Nerd Stuff/FAQ

Originally designed for morbidly obese patients to qualify for surgery. Extremely low calories and carbs force weight loss but spare muscle by keeping protein. About 1000-1200 calories of pure essentials. These are essentially the core foods.

You can do intermittent fasting or not when you eat core foods. The main benefit is logistics. Less time eating means less time to overeat. Not eating a meal is easier than eating an unsatisfyingly small meal. I don’t recommend women immediately do this because a subset potentially get cortisol/hormone issues with it.

The core foods approach is not a low carb or ketogenic diet. But part of the day it is. The benefit you get is very smooth focus and energy levels as well as appetite suppression. That’s because your insulin sensitivity improves.

Every good nutrition strategy has one thing in common: high protein. It blunts appetite, spares muscle, and supports a bigger caloric deficit. 0.7g/lb bodyweight is sufficient for muscle building. Your core foods hit this mark regardless of what you eat after. You can eat even more protein if you want to have an even higher daily calorie deficit.

Counting calories rarely works beyond a few days. The calculations are inaccurate and people end up gaming the system to their own detriment. Hand measurements are sufficiently accurate at a fraction of the time and focus required.

Core foods fulfill the minimum optimal macronutrients in the smallest calorie package. That leaves a huge daily allotment to spend however you like. Dessert, normal dinner, whatever. Before it was "nail it all or fail it all." Now it’s "who cares."

Nobody likes to be told "no." All or nothing style eating is on a short clock. They inevitably start to conflict with other values and priorities. Eventually you start feeling it’s either be fat or abandon your values. That failure breeds negative self-talk and a downward spiral.

In contrast, if you impose the least restriction possible, you build confidence and authority over your life. When people feel that way, they naturally enjoy making healthier eating choices.

Yes. Vitamin D in higher doses is the only thing close to a magic pill. I take 4000iu daily with fats and vitamin K. If you're deficient the effects are dramatic: better mood, recovery, energy, sleep, immunity. Creatine monohydrate 5g per day is an absolute home run for more reps and better results. Fish oil is great for joints and general health but nothing physique changing. I'm not a doctor. Look up the research and make the call.

Weekends might break the timing rules. That's fine. Just make sure you eat all your core foods that day and try to keep it to one non core foods meal. If you can't make that work, it's not the end of the world. But always eat your core foods no matter what.

You need them to perform well but they aren't core foods. If your energy is consistently poor you probably aren't eating enough carbs. Add healthy carb servings after work using cupped handfuls as the portion. Rice, fruit, whole grains, potato, etc.

Not as useful as it is inconvenient. You give up a ton of fat loss and life convenience to get a tiny boost in potential muscle growth.

Save recipes for your "whatever you want" time. The whole point is to be "all or nothing." So it's either a great recipe with whatever you want, or zero time and effort during core foods. Plain, steamed, seasoned, whatever. Don't add a ton of calories with sauces. My favourite prep: whenever you're cooking dinner, throw some protein in a pyrex dish with premade seasoning and bake it alongside. Zero minute prep.

This is an honest and legitimate worry. Give it a try first, you might be surprised. If it's still a problem, add more mandatory foods into your core foods. If that still doesn't work, the solution may lie outside health and fitness. Seek some help and focus on patterns that trigger the urge. They are often hardwired emotional reactions that can improve with practice and awareness. You are not a broken person.

1-2 hours of sleep deficit makes you about 1 meal hungrier every day. Get your sleep back to 8 hours first. If that still doesn't work, add a 5th protein serving after dinner. Eating more of the right foods means less of the wrong ones which could be 2-3x the calories. One last trick: brush your teeth after your last meal. Only needs to stop you a few times a week to work magic.

You're going too hard on restriction. Core foods are the minimum, not the maximum. You still need dinner. You probably need more carbs. Add carb servings after work. As you get stronger and build more muscle, your body will demand more fuel. That's a good thing. Feed it.

I don't have a solution that won't involve much more strict eating. Out of probably 1000 people in my career, I can count on one hand the vegans who weren't overfat or undermuscled. All of them did many hours of weekly exercise and were much more restrictive with food choices. Vegetarian has less of an issue. If you don't have personal reasons for it, I'd advise against it.

Calories and macros are the ultimate decider of weight. But counting them daily doesn't work in practice. The fail rate is astronomical and everyone ends up gaming the system instead of eating the right stuff. You can count your core food macros initially to make sure your choices are adequate, but that's about it.

Breaking into new levels always requires suspending previous beliefs. Those beliefs are often untrue, just etched deep by old emotional experiences. You'll need to make leaps of faith. Knowing what to do is not enough, you need to accumulate positive experiences actually doing it. Try it and see what happens.