Why Flexible Dieting?
First off -- you might be wondering what flexible dieting is. If you've ever heard of IIFYM, you're on the right track. IIFYM to me has a negative connotation because people get this idea in their head that it's okay to eat junk all day as long as it fits their macros.
This could technically work for most people as far as aesthetics goals go, but personally I don't feel very good or have good training sessions when I eat a ton of processed junk. It doesn't mean those things aren't okay in moderation, but the bulk of our daily food should be from whole foods that are nutrient dense. Micronutrients matter, too!
I like to use the term flexible dieting instead of IIFYM for those aforementioned reasons. In a nutshell, it's counting your grams of fat, carbohydrates, and protein everyday. You have a certain amount of each macronutrient to hit each day and can essentially fill them however you'd like, but I like the 90/10 rule for whole foods/junk food.
So.. WHY flexible dieting? Why not paleo? Or Atkins, whole 30, or keto? The problem with paleo, Atkins, whole 30, keto, and other big name diets of the like is restriction. Numerous time I've seen people go on these diets expecting to lose a lot of weight... some do, some don't. I see most of these people right after their time dieting go right back to the things **sometimes in larger quantities** they were restricted from. This not only causes them to bounce back to right where they were before their diet, but it disrupts a healthy relationship with food.
Flexible dieting allows the flexibility to eat things of all variety without restriction. You don't have to give up gluten, sugar, dairy, etc. like other diets. Flexible dieting has grown so much in the past 1-2 years and there are a plethora of tools online for recipes creating "macro-friendlier" versions of foods that are more calorically dense.
Flexible dieting, in my opinion, is the most efficient way to meet your goals especially if one of those goals is fat/weight loss. Having the ability to know and control every gram of f/c/p that goes into your body allows room for consistency. The most important way to get results is by being consistent!
Of course there's always extremes such as being so rigid with counting macros that it's becoming a crutch instead of a helpful tool. You can determine your own level of inelasticity based on your lifestyle. Competitive athletes (especially in a weight class) are going to want to be more consistent day to day and a little more rigid than a mom of 3 that does CrossFit just to stay healthy to take care of her children.
In any circumstance or lifestyle, flexible dieting can breed results. It works for anyone at any age. All it takes is a goal, some discipline, a food scale, and an app like MyFitnessPal. Simple as that, right? ;-)
