IIFYM vs. Clean Eating.

I write this post due to a lot of questions I got a little while ago about it.

IIFYM = If It Fits Your Macro

Clean Eating = You eat whole, not processed food. No dairy, no flour, no salt, no  sugar.

So first of all, macro is short for macronutrients.

Macronutrients are carbs, fat and protein. You must have food to survive.

There’s this point of view that everyone has a daily amount of carbs (in grams), fat, protein and calories and that the most important thing is that it does not exceeds this amount (in grams) of fat, protein and carbs, and of course it shouldn’t  exceed your daily calories allowance.

A lot of people find it easy to follow and not as strict as other diets. The reason being of course that you can have junk food as well If It Fits Your Macro.

Of course (that’s the part where you get a story and some backstage gossip from the fitness industry) the IIFYM people are being judged for eating “bad food”.

Well, it’s half true.

Yes if you choose to eat by what fits your macro you can have junk food; but like any kind of calories counting (or point counting like weight watchers)  if you eat healthy you can eat more while if you have a big mac you just got close to you daily macro/calories allowance.

All those fitness models that go by IIFYM are not eating junk. If you want to look good you can’t eat junk.

Meaning: who cares how you call you diet? How about people in the fitness industry would stop fighting and saying what they say is the best and only way and trying to make money from making you feel stupid?

You eat healthy? You move your ass? You’re doing great!

People that say that people on IIFYM eat junk are stupid. Just like people that eat only clean food and finish their workout with whey. Clean food means no processed food.

Meaning no milk (dairy or non-dairy), no sugar, no salt or any unknown ingredients like whey powder.

The more you move, the less crap you eat, the better you get.

IIFYM and clean eating people both eat more whole food than crap, both move their ass and that’s the way to lose fat.

Some people find it easy to focus on one thing and that’s ok.

IIFYM came from people who find clean eating is too hard. But don’t get fooled: You want to look shredded? You don’t eat junk at all. Doesn’t matter what you call it.

I go by portions; it’s easy to do and I don’t need to calculate anything.

My food is 90% clean but I don’t like to call it a clean diet. I do dairy and whey.

Processed food is bad. Nothing anyone says can change it, so relax and don’t try to find a name for your lifestyle; just live healthy and enjoy it.

If you do want help with a meal plan because you find it too confusing and you do want to know how to to portions that fit you (you got to find what fits you and only you. we’re all different), contact me at: danagatfit@outlook.com

 Research and writing by Dana Gat ©2014

Fluids And Other Crap.

Remember last post? I told you about

water = water

and not, water = fluids like tea, coffee and juice.

So let’s talk about it.

 It’s summer. And when it’s summer we enjoy summer drinks. They’re colourful, cold and God knows I can’t… The other day I had 2 fresh squeeze orange juice!!!!!! So delicious!

You have to understand, fresh squeeze orange juice is like my favourite thing to drink! More than chocolate milk! 

And I like chocolate milk! And cold coffee, and virgin margaritas and fancy tropical smoothies.. with no yogurt!

I’m just like you! Lucky for me I live in a country with 8-10 months of summer so I don’t have to drink all these fully loaded high calories drinks in 2 months period and look at the mirror come September and try to remember how I gained 20lb; however I did live like that for the last 6 years so I do know how it feels and I live next to the beach!

You know how you go to Mexico and come back fat after lying on the beach and drinking for 10 days? 8-10 months of my life are like that…

I bet you’re jealous at me right now…haha

Anyway, where were we? Oh yes, I was telling you about my summer craving.

It’s bad! There’s no reason to drink it! If you have it once in a while, that’s ok.

The less you have of it, the more you can have the fully loaded high calories on the rare occasion you have it.

I like it, but when I realized what it does to my body and how it prevents me from being lean and mean I cut it off almost completely.

 We already talked about coffee and teas so now I want to talk about juices.

Wheat grass juice is good for you. That’s it!

No other juice is good for you.

I don’t say that if you have constipation don’t drink prunes juice, but if you have constipation you might want to check what’s wrong with you… A few posts back I wrote and gave out plenty of recipes to prevent it from happening; don’t let your body get there (but it’s a different kind of post). What I say is if you’re pretty much healthy (we all have our sins, and why won’t we?) you shouldn’t drink any kind of juice or pop.

If it comes from a bottle and has a commercial - it’s probably bad for you; but you’re smart like that so I’m not worried about it. What worries me (and it’s also my weakness  so nobody’s judging you here…) is fresh squeezed juices.

How many oranges do you eat in one sitting? Only one, how many orange in one 16oz cup of orange juice? Like 5! And you finish it way faster (I bet you a 100$ that I finish it faster…lol). You know how much sugar is in it? 42 grams!!! It’s insane!!!!  And less than 1 gram of fibre. You know what this means? You’re going to keep all this sugar inside your body!!! That is going to turn into fat!

That’s not healthy! Not at all….:(

Same goes for apple juice, pomegranate juice and any other kind of fruit juice.

And that’s the fresh ones! The store-bought ones have as much sugar as 3.5 doughnuts! Like the big doughnut!

You’re feeding you kids every morning 3 doughnuts and you’re surprised when they grow fat and lazy? You’re feeding yourself and you’re still surprised that you’re not losing fat? You’re surprised that you can’t sleep at night? That you have diabetes?

One of the things that got me my fat as a child was the grape juice.

 It’s been 6 years since I had it… Guess who is lean now? Me!

That’s right ! And I love grape juice just as much as you love your iPhone - if not more!

Just to clarify: I’m talking about juice from fruit; not the syrup that you add water to (that’s not good for you but we’ll talk about it some other time). Just wanted to make sure we’re on the same page here.

So to summarize it for you: fresh squeezed juices have plenty of sugar and no fibre and too many calories. You’re much better off having the whole fruit. Once in a while is ok. But really, not often.

Store-bought fruit juices are bad. All of them! Not even 1 of them is good for you.

If it says on the label “natural ingredient”, it means that the crap they added to it is natural:

·         *  Crushed beetles (brings out the strawberries flavour)

·       *   Beaver anal glands (apparently it bring out the berries flavour in stuff)

·        *  Like the golden glow of beer? Fish bladder (it’s not juice but I thought you should know it)

Don’t get fooled by labels and don’t drink store bought drink.

I hope you’ve learned something new. I hope you’ll stop drinking store-bought juices and cut on the fresh squeezed juice.

If you need any help with changing your nutrition or any kind of training plan contact me:

email: danagatfit@outlook.com

   Research and writing by Dana Gat ©2014