For my entire life, I feel like I’ve been given nothing but dietary limits.
Limit meals to 3 per day. Limit snacks to 1 per day. Limit dessert to 1 per day. Limit fruits to 3 per day. Limit fat to 30 grams per day. Limit carbs to 50 grams per day. Limit calories to 1200 per day. Just kidding. Limit calories to 800 per day.
Don’t do this, don’t do that.
Diet in America–the healthy diet everyone always talks about–is always about a limit. It’s about a number. It’s about a prescription, a border, a container. The most trending diet searched on Google in 2015 was the “20/20” diet.
Diet in America gives you a restrictive number, and it’s supposed to be some silver bullet. It combines two of America’s favorite things–numbers and willpower! (I wish I were joking, but I’m not.)
It says: hit this target, strive for this target, work for this target. The more hardcore you are, the better you are. The more hardcore you are, the more willpower you’ll have, and the more the rewards are within your reach. If only you can manage to restrict yourself this much, to this precise amount, you will finally be the healthy, thin woman you always deserved to be.
(Says Oprah, anyway.)
So this is what diets are all about.
This is what, by and large, paleo is about, too.
Paleo talks so much about macronutrients. And nearly every single bit of advice you will ever hear about macronutrients in the paleosphere is that you should “keep them to” some level. It’s carbs, by the way, that paleo is mostly worried about… other worlds, like vegetarianism, do the same thing with fat.
“Keep carbs low,” they say.
“Limit fruits to a small handful of berries a day.”
“Be sure not to have too much.”
“Go ahead and eat carbs, but not too much.”
“Have some carbs, but only post-workout.”
“Don’t eat more than 200 grams of carbs a day, or else you’re in the “danger zone” with “insidious weight gain.””
You might think things were different.
These days, paleo talks the big talk. It says that it’s progressive about macronutrients.
But all it does is limit them in a different way.
Instead of saying, “keep carbs under 30 grams a day” it says, instead, “only eat carbs in the evening meal,” or something. Between 6 and 8 pm. 4 hours before bedtime, they say.
To which I say,
“hell no.”
Don’t set macronutrient maximums, set macronutrient minimums
From my point of view, the right thing to do is to throw dietary maximums out the window.
Let’s stop talking about food like it’s something to be corralled.
Let’s stop talking about food like it’s a problem.
Let’s stop talking about food like an indulgence.
Instead, let’s talk about food like it’s healthy. Let’s talk about food like it’s energy, and fuel. Let’s talk about food like it’s nourishment.
You need food in order to reproduce. You need food in order to be active. You need food into order to feel happy, to feel good, to be kind, to go on adventures, and to live your life.
Protein is a part of this. Fat is a part of this. Carbs are a part of this. Calories are a part of this.
And none of those things (unless you have some specific health condition) should be restricted. None of those things merit fear.
They are all just different components of food, and food is that which gives us life.
In fact, it is much more unhealthy to undereat than it is to overeat. I would rather see a woman eat 400 grams of good, natural carbohydrates a day than 4…. 4000 calories instead of 40.
So let’s stop setting macronutrient maximums, and instead set minimums.
Fat grams, per day, should be at an absolute minimum 30 grams. That is an absolute basement minimum, and should ideally be at least 45 or 50 grams a day as a minimum.
Protein should be 50 grams daily, minimum, for women (and more for athletes).
Carbohydrates should be 100 grams daily, minimum, for women (and more for athletes). If you have a particular health condition such as diabetes or really want to be “low carb,” then 50 grams daily should probably be reasonably sustainble for you. But let’s be real. Most of us don’t need to do that. At all.
Calories should be 2000 minimum, daily. For women.
There, I said it. 2000 calories a day. I’m done pretending like it’s good or okay to eat less. I’m done rationalizing our restrictive eating behaviors. I’m done thinking that it’s okay to undereat, just because society says you don’t deserve to eat, or to have meat on your bones. You can eat less than 2000 calories a day and survive, certainly. And I want you to eat when you are hungry and stop when you feel good and full. But if you ever dip below 2000 calories a day because you don’t feel good about yourself, I hope that you read this post, and read my other posts on self-love, and read my book Sexy by Nature, and look at yourself in the mirror every day and say “I am hot. I am worthy. I am smart. I am capable. I am amazing, and lovable.” Because you are, and I’ll be damned if I let a nutrition label or a jean size or a nasty comment shouted at you from a passing vehicle ever let you feel otherwise.
Eat as many carbs as you want! Eat as much fat! Eat as much volulme! At whatever time of day you want!
I don’t care! The universe doesn’t care! Your body doesn’t particularly care! I mean certainly, your body cares. But it can be healthy with carbs, healthy with fats, healthy with protein, and healthy with varying calories, eaten at any time of the day! Really!
So in my opinion, the healthy thing to do is to set minimums. The smart thing to do is to set minimums. The loving thing to do is to set minimums.
When you do this–when you set minimums instead of maximums–you start to think of food as something you should be welcoming into your life with open arms. You think of food as nourishment. You think of food as a gift, and something to be cherished.
And then yourself, as a being worthy of that gift.
For my post on whether you can love yourself and lose weight, check it out, here.
For my post on why I love healthy at every size, check it out, here.
So there it is. My feelings about macronutrients today. I’m feeling fiery. How about you? What do you think of this idea? How does it work for you?
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I love this so much!! Thank you, Stef, for redefining ‘food guidelines’ and resetting our view that food is indeed healthy and necessary for survival 🙂
What a fantastic article! “..let’s talk about food like it’s healthy. Let’s talk about food like it’s energy, and fuel. Let’s talk about food like it’s nourishment.”
I love this! How liberating. So thankful that Mark Sisson sent me to your blog. I was trying to stick to eating lower range of carbs, around 60 g per day and just not feeling good. Feeling kind of sad, actually! Experimenting with 100 grams a day and feeling much better.
Thank you!
Yeah, there’s a lot of low carbing on Mark’s forums (I’m assuming that’s where you’ve come from) – but there are some staunch PfW type advocates thrown in the mix there, too. Glad you found your way to us and to a eating style that works for you!
you are amazing Stephanie and this needed to be said, out loud, in caps. I am so sick of numbers and restrictions, it makes something that should be healthy and natural transform into something overwhelming and anxiety-inducing. every time I allow myself to relax into a non-restrictive head space, and actually enjoy food (what a though!), I find myself reveling in how wonderful it feels to be nourished. then I spiral down the rabbit hole again. I have found myself inching towards this train of thought as a means to an end, without yet putting it into words – thank YOU for doing so, and making it feel that much more okay, healthy, and perfectly good! <3
Yes!! Thank YOU for having the same intuition and living it!
Love your way of thinking, and I never thought to approach it that way. Even a small change in language dramatically shifts our perception. As always, I love your positivity!
However, I do have a question about the whole “2000cal/day”. Where do you get that number and argue that it applies to every woman? For example, would you still recommend a 2000cal minimum to a woman who is 4 foot 10 in and not very active? I would imagine that woman would have slightly lower energy requirements.
Thanks!
lol, yes, slightly lower. And metabolism does slow a bit as we age. In general, however, the 2000 does roughly apply – again, generally speaking. Obviously based on history, fat mass, muscle mass, activity level, stress, and the like, everybody’s calorie intake will be different. I am simply hoping to emphasize that we radically underestimate how much we should be eating – all of us 🙂
Are you saying a naturally petite woman intuitively eating 1500 calories a day should be forcing herself to eat more just to get to an arbitrary 2000?
I like this concept. But being of reproductive age, I’ve heard it’s best to eat fat and protein in the morning, and carbs at night. It helps “balance things”. I’m not exactly sure what those “things” are, but I would like to know. And does this — the time of day certain macros are taken in– really matter? Does our body absorb or process certain macro nutrients better at certain times of the day?
time of day doesn’t matter, in my opinion. it might vary between individual – say, for example, if you workout in the mornings, you should definitely have some carbs after your workout. but i simply don’t see it as something to stress over.
some things to consider may be if you do better on small-moderate doses of carbs throughout the day, or if you prefer it all at once. it would probably be better for blood sugar management, if you struggle with blood sugar swings, to do it steadily throughout the day, or reserve carbs for at night. you may also wish to consider the fact that carbs help produce tryptophan and serotonin which can help you sleep, which is one reason carb intake is recommended later in the day.
the ‘balance’ issue to which you refer is probably where people advocate eating fat and protein (and carbs only at night) to promote insulin sensitivity. i don’t see this really panning out in the literature. you are your most insulin sensitive in the morning, having ‘fasted’ overnight and slept, so they recommend keeping insulin levels as low as possible throughout as much of the day as possible. on the other hand, there is another theory which says that you SHOULD eat carbs in the morning because, as your most insulin sensitive, you have the best ability to metabolize them. it’s all kind of bullshit in my opinion, because bodies are built to be able to metabolize the fuel given them, no matter the time of day. unless you struggle with diabetes or insulin resistance, I really don’t think this is anything to stress over.
🙂
This is why I LOVE you. Thanks a million times for this, just reading it makes me feel amazing and worthy of whatever I choose to eat.
YOU ARE AMAZING!
I love this idea, Stefani.
My motivation for limiting calories and macros has always been to stay a safe distance from that “danger zone with insidious weight gain”. As a little girl I learned that eating naturally and effortlessly resulted in living in a body that attracted ridicule from my brothers and made me different from my friends. So I started making an effort to control my food and it worked- I lost weight and felt safe. I was safe from the ridicule of others, but I was instead subjected to the harsh “will powered” part of me that watched over every bite with judgement and bitterness. Now there was a bigger fear than being made fun of. The fear of losing control which became an even bigger anxiety monster.
You’re absolutely right that it is more dangerous to be underfed than overfed. In the years I spent underfed I could not enjoy my life. I was too anxious to leave my comfort zone for adventures where food would be more difficult to monitor. I’m learning to trust my body again- that it will look the way its supposed to look when I’m feeding it enough- or rather- when I feed it at LEAST what you’ve outlined in Weightloss Unlocked.
Thanks for your work and your fire!
MY BETH IS THE BEST 😉
Thanks for sharing, love.
Wow!! Thank you for writing this. It is such a valuable mindset to stop thinking of food as a problem or indulgence.
I started feeling much better when I added more carbs into my paleo diet several months ago as a result of something you had written.
Once again, thank you. You have made a real difference in my life.
🙂 <3
Yes yes yes and yes! I have recently said f*ck it to all preconceived notions about diet and eaten whatever I want (except gluten because it makes me feel terrible). I have actually lost weight with this strategy! It is unbelievably freeing.
all about F’ing all the things 🙂
Love love love this Stefanie. It’s just what I have started to learn in my own experience! Thank you for all your hard work. Melanie, sunny UK 🙂 x
How disappointing that you only let through positive comments. You could at least attempt to clarify your point when someone “criticizes” something you write.
um, no, I simply scan and approve all comments