Do You Need Protein After a Workout?
You’ve probably heard the advice from meatheads to have protein immediately after your workout or else you’ll stay scrawny like a toothpick.
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“I’m just so hungry all the time no matter how much I eat.”
People who say this simply suck at selecting satiating foods. They spend their calories on foods like avocado toast, granola bars, mayonnaise, and acai bowls while wondering why they’re always hungry. Don’t get me started on people who drink most of their calories.
The shut up and full diet will simplify your food choices down to the most filling foods on the planet (1). It’s good practice for anyone who swears they’re so hungry all the time.
You don’t have to eat like this forever or for every meal, but it’s highly effective. If you eat this way for many meals, it’s so filling that many people don’t even have to track calories while on it. They naturally eat in a deficit while staying full.
If hunger is your achilles heel, I suggest sticking to this diet for every meal for a few weeks.
You’ll realize, “Oh, I now know the best choices to defeat hunger, so I’m in full control” instead of constantly thinking, “Oh my gosh, my appetite is ravenous 24/7. Life’s so unfair. Boohoo.”
The shut up and get full diet also takes the guesswork out of food selection. With this diet, food selection is so stupid simple.
This diet is simple. Whether you’re tracking calories or not, you eat only from the following foods with the following guidelines below.
Food choices:
Protein: chicken breast, boneless/skinless chicken thighs, all seafood, ground turkey, ground beef (90% lean), lean cuts of beef, lean dairy, lean deli meats, canned tuna/chicken in water, egg whites, protein powder.
Carbs: tubers, root veggies, legumes, oat bran, all fruit except bananas, mangos, figs, dates, fatty fruits (like coconut), and dried fruit.
Low Calorie Veggies: all types
Fat: Olive oil spray, Olive oil
These foods were selected based on their protein content, fiber content, and minimal energy density. They’re also incredibly micronutrient dense so your health will be enhanced.
You’re also encouraged to consume plenty of zero or low calorie extras like sauces, coffee, tea, sparkling water, shirataki noodles, sugar free jello, non-nutritive sweeteners, chicken broth, herbs, spices, etc.
In addition, follow these guidelines:
Now let me address some questions that will inevitably come up when people read about this diet.
Fat is the most energy dense macronutrient. Fatty foods have an awful satiety profile. Yes, even healthy fat like avocados. If you swear fat is so filling, you’ve never taken an objective comparison.
For example, if you get to add 80 calories to your salad. Adding avocado would net you 50 grams of avocados which is about 1/3 of an average avocado. Almonds are even worse. They’d net you 14 grams or about 10 almonds.
If you added blueberries instead, you’d get to add about 150 grams with triple the fiber content of the avocado. More volume, more weight, more fiber, more satiety. It’s not rocket science.
So despite what fat lovers tell you, fat performs poorly for satiety.
Your sex hormones will also be fine without a ton of fat. If you get your essential fatty acids from seafood and/or take a fish oil supplement while consuming some fat from the olive oil used in cooking or tagged along in your protein, you’re fine.
Most people overeat fat, not undereat it anyways. You’ll be fine devoting a short season to eating less fat.
But anyways, the food choices on this diet are deeply nutritious that you’ll feel nourished and energized constantly on this diet. Anyone who’s done this diet generally feels better not worse.
These are common bodybuilding stables, but they’re only common because of fitness culture. Calorie for calorie, they provide less volume and fullness than other foods in the diet. Almost any fruit on the planet outperforms bananas.
1 medium banana is the same number of calories as 310 grams of strawberries which is about 31 strawberries.
Same with oatmeal and rice. Oat bran has more protein, fiber, and volume than oatmeal. And rice is quite overrated. Any root vegetable is more satiating and contains more micronutrient than rice.
Keep in mind, I’m not saying bananas, oatmeal, rice, or whatever food didn’t make the list is bad. I’m simply pointing out that there are clearly better options that made varsity while bananas, oatmeal, and rice are JV at best when it comes to satiety.
It’s not. You sound like Adam and Eve. When God gave them every fruit on the planet besides the fruit from one tree, yet they still whined like ungrateful children about what they couldn’t have.
Look, I’m not saying this is the most flexible diet, but it’s far from restrictive which is shocking considering how powerful it is. You also don’t have to eat this way for every meal.
Don’t focus on what you can’t have. Focus on what you can have which is still an endless number of food choices and meal combinations that taste delicious if you at least have half decent cooking skills.
Don’t believe me? Check out these meal examples that are low-calorie, highly nutritious, and deeply filling, not to mention easy to make.
Grab my free checklist on how to defeat your worst food cravings
Meal Examples
Breakfast:
Lunch/dinner:
Snacks/desserts
If you think the above sounds restrictive, rigid, or miserable, you need to get your entitlement checked. This is not designed to be a permanent diet, but if you embrace it fully for a couple weeks, you’ll understand better food selection long term.
Here’s what my day generally looks like when I’m doing this diet. I can confidently say, I never feel deprived with the following.
Breakfast:
Lunch:
Dinner:
Snack:
Time shouldn’t an issue either. My breakfast takes 5 minutes to make. My lunch can be prepared ahead of time, but even made fresh takes 10 minutes. Dinner generally takes me 30 minutes or I can commit an hour to prep for the week ahead.
The diet is also cheap, so I don’t want to hear any of this eating healthy or losing weight is expensive shenanigans. For example, fruits and veggies are cheap. Root veggies have amazing shelf life. And frozen protein will save you lots of money.
The point I’m getting at is people make too many excuses with dieting and like to overcomplicate things. Hunger is merely a scapegoat you’re using to whine. Hunger doesn’t have to exist while you diet.
You can feel full, nourished, and not deprived while losing body fat. True story. This is a no bs way to do just that. Try this diet for 1-3 meals each day.
1. “PDF a Satiety Index of Common Foods.” ResearchGate, https://www.researchgate.net/publication/15701207_A_Satiety_Index_of_common_foods.
Grab my free Stupid Simple Scroll to Mastering Hypertrophy
You’ve probably heard the advice from meatheads to have protein immediately after your workout or else you’ll stay scrawny like a toothpick.
We all get to the point where we desire to build slabs of lean eye-popping muscles.
So you’re done with dieting. Now it’s time to transition to maintenance because losing weight is only half the battle. Maintaining your new bodyweight is the other (arguably more important) half.