Sooo… you wanna start eating healthy huh?

That’s amazing!

After helping hundreds of people like you transform their eating habits, even if you are completely dependent on ordering food and cannot cook a meal to save your life.

Don’t worry as this guide will teach you everything you’ll need to know to make healthy eating apart of your lifestyle.

I’m going to show you the exact strategies I use with my online and in-person clients

The following tips and strategies have been stress-tested over the years. and helped them lose weight and get into shape without being miserable.

Take a look at Ben who was able to completely transform his life by losing over 100 pounds by following these same strategies and principles.

In this ultimate guide, we’ll cover everything you need to start eating healthy today:

The Truth of Healthy Eating
What Exactly is Healthy Eating
The 80/20 Rule of Healthy Eating
What Foods to Choose
How to Build your Meals
3 Steps to Simplifying your Nutrition
The Most Important Question
Your Next Steps

The Truth About Healthy Eating

When it comes to nutritional advice, It’s extremely easy to tell people the following advice:

“ To lose weight, just eat less and move more”

“Instead of eating junk food, try eating more real food.”

“Try eating more protein throughout the day.”

“Only eat the foods that’s been blessed by the organic gods”

Ok maybe not that last one, but you get the idea.

However, it’s not far off what unhealthy people say who can’t seem to get healthy. In my opinion, these statements are out of touch with reality and don’t actually help you eat healthier.

For starters, fast food is absolutely delicious and dirt cheap. Oftentimes, this is the only way that many busy professionals or parents can feed themselves when on the run!

But C’mon man….

You don’t need to be told that freshly grown fruits and vegetables are better for us than junk food! You don’t need a coach who’s going to tell you that grilled chicken and a spinach salad is healthier than having a Big Mac.

On top of that, applying morality and guilt to food consumptions (i.e. I’m being so bad by eating this cookie!”) creates an unnecessary emotional rollercoaster that can quickly spiral out of control leading to negative self-esteem issues.

We all know this and telling someone this is simply insulting!

So rather than telling my online clients “just try harder” to eat healthier, we’re going to use science, psychology, and simple strategies to make this happen. Sounds good?

Before going any further, I want you to know this: healthy eating doesn’t just mean funneling spinach smoothies, only eating chicken, broccoli, and rice, and completely abandoning your loyalty to New York Pizza slices

You absolutely CAN lose weight and be healthy while still occasionally eating those delicious slices of pizza. Hell, people have lost weight by eating Twinkies and eating a Big Mac every day for 30 days!

The reason WHY I’m sharing this is not to promote those foods, yet rather to make a big point:

Food isn’t good or evil. It’s just food!

If you are terrified of giving up all “junk foods” in the name of “eating healthy”, please know this:

You do not need to give up fast food.
You do not need to feel shame for eating ice cream.
You don’t need to use terms like “cheat meal” or “guilty pleasure” when talking about pizza

If we have certain health goals, we can give ourselves the best chance of success by getting strategic about what we say “yes” to and what foods we say “sometimes” to.

It’s those “yes” foods that give us more energy and have fewer calories on average than “junk food” which means we’re likely to at fewer total calories than realizing it!

The ultimate goal of healthy eating is to eat foods that give us enough energy and satisfaction to have a longer lifespan, a smaller waistline, enjoy the foods we eat and have a happier existence.

What Exactly is Healthy Eating?

Let’s remove all the morality and science of food and discuss a realistic definition of healthy food:

“Foods I frequently enjoy eating that give me enough fuel and energy to get me throughout the day without making me feel miserable.”

This is why the majority of books, coaches, and doctors all generally recommend the same list of healthy foods

Proteins like lean cuts of meats and legumes
Fresh fruits and veggies
Healthy carbohydrates like rice, oatmeal, and potatoes
Healthy fats like almonds and olive oils

There is a reason why these foods always appear on every “healthy foods” list. The reason is simple: they’ll contain a healthy dose of protein, fiber, vitamins, minerals, AND fewer calories than their processed food counterparts. In addition, they’ll keep us full and satisfied longer to keep our total calories in check.

So, if we can prioritize these foods on our plates, even occasionally, we’ll feel full more often while eating fewer calories which leads to sustainable weight loss.

This leads to my next point: we are absolutely terrible at estimating how many calories we eat!!

We consistently eat MORE food and calories than we think, sometimes as much as 40% MORE.

I want to drive this point home a bit more so take a look at the pictures below.. Each of the following food items contains 200 calories in the qualities shown. (Huge shout out to WiseGeek for putting this together!)

Looking at the individual food items and quantities, the realization that we might overeat certain food groups compared to others becomes more clear.

If we overeat the apple slices, we might eat an extra 30 calories, which happens.
If we accidently eat the entire of Doritos, we might add an extra 300-600 calories.
If accidently eat the entire jar of peanut butter because we had a shitty-ass day, we might eat an extra 2000+ calories.

To make matters worse, we OVERestimate how many calories we burn via exercise. Studies have shown that fitness trackers, like AppleWatch and Fitbit, overestimate energy burn via exercise by 20% or more!

So when we cannot lose weight, it’s not because we have a broken metabolism, or bad genetics, or eating for our blood type.

It’s because we consistently eat too much food without realizing it.

So it’s time to stop “trying harder” and instead “try differently.”

In order to start eating healthy, we need to find ways to include more low-calorie-dense foods that fill us up while tasting good!

While this may seem daunting at first, I’ll show you how to do this step by step! Keep in mind that to become a better version of yourself. It requires doing things your current version finds uncomfortable at first. Success comes from doing the necessary things consistently rather than complaining about them.

The 80/20 Rule of Healthy Eating

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably lost weight before. I’m willing to bet good money you lose it doing something unsustainable (i.e. doing Keto, only eating “clean foods”, not eating after 6 pm., etc.)

You may have lost that weight, but I can guarantee that you regained it all back.

How do I know? Because whatever you do to lose weight is the same thing you’ll have to do to keep the weight off!

So if the method is unsustainable, then you won’t be able to sustain your hard-earned result. This is why you need to follow the 80/20 rule as this has been absolutely crucial for my online clients to achieve sustainable success. The 80/20 rule is fairly simple and straightforward: 80% of your calories should come from nutrient-dense whole foods.

These nutrient-dense foods are basically one ingredient foods, such as

Eggs
Oatmeal
All fruits and vegetables
Chicken
Rice
Potatoes
Greek Yogurt
Meat
All vegetables and fruits (yes, I put this on here twice)

Here is another way to look at healthy foods: your food item should have at one point:

Swam in the ocean
Roamed the earth
Flew in the sky
Grew from the ground

If your food item(s) calls into one or both of these categories, then it falls into the nutrient-dense category aka 80% of your diet. These foods will help you stay full longer than their highly processed food counterparts. People make getting and staying lean a lot harder than necessary by eating foods that digest quickly and leaving them hungry again in an hour.

On the other end of the spectrum, we have the 20% of the food that you enjoy! These food items include:

Cookies
Chips
Big Macs
Pizza
Burgers
Ice Cream
Doritos, Cheese its, etc.
Alcohol

Remember that our goal (i.e eating healthy without being miserable) has to include foods you can enjoy in moderation. We don’t want to completely restrict ourselves and cut them out altogether as this will backfire every single time and normally lead to a restricting-binge cycle.

Let’s put this into perspective: Let’s say your calorie goal was 2000 calories. By following the 80/20 rule, 1600 calories should come from nutrient-dense foods while the remaining 400 calories should come from treats and things you enjoy.

Again, the goal of any sustainable dietary plan is to include foods you enjoy in moderation while still losing weight. The absolute last thing we want is to restrict ourselves by removing our favorite foods as this will backfire every single time and normally lead to a restricting-binging cycle.

Within my online coaching program, we call this the Momentum Phase, in which we take the necessary time to build these healthy habits.

How to Start Eating Healthy

Our food is composed of three macronutrients: protein, carbs, and fats. Each macronutrient plays a crucial role so your body can optimally function and be healthy (yes… even carbs!).

It’s absolutely essential that you know each macronutrients role and importance so you know WHY you don’t need to avoid certain foods in order to eat healthily.

Protein: the building blocks for our muscles (4 calories per gram)

Carbohydrates: Our body’s main fuel source (4 calories per gram)

Fats: Can be burned as fuel and help with overall hormones and additional fuel sources (9 calories per gram).

It’s important to note that each macronutrient plays a critical role so your body can optimally function. It’s essential to your success that you know each macronutrients role and importance to have a full understanding of why you don’t need to avoid certain foods in order to eat healthily.

Protein: Your Top Priority

Without a doubt, protein is the most important macronutrient to prioritize. The reason is simple: your body uses protein to rebuild your muscles, keep you strong while improving your body composition. In addition, protein is satisfying aka filling macronutrients so it will keep you feeling full longer.

Your protein source can come from a variety of different sources, such as:

Meat (beef, bison, pork)
Fowl (chicken, turkey, duck)
Eggs (whole or egg whites)
Fish and shellfish (salmon, tuna, shrimp)
Legumes (black beans, chickpeas)
Dairy (Cottage Cheese, Greek Yogurt, low-fat cheeses)

Now you know what are some good protein sources, now it’s time to know what a serving of protein looks like. Don’t worry, this is very easy as all you need is your hand as a serving of protein is about the size and thickness of your palm.

When building your plate, aim for the following amounts of protein

Males: 1-2 servings or palm-size portion (6-8oz or about 170-228g RAW)
Females: 1 serving or palm-size portions (3-4oz or 85-115g RAW)

By using your hand, this works extremely well in simplifying the whole “healthy eating” process by focusing on portion sizes and choosing those healthy nutrient-dense foods.

However, if you are curious, here’s how much protein is in a single serving of food:

One serving of chicken (4oz or 113g): 30g of protein
One serving of salmon (4oz or 113g): 23g of protein
One serving of steak (4oz or 113g): 28g of protein
One Serving of Eggs (2 whole eggs): 14g of protein
One Serving of nonfat Greek Yogurt (¾ Cups or 170g): 17g of protein

The next question wondering in your head is probably “how much protein should I eat per day? Don’t worry as I have you covered! You should eat between 80-100% of your body weight in pounds per gram of protein with an upper limit of 250g.

For example:

If you weigh 150 pounds (68kg), aim for 120-150g of protein.
If you weigh 200 pounds (68kg), aim for 160-200g of protein.
If you weigh 250 pounds (68kg), aim for 200-250g of protein.

Veggies and Fruit

Without a shadow of a doubt, this is the biggest difference-maker when it comes to eating healthy and sustainable weight management. All veggies are nutrient-dense, packed with vitamins, minerals, protein, and fiber that your body used to stay full, satisfied, and function at your best.

They are low-calorie energy-dense foods which means you can eat a lot of them to feel full, yet you’re unlikely to overconsume calories. I want to illustrate this important because it’s such a difference-maker in eating healthy.

As you can see, each of the food items contains XXX amount of calories, yet the overall volume aka the amount of food is different. Do you really think a handful of nuts will keep you full and satisfied when compared to a pound of watermelon?

I don’t think so and that’s why I wanted to illustrate the importance of having more high volume, low calorie-dense foods. When it comes to eating healthy, I want you to think about abundance, not scarcity.

As your coach, I want you to eat as much as possible while maintaining your weight, not eating as little as humanly possible.

When building your plate, aim for 2 servings of vegetables on your plate. Overall, it should roughly take up half of your plate!

Here’s a quick non-complete list of veggies that can fill your plate

Spinach, brussels sprouts
Zucchini
Cucumbers
Carrots
Onions
Asparagus
Broccoli

I can already hear what’s coming next… “But Mack, I don’t like eating vegetables…. Yet”

That’s totally cool. I didn’t really start eating veggies until I was 26, but now they’re the main staple of every meal I eat. There are literally hundreds of ways to make your veggies taste good, which you can check out here. Even if you are a picky eater, this guide will help level up your taste buds.

Before going any further, let’s do a quick recap:

Protein:

Males: 1-2 servings or palm-size portion (6-8oz or about 170-228g)
Females: 1 serving or palm-size portions (3-4oz or 85-115g)

Veggies:

1-2 serving or fist-size portions

Here’s the honest truth: If you are able to consistently do these two tips with each meal, then you’ll be on the fast path to eating healthy for the rest of your life.

I’m dead serious…

The two previous habits are truly the difference makers when it comes to healthy eating, losing weight, and weight management. If you are 80% consistent with just these two habits, you will completely transform your life. However, you won’t just be eating meat and veggies for the rest of your life so let’s address both carbs and fats.

Carbohydrates: Your Misunderstood Best Friend

Carbohydrates are always the center of hate for dieters. They are constantly being labeled as “evil”, “bad”, and immediately being disregarded as the sole reason why people gain weight. However, each macronutrient provides your body with a unique benefit and carbs are no expectation.

Carbs can and should be an important part of your diet, provided you eat them in the right quantity and quality. Carbs can be broken down into two categories: SImple and complex carbs.

Simple carbs are usually loaded with added sugars and are found in foods like candy bars, cookies, syrups, sodas, and fruit juice. While these foods are absolutely delicious, the problem is they are highly palatable, causing people to overeat them. Rather than completely cutting out these delicious foods, these foods should be placed in the 20% category mentioned above.

On the other hand, we have complex carbs. These complex carbs are loaded with fiber, vitamins, minerals, and protein while aiding in digestion and training performance. These are the foods we want to prioritize aka eat 80% of the time.

The important thing to remember is that your body needs carbs, especially if you’re looking to improve your body composition. Without carb, your body will begin to break down your muscle tissues for energy, which will self-sabotage your efforts.

Just like protein and veggies, we need to know what an actual serving of carbs. This is absolutely crucial since EVERYONE accidentally overeats carb-dense foods, then the blame/hate for carbs begins as to why they cannot lose weight. Again we’ll use your hand which is a cupped hand

The list below is excellent nutrient-dense complex carbohydrates sources you should prioritize with each meal:

White, brown, or jasmine rice
Legumes, lentils
Quinoa
oatmeal
Potatoes
Sweet potatoes
Yams
Pasta
Whole grains bread

When consumed in proper proportions, these are great foods that can help you feel full and give you the energy to maximize your performance.

Just like protein and veggies, we need to know what an actual serving of carbs. This is absolutely crucial since EVERYONE accidentally overeats carb-dense foods, then the blame/hate for carbs begins as to why they cannot lose weight. Again we’ll use your hand which is a cupped hand

Fats: Zero to Hero

Just like carbs, fats were blamed as the reason everyone got fat. On the surface level, this makes sense since fats are the most calorie-dense macronutrient (9 calories per gram) when compared to carbs and protein (4 calories per gram).

However, fats are an essential macronutrient as our body needs fats in order to survive and strive. This means our bodies literally cannot survive without it.

So why are fats so important?

Fat is crucial for hormonal health, which is the biggest and most recognized reason to consume an adequate amount of fat. This is one of the reasons why this is an essential nutrient - you literally cannot live without it.
Fats are our body's secondary energy source. When we look at low-intensity activities (i.e walking, cooking, etc.) fat is our fuel source. It’s not great for explosive energy, but it’s great for daily energy needs.

Fats can be good for you provided you eat the right quantity for your goals. When your doctor tells you to eat more healthy fats, they are referring to polyunsaturated or monounsaturated fats.

These healthy fats can be easily found in foods like:

Avocado
Almonds
Walnuts
Macadamia nuts
Olive oil
Almond butter
Peanut butter

What about saturated fats? Well, science has recently come back around to consider moderate consumption.

Saturated fats can come from things like:

Whole milk
Full fat dairy
Coconut oil
Grass-fed butter
Fatty cuts of meats (<93% lean meats)

Similar to carbs, fat can be overconsumed accidentally too so it’s important to know what a portion size looks like, which is roughly the size of your thumb.

This is extremely important because fats are the most calorie-dense food so you can quickly add a few hundred calories without realizing it. For example, a single serving of Olive oil is roughly 120 calories. If you’re not careful, you can accidentally add 2-3 additional servings for an extra 360-480 calories without even realizing it!

Quick Recap of How to Build Your Meal

Dammmmnnn….. That was alot of information, so let’s do a quick recap and let’s put it all on the same healthy plate:

1-2 servings of protein (¼ plate)

2 servings of Veggies (½ plate)
1 serving of carbs (¼ plate)
1 serving of fat (size of your thumb)
Any zero-calorie or low-calorie beverage of your choosing (water, diet soda, tea, etc.)

How to Easily Build Enjoyable, Repeatable Healthy Meals:

I know… I know… I covered A LOT of information in the last few sections, so let’s neatly summarize everything:

So far we have discussed:

The Truth of healthy Eating
What Exactly is Healthy Eating
the 80/20 Rule of Healthy Eating
How to Start Eating healthy.

So now, we’re going to put everything into practice so you know exactly how to eat healthy without being miserable. Overall, your meal needs to have these characteristics:

Prioritizing whole, minimally processed foods
Fit onto one plate
Fitting your nutritional targets (i.e. portion sizes and/or macros)
Being enjoyable
Being easily repeatable

At the heart of healthy eating, your meals should be enjoyable and repeatable. Being enjoyable doesn’t just mean it taste good. Having an enjoyable meal means it taste good, makes you feel good, digest well, AND is also satisfying aka you want to make that meal again.

There are just sooo many different ways to create your own healthy meals. However, let’s put this into practice by taking the ever-so classic bodybuilding template meal

Chicken (protein)
Rice (carb)
Broccoli (veggie)
Butter (fat)

After a meal or two, you’ll be extremely bored, unsatisfied, and hate eating this meal. So, let’s swap out our macro source for something else:

Steak (protein)
Potatoes (carb)
Asparagus (veggie)
Cheese (fat)

With this small swap, we were able to still keep our main macro sources without making everything overly complicated. This method provides the structure while giving you both freedom, flexibility, and variety as you’d like!

Also, it’s totally fine to keep things the same week to week. In fact, most clients will find that one meal is getting a bit old and will swap it out for another option but all meals don’t need to change weekly.

However, that’s the beauty of this meal structure. You can swap out individual food items aka macros and still be eating healthy with minimal effort!

How to Adjust for Weight Loss or Weight Gain

Again, by having some structure we can easily adjust our portion sizes to match our nutritional goals. With this structure, it’s actually extremely easy to adhere to and know exactly what to do in order to lose or gain weight.

Trying to lose weight? Reduce your portion of carbs and fats
Trying to gain weight? Increase your portion of carbs and fats

Just remember, that all calories count. While you are not counting your calories or macros, paying close attention to portion sizes will help you maintain your calorie intake.

With that being said, I do firmly believe that everyone should track their calories and macros, even for a few months. By tracking your calories and macros, it is the fastest path towards achieving your

The Most Important Question

Yes, I know I’ve thrown a lot at you within the last few minutes. However, I’m wrapping this up with the most important questions or you

“Why are you reading this?” Why does this matter to you?”

Do you want to get in shape too:

Start dating again?
Wanna look good naked?
Win a Weight loss Competition at work?
Be able to hike without quitting?
Be able to play with your kids and/or Grandkids?

Sorry for being so blunt, yet your answer truly matters and is essential to your success! Your answer is important because you need to have a reason!

Working out because “you kinda know you should” isn’t strong enough inspiration/motivation. The road to perpetual weight loss and healthiness is littered with perils and up and downs. Even the best-laid plans will end up in a ditch on the side of the road unless you have a damn good reason.

In order to identify your reason, you need to answer the question, “why does this matter to me?” and be crystal clear on that emotional reason.

Ask yourself:

Why do you want to lose weight?
What will losing weight means for your life and/or happiness?
What will you be able to do because you lost that weight?

With my clients, we call this “Your BIG WHY”. It’s this reason that will help you keep going when it’s raining outside, you’re feeling tired or had a crappy day and you just wanna binge-watch the latest Marvel show and eat takeout.

Your BIG WHY will be the motivation and inspiration you need to remind yourself and persevere throughout your journey.

You may be wondering, “Why does all this focus on inspiration and motivation?” Because getting in shape will never be “easy”, and the longer you wait, the harder it will be to start.

Take a look at Ben, who started his fitness journey after failing to keep up with his hiking buddies TWICE! Ben knew he needed to make a change and if he didn’t do it now, he would never do it. The longer he waited to take action, the less likely he would be able to achieve his goal.

Unless you find the motivation, inspiration, and discipline to push through those tough days, it becomes easier than ever to give up at the first sign of resistance.

The Next Step:

This guide has provided you with all the tools and resources you’ll need to start making healthier decisions.

Healthy eating will change your life. However, it needs to fit into your life too.

You don’t need to give up the foods you love for the sake of “eating healthy”. Rather you just need to plan for those occasional foods/meals.

Small changes, not massive, dramatic shifts will lead you to the results you want. Those small changes (i.e. prioritizing protein, always having fruit or veggie on your plate) are the foundation of eating healthy.

Two other critical factors to whether your nutritional program succeeds or not?

Accountability
Structure and a clear plan to follow

My online coaching service provides you with both. At Mack Performance, I firmly believe that the best diet is the one you enjoy while making long-term, objective-based progress.

Together, we’ll create a tailored plan to get you to the physique you’ve always wanted, and expertly guide you through every step of your transformation.