IIFYM in 2024: Redressing the balance
If you’ve found your way to this site, I’m guessing you understand the concept of ‘if it fits your macros,’ or ‘IIFYM’ for short.
Popularised by Martin Berkham’s Lean Gains, it’s fair to say that around 2012, it was nothing short of a revolution: a complete upheaval of every fitness magazine, personal training programme and doctor’s recommendation on how to fuel your body, simply by dialling it down to the three major macronutrients: carbohydrates, proteins and fats.
Out went meal plans of porridge, snack, chicken and rice, snack, cod, broccoli and rice, snack, and in came anything and everything you could calculate would fit into your calorie and macronutrient needs, based on a few simple equations.
As with any new concept, what starts out as something fairly harmless will develop into an extreme version of itself, and so it was with IIFYM, which as luck would have it, coincided with the rise of a visual-focused social media platform: Instagram. The stage was set for monumental flexing of how outrageous someone’s meals could be, all posted in front of the creator’s rock-hard abs and vascular biceps.
Cue wonder and awe from all those who didn’t quite grasp the energy expenditure equation and the amount of training said creator was doing, but did latch onto the excitement of eating a large Pizza Hut pizza, a Five Guys milkshake and a pasta bowl of Froot Loops topped with ice cream, and we find ourselves here, wondering if it’s really all that it’s cracked up to be. If you’ve tried repeating that sort of diet for any length of time, you probably know that it’s not.
My approach, and the approach I recommend to all my clients, is that of balance.
I’m writing this on a Sunday evening, after a busy day of gardening, a long walk, a big legs session, a short swim and a sauna. I know my macronutrient targets to not only maintain my body weight after that sort of exertion, but also how to tip the balance into a calorie surplus to help promote muscle gain. My Apple Watch estimates (important to note that it is only ever an estimate,) that I’ve burnt close to 2,000 active calories, 3,500 total calories and taken 25,000 steps.
It’s fair to say that I could eat all the cereal, pizza and ice cream I want. But I know that I won’t feel great if I do that, for two reasons:
1) Too much of a good thing is bad. Sugar highs, sugar crashes, confusion, nausea, and an uncomfortable feeling not only in my stomach but all over.
2) Mentally, I’ll feel worse. I won’t have the peace of mind that I’ve fuelled my body with macro AND micronutrients to support not only the exercise and my training, but also my essential bodily functions, my hormones and my recovery. It’ll be like putting diesel in a petrol car. Sooner or later, it’s going to go wrong.
So what have I eaten? This article is a means to demonstrate how I choose to balance my macros across the day: quantities and types of food. The way I eat a similar amount of calories, but what foods I use to get there. A key concept in my thinking is that no food is inherently good or bad, because it is enitrely subjective on the inidividual, their circumstances, their energy balance and their needs.
A good example is chocolate and a Type 1 diabetic. Usually, that wouldn’t be a good combination. But put that diabetic into a state of hypoglycemia, where their blood sugar is dangerously low, chocolate or a similarly high-sugar snack, will be potentially a life-saver.
So… this is not a template to swear by, but it’s what currently works for me. It looks a lot different to how I ate ten years ago, and it may look a hell of a lot different to how I’ll eat in another ten years.
This is to help you understand my approach, how you can apply this to your own nutrition, and if this is something you’d like me to work with you on, so that you can be as free and flexible to make these choices yourself.
Examples:
Late breakfast: Protein shake made with semi-skimmed milk, two bananas (55g carbs, 32g protein, 6g fat)
Lunch: Omelette (2 whole eggs and 120g egg whites,) mushrooms, tomatoes, spinach, 3 slices sourdough toast, light butter (65g carbs, 38g protein, 18g fat)
Pre-workout: Decaf latte with extra milk (I don’t use caffeine, taurine or any other stimulants,) and a protein brownie (40g carbs, 20g protein, 14g fat)
Post-workout: Protein shake made with whey isolate and supermarket chocolate milkshake (30g carbs, 23g protein, 5g fat)
Dinner: Air-fried chicken breast (skin-on for flavour, texture and fats,) roast tomatoes, peppers and aubergine slices, 20g light mayo, packet of jasmine rice (100g carbs, 38g protein, 20g fat)
To finish and make up macros: Medjool dates and ice cream (60g carbs, 4g protein, 11g fat)
Total: 350g carbs, 155g protein, 74g fat
