t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
Sick of the gimmicks? Sick of restrictive diets you
can’t stick to? Sick of the lack of results?
You’re not alone. The $60 billion diet industry (United States) is flooded with fads
and quick fixes that don’t work! You know this because you’ve tried too many.
It’s time for a realistic diet. A diet free of restrictive and overbearing rules. A diet
that works with busy lives and can withstand hectic family schedules, holidays,
and even travel (<gasp!>). A diet that finally gets you the weight, health, and
fitness results you’ve been working so hard for.
You are in the right place (finally!). This will be your antidote to all the dieting
nonsense that has gotten you nowhere.
Welcome to the #800gChallenge .
®
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
Disclaimer
This information is being provided to you for educational and informational
purposes only. It is to educate you about general nutrition practices and as
a self-help tool for your own use. It is not meant to substitute for the advice
provided by a medical professional.
You should not use the information contained herein for diagnosing or treating
a health problem or disease. This information is to be used at your own risk
based on your own judgment. For the full disclaimer, go here.
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
Copyright © 2022 OptimizeMe Nutrition LLC
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form
without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright
law. For permissions contact: info@optimizemenutrition.com.
ABOUT EC
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
Welcome Aboard!
Eva Claire (“EC”) Synkowski is the founder of OptimizeMe Nutrition which delivers
educational nutrition content without the dogma and gimmicks that saturate the
current market.
She holds a BS in biochemical engineering, and two MS degrees (one in Nutrition and
Functional Medicine), is a Certified Nutrition Specialist® and is a Licensed-Dietician
Nutritionist (in Maryland). She founded the #800gChallenge® in 2018 which has
given tens of thousands of individuals a simple and effective approach to nutrition.
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
TABLE OF CONTENTS
THE INTRO
1
1. WELCOME
2
2. HOW THIS BOOK IS ORGANIZED
5
THE ESSENTIALS
3. WHAT’S THE #800gCHALLENGE®?
7
8
4. THE WHY
10
5. ONE NUMBER FOR EVERYONE
13
The magic of an imperfect number
16
“This is too much food” (and scaling)
17
More is not always better
17
6. GROUND RULES AND HOW-TO
19
What am I weighing?
19
Do I need a food scale?
22
How to track grams
24
Does this count?
25
Recipes
32
Restaurants
34
Why grains and nuts are a “no”
36
But potatoes, beans, and corn aren’t “vegetables”
36
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7. THE "MAGIC” OF THE #800gCHALLENGE®
38
The modern food environment
39
Top sources of calories in the US diet
40
What happens with processing
42
Caloric density (volume vs. calories)
42
Dried fruit, veggie chips, and other products that don’t count
46
8. EXPECTATIONS
48
9. GET PREPPED
50
Buy your fruits and vegetables!
50
Prep your grams
51
Buy a kitchen scale
52
Pick a metric to track
52
Plan your meals
53
Ok, but what about meal plans?
55
10. ON THE GO AND EATING OUT
66
11. CONSISTENTLY GOOD > INCONSISTENTLY PERFECT
70
THE details
12. PITFALLS
72
73
Eating all watermelon
73
Cramming grams in before bedtime
75
Avoiding leafy greens because they are light
76
13. THE BEST FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
77
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14. THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
80
The good: weight loss, improved health, fitness, and mindset
80
The bad: potential for weight gain
83
Weight fluctuations and expectations
86
The ugly: gastrointestinal distress (bloating, gas, diarrhea, oh my!)
88
15. UNDERSTANDING CARBS AND SUGAR
92
Carbs on the #800gChallenge®
96
Moving onto fruit…
97
The reality check on fruit
99
Added sugar, natural sugar, and high fructose corn syrup
99
What about the glycemic index?
101
But I thought carbs aren’t essential?
104
16. SHOULD I GO PLANT BASED?
105
17. WHAT ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS?
108
What about supplements as insurance?
110
Supplements don’t solve a major problem
111
18. THE MYTHS OF MOTIVATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
113
19. WHAT ABOUT KIDS?
115
what's next?
20. WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
Become an #800gChallenge® Coach
REFERENCES
118
119
120
122
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THE INTRO
#1
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Welcome
Do you want to increase the likelihood you will FAIL your next diet?
Here are the ways to do it:
•
•
•
•
Eliminate foods you love.
Try to follow rules restricting what time you are allowed you eat.
Force yourself to eat a short-list of “ideal” foods.
Attempt to make too many diet changes too quickly.
Adhering to one or more of these is a great way to ensure your new diet will last for only a few
days before going back to your old ways (with those old results).
Yet, many diets have at least one of these characteristics.
“Never eat sugar.”
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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“Don’t eat after 4 P.M.”
“Always eat at least two cups of kale every day.”
“Use this 27-point checklist to track every aspect of your diet and lifestyle each day.”
While some people thrive with hyper-specific rules, these approaches are too stringent and
controlling for most. It seems like most diets were not written by people who have ever had to
make a family dinner, had an airport layover for eight hours, or ever actually enjoyed a holiday.
A diet needs to be able to withstand these life realities if it’s going to be meaningful in the long
term. Because it turns out that when people lose weight or improve their health or fitness, they
want to maintain it. It’s these “lose 10 pounds in four weeks” diets that are setting you up for
failure for the time period we actually care about (read: forever).
We need to stop thinking about some theoretical – and also unnecessary – period of “diet
perfection” and adopt solutions that work in real life right now. A diet that you can start
tomorrow and practice indefinitely.
This book is for that.
This book is to help the 99% (that’s you!) implement a simple diet change that can result in
weight loss, improved health, and greater fitness.
Is it perfect? No. But it sets a foundation that is applicable for all, where additional precision can
be added if needed.
So, this is step one. And it’s a foundation that most everyone can agree on.
Fruits and vegetables are good for you!
Yes, that is the whole premise of this diet approach.
Something you already knew was true.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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Yet, the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) finds that over 80% of Americans aren’t
eating enough (USDA, 2020); chances are you are in that group.
While the media suggests you should focus on the “best” probiotic for gut health or the
collagen powder that best mixes in your coffee, most people are missing a foundational aspect
of their diet. Consistently eating more fruits and vegetables each day will have a bigger payoff
than any supplement or new “functional food” product ever will.
There are lots of reasons why we aren’t doing it, and this book will help you tackle the
biggest hole in your diet in a realistic and non-dogmatic way. It attempts to strike the balance
with enough of the why, how-to, and common missteps for you to hit the ground running –
tomorrow – with the most sensible diet you’ll ever do.
Welcome to the #800gChallenge®.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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how this book is organized
You can spend less than an hour reading the essential half of this book and have a diet tool
that can serve you well for the rest of your life.
Seriously.
Part of the problem in the mainstream nutrition space is that nutrition has been made way too
complicated. And some of this book is simply to answer common questions people have about
this diet approach in light of other diets’ rules, trends, or buzzwords in the media. Some people
will find this very interesting!
Others just want something simple to get started.
This is why the book has been divided into two main sections: The Essentials and The Details.
The Essentials are just that: the premise and ground rules of the #800gChallenge®. You should
be able to read this in less than an hour and have enough guidance to live it… forever.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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The Details are for those who love learning about nutrition and have lots of questions. You may
find yourself picking and choosing sections in this half. You may also find this half of the book is
more useful after you try the #800gChallenge® for a few days or weeks.
Throughout the book, there are also sidebars and call-out boxes to provide additional depth
on specific topics. The reader can self-select what interests them, but they are not “essential.”
Finally, everyone is encouraged to check out the “What’s Next?” section at the end of the book,
particularly when they feel like they’ve mastered the #800gChallenge®.
This organization is so that you do not get bogged down in the minutiae of topics like the
glycemic index and gut health if it doesn’t interest you. You don’t need to understand these finer
points to make radical – and meaningful – changes to your weight, health, and fitness.
Let’s begin!
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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THE
ESSENTIALS
#3
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WHAT’S THE #800gCHALLENGE ?
®
The #800gChallenge® is to eat 800 grams (g), by weight, of fruits and vegetables each day.
You pick the fruits and vegetables to eat to accumulate your 800 grams and then in addition
to those 800 grams, you continue to eat whatever else you want.
That’s right – you focus on adding fruits and vegetables to the diet and don’t have to take
away anything.
You’re waiting for the catch.
There is no catch!
Although calories still exist (and you’ll learn more about potential pitfalls in Section 12), you can
continue to eat your favorite foods on this plan. In fact, any food can be part of a healthy diet –
even for weight loss.
You probably want to know how much 800 grams is exactly before you commit.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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Eight-hundred grams is about six cups, and it fits on a standard dinner plate (Figure 1). The
point is to accumulate this amount throughout the day, however, not to try to eat all six cups at
dinner (though technically when you eat these grams is up to you)!
That is it.
Really!
Many of you have so many questions at this point. Like, why 800 grams? Or which fruits and
vegetables? Is the 800 grams cooked or fresh weight? What about avocado? Do beans
count?
The truth is, the #800gChallenge® IS really simple, but nutrition has been made so complicated,
we tend to overthink it. The next few sections will give you the basic ins and outs to get started
as soon as possible.
Figure 1a. The #800gChallenge® is about 6
cups (823 grams shown here).
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Figure 1b. The #800gChallenge® fits on a
standard dinner plate (810 grams shown here).
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the why
Hopefully one of your first questions is, why 800 grams? What’s so special about that number?
The idea began years ago when I was thinking about how we could measure quality in the
diet. In other words, when people say they eat “clean,” what does that really mean? It’s pretty
subjective from individual to individual. Is there a way we could measure it?
I had already begun playing with a couple of different ideas – like measuring total daily
potassium (since fruits and vegetables are high in potassium) – when I came across a thennew study in the summer of 2017.
It was a study looking at fruit and vegetable consumption relative to health outcomes. They
found the risk of cancer, stroke, cardiovascular disease, and all-cause mortality (death) risk
was reduced when people ate 800 grams of fruits and vegetables per day (Aune et al., 2017).
I immediately thought, “What if I try to eat 800 grams of fruits and vegetables each day, with
no other rules or restrictions, and see what happens?”
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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I tested the idea for six months to determine the nutritional value of it (calories, macronutrients,
micronutrients), and the rules for it as a diet approach (Is this actually doable? Do olives count?
What about beans?). What I realized was that it was a simple, daily standard that helped me
keep my diet quality high.
I could do it with travel, weekends, and even holidays with some thought. No single day was
that difficult, and when I looked back over the six months, my diet certainly had a higher
consistent volume of fruits and veggies.
So, the #800gChallenge® was born in January 2018 with now tens of thousands of people
using it daily.
Because the initial number and idea was sparked by a study, it is important to draw the
distinction between the “science” and the diet. It cannot be concluded people following the
#800gChallenge® can expect the health risk reductions projected by the study, nor can the
diet rules be interpreted as study findings (e.g., beans were not included in the study, yet I allow
them in the #800gChallenge®).1
The truth is the diet approach is valuable even if the science is wrong. It is a simple way
to get people to eat a healthy amount of fruits and vegetables without overbearing and
unnecessary rules and restrictions.
Now, as much as I love the #800gChallenge®, let me be very clear: I’m not the first person
to recommend eating fruits and vegetables, and more so, I’m not even the first person to set
standards on how much of them to eat each day.
So what’s so new about this #800gChallenge®? Generally, other standards are either too
cumbersome, too ambiguous, or too hyper-specific.
1
The authors Aune, D. et al and the International Journal of Epidemiology have no affiliation with and have
not endorsed or approved the #800gChallenge® diet and/or OptimizeMe Nutrition LLC or its products or
services.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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For example:
•
The USDA breaks fruits and vegetables into six different groups each with different
quantities to hit in a week. This means you a) have to know what group the food you
are about to eat fits in; b) what the recommended amount is for that group; and c) how
much else you’ve eaten in that group that week. With more than 80% of people not
eating enough fruits and vegetables (USDA, 2020), this system is too complex for people
to adopt it in busy lives.
•
Some other recommendations are around “serving” sizes, like eight servings of fruits
and vegetables a day. “Servings” are going to be too subjective unless a more precise
measurement is given. The result will be wildly variable in terms of volume across a
wide range of people.
•
There are other diets that list about 10 different fruits and vegetables to eat every day.
This works until you are stuck in an airport with bananas and apples only (and those are
great choices by the way).
We need something that provides enough
guidance to be nutritionally meaningful yet
with enough flexibility for people to still live
real lives.
And this is it.
It’s a single metric to hit daily without a ton
of rules on how to get there.
Eva Claire
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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#5
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one number for everyone
The 800-gram target is the same whether you are small, tall, younger, older, inactive,
or active.
Consider 800-grams to be a baseline, and larger or more active individuals will
routinely eat more. It is considered a fair baseline for three reasons:
1.
It’s a fraction of the calories adults need any given day.
2.
It’s a fraction of the food volume adults eat any given day.
3.
It’s a volume observed being consumed regularly in daily living.
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Let’s take a closer look at each of these lines of evidence.
1.
The total calories consumed on the #800gChallenge® vary based on the fruits and
veggies consumed, but on average, an #800gChallenge® is about 400-500 calories.
(You could skew it to 1,300 calories if you eat 800 grams of avocado only, for example,
but who is doing that?) Women and men eat a total of 2,000 and 2,500 calories a day
(average), respectively. That makes calories from the #800gChallenge® less than 25% of
daily needs for most people.
Figure 3 contains three sample plates representing an #800gChallenge® and their
caloric and macronutrient composition.
Figure 3a. In these 810 grams there are 316 calories, 71g carbohydrates, 21g fiber, 13g protein,
and 2g fat.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Figure 3b. In these 835 grams there are 297
calories, 69g carbohydrates, 16g fiber, 10g
protein, and 2g fat.
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Figure 3c. In these 811 grams there are 586
calories, 116g carbohydrates, 27g fiber, 20g
protein, and 9g fat. Notice this is substantially
higher in calories due to potatoes, beans, and
olives, which are relatively high for fruits and
vegetables in carbohydrates, protein, and fat,
respectively. However, 586 calories is still about
25% of total calories needed in a day with
these “outlier” items.
2.
People eat 3,000 grams of food by weight (average) each day (Pressman et al., 2017).
Eight-hundred of 3,000 grams is about 26% of total weight consumed.
We also know it’s a doable volume as evidenced by the fact that 800 grams of fruits
and vegetables fit on a single dinner plate. Yes, a full dinner plate, but a single dinner
plate nonetheless.
3.
Finally, remember that the 800-gram number originally came from the aforementioned
study, which was a meta-analysis (pooled study) looking at 95 studies (Aune et al., 2017).
That is a large cross-section of people! It wasn’t a number based on a single person’s
diet. We have thousands of real-life humans setting this number for us.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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The magic of an imperfect number
While 800 grams is the guideline for everyone, it is not a perfect number for everyone. Many
people will eat more, and it is also possible to eat less and still be quite healthy.
That is because the nutrients in the whole diet (such as how much protein, fat, magnesium,
selenium, iron, etc., which we aren’t addressing at this stage) are what determines whether
the diet is healthy or not. Imagine someone who eats 800 grams of fruits and vegetables
each day, and then continues to also eat a pizza, a pint of ice cream, and drink a six pack
of beer. Yes, they ate a lot of “good” food, but they also ate a lot of junk food. In fact, they are
worse off than if they ate 600 grams of fruits and vegetables without all the excess junk food.
A single value of fruits and vegetables representing a portion of the foods consumed cannot
guarantee the diet is healthy.
However, having a target number, even an imperfect one, is an underappreciated aspect of
the #800gChallenge®. If you just tell yourself you are going to eat “more” healthy tomorrow or
“
eat “less” junk food, how are you measuring that? How would you know if you are achieving
your goal? Measurement moves us from the subjective to the objective.
Measurement moves us from the subjective
to the objective.
The 800-gram target provides a measurable standard to hold ourselves accountable each
day, with clear rules of what counts and not. This is necessary so that we don’t try to convince
ourselves the sweet potato chips are “vegetables” in the name of the #800gChallenge®.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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“This is too much food” (and scaling)
The average consumption of fruits and vegetables in the United States (US) is about 2.6 cups
(Yeh et al., 2016), where the #800gChallenge® is about six cups. The World Health Organization
also states that many people are not even achieving 400 grams of fruits and vegetables per
day (Duthie et al., 2018). Based on these statistics alone, many people are going to feel like this is
a lot of food!
While you will learn more about the difference between fullness versus caloric intake later
(Section 7), it is important to recognize how far modern diets have moved from what is healthy.
What might feel like too many fruits and vegetables is likely more of a reflection of how few
fruits and vegetables you have been eating! Those who struggle the most are typically those
whose diets didn’t have many fruits and vegetables to begin with. The bigger the change from
your baseline, the harder the challenge will feel.
It is acceptable to reduce the target in the beginning and gradually scale up as you are
consistent with a lower number. It is better to target 400 grams every day and actually do
it, than to target 800 grams and give up after the second day due to frustration. Once 400
grams is a daily habit, push yourself to 500 or 600 grams, and then eventually to 800 grams.
More is not always better
If 800 grams is good, 1,000 grams must be better – right?
Not necessarily. As aforementioned, the whole diet and all the nutrients in it are what determine
whether a diet is healthy or not.
Because of the filling nature of fruits and vegetables (which is largely because they are full of
water) and their relatively low number of calories, it’s hard to do any harm calorically speaking
eating “more” fruits and vegetables.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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What is more likely, however, could be some
gastrointestinal (GI) distress like bloating and
diarrhea. This in part could be from a dramatic
increase in fiber (Section 14). When deciding if you
should eat more than 800 grams each day, try
to take a natural approach to it. If you’ve hit 800
grams for the day, and are still hungry and would
eat more, go for it! However, there is no need to
aggressively target a higher number under the
false assumption that “more is better.” Certainly look
out for GI distress if you keep pushing your grams
Want nutrition in
eight minutes?
Check out the
#800gChallenge
on the TEDx stage.
®
significantly past 800.
Figure 4. “An Elegant Diet” presented at TEDx
Boulder, CO, October 2019.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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ground rules and how-to
Ok! You understand the basic concepts of the what and the why. Now it’s time to dig into the
specific how-tos and food rules for implementation.
What am I weighing?
The #800gChallenge® is about eating a certain weight of fruits and vegetables.
Therefore, it’s only the portion that you eat which contributes to your daily 800-gram tally. You
do not get credit for peels, rinds, cores, etc., that are discarded.
For example, if eating an orange, you would peel the orange and place it peeled on a scale. As
shown in Figure 5, the weight is 158 grams. Those 158 grams go towards your 800 for the day
(wahoo! 642 grams to go!).
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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Figure 5. The portion you consume
goes towards your daily 800-gram
tally (shown here 158g of orange).
The 158 grams of orange are largely made up of water, but also the nutrients like grams of
Here
arecarbohydrates,
a few examples:
protein,
fat, fiber, and the micronutrients which are vitamins and minerals.
Those nutrients vary based on your fruit and vegetable choices, so precise estimates of
calories, macronutrients, or micronutrients you consume would have to be done on an
individual basis (but 800 grams typically averages no more than 500 calories with a mixed
amount of fruits and veggies).
You can weigh the item cooked, canned, frozen, or fresh with two caveats:
•
Canned items must be canned in water and spices only (not oil or sugar), and they
must be weighed drained (so that you do not get credit for water weight you drain off)
(Figure 6).
•
When eating roasted vegetables, weigh them cooked (other cooking methods do not
reduce the water weight as significantly as roasting).
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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Figure 6. Weigh canned items after
draining off the water. There is a
difference between the total canned
weight and drained weight (shown
here 455g versus 239g).
Here are a few examples:
1.
When weighing an apple, you would weigh the apple before eating it and then
you would also weigh the core before discarding it. It’s the difference between
the two that is the amount that goes towards your 800-gram total. This would
be a similar approach if you half a grapefruit and eat with a spoon.
2.
If you are making a salad for yourself, you could set a bowl on the scale, zero it,
then add everything to the bowl for a total weight of salad items.
3.
If you are using canned foods like beans in a recipe, the weight on the label
includes the water (Figure 6). You will need to weigh the total amount of beans
after draining off the water, and then divide by the number of servings you will
get from it.
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Do I need a food scale?
Ideally, yes, but it is not necessary.
It is encouraged that you do weigh and measure your items, at least for a period of time, as
weighing and measuring your food can provide some of the best education you can get
about your diet.
Some of what weighing and measuring your food at home can do is help you more
accurately “eyeball” (approximate) items when you are away from home. The intent of the
#800gChallenge® is to be really livable and bringing a scale on an airplane or out to dinner
is not what people do! With some legwork at home, you will be able to accurately estimate
portions on the fly.
That being said, if the idea of using a food scale
makes you say, “I’m out” – you can estimate your
#800gChallenge®.
As before, the #800gChallenge® is about six cups
of mixed fruits and vegetables. This means each
cup averages about 133 grams.
A closed adult fist is about one cup. Therefore, you
can eyeball the portions you eat relative to your
closed hand to estimate grams or cups. Six cups
(fists) a day is a fine enough accounting system
(Figure 7).
Once people learn this approximation system, many
people have requested a “cheat sheet” of gram
Figure 7. A closed adult fist is about the size of
one cup and can be used to estimate ~133g of
fruits or vegetables.
weights per cup (e.g., 1 cup of bell peppers is 105g,
1 cup of grapes is 154g), but this is missing the point.
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Across mixed fruit and veggie choices, they average to about 133 grams. So as long as you are
not using a scale, just use the simple hand-eye measurement of six fists a day and you will be
close enough.
There are two exceptions to be aware of:
•
Leafy greens: they count, but they are light! They are only 25 grams per packed cup (or
fist) (Figure 8). Even a full salad may only have 50 grams of greens. While it’s still “worth
it” to eat greens for all their nutrients, it often doesn’t add as many grams as other fruits
and veggies. This is why when you’re on the road, think about the #800gChallenge® as:
six cups plus as many leafy greens as you want.
•
Mashed vegetables (potatoes, yams): First, see the “Recipes” line item in the “Does this
count?” section below regarding “counting” mashed potatoes. However, mashed
vegetable items are approximately double the weight due to their condensed nature
(e.g., ~250g per cup) (Figure 8).
Figure 8a. A packed cup (fist) of leafy salad
greens is only ~25g.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Figure 8b. A cup (fist) of mashed vegetables is
~250g (shown here 248g of sweet potato).
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While perfectionists struggle with estimating, the magic of the #800gChallenge® doesn’t come
from hitting exactly 800 grams. It comes from eating “enough” fruits and vegetables that will
give you the vitamins and minerals you need, while also filling you up to prevent overeating too
many processed items. Six cups (fists) may end up being 750 grams some days or 920 grams
other days based on choices, but either way it will be “enough” to have an impact on the diet.
(This doesn’t mean you should try to target less than 800 grams. It just means the value doesn’t
precisely occur at 800 grams consumed.)
How to track grams
There is no need for an overly detailed and burdensome accounting system. You can keep a
running total of grams throughout the day on a simple Post-It note or in notes on your phone. If
you are counting fists, just use a tally system (Figure 9).
Figure 9. A simple tracking system can be used to
keep a running tally of grams consumed throughout each day.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
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The value of tracking is not so that we have a pristine record of food consumption to data
mine months from now. It’s to help stay accountable each day. This means you don’t even need
to write anything down, but most individuals will find they are more accountable when they
do some sort of tracking. For free tracking sheets, go here to download them.
Does this count?
Finally! The specific yes/no food rules.
First of all, do not overthink this! The #800gChallenge® is about eating fruits and vegetables as
fruits and vegetables, not as products made with fruits and vegetables.
You should be able to weigh the item as a standalone unprocessed fruit or vegetable. You
cannot take apart pre-made chicken potpie for veggies or apple pies for apples, for example.
Your best rule of thumb is: when in doubt, leave it out.
Nevertheless, the following list includes the verdict on some of the most frequently asked
questions about whether an item counts towards your 800-grams. Two things to remember:
1.
Plenty of fruits and vegetables like apples and broccoli are not on this list, simply
because everyone knows they count!
2.
If something doesn’t count, that does not mean you cannot eat it. It just means it
does not count towards your 800-gram total.
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The frequently asked items in alphabetical order…
Avocado: Counts.
Baby food/squeeze packs: If the ingredients are only fruits and vegetables, they count.
Products that include water, oil, sugar, juice, or pre-mixed with protein do not count.
Beans: Count.
Coconut: If you eat it as fresh meat, it counts. Milks, juices, or dried flakes do not count.
Corn: Corn on the cob or whole kernels, counts (remove cob weight). Corn derivatives (i.e.,
cornmeal, grits, popcorn) do not count.
Dried fruits & veggies: Do not count. Nothing dried counts.
Edamame: If not dried, it counts.
Fermented/pickled foods (e.g., kimchi, pickles): If the brine includes sugar, it does not count.
Otherwise, these foods count (weigh them drained).
Flours (e.g., chickpea flour): Does not count.
French fries: Commercially fried anything does not count.
Fried food: Commercially fried anything does not count.
Guacamole: If the entire ingredient list is vegetables, fruit, and/or spices, count it. Products that
include water, oil, juice, and/or sugar do not count.
Grains (e.g., quinoa, rice, buckwheat, etc.): Do not count.
Hummus: Store-bought variations pre-mixed with oil and other ingredients do not count. See
Recipes.
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Juices: NO juices count, homemade or not.
Legumes (beans): They count, except for peanuts which do not count.
Mashed potatoes: Pre-mixed with cream and butter do not count. See Recipes.
Nuts: Do not count.
Olives: Count.
Pasta/noodles: If it’s a pasta replacement you cannot make at home (like bean pasta or
noodles made from an isolated fiber), it does not count. If you slice zucchini or carrots to create
“noodles,” that counts.
Peas: Count.
Pickles: If the brine includes sugar, they do not count. Otherwise, they count (weigh them
drained).
Potatoes: Count, as long as they are not commercially fried. Be careful of frozen potato
wedges pre-seasoned with sugar as they do not count.
Recipes: If you make something from scratch with qualifying fruits and veggies, you can
count those grams. In a mixed dish like chili, for example, add together the total weight of all
the qualifying items, and then divide by the number of servings you get from the recipe (an
example appears later in this section). It is possible the servings might deviate slightly from the
calculated average, but it is not significant enough to matter in the long term. This also means
desserts made from scratch can count qualifying grams.
Salsa: If the entire ingredient list is vegetables, fruit, and/or spices, count it. Products that include
water, oil, juice, and/or sugar do not count.
Smoothies: Homemade smoothies that you can weigh the contributing items before blending,
and where you drink the fiber, count. Pre-mixed/store-bought smoothies do not count.
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Soups: Pre-mixed/store-bought soups do not count. See Recipes.
Tempura: Commercially fried anything does not count.
Tofu: Counts if it is only beans and spices (e.g., salt). If you use tofu primarily for protein, however,
it is encouraged to get your 800 grams from other sources.
Tomato sauce/diced tomatoes: If the entire ingredient list is vegetables and spices, count it.
Products that include water, oil, juice, and/or sugar do not count.
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Smoothies and juices
Drinking calories are generally not recommended as we tend to drink calories more
quickly than if we had to chew through that same amount. In a study looking at apple
consumption, eating 500 grams of apples took more than 17 minutes, where the
same amount of juice was consumed in 90 seconds (Haber et al., 1977)! When we drink
calories, there is less time for our brain to register that we are satisfied, and therefore
we consume more than we need. This is part of the reason why juice, homemade or
not, is not allowed on the #800gChallenge®.
Another reason, however, is that juice removes the pulp which is largely fiber as well
as some micronutrients. The fiber is good for gut health (Section 14), but it also helps us
feel full. The lack of pulp and fiber means that the juice doesn’t stay in the stomach as
long, and some of our satiety comes from having food sit in our stomach. While juice
is generally a better choice than soda (assuming we are talking about the no sugar
added variations), it is too dissimilar to whole fruits and vegetables to be included on
the #800gChallenge®.
Homemade smoothies, however, when whole fruits and vegetables are blended and
the person drinks the pulverized mixture, are allowed. In these cases, the individual
can weigh the qualifying items before making a smoothie. While calories in smoothies
can be consumed more quickly than eating the items whole, the pulp is left intact and
therefore they are more filling and nutritious than juice. Some individuals do not feel
as satisfied with smoothies, while others love the variety and flexibility they add to the
diet. Individuals can decide whether they want to use them as a strategy to reach
their 800 grams or not. Be wary of making smoothies that have too many grams,
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as you may think the #800gChallenge® “causes” bloating when in reality you just
downed a large amount of food rather quickly (Section 14 has more information on
bloating).
Conversely, store-bought smoothies are not allowed as they typically contain added
water, sugar, or juice, and you cannot determine the weight of the individual fruits or
vegetables in the item. In addition, store-bought variations tend to be very processed
such that their volume for the number of calories is very disproportionate to what
would have been prepared at home (let alone the added juice and/or sugar).
Figure 10 depicts the volume and calorie difference between a store-bought and
homemade smoothie. Overall, store-bought smoothies end up looking a lot like juice
nutritionally speaking; they are easy to over consume calories and are less filling.
Figure 10. Both smoothies contain 220
calories, but the homemade version is
almost double the volume (29 ounces (oz)
versus 15 oz).
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Weigh them roasted
For the #800gChallenge®, items can be weighed cooked, canned (drained), frozen,
or fresh. This is largely to remove many rules that bog down so many diet approaches,
particularly when the rules do not change the outcome significantly.
During cooking, water is lost and evaporates, but in steaming, sautéing, or cooking in a
stew, the loss is insignificant. Therefore, the difference in the weight of the item before
and after cooking isn’t significant enough to worry about. Roasting is the exception,
particularly when you roast until there is some caramelization. In this case, up to 50%
of the weight may be lost.
Much of the “magic” of the #800gChallenge® is that you are filling up on low-calorie
items. If you weigh your broccoli raw at 400 grams and it roasts down to 254 grams,
you will not be as full if you eat it roasted compared to raw (Figure 11). There is less total
volume filling your stomach. In this case, you should count 254 grams towards your
daily tally. You do not get credit for the 146 grams of water you did not eat.
Figure 11. Four hundred grams of broccoli reduced
to 254g after roasting due to water loss.
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Recipes
If you make something from scratch with qualifying fruits and veggies, you can count those
grams.
In a mixed dish like chili, for example, add together the total weight of all the qualifying items,
and then divide by the number of servings you get from the recipe.
For example, suppose your chili recipe has the following ingredient list:
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
1 tablespoon olive oil
1 medium yellow onion **800g
1 pound 90% lean ground beef
2 1/2 tablespoons chili powder
2 tablespoons ground cumin
2 tablespoons tomato paste
1 tablespoon garlic powder
1 1/2 teaspoons salt
1/2 teaspoon ground black pepper
1/4 teaspoon ground cayenne pepper*
1 1/2 cups beef broth
1 (15 oz) can diced tomatoes **800g
1 (16 oz) can red kidney beans, drained **800g
The items that qualify for the #800gChallenge® have been marked with **800g.
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During prep, you sum the weight of the onion, drained kidney beans, and diced tomatoes.
Suppose the total is about 700 grams. The recipe says there are six servings which means
there would be about 117 grams towards your #800gChallenge® in each serving. If you only
get four servings, divide the total weight by four.
Perfectionists struggle with this method because servings are not perfectly portioned.
Remember, this diet is not about perfect accounting; it’s about eating a healthy daily dose of
fruits and veggies! The small deviations in serving sizes are not significant enough to matter in
the long term.
This is also how you could handle making your own hummus or mashed potatoes. Weigh the
total chickpeas or potatoes in the recipe, for example, before the other ingredients are added,
and assign a certain number of grams per serving.
This also applies to homemade desserts like apple pie or zucchini bread. While you can’t take
apart a store-bought pastry for the grams, if you make an apple pie at home from scratch, you
can count the apples in the serving you eat. This is not meant to encourage individuals to eat
more pie in the name of the #800gChallenge® (calories still apply whether you count them or
not, see Section 14). It’s simply the recognition that homemade items aren’t usually as frequent
and pervasive in the diet. The labor of creating them usually precludes us from eating too
much from this source. And generally, the calories in homemade versions are often still less than
similar store-bought variations.
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Restaurants
The primary concern for a restaurant is to make the food taste good. This means that calories
are usually quite high (often by way of fat) relative to what you would prepare at home.
Restaurants have to make their meals better than the typical fare at home, or else why would
you go?
You need to be wary of items that appear to be healthy or fit the intent of #800gChallenge® –
but are actually not allowed or just poor options for your overall diet.
“Crispy” Brussels sprouts are a great example. Crispy is another way to say fried and nothing
commercially fried counts towards the #800gChallenge®. So, “crispy” Brussels sprouts do not
count towards your 800-gram tally.
“Are they really that bad?” you may wonder.
Yes, they can be in terms of calories.
The commercially prepared appetizer shown
in the picture contains 740 calories! The same
weight of Brussels sprouts air fried at home
(tossed in a little bit of olive oil) contains 150
calories (Figure 12). Don’t be afraid to ask your
server about the preparation style if something
seems too good to be true.
You will have to be discerning at restaurants and
remember the intent of the #800gChallenge®. It’s
Figure 12. The same weight of Brussels sprouts
(~220g) can have a dramatically different
number of calories based on preparation style
(shown here 740 calories versus 150 calories).
to eat fruit and vegetables as fruits and vegetables,
not ordering more Piña Coladas for the pineapple
wedge or turning a blind eye to fried vegetables.
This doesn’t mean you can’t have the items, but they
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certainly can’t count towards your daily tally.
It is also important to understand that even with
choices that qualify for the #800gChallenge®,
you may be sabotaging your diet goals. An
example is salads. Salads can contain a shocking
number of calories typically by way of the
dressing as well as the various toppings like nuts,
cheese, fried tortilla chips, etc. While this Chineseinspired salad with chicken does get you 331
grams towards the #800gChallenge®, it’s 910
calories to do so. The qualifying grams (lettuce,
cabbage, cucumbers, and mandarin wedges)
clock in at less than 100 calories. So, unlike the
Brussels sprouts, the salad grams count according
to the rules, but this is often too many overall
calories in a single dish for many people’s goals
(Figure 13).
Figure 13. This salad from a restaurant
contains approximately 300 grams for the
#800gChallenge®, however, the entire salad
(with dressing) contains 910 calories. The
majority of calories are due to the toppings
(fried crispy noodles, almonds, sesame seeds,
and dressing).
While the #800gChallenge® does not require you
to track your total calories, calories do matter for
weight, health, and fitness goals. Since salads are a
common way that people attempt to get more grams particularly when eating out, it is worth
it to point out how it can go wrong for people even with the best of intentions. Oftentimes a
baked potato (not French fries!) and a vegetable side may be the better #800gChallenge®
option – both in terms of how many grams you will get, as well as managing one’s caloric
intake. Many restaurants post their nutrition information online, so it can be worth looking at
your options before departing. Many individuals will do well keeping meals to a total of about
500-600 calories. More ideas when eating out are shown in Section 9 and Section 10.
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Why grains and nuts are a “no”
Like fruits and vegetables, grains and nuts are from plants. However, neither count towards
the #800gChallenge®. Grains like quinoa and rice are not included in the #800gChallenge®
because typically they contain a higher number of calories (by way of carbs) and fewer
micronutrients in a typical serving size compared to many fruits and vegetables. Nuts tend to
have a good amount of micronutrients but are relatively high in calories from fat. This is not
meant to scare one off from eating nuts and grains, they are great healthy additions to the
diet. However, the #800gChallenge® doesn’t set upward limits on consumption, which means
people could potentially overeat these items (and therefore sabotage their goals).
Truth be told, it is not a perfect system; potatoes look a lot like quinoa nutritionally speaking!
But across the whole food group, fruits and vegetables have more micronutrients and fewer
calories in 800 grams than grains or nuts.
Further, when creating diet rules, you have to think about how it can go wrong. People tend to
find the edges of rules. If grains and nuts were included, people would be eating 800 grams of
peanut butter sandwiches in the name of the #800gChallenge®. And while there are still some
“edges” to be found (Section 12), the “fruit and vegetable” classification has fewer loopholes.
But potatoes, beans, and corn aren’t “vegetables”
The terms of fruits, vegetables, and even grains are often used inaccurately. Botanically
speaking, potatoes are vegetables, beans are their own category, and corn is a fruit or a grain
depending on how it’s eaten.
But ultimately, none of this matters.
The “fruits and vegetables” allowed on the #800gChallenge® were meant to align with how
the terms fruits and vegetables are used in everyday conversation, as well as to group items
of similar caloric density. Like other classic “fruits and vegetables,” potatoes (so long as they
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are not commercially fried), beans, and corn (on the cob or frozen kernels) have relatively high
amounts of vitamins, minerals, and fiber relative to their number of calories per serving.
If you were looking for the basics to just get started, you now have it! These first four sections
should be enough to implement the #800gChallenge® in your own life.
The remaining “Essentials” sections provide additional rationale and more strategies for day-today implementation.
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THE “MAGIC” OF THE #800gCHALLENGE
®
Everyone “knows” fruits and vegetables are healthy, but why? What nutrients do we get from
them, and why are they better than other foods?
We need a myriad of nutrients to have optimal health and fitness. To simplify, we can think
about these nutrients as quantity or quality nutrients.
Quantity refers to how many macronutrients or calories are in our food. Macronutrients include
protein, carbohydrates, and fats, and when consumed, they have the potential to generate
energy that is measured in calories. Many people get confused between the distinction of
macronutrients and calories.
Here’s a brief synopsis:
We eat foods that contain: macronutrients, micronutrients (vitamins, minerals), fiber, water, and
other compounds. We don’t eat calories; we eat macronutrients that will become calories.
Calories simply represent the (chemical) energy in the molecular bonds of the macronutrients.
When used in the body, the release of that chemical energy can be transformed into say
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mechanical energy to cause movement of our body limbs or thermal energy for body
heat. You can’t have macronutrients without calories, and calories are only generated from
macronutrients. The discussion about “which is better” is moot because while they aren’t the
same thing at all, they are also inseparable.
Quality refers to micronutrients (vitamins like Vitamin A (there are 13) and minerals like
magnesium (there are 15)), fiber, and compounds also known as phytochemicals (like
resveratrol in red grapes).
We need to achieve the right total amount of quantity and quality from all the foods in our diet.
Eating a diet of largely whole unprocessed foods makes it relatively easy to do this, where
a diet of mostly processed foods tends to have too high quantity (particularly of carbs and
fat) and too low quality (not enough fiber, vitamins, and minerals). You can think about it as
a “mismatch” between quality and quantity, where whole unprocessed foods have a better
match.
The modern food environment
Our modern food environment is littered with processed food products.
Not food.
Processed products sold as food. It is referred to as the Western diet, also known as the
Standard American Diet, with the fitting acronym: SAD. This “SAD” diet includes excess
consumption of calories from refined carbohydrates (that are fat-laden) and lack many
nutrients found in fruits and vegetables.
And when you look at the prevalence and volume of processed food in our modern food
environment, it’s overwhelming. Try to take it all in the next time you are quite literally anywhere.
Grocery stores, convenience stores, gyms, clothing stores, home stores, department stores,
gas stations, shipping stores, auto body shops, airports, airplanes, offices, banks and any social
event all have processed goodies. Once you see the prevalence of this processed food, you
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cannot unsee it. Why is there the option to buy a candy bar or gummy candy when you go to
the store to buy a television or ship a package?
If fruit has too much sugar and potatoes have too many carbs (Section 15), where are they?
They certainly aren’t lining the aisle at checkouts, even at grocery stores.
We need to recognize that food is where it is because that is what sells. If we want to change
our food environment, we need to stop buying it! That is easier said than done, of course. Part
of the reason why we crave these foods is the dopamine response from the rush of calories.
This tells us to keep eating. From an evolutionary perspective, this was a good “feature.” We
didn’t always have food around and so when it provided a lot of calories, we wanted to
capitalize on its availability. The problem now, however, is that calorically processed food is
everywhere.
Top sources of calories in the US diet
On the next page is a list of the top 25 sources of calories in the US diet (USDA, 2010). The list
makes the problem clear.
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Top 25 Sources of Calories in the US Diet
1.
Grain-based desserts
13.
Reduced-fat milk
2.
Yeast breads
14.
Regular cheese
3.
Chicken including mixed dishes like
15.
Ready-to-eat cereal
fried chicken
4.
16.
Sausage, franks, bacon, and ribs
Soda/energy/sports drinks
5.
17.
Fried white potatoes
Pizza
6.
18.
Candy
Alcoholic beverages
7.
19.
Nuts & seeds including mixed dishes
Pasta & pasta dishes
8.
20.
Eggs including mixed dishes
Tortillas, burritos, tacos
9.
21.
Rice including mixed dishes
Beef and beef mixed dishes
10.
22.
Fruit drinks
Dairy desserts
11.
23.
Whole milk
Potato/corn/other chips
12.
24.
Quick breads
Burgers
25.
Cold cuts
People are not eating whole foods. They are eating processed foods that are very high in
calories from carbs and fat without many micronutrients. On average, these foods account for
75% of the calories eaten each day. No wonder more than 70% of the US population is either
overweight or obese when this is the foundation of most diets (CDC, 2022).
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What happens with processing
“Processing” is a term that means anything from virtually unadulterated (washing and
chopping) to the unrecognizable (carrots in cookies).
Instead of getting too rigid about a precise definition, it is most useful to think about “processed”
food as a preparation you could not make in a typical residential kitchen. In some cases,
this has also been called “ultra-processed” to represent the industrial products that no one
can create on their own. The point is, while blending spinach in a smoothie “processes” it, the
resulting product is not much different nutritionally from where it started. However, cookies
“made with carrots” certainly are very different from eating carrots.
Commercial processing tends to significantly change the quantity and quality of the food
in two ways. Almost always, some amount of water is removed (to make the product shelfstable or decrease shipping costs), and fat and/or sugar is added to make it more enticing to
consumers. (Blending spinach in a smoothie does neither.) Both decreasing water content and/
or adding calories increases the item’s caloric density.
Caloric density (volume vs. calories)
Caloric density refers to how many calories are in each gram weight of the food.
For example, 100 grams of bell peppers has 20 calories (0.2 calories per gram), whereas 100
grams of whole wheat bread has 247 calories (2.5 calories per gram). The bread has more
than 10 times the caloric density of peppers! Figure 14 shows the disparity in serving sizes when
you eat equal calories of these foods.
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Figure 14. The disparity in caloric density is
most apparent when you compare serving
sizes of equal calories. You would consume 70
calories by eating one slice of bread (28g) or
350g of peppers.
While it’s calculated per gram, you can think about caloric density as the number of calories
you get “per bite.” There is a pretty clear demarcation between whole fruits and vegetables
and processed foods. Processed foods typically have at least double (if not three, four, or five
times) the number of calories compared to fruits and vegetables (Table 1). When you look at it
on a per gram level, you see that most processed foods (even veggie chips and keto parmesan
crisps) are well over double the calories per gram of fruits and vegetables (including potatoes,
which many people shun for being "high carb"). Calculate the caloric density of your favorite
snack by dividing the calories per serving by the gram weight of that serving; prepare to be
shocked!
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Unprocessed Fruits & Vegetables (<1 cal/gram)
Processed Foods (> 2 cal/gram)
Asparagus
0.20
Ice Cream
2.52
Spinach
0.23
Fast Food Burger
2.57
Carrots
0.35
Brownies
3.00
Apple
0.52
French Fries
3.23
Grapes
0.69
Carrot Chips
3.50
Beans
0.84
Beet Chips
3.75
Yam
0.82
Veggie Straws
4.64
Potato
0.93
Parmesan Crisps
5.50
Table 1. The Caloric Density of Unprocessed Fruits & Vegetables Versus Processed Foods.
The irony is that processed foods that feel very light (crisps, crackers) are usually very
calorically dense. Why? Because the water weight has been removed.
The “magic” of the #800gChallenge® is that you feel full and satisfied without eating a ton
of calories. Fruits and vegetables are water heavy, not calorie heavy, and this is how you can
drive weight loss (Section 14).
This is a very confusing phenomenon for people because they typically associate fullness
with how much they ate (quantity). When you eat low calorically dense items, you will feel full
without eating that many calories. Conversely, when you eat high calorically dense items, you
will often be hungry despite a large number of calories consumed.
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In the picture, there are almost the same number
of calories (~390) for about 900 grams of
fruits and vegetables or 85 grams of a cookie
(Figure 15). This is a reason why people do not
understand why they are not losing weight on
their day-to-day diet. You do not have to eat
“that much” ice cream or chips (volume-wise) to
eat a lot of calories. You must remember: fullness
does not equate to calories consumed, and
calories consumed dictates weight.
Figure 15. A single cookie weighing 85g contains
slightly more calories (390 calories) than 877g of
fruits and vegetables (377 calories).
“
You must remember: fullness does not equate
to calories consumed, and calories consumed
dictates weight.
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Dried fruit, veggie chips, and other products that don’t count
Increased caloric density is characteristic of many fruit and vegetable products or derivatives
that do not count towards the #800gChallenge®.
Dried fruit, for example, has the water removed. This means you will eat more calories
(predominantly carbs) than you would if the water was there because you don’t get as full.
If you’ve ever bought a bag of dried mangoes, you likely understand this phenomenon! You
might end up eating the equivalent of eight mangoes before you realize you’ve had too much.
This doesn’t mean to fear dried fruit, it just means it can’t be regarded as “limitless” like the
natural fruit and vegetable variations.
Veggie chips, like dried fruit, have had the water weight removed, but the additional difference
is that they also have been fried in oil. Not only will you eat more carbs without the water
weight, but you will also eat more fat due to their preparation. Again, they can be part of a
healthy diet, but they certainly do not count towards the #800gChallenge®.
The food industry is continuously coming up with new products that include fruits and
vegetables in some way. This is a way they can market them as healthy without customers
really understanding the problem of caloric density. This is why no “food products” count
towards the #800gChallenge®. Besides all the rules in Section 6, remember: if it’s something
you couldn’t make in your own kitchen (e.g., bean pasta), it’s definitely a “no.” When in doubt,
leave it out! No one is unsure whether an apple or broccoli, for example, counts for the
#800gChallenge®.
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Control what you can control
People are always looking for “tips” and “hacks” to make nutrition easy. One of the
best hacks in the game is: keep your food environment clear of the calorically dense
processed foods we tend to overeat.
We don’t have control over our modern food environment, and it certainly isn’t
changing any time soon. The best you can do is to control what you can control:
your home environment. If you binge a food, don’t buy it. The point isn’t to get overly
restrictive about food; it’s ok to have ice cream, but perhaps you save it for a social
event. The point is to set yourself up for success. If you know you can’t open the pint of
ice cream without eating the entire pint, don’t buy it. That decision to say “no” is much
easier while standing in the aisle in the grocery store than it is standing in your kitchen.
Having a home environment that makes it easy to make good decisions helps you
build both the habit and belief you can do this.
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expectations
It is important to set realistic expectations in reaching our goals.
The nutrition industry is saturated with quick fixes that over-promise and under-deliver. This is
most obvious in the weight-loss industry where it’s become accepted that weight loss “should”
happen at a rate of 1-2 pounds a week.
That rate of weight loss is unrealistic for many.
Losing one pound a week requires a 500 calorie a day deficit, which is essentially a whole
“
meal for most people. Two pounds a week would be the equivalent of cutting out two meals
each day. No wonder people are too hungry on these diets to make it past day five! Weight
loss for most will be more sustainable around one-half pound a week.
Weight loss for most will be more sustainable around onehalf pound a week (not 1-2 pounds a week).
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This means that losing a few pounds in a month is quite a good clip! While Section 14 provides
much more detail about why and how weight loss may occur with the #800gChallenge®, the
point here is to be sure you don’t think this is a “quick fix.”
The #800gChallenge® is simple in concept and many have lost weight with it, but you cannot
expect to lose 10 pounds in a month. You are setting yourself up for disappointment. There may
be some people who do, but that is not the norm and should not be your expectation. They are
outliers.
Similarly, we can’t expect major improvements in health markers or fitness in a week or even a
month either. Think about it this way: how good would you be at your job or profession after a
month of training?
It’s the same with weight, health, and fitness improvements. When there are lots of months
strung together, we look and act like “professionals.” But when you are one month in, we aren’t
much better than beginners. Be ready to celebrate the small wins and before you know it,
you’ll have a big milestone to celebrate.
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GET PREPPED
Ok! So, you know the ground rules of what to eat and why… but you’re feeling like you need
more guidance. This section serves as a good checklist to hit the ground running.
Buy your fruits and vegetables!
That’s a pretty obvious one, but days go much better when you have options around versus
thinking you will “wing it'' and see what’s available. Especially if your days are on-the-go, fruits
and vegetables can be harder to find in larger quantities at many quick stop or fast casual
restaurants. You want to be prepared.
Prep a grocery list of the fruits and vegetables you like and make sure you have enough on
hand for several days. It’s impossible to provide a shopping planner for everyone as we eat
different serving sizes, different numbers of meals at home versus out, have different sized
families, etc. After a few weeks, you’ll have a much better sense of the actual volume you
(and your family) go though. For one person, 800 grams is 1.8 pounds a day or about 12
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pounds a week of produce. Remember, in many cases peels or rinds are discarded such that
you will often want to reduce the “net weight” seen on a label by at least one-third if you are
discarding peels, cores, etc. A pound bag (16 oz or 454g) yields about three typical servings of
fruits or vegetables. That’s before peels are discarded or items roasted, such that a pound in
those cases may only result in two servings.
Particularly in the beginning, buying a few extra bags of frozen fruits and vegetables is a
great strategy. If anything, people tend to underestimate the volume they will be eating,
and this can help make the first trip last a few extra days. Frozen mango chunks (easier than
peeling mangoes), frozen berries to add to yogurts or smoothies, and frozen green beans
or broccoli to help round out dinners are some great staples to pick up. Note: frozen items
mixed with seasonings (common for potatoes) or cheese and sauces do not count for the
#800gChallenge®. Also, review your planned recipes. Many main course recipes will not
yield a significant amount of veggies per serving, so you may have to scale up or buy some
additional sides.
Prep your grams
How many items have gone bad in the refrigerator simply because you were too lazy to wash
and chop them up?
Make it a habit to set aside time to prep your grams so you have ready-to-eat fruit and
vegetable snacks throughout the week. If it’s not right after you shop, set a standing
appointment on your calendar. There is no way to avoid this work, and the diet always goes
better when you are prepared (see the sidebar later in this section for some additional simple
prep strategies).
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Buy a kitchen scale
It is recommended you use a kitchen scale to determine how many grams you are eating each
day. Scales that are good for this challenge will have an approximate 6-inch square platform,
a digital display, and weigh in grams. Something like this one on Amazon (affiliate link)2 works
great, but any similar one at your closest big box store will work just as well.
If you are no longer interested in doing the #800gChallenge® because you have to use a
food scale, then just use the hand-eye measurement as outlined in Section 6. There is plenty of
benefit to be had from this approximation system.
Pick a metric to track
You were likely interested in trying this “800-gram-thing” because you are looking for some
outcome. Maybe that’s weight loss, maybe that’s an improved health marker, maybe you want
to have more energy with the kids (or grandkids), or maybe it’s because you want more pushups. Great! Pick a metric that is meaningful to you and track it.
While many people are interested in weight loss, and it’s a pretty easy one to measure, it can
also be frustrating due to natural water weight fluctuations and the slow progress of fat loss.
Weight loss expectations are discussed in greater detail in Section 8 and Section 14. For this
reason, you may also choose to use how a pair of jeans fit or use notches on a belt simply to
avoid seeing the small ups and downs on the scale that really aren’t indicative of true progress
or regression.
Whatever metric you chose, check in on it now before starting and then maybe check in every
couple of weeks. Significant progress usually takes much longer than we want, but it is good to
2
EC Synkowski d/b/a OptimizeMe Nutrition is a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program.
Amazon offers a small commission on products sold through their affiliate links. Each of your purchases via
the Amazon affiliate links supports her efforts at no additional cost to you. For the full disclaimer, go here.
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have a baseline to check in over weeks and months to see that all the tiny wins do add up to
significant changes.
And the metric should be measurable. “Feeling better” is great, but there are so many things
that affect how we feel, something like waist circumference or how many unbroken push-ups
you can do is a better measure of true progress.
Plan your meals
Until you are an #800gChallenge® expert, you are encouraged to plan your meals for the next
day. It’s nice to think, “oh, I just need to eat more fruits and vegetables,” but nutrition changes do
not happen spontaneously.
You need to think through “when,” “where,” and “what” in detail. Meaning:
1.
When (time of day) do you plan to eat?
2.
Where will you be (as this often affects choices)?
3.
What foods are you going to eat?
You need specifics. Again, “I’ll get something on the way to the office,” is not specific enough.
What store specifically and what foods will it be? “I will stop at the grocery store and pick up a
banana and an orange on my way to work at 8 A.M. and have them with my protein shake,” is
the type of plan that will actually work. And in fact, a research study has shown that this type
of planning helped people increase their fruit and veggie consumption (Domke et al., 2021).
Having a plan pays off in two ways.
The first is we simplify our day. One of the biggest pain points for people in nutrition is time.
Everyone is strapped for more time and when we are rushed (and hungry), we typically don’t
make the best nutrition decisions. A plan simplifies the day such that we just have to execute.
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This is one of the most common observations my clients make: “When I have a plan, the day
goes so well!”
Just like we can’t eradicate calories, we also can’t eradicate busy lives. Once we accept this,
we accept the reality that planning is often the path to success.
But the other less obvious benefit of having a plan is that when we follow through on it, it
builds self-efficacy. Self-efficacy refers to an individual's belief in his or her capacity to change
behaviors to produce an outcome, and it can predict who is going to be successful in a new
habit change like diet (Roordink et al., 2021). You must believe you can accomplish the task at
hand, and following a plan gives you the positive reinforcement you have that capacity.
A simple way to strategize consuming 800 grams is to have about 270 grams (two cups)
at each main meal: breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Then you just fill in the rest with other foods
of your choice (Figure 16). Do not try to backfill at dinner or crush an 800-gram smoothie for
breakfast. The most sustainable approach is to spread the grams out throughout the day,
making them the foundation of each meal. Pick the fruits or vegetables of your choice to equal
approximately two cups, and then fill out the meal to satiety.
Figure 16. A good way to plan your #800gChallenge® is: two cups of fruits or vegetables at each
main meal, then fill in the rest.
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Go here to download the meal planning template, along with other supplemental materials.
Don’t get overwhelmed with all the rules. At its core, the
#800gChallenge is all about eating more fruits and
vegetables – you got this!
®
Ok, but what about meal plans?
Meal plans can help give people ideas or even a jumping off point for diet changes, however,
there are two main drawbacks of them.
There are too many times you will have to eat in your life with logistical issues that do not fit
into a rigid plan. You’ll forget certain ingredients at the store; you are at a restaurant; you are
celebrating a holiday. The meal plan that suggests eating exactly XYZ recipe won’t work. You
have to learn how to “do” nutrition without a perfect plan or road map. As discussed above,
planning is great. It’s the rigid templates of “only eat this” that are not flexible enough for longterm use.
Secondly, what if you don’t like the items in the meals? We start with what you are currently
eating and simply find places to add in fruits and vegetables that you like. Then, as you
progress, you increase diversity and learn how to adapt recipes and orders to meet your
#800gChallenge® needs.
But for now, we start simple. We do not need to have a slew of new recipes each week; we just
need to grab a banana and an apple instead of the chips at lunch.
That being said, ideas are certainly helpful! Check out these breakfast, lunch, and dinner
favorites, each of which contains at least 270 qualifying grams (Figure 17). There are “time-
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crunch” ideas when short on time, “classic” ideas of typical fare, and “to-go” ideas from popular
chain restaurants. Then, you can use the meal planner available here to get started on your
own plan remembering to note when, where, and what.
Figure 17a. This time-crunch breakfast is a
protein bar, two string cheeses, a banana (123g
without the peel), and an apple (150g without
the core). Other fruits like oranges, peaches,
and grapefruits are just as convenient when in
a rush.
Figure 17b. This classic breakfast has cumin
and red pepper roasted sweet potatoes
(180g), avocado (110g without the peel), and
scrambled eggs.
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Figure 17c. This to-go breakfast is from a gasstation convenience store. The fresh fruit is
~270g and is paired with an egg and sausage
sandwich. If they don’t have pre-packaged
fruit, these locations often have bananas
(where two larger ones will get you ~270
grams).
Figure 17d. This time-crunch lunch consists
of plain Greek yogurt mixed with chocolate
protein powder, topped with mixed berries
(270g) and a dab of peanut butter.
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Figure 17e. This classic lunch of chicken salad
on lettuce cups with red cabbage is paired
with an apple (120g without the core) and
carrot sticks (130g). The lettuce and cabbage
add ~65g.
Figure 17f. This to-go lunch is the Greek
salad from a quick casual restaurant chain
topped with chicken. The salad contains ~250
qualifying grams for the #800gChallenge®
and opting for the apple as a side (instead of
bread) adds another 80 grams (without the
core).
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Figure 17g. This time-crunch dinner consists
of soybean noodle spaghetti with premade
pesto sauce topped with cherry tomatoes
(130g) and paired with roasted broccoli (140g).
Figure 17h. This classic dinner is grilled chicken,
homemade mashed potatoes (200g), and airfried Brussels sprouts (180g).
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Figure 17i. This to-go lunch is a burrito bowl
from a popular Mexican chain. It contains
chicken, rice, as well as black beans (~110g),
fajita veggies (75g), mild salsa (~110g), and
guacamole (~110g) totaling ~400 qualifying
grams.
And with that you should be ready to get started! There’s been a ton of information thrown at
you, but don’t get overwhelmed. At its core, this is all about eating more fruits and vegetables –
you got this!
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Simple prep strategies
When you talk to people who make nutrition look easy, you find out their strategies are
usually remarkably simple. One of them is almost always some level of prepping and
planning around food. When we try to “wing it” is usually when we don’t do very well.
Especially in the beginning, having washed and chopped options in the fridge is
crucial for being successful with the #800gChallenge®. If you can be disciplined
enough to do this step when you get in from the grocery store, you don’t need as
much discipline to stay on track during the week because you have easy options
prepared.
Depending on how busy and on-the-go your days are, you may find pre-portioning
typical servings in bags or jars a great way to make consuming and tracking grams
easy (Figure 18). Label the container with the number of grams to reduce that step as
you are heading out the door. This is also a great way to encourage others in your
house to eat healthy snacks and maybe even join you in the #800gChallenge®.
Figure 18. Pre-portioned single servings of fruits
and vegetables can be a great way to make consuming and tracking grams easy.
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Another way individuals have made the #800gChallenge® simple is to weigh out a
single container of 800 grams to use throughout the day for meals or snacks. You can
simply zero out the scale in the morning with an empty Tupperware and add all the
items to total 800 grams (Figure 19). Or maybe you know you’ll get at least 200 grams
at dinner, so you make a container of 600 grams to graze throughout the day.
Figure 19. A single container including a target
number of grams can be used as a snacking reservoir throughout the day.
Try to have some grams that are particularly satisfying during those afternoonbut-before-dinner hours. It is very easy to crush a couple hundred grams as you are
waiting for the meal to cook. This is much better than crushing chocolate, tortilla chips,
or other calorically dense goodies! Fruit in season like strawberries and pineapple are
often easy sells, and salsa on cucumber slices or wedges of bell peppers are a great
substitute for chips and salsa (Figure 20).
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Figure 20. Using cut-up vegetables (and can dip in
salsa) is a great pre-dinner snack to stave off hunger pangs and get some qualifying grams in.
Finally, if you make a large recipe of veggies in bulk, you can indicate the number of
servings or grams on a Post-It note on the lid. A label like 170g/cup on a batch of chili
can remove that weighing step when mealtime is busy (Figure 21).
Figure 21. Add a label to home-cooked recipes to
track grams easily.
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Diet rules versus reality
In a world of information overload, people crave simplicity. You don’t want to read a
physiology textbook to get results from nutrition (nor do you have to!).
But you do have to keep in mind that physiology is not simple. Physiology does not
work like a light switch; it’s more like a dimmer. For example, any food can be part of a
healthy diet, but how much of that food is what is up for debate. And that answer can
only be determined in the context of your whole diet (i.e., what else are you eating?)
and what are your goals (i.e., do you want to lose weight?). All too often people try
to identify singular aspects of a food (e.g., it’s high in magnesium) to be the deciding
factor of whether it’s good or bad, yet each food choice is an individual piece to the
puzzle.
Diets are attempts to make the physiology simple, primarily through a yes/no rule
structure. For example, dried fruit is not allowed for the #800gChallenge®, but olives
are. This helps prevent someone from overeating calories by way of those delicious
spiced dried mangoes, but also may create the mindset that “dried fruit is bad” and
“more olives are always good.” No! The right dose of both is “good,” but it is hard to get
the dose right in processed forms.
Simple is great and often can be remarkably effective. But with simplicity, we lose
nuance. We lose accuracy and precision of the whole system. And this is often
the source of people’s confusion in nutrition. Rules may feel arbitrary. For example,
the pre-made vegetable and rice soup from the supermarket is not allowed for
the #800gChallenge® because you cannot easily weigh the vegetable content
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separately from broth and grains. And while vegetable soup is not the cause of our
obesity epidemic, it’s a slippery slope of judgment calls without the guide rails of a yes/
no rule structure for the non-nutritionist.
That doesn't mean simple can't work; it means that we have to understand simple
solutions are not foolproof. Foods that aren’t allowed on the #800gChallenge® aren’t
all bad. The intention of the #800gChallenge® is to make things simple, but even still, it
can be applied incorrectly. Keep things as simple as possible to get the outcome you
want, but also be ready to increase complexity or rules when simple isn't doing it. Then,
consistently re-evaluate to jettison the extraneous rules that do not provide tangible
results.
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ON THE GO AND EATING OUT
You may have already experienced this first-hand: weekends tend to be much harder to hit
the #800gChallenge® than weekdays (assuming you follow the traditional workweek)!
Many people will find themselves late on Saturday or Sunday afternoon without a gram
consumed. And while the point of the #800gChallenge® is not to cram grams in for the sake of
the number, there are still plenty of diet decisions to be made from 3 P.M. until bedtime. It is still
worth it to focus on grams for the rest of the day, even if you don’t force feed yourself to 800
(Section 12).
A large grapefruit or orange can be ~300 grams (!) making it a good option to make-up
grams quickly. Again, this may feel like “gaming the system” a bit by targeting heavy items,
but when made during the context of the day (versus before bed cramming), the end result
is still beneficial. This is because the water weight does contribute to satiety (and therefore
potentially preventing overeating less ideal items). Remember: any whole food is better than
processed items.3 Eight-hundred grams of potatoes is still better than chips, soda, etc. You
3
Assuming the person isn’t underweight or malnourished.
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cannot worry about having the perfect mixture of fruits and veggies particularly on these less
routine days that might otherwise get away from you.
Eating out tends to be a challenge for people, although in reality there are plenty of options.
The hard part is making those choices versus the myriad of delicious processed foods that are
also available. While it’s true that fast food restaurants will be light on grams, many quick casual
or even grocery stores are convenient enough in most areas. Many grocery stores have singleserve pre-packaged fruit or veggie options in addition to just picking up a few pieces of fruit.
You can also buy high-protein yogurt, jerky, deli meat or something similar to round out a meal.
You can be in and out just as quickly as sitting in your car in a fast-food drive thru.
Perhaps surprisingly, many gas stations have fresh fruit options. Bananas are common, as well
as cut-up fruit containers in the refrigerated section. You can pair them with a sandwich, jerky,
and/or some nuts. The difficulty is passing up on the chips, candy, and donuts overflowing the
aisles to seek out these items. This is the same with airports (at least in the US). Coffee stands
and news stores have a surprising number of fresh fruit options if you look for them.
Quick casual restaurants, particularly Mexican-inspired chains, can also be easy ways to rack
up at least 300 grams in a meal. While the chips and queso are delicious, it’s best to stick with
“just” the burrito or bowl. The servings of beans (~110g), veggies (75g), mild salsa (~110g), and
guacamole (~110g) puts a meal at 400 qualifying grams for the day.
As for sit-down restaurants, you will be hard pressed to find one that you can’t do mixed
vegetable sides and/or a baked potato. Vegetable sides are often slightly smaller than a fist
(use your judgment), and a decent sized baked potato can easily be 200 grams. The trick here
is staying away from the French fry option if you want qualifying grams. While salads seem
like an obvious go-to, sometimes they can be hit or miss in terms of grams. Section 6 already
discussed some of the issues with salads in terms of the calories from dressings or toppings, but
they can also be hit or miss in terms of qualifying grams. Some side salads might only get you
50 grams or so; it can be worth asking your server about the size before thinking it will be a
gram haul.
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There are some on-the-go cases where you won’t have the option to eat fruits and vegetables.
Some long-haul flights (particularly internationally) when arrival and departure times are at
odds with usual business hours make it difficult, or just the travel timeline is so tight you literally
don’t have an option besides the continental breakfast of rolls and coffee. These days are
usually few and far between. Because the inevitable does happen, it’s best to make the better
choices when possible, so that the inevitable doesn’t become the norm.
Figure 22 shows three popular meal ideas where you can usually find a US restaurant serving
at least one of them. While the #800gChallenge® is not about counting calories, these
suggestions usually fit within typical caloric budgets for a meal (<600 calories) and also get a
good amount of grams.
Figure 22a. While restaurant salads can be hit
or miss for grams and calories, certain restaurants do offer great options. It’s best to pick a
large salad with as many fruit or vegetable
toppings as possible. Shown here, romaine
lettuce (210g) was topped with mixed roasted
vegetables (290g) and chicken. Also, be sure to
order the dressing on the side to better control
total calories consumed.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Figure 22b. Chicken or steak fajitas tend to
have a lot of qualifying grams due to the bell
peppers and onions (shown here: 170g), beans
(140g), and guacamole (45g). To reduce the total
calories in the meal it’s best to pick the tortilla or
rice, and one of the following toppings: cheese,
sour cream, or guacamole.
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Want more?
Check out The
Consistency Project
podcast episode:
on Practical Strategies
for Dining Out.
Figure 22c. Most classic American restaurants
have an entrée with a protein like steak or
salmon, as well as a vegetable side. The salmon
filet shown here was topped with dijon sauce
and paired with two vegetable sides (totaling
310g). A baked potato can also be a good
option for one of the vegetable sides when
available.
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CONSISTENTLY GOOD > INCONSISTENTLY PERFECT
One of the reasons why no foods are excluded from the #800gChallenge® is to abolish this
notion of diet “perfection.” People often slip on a diet (e.g., eat a bag of chips) and that gives
them the “out” to quit the diet. Perhaps it’s self-sabotage, but it also reflects reality. Processed
foods are around us constantly and most people do find them tasty! But since this indulgence is
not against the #800gChallenge® rules, people are less likely to give up.
Assuming you are like 99% of other humans, you have (multiple) days ahead of you where you
will:
a.
not eat 800 grams of fruits and veggies; and/or
b.
overeat some processed food like pizza, cookies, or brownies.
Tell yourself now that you have imperfect diet days in your future because you are human,
and you won’t use them as an excuse to stop. Nutrition has just as much of a psychological
component as a physiological one when we try to get free living humans to make meaningful
habit changes. And so, the guilt and feelings of failure can be largely lifted when we don’t have
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restrictive rules. This helps people stay motivated to continue with the program despite their
lack of “perfection” (read: humanness).
What’s so frustrating about the “perfection” mantra is that you don’t need perfection to get
results. While the calories in that bag of chips certainly count (Section 14), a lot of nutrition is
about sticking to the program for more days than you don’t. You need consistency. It’s not
about a diet of only steamed salmon and broccoli in perpetuity; it’s about showing up more
days than you don’t. That’s it. And with the lack of restrictions and enough freedom for personal
choice, the #800gChallenge® helps with that. It helps people be able to stick to something long
enough to see the results they want with bobbles along the way.
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THE DETAILS
Welcome to the second half of the book. You may find yourself picking and choosing
sections that are relevant to you, and you may also find these sections are more helpful
after you’ve tried the #800gChallenge® for a few weeks. Once you see how simple and
easy it can be, you are going to wonder about all these different rules and concepts
you’ve heard and tried before. Hopefully, this half provides the answers you need to be
confident in this simple, yet transformative, approach to nutrition.
#12
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pitfalls
The #800gChallenge® purposefully has very few rules. It’s simple guidance for people to
apply as best possible within the context of their preferences and life logistics. When people
act “normally,” it’s pretty hard to mess up the #800gChallenge®. It is when people try to find
loopholes to make the approach easier that we can expect less than ideal results.
This section outlines a few of the common loopholes – or pitfalls – of the #800gChallenge®.
Eating all watermelon
Technically, you are “allowed” to eat 800 grams of watermelon and it would “count” for your
#800gChallenge®. You could similarly eat 800 grams of roasted white potatoes or 800
grams of cucumber and yes, be done with the #800gChallenge® that day (Figure 23).
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Figure 23. While 800 grams of watermelon
counts for the #800gChallenge®, it is not an
ideal strategy for long-term nutrition goals.
The #800gChallenge® purposefully has few rules to allow for individual flexibility, and any fruit
or vegetable is a better choice than a processed food.4 Yes, this is even true for 800 grams of
watermelon.
However, diet rules can never perfectly describe physiology. In addition to the low caloric
density of fruits and vegetables, they also are a vehicle to obtain our essential vitamins and
minerals, as well as fiber and phytochemicals. No one fruit or vegetable has all of these
nutrients represented equally well. And this is why “diversity” – eating many different fruits and
vegetables – is such an important aspect of the #800gChallenge®.
But in reality, there are also days where diversity is just not possible, and so diversity was not
added as a formal rule of the #800gChallenge®. Further, because most people do not like
eating the same thing every day, attempts to “game” the system with all watermelon usually
end after three or four days due to boredom. Most of the time diversity increases once a
person attempts the #800gChallenge® for a long enough time to be meaningful.
4
Assuming the person isn’t underweight or malnourished.
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There is also the interesting phenomenon, however, that 800 grams of watermelon, while not
ideal from a nutrient perspective, may help someone transition from a Standard American
Diet. Perhaps watermelon and white potatoes are the way an individual starts to enjoy
strawberries, bananas, and maybe even broccoli.
Think of the #800gChallenge® as a tool, and tools work best when applied correctly. The
individual context and circumstances determine what is “correct.”
Cramming grams in before bedtime
It’s 10 P.M. and you’ve only consumed 550 grams for the day. You’re tired, but this is a
“challenge,” right? Gotta toughen up! Gotta get those grams in! So you start force-feeding
yourself a bag of baby carrots to hit 800 grams.
Stop!
This is not the point of the #800gChallenge®. The intent was not to backfill grams at night
simply in the name of hitting a number. The point is to have simple guidance during the day to
make better choices; backfilling grams at night doesn’t do any of this.
Instead of taking a “check-the-box” mentality, take a minute and reflect on the day. Consider
all the items you consumed that were not fruits and vegetables. Where could you have made
different choices?
There is also the potential you didn’t have another option. You were stranded on a plane
waiting for it to be repaired and you ate nothing all day.
A big part of nutrition is not following rules blindly. Instead, you must understand your own
habits and apply the right dose of empathy or tough love as you need it. Did you miss the
target because you made a bunch of poor choices? Time for some tough love. Or did life
happen, and you had the day from hell fueled by airplane snacks and coffee? Time for
empathy. More often than not, we need some tough love as a poor day is usually the result of
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poor planning and poor choices. Nevertheless, that
is not always true such that you have to understand
your context and apply the right lesson learned.
Avoiding leafy greens because they
are light
People quickly come to the realization that leafy
greens are very light and that it is easier to eat a bell
pepper or apple for the weight. While a bell pepper
or an apple are perfectly good choices, so are leafy
greens. They have a different array of micronutrients
and are also a great filler (they help fill you up!).
Want more?
Check out The
Consistency Project
podcast episode:
on Loopholes &
Other Ways to Cheat
Your Diet.
Do not try to “game” the system to avoid them.
Remember, hitting 800 grams doesn’t mean your
diet is good. It’s a simple accountability system to help
improve all the nutrients in your diet.
Besides salads, two greens-containing meal ideas are
to 1) kick-off the morning with a green smoothie; and
2) add greens to soups or marinara sauces. They cook
down easily and do not change the flavor.
Generally, these pitfalls occur when people take a
check-the-box mentality to the #800gChallenge®.
Do not attempt to follow rules blindly and expect big
outcomes. Apply your knowledge, experience, and a
dose of reality, and more likely, the results will come.
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THE BEST FRUITS AND VEGETABLES
The best fruits and vegetables are the ones you eat!
People worry about which ones have the highest nutritional value, or whether frozen are “ok”
compared to fresh, or what the ratio of fruits to vegetables should be each day. None of this
should be of much concern.
Instead, focus on selecting the choices you will actually eat! Yes, kale is healthy, but you can
also be healthy without eating kale (it’s true!). And yes, everyone loves a good sale, but you’re
not saving money if the items go bad in the refrigerator because you don’t really like them.
Remember that each fruit or vegetable has an array of nutrients in it, so it’s the collection of all
of them (in combination with the other foods in your diet) that help you hit your nutrient needs.
It’s also important to ditch the mindset that vegetables are always better than fruits. Not so! It
depends on which nutrient we are talking about as well as your serving size. Vegetables may
be higher in some nutrients on a per gram basis, but we tend to eat fewer grams in a sitting.
For example, most people do not eat 100 grams of leafy greens in one sitting, where 100
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grams of blueberries are very easy to consume (less than a cup!). This means you can get more
micronutrients from fruit due to larger serving sizes.
There are some vegetables that have a better nutritional profile than fruits and vice versa, but
the rank order of “better” can also shift with each different nutrient. For example, carrots have a
ton of Vitamin A, but blueberries have more Vitamin C and Vitamin K per 100 grams.
There are also other factors like the soil and weather where the crop grew, as well as
transportation time, storage conditions, and cooking preparation that impact nutritional
composition.
Do not worry about trying to have a certain number of fruits versus vegetables each day.
Instead, the best way to optimize the intake of nutrients is to eat a diverse array of fruits and
vegetables. The goal should be a diversity of all types of fruits and veggies to maximize the
breadth and depth of the micronutrients (vitamins, minerals), fiber types, and phytochemicals
(e.g., resveratrol in grapes, lutein in spinach). Try to vary your sources as best as possible while
also acknowledging the logistics of life may mean you’ve eaten the same thing for the last six
days. Take a long-term view of this where you do your best to cast a wide net to capture as
many different nutrients as possible across weeks and seasons.
And definitely, whatever you do, do not fall for the marketing of “superfoods.” From Wikipedia:
“Superfood is a marketing term for food claimed to confer health benefits resulting from an
exceptional nutrient density. The term is not commonly used by experts, dietitians and nutrition
scientists, most of whom dispute that particular foods have the health benefits claimed by their
advocates.”
The notion of superfoods suggests there is a short list of foods that are superior to others. Even
if this were the case, we would have the very real problem that long-term adherence would
be dismal. Even if a certain fruit or vegetable doesn’t have as high nutrients as another, it can
provide value via sustainability. Kale may have more vitamins and minerals than potatoes,
but when you consider that potatoes may help a person stay on the plan and avoid potato
chips, you see potatoes as a beneficial addition to the diet. The term “superfoods” is a great
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marketing tool, but those foods do not have much value when looking at what makes an
entire diet successful.
The marketing gimmick becomes especially clear when you see superfoods added to
calorically dense goodies like chocolate. People often think they are better off eating the
superfood chocolate bar over the regular chocolate bar, but not necessarily so. Excess calories
(and weight) can become a health issue even if from quality foods (Section 14). It’s best to think
about all whole, unprocessed foods as superfoods.
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THE GOOD, THE BAD, AND THE UGLY
The good: weight loss, improved health, fitness, and mindset
One of the most popular goals with any nutrition program is weight loss. So, no surprise, people
want to know: will I get weight loss on the #800gChallenge®?
Maybe.
While many people have lost weight on the #800gChallenge®, it is not a guarantee.
In Section 7, you learned the quantity of food can be measured in macronutrients or calories.
They are inseparable from one another, but they are not equivalent (100 calories of protein
will be used differently in the body than 100 calories of carbs). The caloric equivalent of the
macronutrients are as follows:
•
•
In each gram of protein, there are 4 calories.
In each gram of carbohydrate, there are also 4 calories.
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•
In each gram of fat, there are 9 calories.
The total quantity you eat any given day can be expressed as the total amount of protein,
carbohydrate, and fat grams or as a single number of calories. For example, someone may eat
150 grams of protein, 200 grams of carbohydrates, and about 67 grams of fat in a day. That is:
150g x 4 + 200g x 4 + 67g x 9 or about 2,000 calories.
That quantity of food consumed can be compared to the quantity of food you need every
day to have a heartbeat, to breathe, to grow new cells, to type on the computer, and to move
your body in a workout.
If you eat more quantity than you need (in calories or macronutrients), you will gain weight.
If you eat less quantity than you need (in calories or macronutrients), you will lose weight.
Despite all the noise in the nutrition space, it really is that simple… conceptually anyway. The
difficulty comes in application: you have to eat less than your usual baseline consistently for
months to see any significant amount of weight loss. And you also have to fight hunger pangs
and withstand temptation from the never-ending abundance of processed food around us.
And one of the classic issues people have with dieting is this roller-coaster of calories, where
they are “good” Monday to Friday, only to go off the rails come Friday or Saturday resulting in
no net change.
The reason why the #800gChallenge® can result in weight loss is that the individual fills up
on items with a low caloric density. This pushes out (or at least decreases) the number of
processed foods in the diet, and therefore the overall net effect is often a decrease in calories.
Improved health
While weight loss is the number one goal people have with nutrition, health is always a close
second. People want to have a long life, and a long quality of life. Eating healthy is certainly one
of the best strategies we have to protect our health.
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What we eat affects every function in the body, because food provides not only the energy
to allow every function to occur, but the nutrients in our food are also physical components of
cells, tissues, and structures like bones and skin. It’s impossible to name a function or system in
the body that cannot be affected by nutrition. From eyesight to bone density, from cognitive
function to how many pull-ups you can do, nutrition will play a role.
The match between quantity and quality of whole unprocessed foods is not just good for
weight loss goals: it’s good for health. And this likely explains why time and time again we find
that eating more whole unprocessed foods is associated with better health outcomes in the
peer-reviewed literature. It’s not that one whole food is better than another, it’s the collective
effect of quality and quantity that pays off in a myriad of ways.
Improved fitness and recovery
One of the most common results people have on the #800gChallenge® is that they
have better performance in workouts or even that they recover better after exercise. This
phenomenon may be because of the increase in vitamins, minerals, and even fiber and
phytochemicals in the diet.
Macronutrients like carbs and fat are what we focus on for energy because we derive energy
directly from them. However, micronutrients facilitate the production of energy from those
macronutrients. If macronutrients are like the gas in your car, micronutrients are the tank that
holds it. Essential, but indirectly, used. And there are a lot of micronutrients used in this indirect
role such as the B-complex vitamins, copper, Vitamin C, and manganese.
As for recovery, exercise induces stress: a necessary stimulus to become a stronger and fitter
athlete. The stress results in free radical (oxidant) production (simply by the generation of
energy, which increases during exercise) and inflammation (from muscle damage). Antioxidant
vitamins and minerals (like Vitamin C, Vitamin E, selenium, zinc, copper) and anti-inflammatory
phytochemicals (like polyphenols) can mitigate these stressors.
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It is important to note, however, inflammatory and oxidant compounds are a normal part
of the exercise-stress response. These compounds are the necessary signaling molecules to
trigger the favorable adaptation to exercise (i.e., building stronger muscles). This is why it might
not be beneficial to supplement with high levels of antioxidants and anti-inflammatories as
they may blunt the natural response. Perhaps a moderate dose is best because at extreme
high ends (heavy supplementation) and low ends (poor diet) is when we have the problem.
It is likely 800 grams of fruits and veggies without eliminating other foods represents diet
"moderation."
Improved mindset about food
Another aspect that people routinely report for the #800gChallenge® is that it is so
“mentally freeing.” Instead of a diet that is synonymous with restrictions and eliminations, the
#800gChallenge® flips the script and focuses on what to add to the diet.
And even though all foods are still allowed, there is often less of a binge-like phenomenon to
the processed foods we overeat.
The bad: potential for weight gain
While it’s the total quantity of macronutrients or calories that direct weight changes, many diets,
including the #800gChallenge®, do not have individuals count either.
Why?
Because most people don’t want to count them!
While doing so leads to a predictable result, it is more work and is often viewed as too
cumbersome and at odds with cultural norms. As such, the myriad of diets impose different diet
rules simply to influence quantity without directly counting it. This is sort of like driving from the
back seat of a car; we don’t directly control the variable that dictates the best outcome.
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This is even true for the #800gChallenge®. It focuses on the
weight of a portion of foods in one’s diet. That is not the same
thing, at all, as assessing total calories in the diet. Total calories
are the driver, not the quantity of fruits and vegetables in the
diet, in terms of weight changes.
And this is why it is possible to gain weight on the
#800gChallenge . Essentially, the fruit and vegetable volume
®
did not displace enough of the more calorically dense foods
in the diet.
This is most likely when the individual adopts a checkthe-box mentality, where accomplishing the 800-gram
total becomes permission to eat whatever else they want.
“
Calories still
apply whether
you count them
or not.
For example, telling yourself, you “deserve” the pint of ice
cream or the four beers because you ate a lot of fruits and
vegetables.
Don’t do it.
Calories still apply whether you count them or not.
This is one reason it is recommended to make fruits and vegetables the base of your meals
throughout the day. If you try to chug an 800-gram smoothie in the morning just to “get it
over with,” you are likely not going to drive weight loss as there is too much time left to make
poor decisions. (Remember, ice cream, beer, or any processed food can be part of a healthy
diet, but when we overeat them, they are “poor decisions.”)
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It’s not the fruits and vegetables
Since people are often more full on the #800gChallenge®, if they gain weight, they
initially believe it’s because of all the fruits and vegetables.
It’s not.
And it’s worth spending some time looking at the caloric contribution of a sample
#800gChallenge® day so that you have the data.
You can use an app like MyFitnessPal or a free website such as nutritiondata.self.com
to figure out the exact calories in a typical #800gChallenge® day for you. Even if you
Google the item and the word “nutrition” like “zucchini nutrition,” Google usually returns
the nutrition facts for the food. Choose a single day and add up the total calories you
ate adjusting the nutrition information for your serving sizes.
If you are really extreme in your choices, the total calories can be quite high (e.g.,
800 grams of avocados will be 1,300 calories). Most people “acting normally” and
eating mixed fruits and veggies have about 400-500 calories in their 800 grams.
Compare that to a favorite treat or snack around the house. Figure out the serving
size of a food like ice cream, cake, chips, etc., that is the caloric equivalent of an entire
day’s #800gChallenge® for you (remember Figure 15). The difference in volume will be
striking. Voila! That is the magic of whole foods.
This should also be enough to convince you that it is the other foods in the diet that are
the largest sources of calories. However, if you are still not convinced, a full diet analysis
is in order and this is part of my Masterclass.
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Weight fluctuations and expectations
Since weight loss is such a common goal, it is important to address expectations regarding
changes in one’s weight.
For the overwhelming majority of people, weight loss goes much slower than we would
like, and even more so on something like the #800gChallenge® where we aren’t restricting
anything. Perhaps ironically, however, slow weight loss is usually a good thing because it is
more likely to be sustainable. This also means you shouldn’t hop on the scale on day four of the
#800gChallenge® and expect a three-pound weight loss.
The more a change the #800gChallenge® is from one’s baseline diet and the more calorically
dense foods it displaces, the faster weight loss will occur. Therefore, it’s impossible to set a single
expectation of what weight loss “should” look like. While some people may see one pound a
week lost or more, weight loss at half that rate (0.5 pounds/week) is more of a normal clip.
The complicating factor, however, is that your weight naturally fluctuates ~2-4 pounds (1-2
kilograms) in the short term largely due to changes in water weight (Bhutani et al., 2017).
So when you hop on the scale after three days of the #800gChallenge® and you are up
two pounds, it’s very likely this is within your range of natural weight fluctuation (versus any
substantial change in fat mass).
Because of these natural fluctuations, weighing yourself multiple times a week and taking an
average is a more accurate strategy than weighing yourself weekly. However, if weighing
yourself is a stressful experience, it is recommended to weigh yourself less frequently and
perhaps not even in the beginning as we can’t expect a ton of progress even in the first week.
Perhaps consider using how a pair of pants fit or using a tape measure instead of the scale.
While less precise, they give us a better sense of true weight loss (or gain) versus riding the
emotional roller-coaster that often accompanies the natural water weight fluctuations. Also,
when you see a change in something like inches on a tape measure, these are differences that
will be obvious to you in terms of how your clothes fit, your performance, or even how you feel
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during the day (e.g., walking up flights of stairs). You won’t notice these changes when the scale
“
shows a difference of one pound from the previous day. While a tape measure may be less
precise than a scale, it may be better at indicating the changes that are really relevant to your
goals.
While a tape measure may be less precise than a scale,
it may be better at indicating the changes that are really
relevant to your goals.
How to measure with a tape measure
For your waist circumference, find the midpoint between the lowest rib and hip bones.
It should be at the narrowest point of the waist, just above the belly button. Be sure to
exhale your breath before pulling the tape snug. Ensure the tape is not pulling tightly
into the fat. Repeat the measurement twice more, waiting 30 seconds between the
measurements, and take an average.
You can measure other parts of the body as well (e.g., hips, chest – both tracking
around the widest part), but improvements in waist should trend with improvements in
these areas as well.
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The ugly: gastrointestinal distress
(bloating, gas, diarrhea, oh my!)
While the majority of people respond favorably to the #800gChallenge®, the most common
negative complaint is related to gastrointestinal (GI) distress, and in particular, bloating.
Bloating implies a feeling of fullness, and usually means there is more gas production and
retention of it in the GI tract. Fruits and vegetables are good sources of fiber, so usually when
people start the #800gChallenge®, they increase their fiber consumption.
Why does this increase gas? Your GI tract has thousands of living microorganisms (aka "bugs"
in the lay press) which have a profound effect on your overall health. The different fiber types
in plant foods are what the "good" bugs use for energy in your colon, and the phytochemicals
(the compounds that make fruits and veggies their bright colors) also influence which
populations thrive. This is why what we eat influences our gut health (and you don’t need a ton
of supplements to do it!).
But a by-product from the good bugs using fiber for energy is gas. This fermentation process
also produces short-chain fatty acids like butyrate, which is a powerful anti-inflammatory. If
you want butyrate (and you do), you will also have (some) gas. And as you increase your fiber
intake, you will also increase gas production.
If 800 grams of fruits and veggies is more than you were eating previously, you may
incorrectly interpret the additional gas as "bloating" or as a food intolerance, when in many
cases you are now at a normal level of gas (or even just a normal feeling of fullness).
That being said, more fiber is not always better, and there can be very real bloating.
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Here are some things to consider:
1.
⁣⁣⁣Due to the (unnecessary) fear of carbs, people may try to pull off the #800gChallenge®
on all low-carb items like spinach, broccoli, or cabbage. This can end up being a lot of
volume (so you are physically very full) and fiber (more gas). ⁣⁣⁣In these cases, try including
some higher-carb items.
2.
Due to the “challenge” nature, people may try to catch up on grams by downing several
hundred grams in a smoothie or eating most of them at a single meal. Guess what?
Eating a large volume of anything makes people feel bloated. Ideally, spread your
grams throughout the day and eat normally.
3.
⁣Chew your food! Undigested carbohydrates, not just fiber, can lead to gas when
fermented. ⁣⁣⁣
4.
You can always scale back 800 grams, say to 400 grams or 600 grams, let the
microorganisms adjust to these new fuel sources, and gradually work your way up to
800 grams.
5.
Finally, you may do better with a low FODMAP diet (Wong, 2016). Fermentable Oligo-,
Di-, Mono-saccharides and Polyols (FODMAPs) are types of naturally occurring
carbohydrates that are poorly absorbed and therefore lead to greater gas and water
retention. The water retention may also lead to loose stools. However, be sure to try
the above-mentioned strategies before cutting out lots of fruits and veggies. It is more
optimal to have a diverse array of plant matter in the diet, not less.
You may also need to work with a qualified healthcare practitioner with persistent and
uncomfortable symptoms to determine if there is a GI disorder. Irritable Bowel Syndrome
(or IBS) is one the most commonly diagnosed GI disorders, and gas and bloating are
common symptoms. Approximately 11% of people in the world have it (Canavan et al., 2014),
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so it is certainly common enough that some individuals trying the #800gChallenge® will
have it. IBS sufferers may find a low-FODMAP approach among other strategies make the
#800gChallenge® doable, but it is best to work with a doctor to get a proper diagnosis and
treatment plan. With any persistent symptoms, it is worth figuring out why you have them from
such a reasonable volume of fruits and vegetables versus disbanding the idea entirely.
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How much fiber am I getting?
Very generally, fruits and vegetables have more fiber than other food groups. But the
actual amount of fiber can vary quite dramatically depending on which specific fruits
and vegetables you are consuming. As you can see in Figure 24, fiber ranges from
13 to 40 grams. This is a fairly large disparity despite the same volume and is simply
reflective of how variable fiber intake on the #800gChallenge® can be.
Figure 24a. This plate of 848 grams contains 13
grams of fiber.
Figure 24b. This plate of 800 grams contains
40 grams of fiber.
Fiber recommendations in the US are 14 grams of fiber per 1,000 calories consumed
(USDA, 2020), which puts the average daily intake at 28 and 35 grams for 2,000
and 2,500 calories, respectively. This means your #800gChallenge® may or may not
cover all of your fiber needs. However, plenty of other foods like grains and nuts have
fiber such that it is not essential to get all your fiber intake from fruits and vegetables.
Nutrition information including fiber is readily available online so you can determine
how much you are getting from your individual choices.
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UNDERSTANDING CARBS AND SUGAR
There has been so much fearmongering around terms like carbs and sugar that people are
often afraid to eat potatoes or fruit when undertaking the #800gChallenge®. These terms are
also confusing because of what they mean on a physiological level versus how they are used
in typical conversations.
Let’s first understand the terms to then be able to dispel the myths that the #800gChallenge®
might make you eat too many carbs or too much sugar.
Carbohydrates are compounds that consist of carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen in predictable
ratios. The exact arrangement and bonds of the carbon, hydrogen, and oxygen molecules are
what give different compounds their properties and function. What looks identical on paper
to the layperson are often handled differently by the body – particularly during digestion and
distribution.
The basic building blocks of carbohydrates are called monosaccharides (which translates
as “single sugar”). This would be the glucose, fructose, or galactose molecule, for example.
Two monosaccharides joined together would be called a disaccharide. Sucrose, which
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is also commonly known as “table sugar,” is a disaccharide of glucose and fructose.
Lactose (composed of glucose and galactose) and maltose (two glucose molecules) are
also disaccharides. Collectively, the term “simple sugars” refers to monosaccharides and
disaccharides (glucose, fructose, galactose, sucrose, lactose, or maltose). The suffix “-ose” on an
ingredient list is a giveaway that there is sugar in the food. This means “sugar” can describe any
of these different compounds.
Longer chains can be classified as oligo- (“few”) or poly- (“many”) saccharides. Starch is a
polysaccharide, which is composed of very long chains of the glucose molecule. You’ll also
hear people refer to starch as “just sugar,” because it’s composed of sugar molecules.
Regardless of whether the food contains starch, disaccharides, or the monosaccharides
fructose or galactose, the sugars largely become glucose through digestion and processing.
Digestion breaks the larger chains into simple sugars for absorption and either the small
intestine or liver converts the fructose or galactose into glucose before they enter circulation
(if not used directly by the liver for energy). This is why “blood sugar” measures glucose in
circulation (not fructose or lactose, for example, even though we eat both).
Fiber is an indigestible form of carbohydrate. It consists of longer chains of the glucose
molecule (like starch) but in a different arrangement from starch which makes it indigestible
in the stomach and small intestine. Instead, the microorganisms in the large intestine break it
down for energy (Section 14). Fiber has many different types, but most often you’ll hear fiber
broadly categorized as soluble or insoluble.
Carbohydrates exist in food as simple sugars (monosaccharides and disaccharides), starch,
and/or fiber. This is where some confusion begins.
As described above, carbohydrates are “just sugar” in the sense that the non-fiber compounds
will be broken down into simple sugar molecules. This does not mean that eating broccoli is the
same as eating a candy bar, yet both will provide glucose to the body.
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“
We have to look at food as food, not as individual components or nutrients. This is because it’s
the combination of all its properties that makes a food more or less healthy.
We have to look at food as food, not as individual
components or nutrients. This is because it’s the
combination of all its properties that makes a food more
or less healthy.
It’s differences in the caloric density, the dose of sugar (carbs), as well as the fiber,
micronutrients, and phytochemicals that make broccoli and a candy bar very different (Figure
25).
Figure 25. In typical servings of processed foods
versus whole foods, people consume far more
calories and fewer micronutrients. Shown here, a
candy bar weighing 57 grams contains 280 calories and only 4% of the Recommended Dietary
Allowance (RDA) of calcium and potassium. However, one cup broccoli weighing 100 grams contains only 34 calories and has a greater amount of
micronutrients (e.g., 5% calcium, 9% potassium).
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One major difference is the caloric density. In one sitting, it is common to eat serving sizes such
as a regular size candy bar or one cup of broccoli. The candy bar has 4.9 calories per gram,
and the broccoli has 0.3 calories per gram. That’s a 16x increase in the number of calories you
are getting per unit weight (or per “bite,” see Section 7). A large part of why broccoli has such
a low caloric density is because most of its 100 grams is water. This water weight helps fill
the stomach up and the stretching of the stomach is some of what tells our brain we are full.
Another way the broccoli helps us feel full is the fiber. Fiber makes the food stay in the stomach
longer, again keeping it full, which reminds our brain we have eaten.
The disparity in caloric density of these foods is also because of the different amounts of
glucose in them. While both contain the same glucose molecule, they are drastically different
in how much of that glucose they provide in a typical serving. In other words, it’s the dose of
glucose – not the form – that is different. Excluding fiber from the calculation, the candy bar has
effectively 34 grams of glucose whereas the cup of broccoli has 4 grams.
As discussed in Section 14, weight gain is the result of eating more than your body needs.
Another way to think about this is that the “dose” of food is too high. That the total amount of
macronutrients consumed is more than all the energy needs in the body. And eating foods
with a high dose of carbs contributes to a total macronutrient “dose” that is too high. What
people get wrong so often in understanding carbs, sugar, or fructose is trying to classify them
as singularly “good” or “bad” when it’s the dose of them that determines their relative value (in
combination with the other properties you get from the food like its dose of fat, how filling it is,
how many micronutrients it has, etc.).
Low-carb diets can be an effective way to lose weight because they do not permit individuals
to eat the high-dose carbohydrate foods that are ubiquitous in the modern diet (e.g., soda,
chips, ice cream, candy cars). By lowering carbohydrates, one often (though not always)
simultaneously reduces total calories. Unfortunately, this often gets interpreted in an extreme
way where people think carbs = bad and then also remove fruits and vegetables from their
diet. While very low-carb diets like keto can result in weight loss, it is not necessary nor superior
to simply counting total calories (Freire, 2020).
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Re-read that. There is so much dogma that “lower carb is always better.” No! The right dose is
better, and many people are eating too many carbs particularly from processed foods. While
it is very likely one has to reduce total carbs to lose weight, this does not mean they have to eat
“low carb” (generally defined as less than 100 grams of carbohydrates per day).
Carbs on the #800gChallenge
®
The Dietary Guidelines for Americans recommend that carbohydrates make up 45 to 65
percent of your total daily calories (USDA, 2020). In a 2,000-calorie a day diet (which is the
average amount for women), this means between 900 and 1,300 calories should be from
carbohydrates. That translates to between 225 and 325 grams of carbohydrates a day. In a
2,500-calorie a day diet (average for men), this means intake would between 280 to 406
grams of carbohydrates per day.
One of the fears that people have when taking
on the #800gChallenge® is that it is “too many
carbs.” With purposefully extreme lower or
higher-carb choices, the #800gChallenge® can
range from 40 to 200 grams of carbohydrates.
These extremes are illustrated in Figure 26,
where low carb would be largely veggies
and potentially fattier options like olives and
avocados, and higher carb would be selections
like all potatoes, yams, yuccas, or bananas.
Note the use of the term “higher” versus “high”
carb in the prior sentence. While potatoes have a
Figure 26a. This plate of 804g contains 47g of
carbohydrates.
higher amount of carbs then say, asparagus, it’s
worth it to point out that an entire #800gChallege®
of potatoes still results in total carbs at the low end
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of the carb intake range for women.
However, most people will find that the total
carbohydrate intake when simply eating a mixed
quantity of fruits and vegetables is about 80 to
100 grams. It will be at the “higher” end of that
range when potatoes, bananas, or yams are
part of the mix, yet the total dose is obviously still
pretty low. And when you remember how filling
fruits and vegetables are, it’s much “harder” to eat
too many carbs from them. Conversely, a 24 oz
soda has 72 grams of carbohydrates that could
be consumed in less than 30 minutes and would
not leave you very full.
Figure 26b. This plate of 813g contains 222g of
carbohydrates.
Moving onto fruit…
While some people have accepted it is “ok” to eat sweet potatoes, they often still reject a plate
full of grapes, mango, or pineapple because of the fear surrounding fructose. People will often
hear that fructose is turned into fat in the liver potentially leading to non-alcoholic fatty liver
disease.
The key point left out in this explanation is … dose! The dose of fructose has to exceed the
capacity of the small intestine to convert it to glucose before it gets to the liver. However, the
liver still converts much of it to glucose as well. The problem occurs only when these systems
are overwhelmed (Jang et al., 2018).
When would the systems be overwhelmed? When an individual eats lots and lots of sugar, for
example, sugar-sweetened beverages like the extra-large sodas that look more like buckets. In
this “bucket” form, it is very easy to consume too much fructose. Sodas do not require chewing,
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nor do they sit in your stomach very long, both of which influence how much (dose) will be
consumed.
Just because soda contains fructose and fruit contains fructose does not mean both have the
same properties in a diet. Fruit can be eaten freely and to satiety, conversely soda should be
limited.
Check out this entire #800gChallenge® on what’s often incorrectly labeled “sugary” fruit. The
entire plate of 828 grams of fruit contains only 119 grams of carbs (Figure 27), which is a dose of
carbohydrates well under the low-end range of acceptable carb intake for women.
Figure 27. This #800gChallenge® of only fruit
(828g) contains 119g of carbohydrates.
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The reality check on fruit
Remember the discussion of the modern food
environment? Take a look around you next time you
are anywhere, be it restaurants, movie theaters,
or airports. Do you just see an overabundance of
people crushing bananas and apples? Is it just tons
of plain baked white potatoes? No! It’s French fries,
pretzels, chips, pizza, and candy bars. Look at what
products are everywhere and recognize it is there
because it sells. This is what we are eating! The idea
that fruit in your diet is a problem is silly.
Want more?
Check out The
Consistency Project
podcast episode:
on Fructose, Fruit,
and Sugar.
Added sugar, natural sugar, and high fructose corn syrup
Fruit has naturally occurring sugar in it. It is typically composed of glucose, fructose, and
sucrose molecules. Potatoes also have naturally occurring sugar in the form of starch (long
chains of glucose molecules). Sugar cane and sugar beets have naturally occurring sugar
(sucrose) in them as well, which have been bred over generations to have a relatively high
sugar content. The sugar in them is “naturally occurring,” and when it is isolated to a powdered
or crystalline substance, it is a “natural” sugar, but now it’s concentrated. That concentrated
form can be added to foods (like you use sugar in a recipe) increasing the caloric density of the
food and also increasing the dose of sugar one consumes.
The point is: “natural” doesn’t tell us the dose. The amount of a specific food consumed tells
the dose. When the food exists as it does in nature (a strawberry, a beet, a potato) generally,
the dose of sugar is low. When the food is processed in some way, generally the sugar dose
we consume increases (as in juice, syrup, jelly). When the sugar is isolated and extracted, even
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when from a “natural” source, it is generally added to food to further increase the dose of
naturally occurring sugar (such as in brownies, candy bars, ice cream, etc.).
Sugars isolated from various natural sources vary in their composition. Table sugar (extracted
from sugar cane or sugar beets) is just sucrose: equal parts glucose and fructose. Honey has
a slightly higher ratio of fructose to glucose which is why it tastes sweeter. One of the forms
frequently added to processed foods is high-fructose corn syrup (HFCS). HFCS is not considered
“natural” because it requires a manufacturing process to convert corn syrup (which is virtually
100% glucose) to contain some fructose. Many people believe the “high” in HFCS means the
product is virtually all fructose, when in reality “high” is in reference to its starting point (i.e., all
glucose). The most common forms of HFCS used for food and beverage manufacturing are
HFCS 42 or HFCS 55, which means the fructose amount is either 42% or 55%. In either case, this is
roughly equivalent to the 50:50 split found in table sugar or other “natural” sugars.
The reason why HFCS is “bad” is not because it’s “manufactured” nor because of its fructose
concentration. It’s because it’s used as an added sugar in processed foods where it’s all too
easy to eat too much (dose).
This is why it is generally useful to reduce “added sugar” in the diet. Again, it’s not that the
molecules in and of themselves are so problematic. It’s that it increases the dose we eat
compared to naturally occurring sugar.
As of 2020, nutrition labels in the US have to indicate how many grams of the total
carbohydrate in the product are from added sugar. Previously, if you bought strawberry ice
cream for example, you wouldn’t know how much of the total carbohydrate was from the
strawberries versus sugar added to the milk and eggs. Now, however, you can see that most of
the sugar in the product is from added sugar. All fruits and vegetables have 0 grams of added
sugar (Figure 28).
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Figure 28. Despite having some naturally
occurring sugar from strawberries, most of the
sugar in strawberry ice cream is added sugar
(shown here 14g of the 20g of carbohydrate
are from added sugar).
The American Heart Association (AHA) recommends women and men keep added sugars to
less than 6% of calories a day (AHA, 2021), whereas the USDA recommends keeping added
sugar calories to less than 10% of calories per day (in a 2,000-calorie diet, that would be less
than 50 grams of added sugar) (USDA, 2020). Tracking on added sugar can be a shorthand
way to control calories. Because the foods we overeat tend to have added sugars, keeping
added sugars in check is often a way to keep total calories in check (though again, not as
foolproof as actually counting calories).
What about the glycemic index?
The glycemic index ranks foods on a scale of 1 to 100 based on their effect on blood sugar
levels. The common interpretation of this index is “when you eat foods high on the glycemic
index this means that your blood sugar increases rapidly. High blood sugar means your
pancreas releases a lot of insulin, which can make you insulin resistant, and then diabetic.”
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This simplistic explanation has left out the necessary details that dictate whether an individual
would become diabetic or not.
First, insulin is a storage hormone, and it should go up (spike) and down all the time. That is what
is supposed to happen, and yes, even when you are healthy you have insulin spikes. When your
body needs to store nutrients in cells (getting them out of the bloodstream after digestion and
distribution by the liver), insulin goes up in relation to the magnitude of food eaten. If you eat a
large amount of food the insulin spike will be greater than if you eat a small amount of food.
This is not inherently bad and in healthy individuals the spike is quite useful (it stores nutrients).
The key issue that we have to be concerned with is… (drumroll)... dose.
If someone eats more than they need, the body will first expand fat storage to genetic limits,
but ultimately can run out of storage room. This occurs over months and years, not days. Insulin
will remain high trying to send the signals to store the nutrients out of circulation, but there is
no more capacity. This is how we can develop insulin resistance; when the intake exceeds our
needs (insulin remains “up”), we are not insulin resistant simply because it “goes up.”
The glycemic index is an attempt to estimate the blood sugar spike after eating a food. It
standardizes the amount of food eaten to be able to compare the expected rise in insulin
between foods. The problems are: 1) people don’t eat the standardized amount (e.g., 50 grams
of carbohydrates); 2) insulin going up doesn’t mean the dose was problematic, and 3) there is a
lot of interpersonal variation in blood sugar responses to foods not reflected in a singular index
value.
To get 50 grams of carbohydrates of broccoli, for example, a person would have to consume
seven cups! No one is eating that in one sitting. And people don’t always eat 50 grams of
carbohydrate even from processed foods (chips, candy, ice cream). Since the index is not
based on the dose consumed, its relevance is questionable.
This is where the concept of the “glycemic load” comes into play. This is to incorporate both
the glycemic response as well as the actual amount you ate. This is more relevant, but it still
overlooks an important part of the picture: is that “load” appropriate for the individual? The
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glycemic load of two whole baked sweet potatoes is high, but what if the person was fasting
all day or just finished a long-distance run? Maybe they need that load of carbohydrates.
The final issue is that people don’t have uniform blood sugar responses to foods. While you
may expect that someone's blood sugar “should” spike higher after eating a cookie versus a
banana, we don’t find this is consistent across individuals. In fact, some people’s blood sugar is
higher after a banana versus a cookie (Zeevi et al., 2015). This doesn’t mean a banana is “bad”;
it means there can be variable healthy responses to foods. In addition, once you mix a food
with something else (like banana and peanut butter), the glycemic response changes.
So how useful is a measurement that does not reflect how much you ate of an item, whether
that dose was appropriate to your need, or your individual blood sugar response when you
eat mixed meals (what happens in real life)?
It’s not.
But here’s the nuance, and it is something that happens all the time in nutrition. Even though
the rationale of why you should or should not eat foods based on their glycemic index is
oversimplified, people can have great success on a “low-glycemic” diet. Why? Because
generally, whole, unprocessed foods are low on the glycemic index, and processed foods
are high on the glycemic index. So at the end of the day, people end up eating more whole
unprocessed foods. It’s not that any individual insulin spike mattered; it’s that they made an
overhaul to their diet choices that changed the total quantity (calories and macronutrients).
This is true with a lot of diets. Keto is not healthier because it has lower carbs than other diets,
but lowering carbs is an effective strategy when you are eating too much (but so would be
lowering fat). If you want to understand insulin, the focus needs to be on understanding the
total dose of nutrients, not simply why it goes up and down. And definitely do not focus on
qualitative terms like “high” and “low” and “spiking,” which are irrelevant and often confusing
until we know the specific amount and the individual needs.
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But I thought carbs aren’t essential?
One last topic to cover in the confusion over carbohydrates!
Very low-carb or carnivore diet proponents often use the fact that carbs are not essential to
life as a rationale for why we should not eat them.
It’s true, we don’t need to eat carbohydrates to stay alive. Glucose, which is the necessary
energy source for the brain to function, can be generated from protein and fat. However, just
because the body has robust system "fail-safe" mechanisms in times of nutrient scarcity does
not mean that is an optimal process.
While carbs are often a problem in most diets, it is the processed carbs eaten excessively that
are problematic. It is not the fruit and vegetable carbohydrates that most people are not even
eating enough of (which hopefully you are convinced of at this point!).
The real problem with these more extreme low-carb/meat-based diets is that natural carb
sources are great ways to get vitamins, minerals, fiber, and phytochemicals. And when you
look at meat, you can get a nice – albeit not optimal – coverage of the micronutrients, but you
have eliminated fiber and phytochemicals from the diet which are routinely associated with
better health.
You have also drastically reduced the likelihood anyone will stick with it for any length of time
due to boredom and palatability. We do not need to swing between the complete opposite
ends of the spectrum from the Standard American Diet to eating zero carbs. We just need to
eat the right amount of carbs; the #800gChallenge® is easily part of that right amount.
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#16
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SHOULD I GO PLANT BASED?
(Individuals may make decisions about their food choices based on environmental or ethical
beliefs; that is not the point of this discussion. Rather, this is about foods as sources of calories,
macronutrients, micronutrients, fiber, and phytochemicals.)
Part of the problem with the “plant-based” diet trend is the lack of a uniform definition for what
“plant-based” means.
It could mean the diet is largely made up of plant foods, but it could also mean the diet is 100%
plant foods (i.e., vegan). There is also the issue of how we are defining “largely.” As discussed
in Section 7, volume does not equal calories. Someone may consume an #800gChallenge®
as part of a diet with meat and other foods like nuts and grains. On a volume basis, the
#800gChallenge® was likely the largest contributor, but usual servings of say eggs, cheese,
and beef can easily result in more calories from animal products than fruits and vegetables.
And there is no shortage of “plant-based” processed foods and snacks like chocolate and
cream “plant-based” cookies. As you know from Section 7 and Section 14, eating a plant-based
cookie diet will have a drastically different outcome than a diet full of carrots and apples.
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So when people say they are eating “plant-based,” we really don’t know much about their diet.
We don’t know how much (in calories or macronutrients) the plants are contributing to their
diet, and we don’t know what foods they consider plant based.
This is the problem with single word diet descriptors. Even vegan diets can be full of candy, and
Paleo diets might be all almond butter and bacon. This is even true of the #800gChallenge®;
it only describes a portion of the foods you are eating. And the positive (or negative) effect of
a diet is the precise way the rules are applied at the individual level in all of their food choices.
And so when we focus on one aspect of the diet, we get variable results. “Plant-based” usually
works when people add more fruits and vegetables to their diet but will have less of a positive
effect when plant-based products like cookies or fast-food burgers are diet staples.
The plant-based discussion, however, is usually when individuals are curious as to whether
meat is harmful. Red meat in particular has been the subject of many headlines that suggest
you are better off without the hamburger, specifically for preventing colon cancer.
A lot of your nutrition confusion will go away when you think about food as a mixture of the
macronutrients and micronutrients you need. And the goal is to eat a variety of foods to obtain
optimal quantities of calories, macronutrients, micronutrients, fiber, and phytochemicals. It is a
game of food Tetris, effectively. And that’s why we cannot have these yes/no nutrition rules.
Food is a mixture of macronutrients and micronutrients with no single food offering the ideal
amount of each nutrient. We want our choices to fit together like a puzzle across the days and
weeks.
Can you eat donuts? Sure, but there is some volume of donuts where you are getting too many
carbs and fats without protein and micronutrients. ⁣⁣
Can a 100% plant-based vegan diet work? Sure, but you will need to be more precise in your
choices to get enough protein without overshooting carbs (and you will also need to use some
supplements).
Can you eat red meat and be healthy? Yes, of course, as it adds protein and valuable nutrients
to the diet.
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Is eating meat “optimal”?
Not necessarily. Some people eat meat and still
have a poor diet (lots of fast food). Conversely, some
people eat plant based and lack proper nutrient
intake. It is never yes/no. It comes down to 1) how
much of each item are you eating; and 2) what are
the rest of the foods in your diet?⁣⁣
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Want more?
Check out The
Consistency Project
podcast episode:
on Plant-based vs.
Animal-Based.
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#17
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
WHAT ABOUT SUPPLEMENTS?
Supplements have become so ubiquitous that it seems almost impossible to imagine they
aren’t necessary. It’s become accepted that even a multivitamin “should” be part of one’s
nutritional strategy, yet you should focus your time and attention elsewhere.
And you already know where: eat those fruits and veggies!
But does the #800gChallenge® provide all one’s necessary vitamins and minerals?
No, it does not, nor should it.
Remember the #800gChallenge® is about 400-500 calories on average, representing 25%
or less of the calories most people are eating each day. That means we can’t expect that 25%
of our calories will cover all the micronutrients we need.
Yet, it has a great return on nutrition investment.
For up to one-third of your daily calories, and you can get more than 100% of the
Recommended Dietary Allowance (RDA) of many micronutrients (Figure 29).
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Figure 29. This plate contains 800g for 640
calories, which is relatively high in calories
for an #800gChallenge® due to the whole
avocado. It still represents just ~32% of a 2,000
calorie diet. It also provides these percentages
of the RDA of the following micronutrients:
57% thiamine (Vitamin B1), 44% riboflavin (B2),
40% niacin (B3), 98% pyridoxine (B6), 74%
pantothenic acid, 266% Vitamin C,133% folate,
19% calcium, 64% phosphorus, 69% magnesium,
113% copper, 37% iron, 147% manganese, and
52% zinc.
But these statistics are based on the fruits and
vegetables shown in that picture and will vary
based on your fruit and vegetable choices. This
is why it’s hard to predict one’s micronutrient
composition from their #800gChallenge®.
As another example, Figure 30 has 800 grams
with a good calorie to micronutrient ratio, but
the values are less than in Figure 29. This simply
reflects the fact that different fruits and veggies
have different nutrients. Also, Figure 30 has about
300 fewer calories. Even though it contains fewer
micronutrients overall, the fewer calories allow
for other foods in the diet to reach adequate
nutrition.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Figure 30. This plate contains 846g for 347 calories, which is just ~17% of a 2,000 calorie diet.
It also provides these percentages of the RDA
of the following micronutrients: 43% thiamine
(Vitamin B1), 12% riboflavin (B2), 33% niacin (B3),
69% pyridoxine (B6), 35% pantothenic acid,
459% Vitamin C, 46% folate, 27% calcium, 28%
phosphorus, 44% magnesium, 83% copper, 19%
iron, 139% manganese, and 15% zinc.
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So, where do you get the rest of your micronutrients? In the other calories you have left: meat,
dairy, grains, nuts, and oils can round out your micronutrient intake (in fact, processed foods
can too to a lesser degree).
What about supplements as insurance?
Even though people see it’s possible to achieve the micronutrients they need from a diet of
mostly whole foods, the thought is often it’s still worth taking them for the insurance. It’s better to
have more of everything, right?
Not exactly.
You only need a certain amount of each nutrient each day (i.e., 100% of the RDA).
That’s it.
You don’t need 150% or 200%.
More is not better because the body only needs so much, and depending on the micronutrient,
the excess will either be lost in urine, or if stored, there is a toxicity potential at some point.
If you look at some of the vitamin brands, you see multiple nutrients over 100%.
Why?
Likely to convince you that you are getting more “value,” when in reality you are paying for
expensive urine.
The 100% value, the RDA, is already set at a conservative level to meet the requirements of
97.5% of healthy individuals (Kennedy and Meyers, 2005). It’s not set at the average value; it’s
set at two standard deviations above the average such that most of the population needs
less than the RDA! Again, this makes doses above 100% completely irrelevant (absent of any
diagnosed condition).
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In fact, we don’t even have evidence to recommend multivitamins to prevent cardiovascular
disease and cancer, which are the two leading causes of death (Jia et al., 2022). Despite the
lack of evidence for even the most basic supplements, the US supplement industry has grown
to more than $40 billion and 80,000 products (~10x growth in 25 years) (Gottlieb, 2019). This
is largely the result of changes in the regulations of the supplement industry in 1994 that made
it easier to bring products to market. It has helped the supplement industry not the consumer,
and plenty of quality, purity, and efficacy issues remain.
Supplements don’t solve a major problem
Almost universally, people want to lose weight (or at least control their current weight) in
addition to being healthy. You know from Section 14, weight control comes down to eating the
right number of calories or macronutrients. We also need the right amount of quality nutrients
for our health.
And it’s a diet of mostly whole unprocessed foods that provides that best match between
quantity and quality, particularly without weighing and measuring everything you eat.
Whole unprocessed foods help fill us up with a lower caloric density while getting all the
micronutrients (usually to a greater breadth and depth than that in a supplement).
Supplements do not help us better match quantity and quality. They give us some quality but
are not filling and therefore do not affect quantity.
This is also true of powdered greens. One of the great things about actual leafy greens is
that they are a good filler! They can help fill you up at a low caloric cost and provide tons of
nutrients. While using powdered greens isn’t harmful, you have missed the entire benefit of
eating real food. You still have a mismatch of quality and quantity.
Processed foods are high in quantity and low in quality, and supplements are high in quality
and low to non-existent in quantity. Theoretically, you could eat the right amount of processed
foods, and just add all the supplements – pills or powdered greens – to get the quality nutrients
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you need. The problem is we don’t see people are
effective at doing that. Time and time again, it’s the
diets of mostly whole unprocessed foods that are
routinely associated with health. This suggests that
despite our best efforts to come up with superior
food products and alternatives to whole foods, the
basics of eating mostly whole unprocessed foods is
still the best option.
THE#800gCHALLENGE®
Want more?
Check out The
Consistency Project
podcast episode:
on Supplements and
the Worried Well.
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#18
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
THE MYTHS OF MOTIVATION AND ACCOUNTABILITY
Motivation is a wonderful thing. The problem is: it’s fleeting when we need it. While we are often
motivated at the start of a new diet, we usually are dreaming of donuts and pizza on day
three.
What gives? Did you just miss out on the “motivation” gene?
Unlikely.
We need to stop looking for motivation to propel us forward, because typically, the sustained
motivation that everyone wants comes with proficiency. People tend to be motivated to
continue and sustain habits that they are good at.
With nutrition, this means seeing results usually provides motivation to keep going. This means
you can’t be looking for motivation to reach for the fruit over the cookie. You must put in a lot of
work before obvious results will be realized.
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The other thing you can’t be looking for is external
accountability. You can’t only be doing this because
you signed up with a coach. You become successful in
nutrition when you become accountable to yourself.
Coaches and courses are great to help the process!
They can set a plan, provide clarity and support, and
get you on your way toward results. But ultimately, you
are successful when you implement the day-to-day
changes and do the work. This is true in anything in
life be it your job, a side hustle, and even relationships.
Success in any area is up to you. While everyone needs
“
You become
successful in
nutrition when
you become
accountable to
yourself.
a coach or support at times, there is a point when you
have read and learned enough and you just need to
be accountable to yourself. It is when you expect to
subcontract out accountability indefinitely is when you
stay in the infinite pattern of working on your nutrition
without progress.
The way not to rely on motivation and external accountability is to build habits. Habits work
regardless of motivation because you have done it so many times before. Habits are like being
on autopilot: you go through the motions even on the days you don’t want to. To build habits,
you set a doable plan and follow through with it. It will be hard at first. And it also will not be
perfect (Section 11). But the more you follow through with your plan, the easier it gets. And you
know what else you get? Motivation. The reward of your hard work creating sound habits is
now you have the motivation to keep going.
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#19
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
WHAT ABOUT KIDS?
The #800gChallenge® is doable for kids on a caloric needs basis. By middle school, even
sedentary children need 1,600 calories or more per day (and an average #800gChallenge®
is only about 400-500 calories). The key with children, however, is to make nutrition flexible
and fun.
The goal is to make children associate eating healthy with fun and not to enforce strict rules or
unachievable targets. Since the #800gChallenge® focuses on addition versus restriction and
allows for one’s preferences, it is flexible for kids. It can also be fun because the scale becomes
a toy and there is math involved (a win for parents). Some friendly competition with siblings
may be fun too.
Setting targets based on “servings” to satiety is a fine approach for kids, such as six different
fruits and veggies a day instead of a specific gram total. Some rough guidelines might be:
•
•
400 grams or 4 items in elementary school,
600 grams or 6 items in middle school,
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•
800 grams in high school.
These are just guidelines, where some younger children will eat 800 grams without issue,
some high schoolers may be better off focusing on 400 grams to develop consistency. Parents
are encouraged to observe their child’s eating habits to select an appropriate target. Ideally,
we find a target that provides a little bit of a challenge, but we also want it to be (*key words*)
flexible and fun.
In the first few days of the challenge for any child, consider a more ⁣open-ended approach
such as, “let’s see where you end up” each day. This can help set the realistic daily target as well
as whether tracking the number of items or total grams is the best approach.
On days where fruit and vegetable consumption was nowhere near the planned target,
use those days as a teaching tool about “where could we have made different food choices
today?” versus as grounds for punishment. This helps instill the notion of progress over
perfection (which is a hurdle many adults struggle with in their diet).
There are two ways to help kids be successful with the #800gChallenge®:
1.
Have healthy food ready to go in the fridge. Kids (and adults!) will be far more willing
to grab the fruit or veggies already washed and cut up. Pre-bagging snacks or jars of
items provide “to-go” options when walking out the door to sports practice or school
events.
2.
Do not obsess over which fruits and veggies they are eating. If your kids are in a
strawberry phase, run with it. It might be a roasted potato phase next, followed by
carrots (dipped in peanut butter, yum!). Whatever the phase is, embrace it. Diversity in
the diet is a good strategy to cover one’s nutrients, but so much of the goal with children
is building basic eating habits around choosing whole foods over processed ones. It’s
much better to allow their #800gChallenge® be only strawberries and roasted sweet
potatoes versus having them rebel against the idea entirely. And those choices aren’t
even “less than”; in most cases other foods in their diet round out their nutrient needs.
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Finally, it is worth stating that while calories and weight are a focus for many adults, parents are
encouraged to keep the conversation related to health and fitness only and avoid any weight
goals. Conversations with children can highlight things like the nutrients in fruits and vegetables
support strong bones and a robust immune system and can even help them run faster on the
soccer field. If the child presses for more information on calories, it can always be phrased in
terms of providing energy to have a heartbeat and to run up the stairs versus controlling one’s
weight.
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WHAT’S NEXT?
#20
t_j_riley@hotmail.com 05 Dec 2022
WHERE DO I GO FROM HERE?
One of the classic faults in nutrition is trying to do everything at once. While the
#800gChallenge® is a foundational approach to nutrition, it also addresses just part of the diet.
(The book title gave that away, right?!). It’s impossible to get everyone the results they want with
this one tool alone. It’s best to consider it an initial step to better align your diet with your goals.
And you should stay on this step as long as it takes to become a habit before rushing into
greater complexity. Conceptually, you will understand the #800gChallenge®, its rules, and
how to make a day successful much more quickly than you will do it in real life. It takes about
66 days for a diet change to become a habit (Lally et al., 2010), and it’s worth taking every
one of those days to focus on it. That’s a blip in your overall life to work on a habit that has the
potential to benefit you throughout it.
You want to be able to pull this off on weekends, during travel, with late nights at the office,
and at social events before thinking you need “more.” Rushing ahead to more rules and steps
can end up making you overwhelmed and falling off any diet at all.
And here’s the other thing: you might not need more! You might not need more precision and
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rules, so why not see how far this takes you before thinking you need more? Ideally, you do the
least amount of work in nutrition to get the results you want.
That being said, if and when you are ready for the next step, that is called Lazy Macros®. It’s
about building on the foundation of the #800gChallenge® with the addition of a protein
target. Like the #800gChallenge®, it focuses on adding foods to the diet, not eliminating them.
You can learn more about Lazy Macros® here. The third and final step in your diet (if necessary)
would be to establish quality and protein within the proper total number of calories. This gives
us the most comprehensive picture of what your diet really looks like, but also requires a lot
of work. Adequate quality, protein, and calories form the three pillars of our diet that drive the
overwhelming percentage of results. But now is not the time to focus on that: set the requisite
foundation of the #800gChallenge® and only add on Lazy Macros® when ready.
Become an #800gChallenge Coach
®
Since its inception, the idea and basic how-to for the #800gChallenge® has been freely
available on the OptimizeMe Nutrition website for personal use. It is a registered trademark,
however, and programs are available for gyms or corporate wellness groups to run organized
programs. You cannot market or use the #800gChallenge® without buying a program or
becoming affiliated with OptimizeMe Nutrition.
If you would like to become an #800gChallenge® coach to teach others this method, the
Masterclass is your next step. This provides the framework for the entire OptimizeMe Nutrition
methodology (“Three Pillars Method”) and is the first requirement to become an affiliated
coach.
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more from ec synkowski
Want more nutrition content from the creator of the #800gChallenge®? Stay
connected with EC Synkowski through these resources:
•
•
•
•
•
Podcast: The Consistency Project
Email list
Instagram
Facebook
YouTube
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