Flexible dieting is a popular nutrition approach in the health and fitness community, but what exactly is a “flexible diet”? Here is everything you need to know about flexible dieting, what it is, the pros and cons, and how to use it to support a performance, weight loss, or body composition goal.
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What is Flexible Dieting?
Flexible dieting is a dietary approach that allows you to meet your calorie and macronutrient needs while eating the foods you enjoy.
Unlike most diets, flexible dieting does not restrict certain foods or food groups, and does not label foods as “good” or “bad”. Instead, it focuses on monitoring your macronutrient intake, also known as “counting macros“, to reach your health goal, be it to lose weight, gain weight, improve performance, improve body composition, or other.
To use an analogy, flexible dieting treats your food intake like a budget. How much money you can spend depends on how much money you earn and how you spend your money can impact your financial health. The more money you earn, the more money you have to spend, but it’s important to ensure you are paying all of your bills before you treat yourself to holidays, new clothes, or fancy cars. Moreover, if you want to save money, you will need to factor that into your expenses and overall spending.
Like a financial budget, flexible dieting provides a budget for calories and macros. The objective is to stay within your budget and use your budget to support your body’s basic needs and overall health, by making nutrient-dense food choices, before you treat yourself to empty calories.
While there is room for everything in a flexible diet – healthy food and “junk food” – it’s best to use most of your calories on healthy food choices to ensure you are consuming adequate protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, and micronutrients to support your goals AND your overall health.
The flexible dieting approach was popularized by the If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYIM) approach, where one could eat anything as long as they hit their macros, however, it has evolved to have a more holistic approach that encourages consuming primarily nutrient-dense foods to support macronutrient and micronutrient intake.
Benefits of Flexible Dieting
Here is a list of the some of pros of flexible dieting.
Easy to follow.
Although it does require tracking, a flexible diet is easy to follow because there are so few rules, no “off-limit foods”, or complicated meal plans to adhere to. You can make food choices based on personal preference, track them, and get on with your day.
Provides more freedom.
While most diets require specific food restrictions, flexible dieting allows for a lot of food freedom as it allows the dieter to eat anything they want as long as they hit their calorie and macro targets. In doing so, flexible dieting can help to promote a healthy relationship with food by demonstrating that all foods can be included in a healthy diet, even if your goal is to lose weight, which has been shown help to prevent binge eating (1).
Focuses on macronutrients.
Unlike other diets, especially weight loss diets, flexible dieting focuses on calorie intake and macronutrient intake. While calories are king for weight loss, macronutrients play a vital role in energy levels, satiety, digestion, body composition, and overall health (2, 3, 4). For example, consuming adequate carbohydrates is essential for performance goals, adequate fiber is essential for gut health, and adequate protein is essential for building and maintaining muscle mass and promoting satiety.
Can be very educational.
If you’ve never tracked your food, it can be a very educational and enlightening experience. Not only can you learn more about the calorie content and macronutrient breakdown of your food choices, but you can learn more about portion sizes, how much to eat for your personal goals, and how the food you eat makes you feel. The sheer act of tracking foods and portions creates a level of awareness that can help create healthy eating habits you can maintain for the long term.
Promotes sustainability.
The number one reason diets fail is because they are unrealistic for the long term. Research has repeatedly shown that any diet that restricts calories will support weight loss, however, research has shown that people who follow diets with greater flexibility have greater long-term success. (5, 6) While many diets are easy to follow for a couple of weeks or months, they often overly restrict foods or specific food groups, which makes them difficult and unpleasant to stick to over time. Fortunately, the flexible dieting approach begins with an “all foods fit” mentality, which tends to increase overall adherence.
Drawbacks Flexible Dieting
Here is a list of some of the cons of flexible dieting.
Does not ensure food quality.
While flexible dieting emphasizes macronutrients, it does not emphasize micronutrients. For this reason, dieters can hit their macro targets without choosing high-quality protein, healthy fats, and fiber-rich carbohydrates. While healthy food choices are encouraged, they are ultimately left to the dieter to decide.
Requires consistent effort.
Tracking, weighing, and measuring foods can be very time-consuming, especially if you are new to it. To accurately track macros and caloric intake, you must weigh or measure everything you eat and drink. While using apps can help to make this easier, and even be enjoyable for analytical people, it can feel anything but flexible for some.
Requires nutrition knowledge.
Although the process of flexible dieting can be educational, it also requires a basic level of nutrition knowledge. Unlike other diets with black-and-white rules, flexible dieting requires a basic understanding of calories, macronutrients, and portion sizes, as well as how to adapt your calorie needs and macro targets as you progress or if your goal changes.
May promote unhealthy habits.
Flexible dieting can be slippery for some people. If you’ve ever struggled with disordered eating, the level of attention to food and tracking required in a flexible diet may be a trigger. While not encouraged, intense food restriction has been linked to eating disorders including anorexia nervosa, bulimia nervosa, and binge eating disorder, which can all lead to major health problems (7, 8).
How To Create a Flexible Dieting Plan
Here are the steps to create a personalized flexible diet plan.
1. Calculate Your Calorie Needs.
The first step for creating a flexible dieting plan is to determine your total daily calorie needs. Your total daily energy expenditure (TDEE) is the estimated total number of calories your body expends per day and takes into account your resting energy expenditure (REE) and non-resting energy expenditure (NREE) (9).
Your REE is the number of calories you burn at rest and is also known as your basal metabolic rate (BMR). Your NREE is the number of calories you burn digesting food, performing basic daily activities, exercising, and is made up of the energy expended by the body’s thermic effect of food (TEF), non-exercise activity thermogenesis (NEAT), and exercise activity thermogenesis (EAT). Your REE and NREE collectively make up your metabolism.
Exactly how many calories you need depends on your age, height, weight, sex, activity level, and goals, for example:
- To support general health and/or maintain weight, you need to eat enough calories to meet your TDEE.
- To lose weight and/or lose body fat, you need to eat fewer calories than your TDEE to create a calorie deficit.
- To gain weight and/or build muscle, you need to eat more calories than your TDEE to create a calorie surplus.
You can calculate your TDEE by using the Mifflin-St Jeor equation or by using an online calorie calculator, such as tdeecalculator.net. It’s important to note that this calorie calculation is an estimate and may need to be increased or decreased based on results and real-time feedback. For example, if you have a goal of weight loss and have been tracking consistently for several weeks but are not losing weight, you can decrease your calorie target to increase the size of your calorie deficit.
3. Calculate Your Macros.
Once you’ve calculated your calorie needs for your goal, the next step is to determine your macro breakdown.
Calories are made up of macronutrients, protein, carbohydrates, and fat. When we consume food and drinks we are consuming macronutrients and the macronutrient composition of your food and drinks determines their calorie content. Each macronutrient we consume provides a certain number of calories:
- Protein = 4 calories per gram
- Carbohydrates = 4 calories per gram
- Fat = 9 calories per gram
While the most optimal macronutrient balance depends on your goals, on average, the recommended macro breakdown range as follows (10, 11):
- Carbohydrates: 45-65% of total daily calories
- Fats: 20-35% of total daily calories
- Proteins: 10-35% of total daily calories
3. Track Your Food.
Once you’ve determined your total daily calorie needs and the best macronutrient breakdown to reach your goals, you can start tracking your food. There are many ways to track your food, but the most popular method is to use one of the many food-tracking apps on the market, such as MyFitnessPal, My Macros, or Carbon Diet.
To accurately track food, you will need to weigh and/or measure all of the foods you eat, track them in your chosen app, and meet your daily calorie and macro targets.
How Flexible Dieting Works for Different Goals
Unlike many other diet approaches, flexible dieting can support nutrition goals beyond weight loss. Calorie and macro targets can be adjusted to support everything from marathon training to pregnancy to general health.
Depending on the person’s specific goal, calorie intake can be increased or decreased and macro targets can be adjusted to provide more or less protein, carbohydrates, and fat to ensure the individual is consuming the most optimal ratios for their personal goal. For example:
- To support weight loss, the calorie target can be decreased to create a calorie deficit, and the protein target increased to ensure lean muscle mass is maintained.
- To support endurance training, the calorie target can be increased to meet energy expenditure, and the fat and carbohydrate targets can be increased on training days to optimize workouts.
- To support muscle-building, the calorie target can be increased to create a calorie surplus, and the carbohydrate and protein targets can be increased to support muscle gain.
- To support general health, the calorie target can be designed to meet daily energy expenditure, and the macro targets can be divided in a balanced manner that suits personal preference while maintaining ranges that support optimal health.
Tips for Flexible Dieting
Prioritize whole foods. Aim to consume 80-90% of your calories from high-quality foods, such as fruits, vegetables, nuts, seeds, whole grains, beans, lentils, dairy products, meat, poultry, and seafood. This will help to ensure you are prioritizing micronutrient intake while meeting your calorie and macronutrient targets. Be sure to read food labels and refer to the ingredients list to ensure you are focusing on minimally processed foods.
Focus on protein. If you find hitting your macro targets difficult, at least, focus on your protein intake. Protein is the most satiating macronutrient and will help to make you feel fuller and more satisfied, especially if you are in a calorie deficit. Look for ways to increase your protein intake at meals so you never miss your protein target.
Track your fiber. While fiber is not one of the primary macronutrients, tracking your fiber intake is highly beneficial for overall health, gut health, and satiety signals. Include high-fiber foods, such as beans, lentils, fruits, and vegetables, to ensure you are consuming adequate fiber within your calorie and macro targets.
Plan ahead. Planning your meals in your app the day before or in the morning can help reduce stress around decision-making and make hitting your targets much easier. If you wait until the end of the day to log your food, you may be left with a less-than-ideal number of calories and balance of macros to make a meal. If you know you’ll be visiting a restaurant, look up the menu beforehand, log your meal choice, and build your other meals for the day around it.
Treat yourself. The point of flexible dieting is to be flexible. While you want to prioritize healthy food choices overall, because there are no “off-limit” foods, you can (and should) enjoy your favorite foods. Once you’ve prioritized whole foods, enjoy the 10-20% of your remaining calories to eat the foods you love and celebrate life.
Don’t neglect activity. While flexible dieting is all about what you consume, don’t forget that how you spend your time is important. Whether you have a goal of weight loss or general health, you must prioritize daily physical activity in your life.
The Bottom Line
Flexible dieting is a diet approach that can be used to lose weight, gain weight, increase performance, or support general health. Flexible dieting involves tracking your food intake, by weighing and measuring your food and drinks, to ensure you are eating to a calorie target and macro targets. By determining your total daily energy expenditure, you can determine how many calories you need to eat and the optimal macronutrient balance of protein, carbohydrates, and fat to reach your health goals.
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