How To Eat Clean Without Giving Up Everything
By: Josh Proch, CSCS, PN1
Your weekend habits might be the reason you aren’t getting the results you are looking for.
You make it to the gym three days per week, your nutrition is pretty good and you make good choices, but even so you are not getting the progress you are looking for.
I’m sure that you’ve heard us at PNF say more than once that “nutrition is 80% of the results you see”, and that “you can’t out exercise a bad diet.”
While this is true, it’s not always helpful. After all, what does 80% really look like, and 80% of what – food choices, calories, your day, etc.
To answer that question it is 80% of total calories per week.
This is where a few cheats over the weekend can cause you to get derailed.
Here is how to determine how many calories per week can come from cheats and still stay at or above the 80% clean mark.
Daily Calorie Goal X 7 Days = Total Weekly Calories
Total Weekly Calories / .80 = Total Clean Calories
Total Weekly Calories – Total Clean Calorie = Weekly Cheat Calories
For example let’s say your daily calories goal in 2000 calories. It would work out like this.
2000 x 7 days = 14,000 Weekly Calories
14,000 / .80 = 11,200 Clean Calories
14,000 / 11,200 = 2,800 Weekly Cheat Calories or 400 per day.
400 per day is roughly three 5oz. glasses of wine per day with no other cheats to stay at the 80% clean mark. One piece of Cheesecake Factory plain cheesecake is roughly 800 calories and the fancy ones average around 1,400 calories.
Now, here is where this gets tricky. If you eat less than 2,000 calories per day the weekly/daily allowance goes down.
So do you have to count calories to stay at the 80% mark?
Sure you can if you want, but a much simpler option is to only have one cheat serving per day, or no more than seven servings of cheats per week. You can go with one every day, two every other day, or save all seven for the weekend. It really doesn’t matter as long as you don’t go over seven in any given week. Is this a perfect calculation? No, but it will get you pretty close. (By the way, those cheesecake calories are based on per slice, which is really about 2-3 actual normal servings.)
Look over your week. How does it stack up? What percentage of cheats do you come in at? Where to could you clean up at?
If you’ve been struggling, work these numbers out for yourself and see how you’re stacking up.
If you are looking to get started with a fitness plan check out our 30-Day Personal Training Experience…
https://pittsburghnorthfitness.lpages.co/30-day-trial-membership/
