALORIE DEFICIT: When you eat fewer calories than your body needs so you lose weight.

CALORIE SURPLUS: When you eat more calories than your body needs so you gain weight.

MACRONUTRIENTS: Macronutrients are three big nutrient groups found in the food you eat every day: protein, fats, and carbs. They are on a macro-scale (bigger).

MICRONUTRIENTS: Micronutrients are composed of vitamins and minerals. They are on a micro-scale (smaller) and they are found in your food.

Alright, let's get moving, shall we?

Eat only 100% natural foods and beverages.

You should only eat 100% natural foods and beverages at best. You see, your diet should be composed of 90% to 100% of natural, healthy foods. And to do so is to erase unhealthy foods, which are often but not always in a processed form.

You see, processed foods don't always rhyme with unhealthy foods, and natural foods don't always rhyme with healthy foods.

Sometimes, natural foods are unhealthy, and processed foods are healthy, but more often than not, as a general rule of thumb, processed foods are bad for health and natural foods are good for health. We'll see which ingredients you should eat later on, and which ones to particularly avoid, so as to know the exceptions to this rule.

To note if a processed food is healthy or not, and if it can be considered "natural" despite having been modified, you should look at the ingredients. If all the ingredients are natural, or if there is one unnatural ingredient that doesn't affect your health in any way (make research yourself online, look at articles from reputable sources), then it's fine. Let's try to illustrate this. Let's take two "foods", a chocolate bar and a piece of cheese.

Of course, the chocolate bar is an unhealthy, unnatural processed food. It is full of glucose syrup, sugar, sometimes artificial sugars, maybe even colorants, conservatives, additives, colza oil which is unhealthy, etc.

Now, let's take a look at the cheese. It might be considered "processed", but cheese is mainly a natural and healthy food. It is what our ancestors could eat and ate for thousands of years before us, before the invention of chocolate bars.

Cheese might have two or three ingredients, and more often than not, if you choose the right one, you can find 100% natural cheeses or cheeses with one conservative or additive ingredient that doesn't affect your health in any significant way (you can search online if you're scared that your conservative or additive is dangerous for health, such as Sodium Benzoate which does affect your health in a major, negative way).

Just follow this even simpler rule: if you imagine your ancestors thousands of years ago, at the time of Jesus Christ or Buddha or the Spartans 1200 years B.C, what would they eat? They would eat fish, bread, meat, cheese, fruits, vegetables, and eggs.

Why not eat like them? Now, for example, some small modifications can be made such as erasing the bread as it is not really healthy considering most bread is made from plain, white flour which is already bad for health, and most bread also have vegetable oil inside of them which is absolutely terrible for health, to avoid at all cost like the plague, and instead, replacing the bread with 100% natural sources of carbs such as more fruits and potatoes, etc.

Now that we got this message out of the way, here is a small insight that I want you to know before moving on: if you want any good habit to last, it should be pleasant or give you tangible results. In other words, you might hate doing it at the moment, but you love doing it after. It's not necessarily super fun to work on your business (even tho it can be), but it might be purposeful. It hurts but it's great.

Therefore, the same goes for dieting. Find healthy, natural foods that you like, choose a few that you don't particularly like but that are healthy for you, and find a way to build a diet around that. Continue reading and you'll find a full section on the foods you should eat and shouldn't eat.

As for beverages, the same rules apply. You can drink beverages as long as it's not extremely processed or as long as all the ingredients are natural or healthy. For example, eat 100% natural fruit juices with no added sugars or ingredients. But be wary of wine or generally alcohol.

Choosing the right amount of macronutrients

Macronutrients are extremely important for your body, and each real food has at least one of the three major macronutrients.

But as for macronutrients, how to choose the right amount? Well, it depends on your goals. But, as a general rule of thumb, you want to have a lot of good and healthy fats (100-200 grams per day), a good amount of protein (2g per kg of body weight), and a few carbs (200 grams of carbs per day).

Now of course this can change because everyone is different and some medical conditions can require you to see a doctor before changing your macronutrient consumption, so always go and seek a medical professional if you have any underlying medical issues.

But, as a general rule of thumb, these guidelines for macronutrient dosages are great. What I suggest, if you do not count calories and therefore do not count your macronutrients (by scaling your food), is to simply share your plate as follows.

You can even save more space on your plate by using as a fat-source olive oil or butter to cook the protein in for example, so you can put more carbs and more vegetables on your plate. It would look like this.

As you can see, the fat is already integrated into the protein (let's say you cooked the protein in olive oil) and therefore, there is more space for the carb source and the vegetable source. By the way, most vegetable sources don't have much macronutrients (neither too much fat, protein, or carbs) but eating greens is still important for health. Not too much, because we should prioritize the rest, and we're not biologically made to eat a huge quantity of greens, but a good amount is perfect.

You can also include a piece of diary such as a piece of cheese on the plate. If you do so, sacrifice the vegetables, not the carb source, or simply add it on top of both. Remember, our carb sources aren't non-nutritious pasta, our carb sources are potatoes and fruits which are as nutritious as most vegetables.

But always prioritize healthy fats and protein over carbs.

It's way better to have more healthy fats and more protein in your diet than to have more carbs. You'll still have a great performance in sports, but you'll be less bloated, you'll feel better, you'll be healthier physically and mentally and hormonally, you'll be more productive, and the list goes on.

Also, you can adapt your diet to your current goals. If your goal for the next six months is to be fully productive in your business or work, if that is your priority, eat a carnivore diet. With no carbs, you'll be fully focused and your brain will be extremely sharp. If you want to get some carbs for a variety of reasons, then eat a bit more carbs.

For example, I eat some carbs but I rarely eat so much of them that it affects my brain performance or my gym performance. What works for me is around 200 grams of carbs per day coming exclusively from fruits and honey as I recommended before.

Also, a quick side note here, one gram of protein and carbs are 4 calories, and one gram of fats is 9 calories. Therefore, fats are more calorie-dense than protein and carbs, so minimizing fats in the goal of weight loss is often recognized as a smart idea.

However, healthy fats are great for your health, and your testosterone, which will probably help you with fat-burning anyway by improving your metabolism in your cells. So, try to still get a good amount of healthy fats (100 grams a day minimum, so 9x100 = 900 calories per day coming from fat) whilst eating at least 2 grams of protein per body weight and the rest as carbs and vegetables. Remember, I'm not a professional dietician, I only say what seems to work for me at the moment, which gives me a great physique and which seems to improve my health.

Also, another quick side note here, be careful about estrogenics. Estrogenics are endocrine disruptors: chemicals that go into your body, act like a hormone (in this case estrogen) even tho they're not a hormone but a chemical, and therefore produce this specific hormone in your body.

Estrogen is found in higher quantity in females than men, but men's and women's estrogen levels have probably never been so high, because more and more men and women are nuking their testosterone and boosting their estrogen through the means of junk food, smoking, alcohol and lack of physical activity and much more. This leads to men having man boobs, like literal boobs, not muscle but mammary glands, and women developing breast cancers at alarming rates, on top of dozens of other very serious and major health downsides, such as infertility.

So, be careful not to drink milk that is stored in plastic. In fact, DO NOT DRINK ANYTHING stored in plastic, and try to avoid plastic packaging on most of your foods at ALL COSTS, especially fat-rich liquids. Olive oil in plastic is horrible because microplastics leach so much better in fat content, it loves lipids (fats). It leaches in every liquid but particularly in fats.

So, never drink milk that has been stored in a plastic bottle. It already contains estrogen from the pregnant cow but if you on top of that drink it through a plastic water bottle it's overkill. The best way would be of course to buy the cheese and milk directly from the farmer, packaged in paper for the cheese or packaged in glass or cardboard without any plastic for the milk, but this is unrealistic for most people.

"Cheat meals" or deriving from your daily diet

Cheat meals are meals where you "cheat on your diet". But, considering your diet is eating only 90-100% natural foods, this means cheat meals are eating anything that is out of this range. And, to maintain a healthy diet without falling back into bad nutritional habits (eating unhealthy foods), we need to develop a unique system to cheat meals.

Most people approach cheat meals with a "scheduled" formula. For example, I'll be dieting for 6 days a week, and on Sundays, I'll eat whatever I want. And even tho that might help some people to maintain a good diet when this is their priority, as soon as the finances are disrupted, the new child is born or the dog dies, and their priorities and focus shift, all their diet plans and stuff goes out of the window.

They focused on the wrong mindset: believing that a diet is a period. Sure, you can make it that way, it's the conventional way of dieting, that's why approximately, according to the Cleveland Clinic, "80 to 95% of dieters gain back the weight they’ve worked so hard to lose".

You see, when people do not live a life that is sustainable, they can't sustain it. Think about it. If you started a fire, and you had a specific amount of wood to maintain it, and you had to maintain it for long, what would be the best strategy? You can either put all the wood at once into the fire, and get incredible results for a short period but the fire would end faster, or you could use the sustainable approach of putting one piece of wood here and there, and you would take more time to reach the wanted result, but you will be able to make it last way longer anyway, right?

So, the same rule applies to weight loss. Instead of putting all of your efforts at once, thinking of it as a period or a race, and having occasional cheat meals once a week at a scheduled time or scheduled meal, instead, just live your life, and when things arise, take your occasional day off! For example, you might be dieting for three weeks before a birthday party arises and you decide to let your diet go off track. Then, two days later, your parents come over to your home for dinner and you go off your diet. Then, for the next month, you eat clean every day because you have no particular event going on.

That is the magic of the "unplanned cheat-meal" strategy. You don't waste your time overthinking about food. You just build your own specific, healthy, and natural diet, and then, when the time comes and opportunities arise and things happen and events are planned, you simply join the party. It's as easy as that. If one day you want to add rice to your diet, you can do it. If one day you want to add salads or fish to your diet, you can do it. It's natural and flexible, and when days off arise, you simply enjoy life, don't feel guilty at all, and take your day off.

People get so caught up in guilt and "should I do it once a week" or some bullshit. Simply assume your "healthy diet" is your "baseline", like the pillars holding an ancient Greek monument, and then, when life happens and you have to go to an event or do that thing and that stuff and eat there and cheat on your diet, then take your time off.

It's just living life authentically without overthinking about food, and this allows you in the long term to make your diet sustainable. It's as easy as this. How weak are you if a simple change in diet hurts your mental health immeasurably? This shows deep dependence on your sense of "achieving", which is only your comfort zone. Get out of it.

The foods you should eat for health and performance

So, as I've said earlier, here is a full list of ingredients that I think you can or should eat that are quite interesting in terms of their benefits on your body and your mind and your work and your relationship and studies and presence and digestion, etc.

Eggs. Eggs are a great source of protein (the white part of the egg) and the yellow part of the egg is an incredible source of healthy cholesterol which is a major building block in testosterone production. On top of that, it has many good fats, and it works like a small dosage of multi-vitamin, it has a ton of vitamins and minerals. And, it's not expensive and it's available for most people.

Red meat. Red meat is good for health, especially ones with some kind of fat cut or higher fat percentages. Red meat is tasty, it's sustainable because it's not something that you easily get bored of, and overall it's good for your health. It's full of protein and good fats, as well as iron.

Fruits. Yes, that's a whole food group, but here are a few fruits you can have in your day-to-day life as your main carb source. First, apples. Great, tasty, cheap, easy to access, the basic. Bananas, mangoes, blueberries, strawberries, pears, oranges, mandarines, watermelon, you got the point. The list goes on.

Honey. Honey is tasty, it's a natural source of sugar, and it has antioxidant properties. It looks good, tastes good, is good for health, and improves your health. Try to get around 20-50 grams of honey per day. And, it's a natural, healthy sweetener that doesn't kill your testosterone or mimic estrogen.

Vegetables. Salads, tomatoes, cucumbers, zucchini, broccoli, and more all of these foods are great for health. I suggest prioritizing brocolli's, but overall these foods are low-calorie and if well-cooked or made they can be quite tasty. And, they are full of good vitamins and minerals.

Nuts. Cashew nuts, brazil nuts, and almonds, all of these are great for health and are full of vitamins, minerals, protein, and good, healthy fats. Low in carbs and generally a great food to have. I personally have cashew nuts with honey in the morning every day since like... 10 months or something like this. Tasty and accessible, but expensive. Be careful of walnuts and peanuts, too many downsides compared to the good sides. Take almonds instead.

Salmon, whitefish, tuna, and sardines. All of these are great, nutritious sources of protein full of healthy Omega 3's for your health. I suggest especially salmon and tuna because these two are particularly tasty AND they are super healthy. Be careful not to consume any whitefish or tuna or sardine that is conserved in plastic with liquid inside. Try to avoid plastic at your best, even tho that's not super realistic if you buy at international or national supermarket brands. Be careful about cans, because sometimes they have a plastic cover inside of them. Remember what I said about plastic earlier and estrogenics.

Cheese. Cheese is tasty, high-calorie, and full of fats. It's full of calcium too and if you buy natural ones it's good for your health. Generally, cheese is a great food to add to your diet for not only your taste buds but also generally the benefits it brings: higher protein, higher fats, higher calcium, zinc, vitamin A and B12, etc. Try to get grass-fed too, way better for your health.

Almond milk. Almond milk is a great option if you miss milk but you can't get milk in glass bottles and you don't want to nuke your testosterone through milk stored in plastic bottles. It's sometimes packaged in cardboard and it's super low-calorie too, so a good option if you want milk whilst reducing calories. A great option to replace milk, and tastes similar.

Butter and olive oil. Butter and olive oil are two sources of good fat that you should eat in your daily diet. Butter is essentially dairy but olive oil is well... oil from olive. It's delicious and adding it to your meals will add a ton of flavor. It's great for health, it's tasty, and calorie-rich so if you want to gain weight and bulk up, these two guys are waiting for you. And if you don't want to bulk-up, they're still a must-use in your daily diet.

Avocado's. Avocados are great for health, full of healthy fats, calorie-rich, and full of vitamins and minerals. Nothing to add here, just a great source of healthy fats for your hormones and your brain.

Chicken. To finish off, chicken. Chicken is good for health, and it has a ton of protein for a low-fat content and low-carb content which makes it one of the optimal protein sources if you want to lose weight. I still recommend beef or red meat or pork instead of it as a replacement, but chicken is still great.

Bonus: foods to not eat

Sugar. I'm not speaking about sugar in fruits, as this is not a big deal since it's natural, but I'm speaking about processed sugar, the one you find in cookies and all that bullshit. BAD FOR HEALTH. AVOID. It's really not good for your health, in every kind of way. It's calorie-rich with no nutrients except pure carbs that spike up your insulin very fast and cause diabetes and a ton of other health issues, it hurts your brain, builds addictions, and nukes completely your testosterone.

Seed oils/vegetable oils. Seed oils or vegetable oils are also testosterone nukers, and they are even worse than sugar for health. Canola oil, Sunflower oil, Soy oil, all of these oils are bad for your health, even tho on the packaging they often have vegetable pictures put on there and you think "Oh, it's healthy!", don't trust these companies. They don't care about you, only about profits.

Well, if being obese, depressed, and having cancer is your definition of healthiness, then go for it. Otherwise, no. And, it's always in plastic bottles, and microplastics love leaching into plastic bottles. So not only are you nuking your testosterone from the oil itself, you're ingesting thousands of hundreds of microplastics into your blood. Nice.

Artificial sugars. As bad or even worse than normal sugar, 0 calories but destroys your hormones, gives you cancer, and makes you more feminized. Found in protein powders for example. How do you think your protein powder gave you the chocolate cookie taste despite having no sugar? Asulfame K, Stevia, and Sucralose, all of these are artificial sugars, fake sugars, or 0-calorie sweeteners and that is what you're eating when you're eating your flavored protein powder. Avoid these sweeteners like the plague.

Soy. Super estrogenic! If you consume soy in any shape or form (soy protein, soy milk, soy sauce, whatever), you're essentially a great businessman in the estrogenic land: 6-figure phytoestrogen amount! In other words, if you don't want to have hundreds of thousands of phytoestrogens in your blood, avoid soy. Not good.

Simply processed foods. Avoid processed foods or heavily processed foods that aren't 100% natural. Cheese is a processed food but healthy cheeses are 100% or 90% natural, and the rest is only conservative or additives that don't have much effect on health MOST TIMES and from what I know, so still do your research about the additives and conservatives if you're hesitant. However, for chocolate bars, it's a different story. So be on the lookout.

Supplementation

Using supplements can prove to be an excellent idea if your goal is to truly optimize your health, your hormones, your performance, your productivity, etc. Just like people would take coffee to enhance their brain function, people take supplements to enhance everything in their lives.

Supplements are often in the form of powder or pills, and the instructions on how to use them are written on the label or the website where it's bought. Here is my full list of supplements to use so as to optimize your health, increase your productivity and performance, and help with your testosterone.

Vitamin D

Vitamin D is one of the best supplements on the market. You naturally absorb Vitamin D when you stay in the sun for long enough, but the quantities are not enough, especially in our modern day where we're mostly indoors. And even if you are outdoors all day long, you might not even have enough Vitamin D. Therefore, taking a Vitamin D supplement is the way to go.

Try to get one that has at least 2500UI and preferably 5000UI in one pill. Our goal is to get around 5000UI per day or 2500UI per day minimum. The "guideline" given by medical institutions is 2500UI, but according to Ph.D Anthony G Jay, author of Estrogeneration, we need way more than this. Just as the levels of testosterone are astronomically and historically low, our levels of Vitamin D are too. Oftentimes, Vitamin D supplements come in a Vitamin D3+K2 formula, which is great for health and testosterone. Here is one you could buy.

Creatine (Monohydrate)

Creatine is naturally found in red meat. In fact, 3-5 grams of creatine (the normal dose of a creatine supplement that you should take per day) is found in 1kg of red meat. Creatine has so many benefits that it's a no-brainer. Just look at the list of benefits it provides: improved athletic performance, improved muscle size, improved muscle endurance and strength, improved cognitive function, may help with mental health, and more.

Creatine draws water into your muscles and so they grow bigger in size. That's a huge bonus. And, it makes them stronger. Second bonus. And it's great for cognitive function. Third bonus. You can buy it on Amazon here.

Calcium, Zinc, and Magnesium

We seldom get enough Calcium from our daily diets. And, getting enough Zinc and Magnesium, or more Zinc or Magnesium, is always useful and something that will benefit our lives heavily, and our testosterone too. Magnesium and Zinc do indeed help with testosterone, and Zinc help also with eye health. Calcium helps with bone health, muscle mass, testosterone, and generally your growth.

This one is also a no-brainer. Super useful, healthy, and to grow taller, it's also great. Try to buy this one on Amazon.

Omega 3 Fish Oil

Omega 3 Fish Oil is an incredible supplement you should be taking. It helps boost your cardiovascular health, your overall physical health, your mental health, your life expectancy, your testosterone, your brain health (cognitive function), and your skin health.

Omega 3 Fish Oil is one of the pillars of supplementation. It's probably one of the most sold and created supplements on earth. Also, be careful about these because most Omega 3 Fish Oil supplements use sunflower oil or other unhealthy vegetable oils inside of the capsules.

Now, this isn't a big deal, except considering that some people's bodies like mine don't like this at all. In fact, after a week of taking an Omega 3 Fish Oil supplement, I was nauseous, and I literally vomited yellow liquid, the same color as cooked butter OR of sunflower oil. Weirdly linked. So, be careful about this too. You can buy this one on Amazon.

Multivitamins

Multivitamins are useful but not necessary. They can help if you have a bad diet, but considering you've read this article to improve immeasurably your diet like a top 1% performer, then I believe that multivitamins aren't useful to you. I recommend buying this one if you insist.

Protein powder

Protein powder helps you achieve your protein goals for the day without any problem. Its easy-to-use structure makes it accessible everywhere and overall it's just a great supplement, with a ton of protein-for-calorie ratio, which is great for people trying to reduce their calories whilst building muscle.

Be very careful about flavored protein powders, a lot of them use edulcorants (fake sugars) such as Sucralose or even Asulfame K, which are deeply unhealthy, even worse than real sugars in the first place. How did you think your protein powder tasted like salted caramel despite having no sugar in it? Really? Buy a natural protein powder on Amazon now.

Fasting

Fasting is when you abstain from eating any food for a specific period of time. There are two types of fasting, the classic "fasting" which is abstaining from food for a whole day, and "intermittent fasting" which is abstaining from food for a specific window of time in between your meals.

Fasting, the classic one, has been shown to have a ton of health benefits. Improved physical health, brain function (cognitive function), and a big improvement in Human Growth Hormone (HGH). A 2-day fast can induce a spike of 200% in Human Growth Hormone. On top of that, someone on short-period fasting preserves 4x more muscle mass than someone on a low-calorie diet according to studies.

So, if you're a high-performer looking to prioritize his work, or simply trying to get a purge from food, or just wanting to boost HGH (Human Growth Hormone) for free without making much effort, simply go on a fast. Try to fast for the whole day.

At first, this might be complicated, but if you slowly upgrade the time you fast each time you do fast (6 hours to 7 hours to 7 hours and 30 minutes to 9 hours, etc) then you will be able to fast for a whole day without much trouble.

Intermittent fasting is one of the most common ways of fasting. There are many forms of intermittent fasting (eating windows) but I suggest the following one because it has the most benefits and is the most realistic and sustainable for most people. The rule is this: leave an 8-hour window between each of your meals or more. For example, if I eat lunch at 12 pm, I'll have to eat dinner at 8:00 pm. The best for intermittent fasting is to skip breakfast altogether.

You might have had a false belief, and you might have been told your whole life by ignorant people that breakfast is the most important meal of the day. This is simply false, a lie fabricated by the same people who sell breakfast food to you, such as cereals companies for example.

Just a side tangent here, be careful about which studies you look at or where your information is coming from. For example, for years, the cigarette industry, when people started exposing the danger of their products, acted like it was no big deal or simply tried to draw the attention of the population to another thing that could be causing the consequences of smoking!

In other words, let's say people found that smoking promotes cancers, well, the cigarette industry sent professionals to go and write study papers to find alternative reasons why people got cancer, so they can blame something much less important so the general public isn't as concerned about cigarette since their attention is on the other product. And, in this way, they keep buying. And, in this way, the cigarette industry made killing profits.

So, be careful and check your sources if the article is trying to weirdly de-dramatize a dramatizing product. If you see a study funded by the Redbull CEO that tells how Alcohol and Caffeine are benefiting your health, be wary.

Intermittent fasting is great for health generally. It helps with your physical and mental health, as well as your cognitive function. It's just a great habit to have and I recommend it if you can adopt it in your day-to-day lifestyle. It's a much more accessible way to fast, especially on a daily basis, compared to the classic form of fasting.

Eating for weight-loss

To eat for weight loss, you have to be in a calorie deficit. Being in a calorie deficit means eating fewer calories than your body needs to induce weight loss. In short, when you do not have enough calories, your body is like "damn, I've got to find some calories in the fat I've stored for urgency", so it just goes and takes some fat and burns it off so you can live your life normally. And, this is how you lose weight!

Try to be in a calorie deficit of 300 to 500 calories under maintenance calories (the calories you would need to have in order to maintain your weight). You can use a calculator online to find out how many calories you need to maintain your weight. Going into a calorie deficit that is too enormous could be dangerous to your health in a significant way, reducing your muscle mass and slowing down your metabolism.

Our goal in a weight-loss diet is to fit in more food volume (the quantity of food) for fewer calories in total. In other words, we want to eat a lot of food to fill us up, but it needs to be low-calorie. You can also go down the harder route of eating high-calorie, great, and healthy low-volume foods, or normal-calorie, great, and healthy low-volume foods. These are harder routes but more rewarding in their benefits, not on weight loss but generally muscle mass and testosterone and health and all that stuff. You need fats, and fats are calorie-dense, so if you only eat low-calorie foods, you'll be on a low-fat diet, and that's not so good for your health.

The best would be to go down the normal calorie, low volume foods because this teaches you not only discipline and resilience (you resist eating despite being hungry), but it also teaches you that hunger isn't a bad thing, and actually, being hungry makes you more productive and clear brain fogs.

But, if you struggle with this, do like I did if I'm totally honest with you: eat giant salad bowls full of tomatoes, cucumbers, salad, and vinegar, add a bit of cheese and bread, and eat this 400-500 calorie salad at lunch every-day or at dinner. Try to get some protein in too, through real food preferably, or a protein powder.

This is how I originally lost weight for a long time: huge volume (enormous salads all for myself, 3-4 low-calorie burgers at night, etc) but I don't recommend this path. It might help to lose weight, that's the strategy I used, but now, when I need to cut, I simply bear being hungry and I actually eat healthy foods, because yes, maybe eating salads is healthy, but low-calorie burgers maybe aren't too much, and on top of that, I wasn't getting enough protein every day, clearly not enough good fats, and I was hurting my testosterone.

Seriously, I would recommend simply eating less. Start by eating one less ingredient every day until you lose weight. It can be the apple you eat every morning or the egg you eat at dinner. I suggest, for weight loss, to reduce carb intake, and increase testosterone through exercise, supplementation, nutrition, and sleep.

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Eating for weight gain.

Eating for weight gain is the contrary of eating for weight loss. Basically, we want to fit in less volume for more calories, because it can be heavy on the stomach to eat a lot. So, for our health, energy levels, and cognitive function, we'll try to fit less volume for more calories.

And how to do so? Eat high-calorie foods. Olive oil, butter, nuts, cheese (try to get 50 grams a day maximum), and fat cuts of meat. Tastes good, and is high-calorie, as well as healthy for our testosterone and good for health generally since it is composed of good fats, plus, all of these ingredients are low in carbs.

The hack to weight gain from what I've found is simply upgrading your fat intake. Since 1 gram of fat is 9 calories, compared to one gram of carb or one gram of protein which are only 4 calories, this makes eating more fat ultimately more calorie-expensive. If you eat a hundred grams of fat it's 900 calories, and if you eat a 100 grams of protein it's 400 calories. That's the power of good fats.

And, when I say upgrading your fat intake, I'm speaking about good fats, the fat that is actually good for your health. I'm not speaking about going out and ordering the whole fast-food joint. Don't be stupid.

Try to upgrade the amount of carbs you have if you want to go on a full-on bulking phase. It will help you have extra energy to spend in the gym, so you will probably have a slightly better performance, and you'll therefore probably build more muscle. It's not a must, but it's a cool thing to have. Try to spike up your carb intake to 300 grams to 400 grams of carbs per day, through fruits, honey, potatoes, and sweet potatoes.

Try to eat in a calorie surplus (you eat more calories than your body needs) of 300 to 500 calories, and if you don't gain weight after a while, simply upgrade the amount of calories you eat. Just know that directly going from 2500 calories to 3500 calories per day (a 1000-calorie surplus) promotes for the vast majority of individuals more fat gain than actual muscle gain. In other words, if you want to gain muscle instead of gaining fat, stay safe in the 300 to 500-calorie surplus zone.

And, when you upgrade your calories, always make sure to do it progressively. Don't go from 2500 calories to 2800 calories or 3000 calories in a day or two. First, go to 2550 calories. Then 2600 calories. Then 2650 calories. Then 2700 calories. Then 2750 calories. Then 2800 calories. And there you are. If you want more tips for weight gain, there is a full-on written free bonus outside of the main content of my weight-loss course. It has a good amount of information on bulking. Buy the weight-loss course here.

When should you eat?

The basic rule is this: eat at breakfast, lunch, and dinner, no eating in between. You can sometimes eat in between if you're for example with friends or your partner and you stop by to a restaurant or something, but generally, no eating in between these eating windows.

Depending on your goals, you can use intermittent fasting or fasting to decide when you should eat. If you're aiming to increase your productivity, go with intermittent fasting or fasting. If you're looking for gym performance, eat as you want. If you're looking for more testosterone, do intermittent fasting, etc. Just know that in many cases, even if you're a gym athlete, you don't need to eat all hours. It might even be more beneficial to practice intermittent fasting.

It's just a question of goals, of preferences, and of sustainability. Try to find the diet that works for you, is super healthy and 100% natural, and that you can sustain for life.

Conclusion

Everyone is on a diet, it just depends on whether you're on a good one like 20% of people, or on a bad one like 80% of people. If you want to get into the 10% or even 1% of dieters, simply eat only 90-100% natural foods and reduce processed foods to a minimum. Eat for increased physical health, testosterone, human growth hormone, athletic performance, cognitive function, and mental health, and not only for pleasure.

Personally, I love eggs, red meat, cheese, butter, olive oil, and fruits. So I eat that every day, and it seems to be working for a few months now, soon a year. THAT IS THE POWER OF DIETING. I don't overthink what I eat. And, it's super sustainable and tasty.

I know every night I have my eggs waiting for me, I know every lunch I have my steaks waiting for me, and I know it's going to taste good. So, I'm not even bothering with what I should eat too much, and, I have occasional cheat meals when opportunities arise, AND, this diet is sustainable and gives me incredible results both physically and mentally.

Choose a diet that suits you and your lifestyle, that is healthy and 90-100% natural, and I don't think you will regret your choice. Remember, your "baseline" diet should be a great diet. There are no "good days" or "bad days" with what you eat, only days where you ate your normal diet and days where you derived from it.

Finally, thank you for reading. As of the date of this writing (20/05/2024), this article is the biggest I've ever written. Thank you for supporting us through your attention and reading, and with all love and respect, I'll see you next time.

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