What the 30-30-30 Trend Is True About Weight Loss (and What It’s Wrong)

Posted on December 28, 2023 by resourcefulman

TikTok loves meaningful weight loss guidelines, and the latest thing they’ve done is the 30-30-30 morning routine (nothing to do with the 12-3-30 treadmill workout ). And as a routine, it’s actually not bad, but as a way to lose weight, it promises more than it can deliver.

What is the 30-30-30 rule?

Although people call it a “rule,” 30-30-30 is just a daily routine that includes breakfast and a short workout. The 30-30-30 idea goes like this:

30 minutes after waking up
You eat 30 grams of protein,
And then do 30 minutes of low-intensity cardio.

The current trend may have gotten its biggest boost from videos from Gary Breck , the TikTok guy with TED Talk-style clips who, last we saw, was trying to convince us that vegetables are poison . He says he got the idea from Tim Ferriss’ book The Four Hour Body . It’s been a long time since I read this book, but the promotional material for Ferris’s “slow carb diet” only mentions the first two points, and he calls it the “30 out of 30” rule. (To be clear, neither Ferris nor Breca are excellent sources of diet or fitness advice. They both enthusiastically promote dubious weight-loss regimens—Ferris’s diet eliminates bread, rice, potatoes, and all fruit—and only anecdotes support these claims. that they work.)

Breca says he’s “never in my life seen anything get rid of fat in a person faster than” 30-30-30, and while I can’t comment on what Breca has seen in my life, 30-30 doesn’t nothing special. -thirty.

Why eat 30 grams of protein?

I like the advice to eat 30 grams of protein. Many people focus on calories when losing weight and forget about protein, which is important for maintaining muscle mass if you’re losing fat and is also important for keeping your body healthy overall.

However, protein by itself does not support muscle. To maximize these benefits, you also need to do strength training. This could mean training with weights several times a week or doing bodyweight exercises at home—as long as you choose exercises that are actually challenging enough to build muscle .

The amount of protein recommended here is good: 30 grams is about a third of what you need if you want to get around 100 grams in total throughout the day. As I’ve explained before, 100 is a good number for most people to aim for as a minimum when trying to gain or maintain muscle mass. ( Here’s a more detailed guide if you want more specific numbers based on your goals and body size.)

Why eat protein in the morning?

Should you eat the first 30 grams of protein in the morning? No, you can get protein at any time of the day. But this schedule has some advantages.

The most important thing, if you are not used to eating a lot of protein, is to just start doing it . If you have virtually no protein in your breakfast and only about 15 grams in your lunch, then you’re going to have to add a ton of protein to your dinner—at which point, maybe it’s been a long day and you’re thinking, forget it. , tomorrow I will do better. But starting with 30 grams of protein in the morning means you have a head start on your daily intake. Many people also find that protein is more filling than other foods, meaning you’ll have an easier time sticking to your healthy lunch plan.

Another benefit, even for people who find it easy to get enough protein, is that it’s beneficial to spread it out throughout the day. Theoretically, every protein-rich meal signals your muscles to build (or maintain) muscle tissue, so the more of these meals you eat per day, the better. In reality, it probably doesn’t matter much if you’re getting enough protein overall, but starting with a high-protein breakfast can also help with the overall amount.

What if I can’t eat comfortably within 30 minutes of waking up?

If you can’t eat easily within 30 minutes of waking up, don’t do it. There is no magic window of protein intake that begins when you wake up each morning. You can have breakfast whenever you want. And if a protein-rich breakfast doesn’t suit your schedule or taste, you’re not missing out on anything important.

How much does 30 grams of protein cost?

Here are some examples of foods that contain 30 grams of protein:

Five eggs (scrambled eggs, scrambled eggs, etc.) or about a cup of runny egg whites.
Spoon of whey protein powder in a cup of skim milk
Half a chicken breast
About five ounces of turkey sausage
Five-ounce container of nonfat Greek yogurt with one-half scoop of protein powder mixed with

Of course you can mix and match; An omelet with three eggs and a small handful of shredded chicken (plus some vegetables) is ideal. And remember, there is no law that says you can’t eat breakfast foods. If you have some leftover chili from the night before, this makes a great breakfast too.

Why 30 minutes of exercise in the morning?

As with protein, there’s no particular reason to exercise in the morning (and certainly not for any specific period of time after waking up or after eating). But morning exercises are beneficial for many people. Even I, not a morning person at all, get a certain boost of mood and energy from a morning workout or walk. Again, there is a strategy for pre-loading the things you don’t want to cross off your to-do list. Start the exercise in the morning and it is already done.

Exercises according to the “rule” of 30-30-30 usually mean low-intensity cardio. This is the so-called “zone 2” cardio , or what used to be called the “fat burning zone.” The benefits of keeping your cardio at a lower intensity include:

You’ll hate it less
It won’t make you as hungry as intense workouts.
It won’t make you as tired as intense workouts.

It’s best to do both lighter and more intense exercises in general, but lower intensity exercises are great as a base, so if you can only do one or the other, start there. It will be easier for you to form a habit and you can add higher intensity activities as a supplement.

What are the disadvantages of 30-30-30?

I see two flaws in the 30-30-30 program. One gets hung up on the details because there is absolutely no reason for any of the numbers to be exactly 30 or for the program to execute exactly as described. Another disadvantage is the danger that you may believe the nonsense used to justify it.

Let’s talk about the specifics first. I’ve seen people on Reddit asking what to do if they wake up at 4am but don’t actually get out of bed and start their day until 6am, or what they should eat because they can’t cook their usual breakfast within an hour. 30 minutes of waking up. The answer to all these questions is: it doesn’t matter . The 30-minute time frame is designed to sound catchy. Nothing bad will happen if you don’t meet the deadline.

The same goes for the exact amount of protein. If you have 20 grams (just yogurt, without half a scoop of protein powder), are you ruining the weight loss magic? This is not true, because there is no weight loss magic. You can move the remaining 10 grams to lunch if you think this will make it easier for you to get your daily protein.

And this brings me to the claims about why 30-30-30 is the way to lose weight. (This is not a weight-loss trick.) Brecky’s 30-30-30 video contains a number of dubious claims:

It claims that you burn muscle glycogen (stored carbohydrates) in 20 minutes . This may be true if we’re talking about extremely high-intensity exercise done on an empty stomach, but it won’t have any meaningful relationship to weight loss. If you’re an athlete who needs to perform high-intensity exercise for more than 20 minutes, you’ll be paying attention to your refueling strategy anyway, most likely consuming carbohydrates before exercise to conserve glycogen. The rest of us don’t have to worry about it.
He claims that it takes three minutes to “liquefy” muscle mass . I can’t think of any way to read this statement that is consistent with the known facts of human biology.
He states that it takes five hours to convert fat into energy. Well, we’re constantly converting fat into energy (it’s our main source of fuel while we sleep and when we’re sitting or resting), so it doesn’t really matter how long it takes to fire up the fat-burning machine; it always works.

These numbers are cited as an explanation for why fasted cardio is bad for weight loss, but they don’t add up; Even if we burn muscle by doing an OrangeTheory class first thing in the morning, it doesn’t mean we’re gaining weight or can’t lose weight. Our body uses many types of fuel throughout the day, and weight changes occur as a result of the overall energy balance we have created (burning more than we eat, or vice versa), rather than which fuel we use at what time.

If 30-30-30 works, then it’s likely helping you form a more sustainable habit. Half an hour of low-intensity exercise is easy to stick to, as we saw with cozy cardio, and meets cardiovascular health guidelines . Eating protein for breakfast will help you start consuming protein throughout the day, which is also beneficial for your health. So , if the 30-30-30 routine suits your personality and schedule, it’s a great way to develop healthy habits. Just don’t expect it to help you shed those extra pounds. Weight changes occur as a result of adjustments in the amount you eat in relation to the calories you burn . And there are plenty of ways to do this that don’t require a specific morning routine.

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Nutrition