The Consistency Diet is a crash course in nutrition life skills. It’s the last diet you need to build muscle, lose fat, and feel great.
I’ve been searching high and low for nutrition secrets for decades. At first, it was a selfish pursuit. I was Ponce de Leon looking for the Fountain of Youth, except my quest was for the fountain of muscle gains and performance.
Then, my search evolved. Over the years, as I coached hundreds of clients, one question emerged: Why is nutrition so hard for most people? Exercise is not the biggest struggle. It’s diet, by far. There has to be a solution.
From there, I went all in on Flexible Dieting, and counting macros proved an excellent option for most people. For me, it was awesome. However, I came to flexible dieting after years of following strict meal plans. As good as it was, macro tracking didn’t work for everyone.
It turns out there is only one nutrition secret—consistency. You can follow any diet you want—flexible dieting, low carb, low fat, intermittent fasting, paleo, Mediterranean—it doesn’t matter. The only thing that matters is your ability to stick to it. If you stick to it, it will work. If you can’t, it won’t.
It’s cliche, but any diet must become a lifestyle for it to last. You need to be able to follow it with as little effort (physical and mental) as possible. Flexible dieting missed the boat on this. It took too much effort. There wasn’t enough structure for you to go on autopilot. And we need to be able to go on autopilot occasionally. I don’t want you thinking about food all of the time.
So, what’s the solution? It’s not perfect, but The Consistency Diet is my best answer.
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What is the Consistency Diet?
The Consistency Diet is a macronutrient-based diet with daily structure. It’s designed around your maintenance calorie intake, the number of calories you need to consume to maintain your current weight. This means, in theory, you should neither gain nor lose weight while following this diet.
Since The Consistency Diet is at maintenance calorie intake, everything builds from it. Most of the year, you should eat The Consistency Diet. Around 80-90 % of the time. When you are consistent with maintenance intake, it’s easy to subtract calories to slip into a fat-loss phase or add calories to jump into a gaining phase.
The beauty of the diet is that maintenance intake should be comfortable. You should not feel hungry, deprived, or food-focused. Consistency should come naturally. Remember, we want eating to be as simple as possible. The goal is both flexibility and structure. Most importantly, you don’t have to track every bite of food you consume.
Setting Up The Consistency Diet
The first step in setting up The Consistency Diet is to find your maintenance calorie intake. To do so, we need to calculate Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). TDEE is the total calories your body burns daily. There are a ton of advanced formulas, but a simple calculation works just as well.
I like to use a two-step process. Step one is to calculate your resting metabolic rate (RMR), which is how many calories you burn daily at rest. From there, step two is to multiply by a daily activity multiplier to individualize the value by how active you are.
Step 1: RMR Calculation
To find RMR, multiply your body weight by ten if you are a man and by nine if you are a woman.
Men RMR = bodyweight x 10
Women RMR = bodyweight x 9
One quick note: if you are above ~25% body fat as a man or ~35% body fat as a woman, use your goal body weight, not your actual body weight.
Here is an example for me. I weigh 163lbs.
RMR = 163 lbs x 10
RMR = 1630
Step 2: Activity Multiplier
As mentioned, we multiply RMR by an activity multiplier to account for daily activity. The range of values is 1.2 to 2.2. Be honest. Some things to consider are your daily step count, how much time you spend sitting, your job, and how many days per week you lift and do cardio.
Sedentary: 1.2 – 1.3
Moderately Active: 1.4-1.7
Highly Active: 1.8-2.2
My example: Currently, I lift weights four times a week, do cardio for 20 minutes four times a week, and average 10,000 steps a day. Although this is a decent amount of activity, I’m sedentary outside of that. I spend most of the day sitting at my desk. Based on this, I classify myself in the middle of the moderately active range (1.5).
Maintenance Calorie Intake (MCI) = RMR x Activity Multiplier
MCI = 1630 x 1.5 (moderately active)
MCI = 2445 calories
For me, 2445 calories is a great starting point for The Consistency Diet. However, this is just a calculation—it’s our best guess. Once you get started, tracking your body weight is important to ensure this is your maintenance range. You may need to add or subtract calories based on how your body responds. The calculated maintenance is too high in calories if you gain weight and too low if you lose weight. You might have to play around with the numbers a little bit until it’s one hundred percent dialed in.
Macronutrient Formula
Now that we know how many calories you need to eat, the next step is figuring out your macros. Protein is the most crucial part, so we will start with that.
Protein
Calculating how much protein to eat is simple. To build and maintain muscle, you want to eat between .7-1g of protein per pound of body weight. Like the calorie calculation, .7-1g per pound works perfectly with an average body weight. However, if you are over 25% body fat as a man or 35% body fat as a woman, use your goal body weight, not your actual body weight, to base your protein intake.
My example: 163lbs male
Protein intake: 163 x .7-1g = 114g – 163g
To make it easy, I generally lean toward one gram of protein. So, for me, we will roll with (rounded up) 165 grams.
Fat
Once we’ve determined our protein needs, fat comes next. The recommended range for fat Intake is broad and largely depends on your preference. Carbs and fat have an inverse connection. So, when calories and protein are accounted for, the lower your carb intake, the higher your fat can be, and vice versa. I recommend consuming 20-35% of daily calories in fat.
My example:
My calculated maintenance calorie intake is 2445.
- 20% of 2445 = 54g
- 35% of 2445 = 95g
I got those numbers by multiplying 2445 by .2 (20%) and .35 (35%) and dividing the values by nine since fat has nine calories per gram.
I prefer around 25% of my daily calories from fat. So, 68g (rounded up) to 70g.
Carbohydrates
Last but not least, carbohydrates. Once we figure out our protein and fat intake, the remaining calories are used for carbohydrates. So, when you decide your fat intake, you also choose your carb intake by default.
My example:
Calories: 2445
Protein: 165g
Fat: 70g
Carbs: 290g*
*Carbs: 2445 – 660 (protein calories) – 630 (fat calories) = 1155 calories left over for carbs. Since carbs are four calories per gram, you divide 1155 by 4 to get ~290g of carbs.
What about fiber? To keep it simple, aim for 20-40g a day. I like to accomplish this by focusing on complex carbs and eating five servings of fruit or veggies.
The Consistency Diet Template – My Diet
Okay, here we go. Creating a daily template is the key to The Consistency Diet. Without this, it’s just a macro-based diet.
The goal is to create a daily meal plan that you can be consistent with. You don’t have to eat the exact same thing every day, but you should eat mostly the same thing every day. Remember, the goal is consistency.
Build your diet using the maintenance calories and macro numbers we already came up with. I recommend using My Fitness Pal or MyMacros+ to do this.
To get you started, figure out how many meals and snacks you plan to eat. I have long days, from 6 a.m. to midnight, so I generally eat three meals and two snacks. For most, I recommend eating between three and six times a day. From there, just divide your calories and macros between the meals you plan to eat.
Breakfast:
- 4 whole eggs
- 1 cup oats
- 1 cup blueberries
Lunch:
- 4oz chicken breast
- 1 cup of cooked rice
- 1-2 servings of mixed veggies
- 1/2 tbs of olive oil
Snack:
- 1 scoop of protein powder
- 1 medium apple
Dinner:
- 1 serving of protein (chicken, shrimp, fish, lean red meat)
- 1-2 servings of carbohydrates (rice, potato, pasta)
- 1-2 servings of green veggies
- .5-1 serving of fat
Snack:
- 1 cup Fat-Free Greek Yogurt
- 2 plain rice cakes
- 2tbs peanut butter
*Note: I have 20g of carbs during my workout on training days.
That’s around 70g fat, 290g carbs, 165g protein, and 2400-2450 calories. This diet serves its purpose by allowing me to maintain my body weight.
Notice I don’t have specific foods listed for my dinner. It’s because I eat dinner with my family. The rest of the day is 95% of what’s listed. With dinner, I build in some flexibility within the framework of the daily plan to mix and match different foods. For help with this, look at the basic food serving guide below.
Food Serving Guide
- One Serving (~30g) of Protein: 5oz fish, chicken, lean red meat, pork loin, one scoop of protein powder, one protein bar, five eggs or seven egg whites, 1 cup Greek yogurt, 1 cup cottage cheese, etc.
- One Serving (~30g) of Carbohydrates: 1/2 cup oats, 2/3 cup rice, 6oz potato, 2 pieces of bread, 1 cup of pasta, etc.
- One Serving (~15g) of Fat: 2 tbs peanut, almond, or cashew butter, 1 tbs olive oil, 2 tbs salad dressing, 3 eggs, 1 tbs butter, 1oz nuts, 1/2 avocado, etc.
- One Serving of Fruit: 1 apple, 1 banana, 1 cup berries, 1 orange, 2 mini oranges, 1 cup orange juice, etc.
- One Serving of Green Veggies: 1 cup of broccoli, asparagus, green beans, spinach, romaine lettuce, etc.
Adjusting The Consistency Diet to Lose Fat or Build Muscle
Since The Consistency Diet is a maintenance plan, we will only spend a little bit of time talking about dieting to lose fat or build muscle. Those topics are beyond the scope of this article. However, The Consistency Diet makes transitioning to fat loss or muscle building super easy.
Remember, the idea is to spend most of the time eating at maintenance. Don’t think of it as a period with no progress. You can still gain muscle and strength at maintenance. You can even lose fat too. That’s the power of consistency. Over the years, I’ve had many clients improve their body composition (more muscle and less fat) simply by committing to consistency and training hard. It’s not fast progress, but it’s sustainable.
That said, there comes a time when you want quicker changes. When that time comes, a dedicated fat-loss or muscle-gaining phase makes sense. All you need to do is reduce calories by 10-20% for a fat-loss phase or increase calories by 10-20% for a muscle-building phase. The only things that should change are calories, carbs, and fats. Protein stays consistent, whatever your goal is.
In practice, use The Consistency Diet framework and add or subtract food. For example, when I’m in a fat-loss phase, for breakfast, I will swap out a couple of whole eggs for egg whites and take out 1/4 cup of oats. I will take out the rice cakes for my last snack and only have half the peanut butter. Just those little changes are enough to get me started.
To gain muscle, I use higher-fat Greek yogurt instead of fat-free and increase my carb servings at lunch and dinner. In addition, a couple of nights a week, I replace dinner with eating out or having a chocolate chip cookie or slow-churned ice cream for dessert.
How to Actually Stick to Your Diet
I’m not naive enough to think this will solve your nutritional problems. It won’t. However, committing to the process will unlock a level of consistency you probably haven’t achieved before. The Consistency Diet is about creating and fine-tuning a plan that works and then repeating it over and over.
Also, as a reminder, the example diet I gave earlier in the article was specific to me: what I eat, my preferences, my schedule, and my individual calorie needs. I’m not recommending that you eat the same foods as I do. In fact, that’s missing the point. Use the example eating structure and design a custom Consistency Diet based on your needs and preferences.
As always, if you have any questions, feel free to let me know. I’m here to help.
PS – Watch the video below to see The Consistency Diet in action. For reference, this video is over six years old but still relevant.
Author: Kyle Hunt
Email: KyleHuntFitness@gmail.com
Hire Kyle as your coach: http://www.kylehuntfitness.com/services/