Minimalist Healthful Diet

For people deciding to lose weight, it is important to eat enough food to ensure that you get 100% of the vitamins and minerals needed, as well as sufficient protein, and essential fatty acids. This post illustrates how this may be done by eating a whole-food plant-based diet of about 1,000 calories. Most of us need more calories than 1,000, but using this as a base, one can be assured that they are getting the nutrients they need and adding more calories will simply increase the nutrients. This base has about 21 g of fiber as well. The foods used are broccoli, spinach, mushrooms, and brown rice. Using the free software CRON-o-Meter, we can play around and make substitutes. To begin with, we need to figure out how many calories we need daily to maintain our existing weight, to maintain our goal weight, and to lose weight to reach our goal weight.

Quick Rule of Thumb for Calories

If you multiply your present weight by 15 this gives you the approximate number of calories you need to eat each day to maintain that weight. For example, if you weigh 200 pounds, then you need 3,000 calories to maintain your weight.

To lose about 2 pounds a week, you multiply your weight by 10. For example, if you weight 200 pounds, then to lose 2 pounds a week (approximately) you would need to reduce your caloric intake to 2,000 calories.

Another way to look at this is to use your goal weight. For example, if you presently weigh 200 pounds, but would like to weigh 150 pounds (“goal weight”), then you multiply your goal weight by 15. This results in 2250 calories per day. Theoretically, using these rules of thumb, you should just eat 2250 calories per day or less to lose weight and then maintain that weight at 150 pounds for the rest of your life.

These rules of thumb are from the text Nutrition for Health, Fitness, & Sport, Ninth Edition; Melvin H. Williams (hereinafter referred to as “Nutrition“).

Protein

We need to eat a diet that provides all 20 amino acids — keep in mind, however, that humans can synthesize some amino acids in their bodies but cannot synthesize others. Nutrition, p. 213. Nine amino acids cannot be manufactured by the body: these are called essential, or indispensable, amino acids, and must be supplied by the diet. Those that may be formed in the body are called nonessential, or dispensable, amino acids. Id. Six of the dispensable amino acids are conditionally indispensable: they must be obtained through the diet when endogenous synthesis cannot meet metabolic demands, such as in severe catabolic states. Although nutrition scientists prefer the terms indispensable and dispensable, I will use the terms essential and nonessential since these terms are commonly used. Id.

The essential amino acids are: histidine, isoleucine (branched chain), leucine (branched chain), lysine, methionine, phenylalanine, threonine, tryptophan, and valine (branched chain). The nonessential amino acids are: alanine, arginine (conditionally essential), asparagine, aspartic acid, cysteine (conditionally essential), glutamic acid, glutamine (conditionally essential), glycine (conditionally essential), proline (conditionally essential), serine, and tyrosine (conditionally essential).

All natural, unprocessed animal and plant foods contain all 20 amino acids; however, the amount of each amino acid in specific foods varies.

How Much Dietary Protein Do We Need?

Humans actually do not need protein per se, but rather an adequate amount of nitrogen and essential amino acids. However, because all nine essential amino acids and almost all dietary nitrogen are derived from dietary protein, it serves as the basis for our daily requirements.

Here is the daily RDA for the essential amino acids for an adult male (70 kg or 154 lb):

Histidine — 980 mg (or 14 mg/kg)

Isoleucine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Leucine — 2,940 mg (or 42 mg/kg)

Lysine — 2,660 mg (or 38 mg/kg)

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,260 mg (or 19 mg/kg)

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 2,310 mg (or 33 mg/kg)

Threonine — 1,400 mg (or 20 mg/kg)

Tryptophan — 350 mg (or 5 mg/kg)

Valine — 1,680 mg (or 24 mg/kg)

Total — 14,840 mg

Strength Training

Individuals involved in strength training, such as weight lifters, bodybuilders, and football players, are usually interested in increasing muscle mass and decreasing body fat, as well as improving strength and power. Other than water, protein is the main component of muscle tissue, so strength-trained individuals have valued dietary protein as a key nutrient for centuries as a means of maximizing muscle protein synthesis. Nutrition, p. 223.

Unfortunately, there is very little scientific information about the specific protein requirements for the development of lean muscle mass in weight-training programs. Protein balance is usually positive during these programs, and research studies have suggested that weight lifters could retain between 7 and 28 grams of protein per day, a range of about 12-50 percent of the RDA for an adult 70 kg male. Although it might be assumed this protein would be assimilated as muscle tissue, this has not been determined. A number of respected investigators have recommended that weight lifters and other athletes training to increase muscle mass and strength, particularly the developing adolescent athlete and those in the early stages of training, consume more protein.

The National Academy of Sciences notes that although athletes commonly believe they need a higher protein intake to maintain optimum physical performance, few studies have evaluated the protein needs of individuals engaged in strenuous physical activity such as resistance training. The Academy has criticized the available studies and concluded the available data do not support the conclusion that the protein requirement for resistance training is greater than that of nonexercising subjects.

Michael Rennie, an international scholar in protein metabolism, has noted that muscle contractile activity enhances the anabolic response so that habitual training makes individuals more efficient users of dietary protein, suggesting that physically active people probably do not need to eat more protein and could likely manage perfectly adequately on less.

Let’s look . . . at the young resistance-trained athlete who wants to gain body weight, preferably in the form of muscle tissue, through a weight-training program. The protein RDA for an adolescent male is 0.85 gram per kilogram. [Keep in mind that the RDA contains a safety factor and actually provides more protein than required by most individuals. Nutrition p. 234.] At moderate activity levels, the average 70-kg adolescent male would be in protein balance with about 60 grams daily. However, according to the suggested upper recommendation of about 1.7 grams per kilogram, he would need about 119 g daily, if involved in a strenuous training program. Is this a reasonable amount?

One pound of muscle tissue is equal to 454 grams, and its composition is approximately 70 percent water, 7 percent lipids, and 22 percent muscle tissue. hence, one pound of muscle contains about 100 grams of protein (454 x 0.22). If the desired weight gain is one pound of lean body mass per week, a reasonable goal, then this young male would need to assimilate an additional 14 grams of protein per day (100 grams/7 days) to supply the amount in one pound of muscle tissue. A gain of two pounds per week, although probably more difficult to accomplish, would require the assimilation of 28 additional grams of protein per day. Let us be liberal and estimate an additional 22 grams of protein per day to cover losses due to exercise. In summary, assuming that a portion of these protein needs are not covered by the safety margin incorporated in the RDA, this young athlete would need approximately 110 grams of protein per day (60+28+22) to gain 2 pounds of lean body tissue per week, or about 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram body weight. This value falls within the recommended range for resistance-trained athletes.

The average caloric intake for a moderately active young male averages 2500 to 3000 calories per day. It is important to note that adequate energy intake, primarily in the form of carbohydrates, will improve protein balance. In essence, an increased energy intake appears to decrease protein requirements somewhat. Nutrition, p. 225.

If the protein portion of the dietary Calories averaged 12 percent, a general recommended level of protein intake, then the intake of protein would approximate 1.5 — 1.7 grams per kilogram of body weight, which parallels the amounts estimated in the examples previously cited. Currently, the protein content of the average American is 12 to 16 percent, and Walberg-Rankin recently noted that most athletes consume this much or more in their daily diets. Consuming a diet with a protein content of 15 percent could provide a value of 2.0 grams or more per kilogram body weight, and other surveys among strength-type athletes indicate they obtain this amount. These values approach or exceed the higher amounts recommended by some investigators for individuals in training.

Consume protein, preferably with carbohydrates, before and after workouts.

Be Prudent Regarding Protein Intake

Whether or not athletes in training need additional protein is not clear at this time. Two experts in protein metabolism, Kevin Tipton and Robert Wolfe, noted that given sufficient energy intake [carbohydrates], lean body mass can be maintained within a wide range of protein intakes. They note that there are few convincing data to indicate that the ingestion of a high amount of protein (2-3 grams per kilogram of body weight) is necessary. Based on current literature, they conclude that it may be too simplistic to rely on recommendations of a particular amount of protein per day because the amount depends on energy intake, type of protein, and timing of intake.

Example of the Minimalist Diet

Alright, having discussed protein needs, its time to look at a minimum base diet that is healthful and that meets more than minimum needs of protein, carbohydrates, fat, fiber, vitamins and minerals. This is just an example, and one should substitute according to personal taste preferences.

One pound of broccoli flower clusters — 127.1 calories

1 cup of rice cooked — 684.5 calories

14 whole pieces of crimini mushrooms — 61.6 calories

One pound of spinach — 131.7 calories

This is about 1,000 calories. It provides 51 grams of protein, 197 grams of carbohydrates, 9 grams of fat, and over 100% of the RDA of vitamins and minerals.

Histidine — 1,000 mg

Isoleucine — 2,000 mg

Leucine — 3,200 mg

Lysine — 3,100 mg

Methionine plus cysteine — 1,300 mg

Phenylalanine plus tyrosine — 4400 mg

Threonine — 2300 mg

Tryptophan — 900 mg

Valine — 2600 mg

From the above, this minimalist meal provides a complete protein for a 154 lb male. Adding additional whole plant foods would increase the amount.

As for vitamins:

A — 55,907 IU

Folate — 1,057 mcg

B1 — 1.8 mg

B2 — 3.1 mg

B3 — 25.3 mg

B5 — 9.8 mg

B6 — 2.8 mg

C — 217 mg

E — 19.4 mg

K — 1,692 mcg

Minerals:

Calcium — 785 mg

Chromium — 117 mcg

Copper — 2.8 mg

Magnesium — 744 mg

Manganese — 12 mg

Phosphorus — 1,474 mg

Potassium — 4,713 mg

Selenium — 157 mcg

S0dium — 488 mg

Zinc — 11 mg

Essential fatty acids:

Omega-3 — 1 gm

Omega-6 — 2 gm

Fiber: 21 g

There you have it. If you want to lose weight and ensure adequate intake of nutrients, this is one diet you can follow with confidence. If you are a weight-trainer and eat 3,000 calories a day to bulk up using the above foods, then your protein intake would increase to 150 grams of complete protein — and that is plenty!!