'Healthy Foods' - Are They Preventing You From Becoming Shredded?

‘Healthy Foods’ – Are They Preventing You From Becoming Shredded?

'Healthy eating starts tomorrow' is a sentence I hear quite often, usually from people who have maybe over indulged a little throughout the winter months and are maybe wanting to lose that little bit of excess body fat ready for summer shred time! But what exactly defines healthy eating?

People often define healthy eating as eating whole, unprocessed foods... in any amounts. You'll see gym monkeys eating out of their tupperware, filled with foods such as; chicken fried in olive oil, almonds, rice and their salad drizzled with olive oil, bearing in mind not a single macro has been accounted for. Now before I continue there is nothing wrong with these foods. I myself eat at least three of these foods on a daily basis to hit my macros. Where the problem lies is that people are confused and stuck in a rut, a rut I was stuck in for almost 4 years.

Before I started flexible dieting and tracking my macros, I was stuck in the mind-set that if I ate ‘clean’, healthy foods in any amount I would reach my body composition goal, which is to get as lean as can be. I was frying my chicken in copious amounts of olive oil, drizzling my salads with olive oil, eating peanut butter out of a jar as if there were no tomorrow and eating nuts for fun. I was frustrated and confused. Why wasn’t my body composition changing? ‘Where are my abs?’ I kept asking myself. Once I started tracking my macros I realised where I was going wrong…the calories I was consuming from these foods was the reason I wasn’t shredded. Below are photos, photos which will hopefully give you a better insight and maybe a shock as to how many calories are hidden in these foods.

Here’s olive oil in a pan. On the left is how much an average person would pour in before frying. Precisely 22ml. On the right is 5ml of olive oil.

                                           Macros on the left (22ml):   Macros on the right (5ml):                       

                                           Kcal: 180                           Kcal: 41

                                           Fat: 20.1g                           Fat: 4.6g

                                           Carbs: 0g                            Carbs: 0g

                                           Protein 0                             Protein: 0g

20g of fat just to fry some chicken? These days, I don’t even use oils as I’d rather use my fat macros on other foods. Again, there’s nothing wrong with olive oil, just take care as to how much you’re actually consuming.

Here are some cashew nuts. I love nuts. But this will seriously astonish you.

At the top is what people tend to define as a small handful. It’s actually 28g. Bottom left is what that handful looks like in a bowl, again 28g. Bottom right, is how much the average person would consume as a snack. Here are the macros. Are you ready for this?

Macros in the handful and bottom left bowl (28g): Macros in the average person’s snack serving size(103g):

Kcal: 165                                                             Kcal: 606

Fat: 13.5g                                                             Fat: 49.5g

Carbs: 14.7g                                                        Carbs: 17.2g

Protein: 5.9    g                                                      Protein: 21.5g

Astonishing isn’t it? Again, there’s nothing wrong with nuts. But the next time you pick up your healthy snack of nuts during your lunch break, just remember to be sensible and track them damn macros.

Finally, peanut butter. My weak point! On the left is your average tablespoon guide (20g approx.) On the right is how much the average person would consume.

                                            Macros on the left:           Macros on the right:

                                            Kcal: 125                        Kcal: 280

                                            Fat: 10.6g                        Fat: 23.8g

                                            Carbs: 2.1g                     Carbs: 4.6g

                                            Protein: 4.6g                    Protein: 10.4g

Again, just by having that little bit extra on the spoon can add an extra 155 calories!

Now this post isn't claiming that healthy foods are bad for you in one bit! What I'm trying to get to here is that the foods we eat are extremely calorie dense. We all know that to become shredded we need to be in a caloric deficit and that’s why it’s vital that we track our food intake, which results in a caloric deficit which over time will make us shredded! 

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Remember, be flexible.