The Percentage Diet – Nutrition Guide

Here You’ll find everything you need to know about the Percentage Diet. It’s a diet that’s actually doable where you ramp up your clean eating slowly and wean off of unhealthy food choices at a realistic pace. It’s all about building new habits and a new way of life. All you have to do is eat healthy foods that align with your fitness goals a specific percentage of the time, like 80%. This allows you to eat out some and even have desert once a week. This is not that strict diet where you can never have anything tasty and feel hopeless, then guilty when you finally binge eat that thing you’ve been craving for a month. This is the diet where you get to look forward to a little dessert now and then while you begin practice the daily discipline of carefully controlling the quantity and content of the food you intake.

The best thing about the Percentage Diet is when you combine it with the fitness program, you won’t be hungry. This food is wholesome, fresh, and filling. You don’t have to starve yourself to become fit and lean! I really want to shout that from the roof tops because most people just don’t get that part.

We’re here to help every step of the way.

Core Concepts of the Percentage Diet

  1. Determine maintenance calorie level using a calorie app like MyfitnessPal
  2. Set your fitness goal to lose, maintain, or gain weight
  3. Set your macronutrient goals according to your fitness goal, also recommend MyfitnessPal for tracking. Hitting macronutrient goals will help you maintain a balanced diet, prevent constant hunger, and keep you sustained throughout the day.
  4. Eat wholesome healthy, fresh foods and avoid packaged, processed foods, refined sugar, and fried foods at all costs. The less packaged/processed food, fried foods, and refined sugar you consume, the more successful you will be.
  5. Leaning:
    • No more than 200-300 calorie deficit per day for about 1 lb/week
    • Eat at maintenance calorie level for 1-2 days per week, recommended on the weekend. This is known as a refeed. Refeed days should still aim to meet calorie and macronutrient goals and avoid packaged/processed foods and refined sugar.
      • Make sure refeed days come as close as possible to macronutrient goals
    • Make sure you are ending the day as close to your macronutrient goals as possible, even on refeed days.
    • Eat plenty of healthy fats like avocados, olive oil, etc because they aid in elimination of fat and cellulite
    • HIIT workouts and Weight Training are especially helpful for leaning
    • A good macronutrient ratio to start with for leaning is: 30% Protein / 30% Fats / 40% Carbs
    • You should feel a tiny bit hungry at bedtime. If you’re too hungry to sleep, then grab a small, healthy, dense protein or healthy fats snack like almonds, milk, a few bites of leftover chicken, a little protein shake…etc
    • If you feel hungry all the time, you’re either consuming too few calories, empty calories (processed/packaged foods) that make you constantly hungry, or not enough dense healthy fats and protein. It’s as simple as fixing an imbalance in your diet. You should NOT be starving all the time.
  6. Make sure to eat within an hour of waking and make sure to include protein
  7. Eat more carbs during the first half of the day and taper off as you move towards the end of the day
    • Not all carbs are created equal. Long chain carbs from sweet potatoes, potatoes, fresh fruits and vegetables, quinoa, oats, and rice are the best choices. Packaged/processed foods on the other hand, are “empty calories” and short chain carbs. As short chain carbs, they don’t make as efficient of an energy source and often get stored to fat
  8. Eat a consistent amount of protein throughout the day making sure NOT to taper off toward the end of the day
  9. Eat protein and carbs before and after workouts in accordance with your total calorie intake and macronutrient goals for the day. This will fuel your workouts and provide muscles nutrients they need for performance, recovery, and growth (Usually at least 20g protein + 40g carbs before and after workouts). After workouts, the goal is to consume your carbs and protein within 1 hour.
  10. Don’t forget the healthy fats, especially in snacks. They’re especially helpful in maintaining a full, satisfied feeling. Dense, healthy snacks are a huge key to success.
  11. Figure out snacks that help you meet your macronutrient goals and keep them in the refrigerator ready to consume. If you struggle meeting the protein goal, then a baked goodie loaded with protein powder could be a good option. Peanut butter is good on just about every kind of fruit and vegetable and makes for a filling, healthy fat + protein snack, for example. Avocados are also great snack staples. Have snacks available so you don’t run to the pantry to grab packaged/sugary foods!
  12. The more precise you can become with calorie counting and hitting macronutrient goals, the better your results will be. I even recommend a kitchen scale to measure food weights.
  13. Use of MyFitnessPal or other calorie counting tool is for learning what it looks and feels like to eat a certain macronutrient ratio at daily calorie intake. Once meals/menus/snacks are established, you can stop using calorie counters. Any time you add new meals to your menu, change daily calorie count, macronutrient ratio, or fitness goals impacting nutrition, I’d recommend using the calorie counter to “learn” what the new nutrition levels look like and establish meals/menus/snacks accordingly.
  14. Follow this nutrition plan 80-90% of the time and you’ll have GREAT results. This eliminates the guilt from your nutrition; you can look forward to small treats and eating out throughout the week.
    • The goal for the 10-20% of the time you’re missing calorie counts/macro goals is to still make those foods be healthy, wholesome, dense foods instead of packaged/processed, and refined sugars. Drinking a coke as part of your 10-20% noncompliant time is much different from being over your calorie goal by eating healthy foods as discussed here. So, just eat your desserts, packaged/processed foods sparingly with a goal of working toward a small portion once a week or teeny tiny portion a few times a week.
    • Eating out: you can eat out and stay within all of your nutrition goals. Typically, simple meals containing meat, vegetables, and potatoes are good. The goal is to avoid fried foods and overly salty meals. For example, Outback Steakhouse has a grilled chicken topped with bacon and cheddar cheese with steamed broccoli as an optional side. Add a little slice of that delicious bread they bring out before your meal and you’re good to go!

Important Takeaways:

Your body fat percentage set point (that plateau level that your body keeps coming back to) is determined by the percentage of time you eat healthy wholesome foods, hit your calorie and macronutrient goals, and the type/quantity of exercise you participate in.

Weaning off of refined sugars and packaged/processed foods is like quitting some of the most addictive drugs out there. I recommend weaning off over a period of 2 weeks to 1 month…be patient and gentle with yourself as you make this HUGE positive life change! If you’re patient, the results will be much better!