Vegetarian Research
The 30-30-30 diet – is it suitable for vegetarians?
Jump to
Introduction to Quick Weight Loss
One of the most common things I hear when I speak to people for the first time about weight loss is that they are keen to lose weight quickly. And this makes total sense.
Quick results are satisfying, they’re motivating and they’re a sign that you’re on the right track, right? Well, not necessarily, and this is one of the biggest problems with diet culture in general now.
Many of these diets are unrealistic and aren’t sustainable, and can put you at risk of nutritional deficiencies and harm your health. So any time a new diet crops up, like this 30-30-30 diet, I’m always skeptical and want to investigate it properly.
Introduction to the 30-30-30 Diet
This was a diet that my brother, Dave, one of the co-founders of Hurry The Food Up, mentioned and sent me some info on it. It sounds catchy – the 30-30-30 is easy to remember and kinda feels fun – and clearly it’s popular. He asked whether it’s something that had any real scientific basis and whether it’s something that vegetarians should follow.
I’m going to give you all the info on this but first I figure it’s worth explaining what this diet actually is and how it works.
What is the 30-30-30 Diet and Why Could It Work?
The whole concept is to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, followed by 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise, hence the 30-30-30.
The idea is that you give your body a big blast of protein first thing, because protein is satisfying and makes you feel full, and it’s also involved with appetite regulation later in the day as well as contributing to healthy functioning muscle.
Now this is absolutely true and deeply rooted in science. We have heaps of evidence to show that protein is beneficial, especially so if you’re trying to lose weight.
Benefits of Protein
Because protein helps you to feel full and satisfied, it can reduce cravings and the need for snacking, and that can then help you to stay in a calorie deficit which is what you need to lose weight.
It also contributes to muscle maintenance, and I’m talking just healthy functioning muscle here, not anything like big stronger bodybuilder muscles although it does help with that too, so I always recommend it, especially as you get older, because generally protein needs increase throughout your lifespan.
Another benefit of protein is that it has the highest thermic effect of food out of the macronutrients, so carbohydrates, protein and fat, which means you actually burn a little more energy digesting protein than the others, so your overall calorie burn is higher on higher protein diets.
The Importance of Protein in the Morning
And eating a good amount of protein in the morning is a fantastic thing to do – there’s evidence to show that by having a high protein breakfast you reduce the likelihood of overeating later in the day which for people trying to lose weight is definitely a helpful benefit!
There was also a study in 2022 that demonstrated that spacing protein intake evenly across the day was associated with an improved body composition (so more muscle and lower body fat) in females.
It’s one of the reasons we’re so keen at Hurry The Food Up to promote a good source of protein in every meal, and why we try to build this into our meal plans.
Unfortunately, one of the places that people fall down on with their protein intake is at breakfast, so this approach from the 30-30-30 diet in prioritizing protein at breakfast should mean that more people eat more protein at breakfast, which is a great outcome in my eyes.
Exercise Component of the 30-30-30 Diet
Then there’s the exercise component of the diet. 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise after consuming your 30 grams of protein.
In theory, this is awesome because if you were following this you’d be doing 30 minutes of exercise a day which, if we’re being honest, is probably far more than a lot of people do.
I am a big, big fan of exercise because it’s super beneficial for health, whether it’s cardiovascular training, so the classic running, cycling, dancing, or resistance training, so lifting weights or yoga involving lifts and strength positions.
Exercise helps to create new healthy muscle tissue, it helps with controlling blood sugar levels, it improves immune function and it can reduce the risk of so many long-term diseases.
The Benefits of Low-Intensity Exercise
The focus with the 30-30-30 diet is on low-intensity exercise, and let me say that I love this.
Low-intensity exercise means exercise where your breathing doesn’t really increase above your baseline – so you can still talk fully and breathe in and out through your nose.
If you like numbers, then loosely speaking this would correspond to about 65% of your maximum heart rate.
For a lot of people, this can feel pretty alien and like you aren’t really doing anything but I can promise you it is doing you good, and actually, I’d encourage this approach for a lot of people.
It’s such a common theme to see people exercising way too hard, too frequently, which means they end up burning out and not being able to stick to their exercise routine over the long term, which defeats the purpose of it.
So aiming for low intensity is definitely a good option for many people, especially if you’re new to exercise, and this might be as simple as walking at a slightly brisk pace.
Understanding Fat Burning and Calorie Burn
I have seen a video from Gary Brecka (a well-known Human Biologist) suggesting that by doing low-intensity exercise you burn more fat, which in some senses is true but that’s not the whole story.
You might burn more fat for energy, but this doesn’t mean you burn more calories overall or that you burn more body fat.
This is a subtle but crucial point to highlight, so don’t be fooled.
Unfortunately, this diet and low-intensity focus on exercise won’t magically burn and reduce your body fat percentage, because it’s your overall calorie amounts that are going to be the true player in that.
But the 30-30-30 diet is ticking some of my favorite concepts within nutrition that contribute to just being generally healthy, so I’m a huge fan of this approach.
The Lack of Evidence Behind the 30-30-30 Diet
I should highlight that at the point of recording this, the 30-30-30 diet doesn’t actually have any evidence behind it.
There aren’t any trials involving this dietary approach, so there’s no way to quantify the benefits of it, but it definitely does follow some good dietary principles.
However, like with most things, it isn’t quite as clear-cut as this and there are some potential drawbacks to the diet which we should go through.
A quick interlude to that say if you’re trying to lose weight and aren’t seeing results, check out our free week’s vegetarian weight loss meal plan.
It includes a shopping list, super tasty recipes including ingredients and instructions, and has all the meals planned out for you.
Downsides of the 30-30-30 Diet
Ok, so while I think the 30-30-30 diet has some real benefits I don’t think it’s quite as simple as saying it’s the best diet for either normal healthy living or for weight loss, and we should dive into this.
The first issue is that whether you’re a veggie or whether you eat meat, with your classic breakfast foods it’s actually pretty difficult to get 30 grams of protein.
If you eat meat then it’s definitely easier, but things like cereals or toast don’t have heaps of protein, meaning this is going to be more difficult for you to achieve.
If you want to consume whole foods, as in not a protein shake, and you’re a vegetarian, then your best option is going for something like low-fat dairy.
So 200 grams of low-fat Greek yogurt or cottage cheese, and then something like bran flakes or oats.
Or go down the egg route, so omelets, eggs on toast or our Hurry The Food Up egg muffins.
Challenges with Protein Shakes and Breakfast Options
Now you can of course have something like a protein shake, which is a convenient and easy way to get protein in, and I’m not specifically against that, but I think where possible this shouldn’t be an everyday thing for breakfast.
So I think, logistically, this might be quite difficult for many people to do, and honestly if everyone got over 20g of protein in their breakfast I would be super pleased as that’s a great start to the day.
Now I also always think about things from a sport and exercise perspective, and one of my worries about this diet is that it’s encouraging people to exercise soon after eating.
Unless you are going to just consume a protein shake without anything else, you’re going to end up eating a reasonable amount of slow-digesting food here and that means you’re at an increased risk of having stomach upset, especially if you do something like running.
Flexible Exercise Timing
So I think one of the nuances that I would recommend here is to say that if you do exercise and you don’t get any tummy problems then that’s fine, but actually you can exercise at any point of the day.
I’d be more keen for you to just work out when it fits into your schedule and lifestyle rather than saying it has to be first thing in the morning.
So you could wait a couple of hours after breakfast to exercise, or you could exercise in the afternoon or evening if that’s better for you.
Basically, just exercise whenever it works for you in the day. It’s way more beneficial for you to just do it consistently, and if morning doesn’t fit your routine – that’s ok.
Lack of Comprehensive Dietary Guidance
The other thing which is super important to highlight is that this diet doesn’t really give much advice for the rest of the day. Sure, you’ve followed the 30-30-30 rule first thing… Then what?
Do you need to worry about your diet? Can you eat whatever you like at other points of the day? Do you need protein at lunch and dinner?
The problem with it is that it doesn’t really give enough context on your diet as a whole or enough guidance.
Maybe that wasn’t ever the intention, but I’ve learned through my experience with working with clients that generally the clearer, more actionable advice you can give, the better.
Potential Pitfalls in Weight Loss
With regard to weight loss, I could see this as a problem, where someone thinks because they’ve followed this protocol for the morning they don’t really need to worry about their diet for the rest of the day.
So, they are much more lenient at lunch and dinner time, and even with snacking too.
On top of that, because the rule emphasizes protein at breakfast, they don’t bother much with it at other points of the day, meaning they fall short of their protein requirements.
This could easily lead to someone’s weight loss efforts derailing because they aren’t managing the rest of their diet appropriately.
Conclusion and Recommendations
Maybe I’m overthinking it but these are the things that spring to mind for me.
I think if I were to improve this, I would say it’s the 30-30-30-30-30 diet, where you focus on 30 grams of protein for breakfast, lunch, dinner and as snacks throughout the day, plus 30 minutes of exercise at any point, but that’s not as catchy.
Maybe 30 by 5. 30 to the power of 5? Dunno, if you ever popularize that approach after listening to this episode then please give me some credit, haha.
But in short, you definitely could use this as a vegetarian, either for general healthy living or to lose weight, but you’ll need to follow more than just this rule.
You’ll still need to eat satiating, filling, healthy food that is high in protein, fiber, wholegrain carbs, veggies, and healthy fats over the day, but I think the essence of the rule isn’t bad at all.
How to get 30 grams of protein as a vegetarian or vegan
Ok, so you’ve decided that you’re going to give the 30-30-30 diet a trial. It can definitely be tricky to do it as a vegetarian (and especially as a vegan) but the good news is that it is definitely possible.
Here are some ideas, and I’ve included breakfast instructions right here ????
30-30-30 Breakfast (vegetarian) – Cottage Cheese Pancakes
Ingredients
- 1 tsp coconut oil (or butter)
- ⅓ cup low fat cottage cheese
- ½ cup rolled oats (no pre-cooking necessary)
- 2 eggs
- Salt to taste
Instructions
-
Get a bowl or, even better, use a blender.
-
Throw in all the ingredients and whisk/mix until smooth.⅓ cup low fat cottage cheese, ½ cup rolled oats, 2 eggs, Salt to taste
-
Add the oil (or butter) to a pan and fry the batter on low to medium heat.1 tsp coconut oil
-
Flip with a spatula once bubbles start to appear. Cook until both sides are golden brown.
-
Simple as!
NOTES
Tip: Any berries you like can be used. I definitely recommend whatever your fave is, or whatever is in season near you! Fave toppings can be used as well.
Make-ahead? Yes, just keep toppings separate.
Freezable? Yes! Again, either the batter or the pancakes.
Here are some ideas on how to pimp these pancakes up! (All optional of course)
Batter ideas:
1 tbsp of coconut powder
* A small handful of hazelnuts, almonds or walnuts
* 1 tbsp of peanut butter
* 1 tbsp of protein powder
* 1 tbsp of raisins
* 1 tsp of cinnamon
* 1 tsp of vanilla extract
* A few thin slices of apple or pear
Topping ideas:
* Honey
* Maple syrup
* Cherries, strawberries
* Yogurt
* Sugar and lemon juice
EQUIPMENT & PRODUCT TIPS:
You’ll need a non-stick pan for successful pancake action, but that’s it. See what you think about this pan.
I recently started using coconut oil instead of butter for frying. It works great, especially for pancakes! If you want, give this one a shot.
IF YOU LIKED THIS RECIPE: Then you definitely have to check out our Banana Egg Pancakes! Probably even easier to prepare and absolutely delicious. Or if you’d rather like to go into no milk, no egg direction, check out our roundup of these 24 awesome vegan pancakes!
Nutrition
1. 30-30-30 Lunch (vegetarian) – Hot Quinoa Salad
2. 30-30-30 Dinner (vegetarian) – Aubergine & Lentil Moussaka
We also have more 30g+ protein recipes here.
And finally as a caveat, remember that you don’t need to become worried or stressed about getting 30 grams of protein every single time you eat.
Just aim for generally high-protein recipes and take the ‘protein-first’ approach to each meal (adding a good veggie or vegan protein source to each recipe).
The Vegetarian Protein Fix is based around this school of thought and delivers outstanding results.
The post The 30-30-30 diet – is it suitable for vegetarians? appeared first on Hurry The Food Up.
Vegetarian Research
Ep. 24 – Is This Surprising Factor Sabotaging Your Diet?
Welcome to the 24th episode of Vegetarian Health and Longevity from Hurry The Food Up and Sports Nutritionist James LeBaigue.
There’s a recurring theme that I see when working 1:1 with clients and with members of The Vegetarian Protein Fix.
Typically, they have struggled to stick to a diet over the long term. They might have been able to for a couple of months, even 6 months, before old habits creep back in and before they know it, they’re back where they started.
There might be lots of reasons for this. They don’t have enough time and life got busy. Work was stressful. They had an injury. They went on holiday.
There are loads of “problems” that have stopped them and made it difficult.
But usually, when I speak to them and really delve into this there’s something deeper, something darker that is keeping them from sticking to their diet over the long-term, and I think it’s something that so many people struggle with.
And if more people were able to understand this and improve it, I am absolutely sure that it would benefit so many lives. Now this could be in relation to weight loss or just general health living because it’s something that crosses all spheres and walks of life.
I’d like to dive into this in this episode, and show you just how powerful this change can be and how you can use it in your own life.
Listen to it here on your favourite provider.
Table of Contents
My experience
Throughout my time working clinically in family medicine, and as a nutritionist within sport, I’ve come across so many different attitudes to food and dieting.
Some people are so carefree around food and have no emotional attachment to it, going as far as to forget to eat, and not eating enough unless they have a specific plan to follow.
Others love food and enjoy all different aspects of it, and don’t have any concerns around weight or managing their diet. Others love food but hate their diet: they often feel ashamed, guilty, and they aren’t where they want to be in terms of their weight or how they look.
Suffice to say that there are so many different perceptions of food and it’s such a complicated matter, but apart from a small group of people, everyone has an area that they could benefit from working on.
You see, there’s something which many people don’t actually think about when it comes to food.
Focusing on the wrong thing?
People often focus on the nutritional value of food, and I’m guilty for it too. I talk about calories, about protein, carbohydrate and fat, vitamins and minerals, and the quality of the food that you’re eating.
And people connect what they eat to their weight in either a positive or negative light, with it either helping or hindering them to reach their goals.
But very few people that I’ve come across in my time truly have what I would call a good relationship with their food. Where they not only understand the nutritional content and context of their food but they also enjoy the various different aspects of it like pleasure on an individual level, on a social level and how it can support them with their endeavors.
And this is something which I think many people would benefit from improving because it can honestly transform someone’s life.
The perceived problem with your diet
When people struggle to stick to their diet, they’ll often give me a reason like “I was a bit too busy to plan my food” or “Work was stressful and I couldn’t stick to my diet”.
While these might well be problems that they are facing, these are really just the symptoms and the end-result of their diet either not being sustainable or not having controlled enough of the factors which can ruin adherence.
And commonly, they’re skipping over the part which is really important because they are just focussed on this end goal metric of “Am I following my diet”.
So while they think their problem is that they don’t have enough time or that work is too stressful, the issue runs much deeper.
What often happens is that they get into a negative cycle. They end up eating food that they don’t really want to, sweets, treats, highly processed ready meals that are of low nutritional value, and this in turn makes them feel bad. They feel bad about their diet, about themselves, and weight gain is common in this phase.
So they get into a vicious circle where things aren’t going well and they end up continuing to eat poorly, which spirals things further. Food is an ever constant that they can’t get away from.
Then at some point, they might decide to try again. They summon the willpower to tackle it again, to cut out all that “bad” food that’s causing problems.
This is a really harmful cycle to be in because you’re in a constant negative state towards yourself and, perhaps more importantly, to food. Food is essentially seen as an evil thing that’s causing the problem, rather than something which has so much wonderful value, both nutritionally and on an individual level.
The actual problem
And this is where many people are focusing on the wrong thing. They are looking at the end result, which is adherence to the diet and, depending on your goal, weight loss.
But rather than thinking about that, I would strongly encourage people to work on the way they think about food and start fostering a positive relationship with it.
Now this might sound a bit airy… What am I actually talking about here? What does this mean?
Ok, let’s go back a moment. I mentioned that food is a constant that you can’t get away from. It can be hard to stop thinking about it and it’s hard to separate the negative association, especially when you aren’t reaching your goals. And this is obviously true from the sense that you need the energy from food to keep you alive, so it’s not like you can just ignore it and it goes away.
But if you think about food in a bad light this can be incredibly overwhelming because you come into contact with food so many times throughout the day, so you’re being exposed to it multiple times.
And while food might be part of the issue in terms of your weight or body image, it’s not really the actual cause, in the sense that food is just an inanimate object that doesn’t move or have feelings.
You are the one who has the feeling towards food, and how you think about it can have such a significant effect on both your life and your weight
So how do you change this?
I worked with a 1:1 client who had a bad history when it came to food. They were a normal weight throughout their 20s, but by 35 and after kids they had put on a lot of weight, would binge eat and then try to lose weight, and this happened several times.
When I spoke to her it was clear that she had a very negative association with food. She would say she frequently ate “bad food” even though she tried hard not to, and it often made her feel guilty and ashamed for doing so.
She didn’t like to talk to her family about it because it made her feel very emotional.
Instead of focusing directly on weight loss, which was her goal, we instead started working on improving little parts of her diet at a time.
Initially this meant talking about foods that she genuinely enjoyed, both ones that were classically healthy and unhealthy. So this included things like sweats, treats, and then other foods like gnocchi and bread.
Is food Ggod or bad?
In her mind, all of these things fell into the bad category because she felt like they were the cause of her weight gain. We talked through this, about calories, about moderation, and how, if we set her diet up correctly, these things could be included and she could still lose weight.
This was a bit of a mind-blowing suggestion to her. She could eat the foods which she enjoyed, that she found fun but had always associated them with weight gain, but actually lose weight?
Little by little, we added more fruits, vegetables and wholegrain carbohydrates into her diet, less high fat dairy and more low-fat dairy, while including those things which she really enjoyed.
Along with that, I was really careful to emphasise that she could enjoy meals out with friends and family, she could go to a coffee shop and eat cake and it was OK.
I remember how her perspective of food completely changed over a couple of months. She no longer saw food as the enemy, and instead something that was integral to her life that could bring happiness from a personal perspective but also use towards her goals.
She shifted her mindset to one where food was actively helping her with her goals rather than being something that would detract from them.
And when you think about it, it really is true. When it comes to weight management, whether that’s weight gain, loss or maintenance, calories are the determining factor for how well you achieve that. Realistically, you can eat any food within that if it’s in your calorie budget, so food and calories are simply a tool.
For weight loss
And if you look at the research, there’s plenty to suggest that cultivating positive relationships with food can be beneficial, especially in terms of weight loss.
Sure, there are some nuances here and one of the things my client worked really hard on was gradually improving her diet with the additional of more of the classically healthy things.
It didn’t just happen overnight and was instead something she had to continually optimise over months, but knowing that she had power over her food was an incredibly empowering revelation for her.
Food is not the enemy
Now some people find this a really hard thing to come to terms with because they have always thought of food as the enemy. The truth is that it isn’t and, honestly, how you perceive food, how you choose to eat, is the issue.
That might sound like doom and gloom but it isn’t. What you need to know is that you have control over food. You can master it and you can change the way you think about it, and if you start seeing it in a more positive light then it can really melt away all the negativity that you might be encountering on a daily basis.
A nice way to do this is to come at this from the approach of “What can I add, rather than subtract, to make this healthier?”.
If you start from the basis of adding food rather than removing, it changes the viewpoint. If you’re removing food it’s because it’s “bad”, but if you’re simply adding to it you’re creating something which is healthier and the association is positive.
Now of course it isn’t quite as straightforward as this and there still has to be balance, but this is where moderation comes in.
Especially at the start, and if you’re struggling to change habits, I have found it so much more helpful to encourage clients to have those guilty-pleasure foods, for lack of a better term, in small amounts, more regularly, than to restrict them, really pine for them, and then binge because they have got to breaking point.
And if the rest of the diet is balanced in terms of calories then you can still achieve your goal, it’s just knowing how the guilty-pleasure foods fit into your calorie budget for the day.
Now all of this is something I go into in more detail in Episode 7 of this podcast, called “What’s The Best Diet For Long Term Weight Loss? Diet Myths Explained”.
I debunk some of the common misconceptions around weight loss and diets, and what I go through there will really help you to put things into perspective with today’s episode.
So I hope you found this episode useful. If you did, then please give the podcast a quick review on whatever platform you’re listening on.
It helps the podcast to spread to more like minded people like you, and it’ll only take a moment. Thanks so much, and we’ll speak soon.
And finally, here is the easiest way to sign up to try our meal plans (free).
And a list of our vegetarian meal plans (all also free).
And finally finally: More vegetarian podcasts this way!
The post Ep. 24 – Is This Surprising Factor Sabotaging Your Diet? appeared first on Hurry The Food Up.
-
Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
22 Best Soup Recipes
-
Indian Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
avocado salad
-
Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
Easy Vegetarian Chili
-
Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
Stuffed Zucchini Boats
-
Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
Butternut Squash Soup
-
Vegetarian Recipes5 years ago
Pickled Red Onions
-
Vegetarian Recipes6 years ago
Peanut Butter Jelly Bars (Vegan, Gluten Free)
-
Vegetarian Research5 years ago
SERIOUSLY FUDGY VEGAN & GRAIN-FREE BROWNIES WITH PEANUT BUTTER
