Hi all,
First off, do you know how many servings of fruits and vegetables you eat? I didn’t for a long time. I knew that there are many reasons to make sure you are eating enough. They give you vital nutrients your body needs, they help you feel full, they give you fiber that supports a healthy gut, and many others. I always thought that I was eating “pretty well” without really knowing what that meant.
I came across EC Synkowski of OptimizeMe Nutrition and her 800g challenge and it was revolutionary for me. Put simply, the idea is to eat 800g of fruits and vegetables, by weight, every day. It doesn’t matter which fruits or veggies, just get that much. If you don’t have a scale, it can also be six fist-size portions. No need to track other macros, calories, or anything else, and outside of the 800g, you just eat normally. It’s focused on adding, not removing.
She drew on research (pub med here) that found a steep reduction in all-cause mortality (the risk of dying for any reason) associated with people eating this volume of fruits and vegetables, and translated that into a simple framework that can help people know specifically whether they were eating enough. It sounded straightforward enough, so I grabbed our food scale and started weighing the fruits and veggies I was eating throughout the day. I was shocked to find that even though I was eating a healthy diet, I was nowhere close to 800g.
I’ve never been a person to shy away from a challenge, so I gave myself a month to see if I could work my way up to 800g. It took a lot of intention, and I wasn’t perfect, but I slowly worked my way there little by little. As I got closer, I found myself craving those mid-day sweets less. When folks brought doughnuts to the office, I cut myself a couple bites instead of taking a whole one (or two) and felt completely satisfied. I started sleeping better and my workouts felt better.
I also noticed over time that my kids got into it. They wanted their own “grams” and all of a sudden they were eating carrots and bell peppers with me. While we still get a side of fries to share, they look forward to getting their own side of fruit when we go out to eat. What started as an experiment for me made eating fruits and vegetables completely normal and fun for them as well. It’s so flexible that I can enjoy watermelon in the summer, roast veggies in the fall, and not feel like I am doing anything unnatural.
Next time, we’ll go into some practical strategies for how to work our way up to 800g and what that might look like. In the meantime, grab a cheap food scale and start measuring where you’re at. No matter how much you’re eating, it’s a great starting point.
See you around the gym,
Erik