Setting Up a Diet for Weight Loss, Gain, or Maintenance.
With these types of things, if the study was even properly set up and not skewed or taken out of context (these qualifiers weeds out most of them, by the way), the amount that it will impact things and actually matter is NEGLIGIBLE.
Important Concepts
*You probably suck at mentally tracking true calories and macronutrients (carbs, fat, and protein). Don't take it personally: most people do.
*As such, you'll need to start tracking the actual values of what you're having.
*This means either writing them down or tracking them with one of those fancy-shmancy apps/websites.
*The two main items you'll need to account for are Calories and protein.
*You need to be open to experimentation (giggity). Understand that trial and error WILL be a part of the process and you'll actually speed up your overall progress if you just accept that from the beginning and start things right away. Every day you spend searching for the "perfect program" or wanking over exact BMR calculators is another day you've lost that could've been spent learning through experience and building for yourself the perfect program.
*Activity, for what it's worth, does very little to affect weight. Food is the primary regulator of controlling weight.
*Changing weight will involve measuring weight, so have a scale accessible. As long as you can get to it at least once a week reliably, that will suffice.
*Where the foods will come from doesn't matter much. The posters here tend to advocate a paleo-based diet which is a good catch-all for guidelines on what will generally be a 'healthy' diet. When it comes down to it, though, the actual goal is to get a sufficient amount of micronutrients (vitamins, minerals) while avoiding anything that would be harmful to the body. There are a multitude of ways to do this and even eating an anal-retentive paleo diet won't always guarantee adequate intake of everything. For practical reasons, whether you eat like a caveman or a gluttonous monster, it's wise to supplement with a multivitamin. Overshooting on the vits & mins is better than undershooting since it's fairly hard to reach toxicity (we're talking about taking a 1-a-day vitamin twice daily here, not ridiculous megadosing). People tend to get sensitive about the 'quality' of the food and how having things 'all natural' is the guaranteed, exclusive route to health. This is just not the case. (A related study to keep things in perspective)
*The beautiful thing about this is that it allows you to not smash your head in a door in extreme guilt if you "slip up" and have some sort of indulgent, tasty food. If it fits your macros (carbs, fat, protein [and consequently Calories]), it's completely fine. Maybe it's due to the protestant-work-horse-mentality that's ingrained in our American culture, but for whatever reason, people tend to get absolutely nutty and self-deprecating if they have any of the EVIL NAUGHTY FOODS. Unfortunately, this leads one from having a handful of chips and moving on to exploding in shame and devouring the entire bag. The former isn't really an issue at all, while the latter can be a big problem.
*Water is an absolute bitch. When we're talking a realistic half pound to two pounds of actual changes within fat or muscle cells on a WEEKLY basis, understand that it is absolutely NOTHING for changes in water to completely throw you for a loop. If you are curious about the details, ask and I can elaborate, but just remember that changes in water are significant but transient.
*Be patient. Don't stress too hard. Be critical; not self-hating or self-loathing. Look at what the numbers are telling you and balance that with what you see in the mirror. Don't let either one take over completely.
Weight Maintenance
If all of the above is adhered to, things are pretty simple from this point on. I'm starting with weight maintenance because it sets the concept for how to change into gaining or losing weight.
It's pretty simple. If you take in as many Calories as you put out, your weight doesn't change. What's not simple is how the 'Calories out' part of the equation can vary for all sorts of reasons and the estimating the 'Calories in' side can be easy to screw up.
If you've lost or gained weight and now want to make sure you retain that same weight, aim to get 14-16 calories per pound of your current bodyweight. If you consider yourself to naturally have a "slower metabolism", use the lower end. If you consider yourself to naturally have a "higher metabolism", use the higher end. Aim to get about 1 gram of protein per pound of current bodyweight.
If you're monitoring weight and it slips down or up, simply follow the approach for weight gain or loss (whichever is appropriate) until you've reached your goal weight again. This time, take the same maintenance approach but adjust based on what happened:
If you had originally lost weight, aimed to maintain, but your weight crept up again, then this time use the Calorie value you used before but subtract 10% from it.
If you had originally added weight, aimed to maintain, but your weight dropped again, then this time use the Calorie value you used before but add 10% to it.
(In either scenario, the protein is unaffected)
Weight Gain
This seems to be the more commonly sought after goal on these boards, and is achieved when the 'Calories in' side of the equation is higher than the 'Calories out'. The same issues lie here, though: discrepancies in tracking can give inaccurate representations of 'Calories in' and forgetting that 'Calories out' is dynamic.
Aim to get 18-20 calories per pound of bodyweight. This is almost always paired with weight training and if you're a novice lifter (less than a year of weight training), use the higher end. If you're beyond that first year of training, use the lower end. Either way, aim to get AT LEAST 1 gram of protein per pound of current bodyweight.
Track your weight. If you're gaining 1-2 lbs per week, you're doing it right. More than that will be extra fat weight (not necessarily a bad thing but most people are trying to avoid this). If you're gaining more than 3 lbs a week, drop Calories by 10%.
Less than that will mean you aren't eating enough to maximize the muscle gain. If this is the case (less than 1-2 lbs a week), increase Calories by 10%. Protein is the same either way.
Weight Loss
In this case, our aim is to take in less Calories than we're putting out. The same confounding issues apply.
Aim to get 10-12 calories per pound of current bodyweight. If you're active, have a naturally higher metabolism, and/or only want to lose a smaller amount of weight (5-10 pounds), start with the higher end. If you're the opposite, start with the lower end.
Protein is set at at least 1g of protein per pound of ideal bodyweight. That is, the overall ending goal weight you want to be at (in pounds) is the number of grams of protein daily you want to get AT LEAST.
If you're losing 1-2 pounds a week, you're doing it right. If you aren't losing that much, lower Calories by 10%. Also, if you ARE losing that much but you want to lose at a faster rate, lower Calories by 10%.
If, however, you're losing more than this AND your daily mood&energy and tenacity in the gym and/or training parkour are all starting to drop, then increase calories by 10%.
Protein stays the same either way.
Don't overcomplicate this. This is 90%+ of what will determine if you make progress or not. If you're getting hung up on "if a shake is okay for losing weight", you're missing the overall picture. Reread the post.
