What does 80:20 Eating *actually* look like?
... and how can you leverage it to balance fun foods and satiety?
Definitions
First off, let's define the 80:20 principle.
In nutrition, it refers to the composition or overall quality of your food intake.
What we mean here:
80% of your intake comes from nutrient-dense whole foods
20% comes from low-satiety, non-nutrient-dense foods a.k.a. “fun foods” (think lattes, potato chips, pretzels, candy, etc
While this seems pretty straightforward in practice, many of us tend to eat 50:50 but mentally think it’s 80:20.
Let us help you fix that!
IN execution
So, what does 80:20 look like in reality?
Let’s look at an example:
Daily Maintenance Calories: 2,000-2,100
20% of this = 400-420 calories
This could look like:
A latte with breakfast ~150 cal
A bag of chips with lunch ~150 cal
2 squares of chocolate with dinner ~100 cal
How to evaluate meals
Take this lunch, for example.
A bowl of rice, tri-tip, and sauteed kale, with two slices of a fancy cookie (similar to Crumbl).
When you look at this meal, you’re likely to split your composition based on the visual difference in size between the bowl and the cookies.
Let’s actually break down the meal with our tracking tools.
Cookie estimate = 99 calories
Meal estimate = 660 calories
99 / 660 = 15%
Therefore this meal is 85% whole foods and 15% fun foods. A bit different from our first guess.
How to phase it: surplus
The division of your meals should vary by phase.
As you increase calories, you will likely need to lower the ratio to keep food intake high without overshooting your fiber intake or food volume.
If the same person whose maintenance is 2000-2100 at the end of the surplus is eating 2400-2500 cals, they may drop to a 75-25 split to scale overall food intake.
Maintenance = 2000-2100
80-20 split works out to 1,600-1,680 nutrient-dense calories and 600-620 “fun” calories.
Surplus = 2400- 2500
75-25 split works out to 1,800-1,875 nutrient-dense calories and 600-625 “fun” calories.
How to phase it: Fat loss
Are you in a deficit? It’s imperative to manage hunger and satiety, which means eating more nutrient-dense foods and reducing those that don’t contribute to satiety.
Unfortunately, fun foods will move us toward our calorie total way faster than real, whole foods. We want to extend that as much as possible.
Maintenance = 2000-2100
80-20 split = 1,600-1,680 nutrient-dense calories and 600-620 “fun” calories.
Deficit = 1600 - 1700
90-10 split = 1,440-1,530 nutrient-dense calories and 160-190 “fun” calories.
95-05 split = 1,520-1,615 nutrient-dense calories and 80-85 “fun” ones.
Additional thoughts
You do not need to do this granular level of analysis every day.
However, if you find yourself hungry while eating the number of calories you know are already at your maintenance level, you may need to re-evaluate your food intake and make some adjustments.
The 80-20 split may not be the ratio that works for you. You may have great satiety on a lower ratio, or you may need a higher ratio.
This is something you get to test and adjust as needed to tweak to see what works best for you for long-term sustainability.
