We’re ashamed to admit that we’ve truly been round the block with dietary fads, jumping on bandwagons and falling for bogus supplement marketing in the past.
The video below shows weekly progress photos taken over 5 years, trying out different complex approaches and eventually settling on the cold, hard realisation that it’s just about calories and progressive overload.
The idea of a silver bullet approach was only a fantasy, easily perpetuated by snake-oil salesmen and the punters who want to believe it’s true.
The video features all of our dear friends: dirty bulking, clean bulking, super low-fat, super-low carb, alternate day fasting, carb-backloading, carb front-loading, and putting cheesecake in a blender.
Did any of these approaches work? Sure. But only in so far as they created a calorie surplus or deficit.
What was the best approach?
The best approach was what we like to call IIFYL: If It Fits Your Lifestyle:
Picking a goal, selecting the appropriate calories and training program to reach it, and not getting bogged down in the intricacies of meal timing, the magic macros, food ‘quality’ (clean vs dirty), amino pulsing, creatine loading, insulin spiking, GLUT4, etc.
The extra details only served to make life more inconvenient and complicated, constantly second guessing. That’s where the true value of a coach lies, to provide the objectivity and accountability to get you to your goal efficiently and effortlessly.