30-30-30 Method for Weight Loss

In the world of health, fitness, and nutrition, there is a new exercise magic training routine and diet pills every week. However, as these come and go, evidence-based practices such as quality nutrition, protein, and regular exercise have stayed the same, leading people to incredible results.

One program that does this is the 30-30-30 Method which focuses on eating 30 grams of protein  30 minutes of waking, and 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise.

In this article, we discuss the 30-30-30 Method for weight loss. We explain each component, key benefits, potential drawbacks, and how to optimize it for the best results.

What Is the 30-30-30 Method for Weight Loss?

The 30-30-30 method for weight loss refers to eating 30 grams of protein 30 minutes after waking directly followed by 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise.

The Three Components Explained

Below, we discuss how each component can help support weight loss.

30 Grams of Protein for Breakfast

Beginning each day with 30 grams of protein is a great way to set the tone for the rest of the day. Protein plays a massive role in our body including the immune system, hormones, and transportation of molecules. However, it's the ability to improve satiety, boost metabolism, and muscle growth that makes it so popular when losing weight.

Protein’s ability to improve fullness can reduce hunger, making it easier to stay within a calorie deficit. Its ability to increase thermogenesis, where the body burns energy to create provides a boost to our metabolism. These elements combined place a positive bias toward weight loss just 30 minutes after waking up.

The recommended daily intake (RDI) regardless of age is approximately 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight. For context, an 80 kg female daily intake is just 64g, making 30 grams almost half the RDI. However, these are modest figures with further evidence recommending 1.4–1.6g/kg/day for active individuals, equating to 112 grams of protein for an 80 kg female.  These figures may be more appropriate as exercise will likely be a component of your weight loss program.

To achieve this, it is recommended that you consume between 25-30 grams to meet these daily requirements.

Eating Within 30 Minutes of Waking Up

Breakfast is the most important meal of the day! Sound familiar? Believe it or not, this phrase is an advertising slogan for Kellogg’s breakfast cereal from 1917.  Truth is, the jury is still out on that one with many articles for and against starting the day with breakfast.

In the case of the 30-30-30 method, eating a high-protein meal at the beginning of the day can improve satiety and create a solid foundation for the rest of the day. Additionally, it meets the recommended daily distribution of 25–30 grams per meal, helping to improve satiety throughout the day.

30 Minutes of Low-Intensity Exercise

Shortly after breaks the 30-30-30 Method requests you engage in low-intensity exercise, often suggesting cardio. This can be in the form of walking outdoors, treadmill walking, cycling, or elliptical.

These follow current physical activity recommendations for adults which suggest, 150-300 minutes per week of moderate intensity. This equates to 30 minutes, 5 days a week.

Regular exercise such as low-intensity cardiovascular exercise can burn energy, and improve weight management. This reduces the risk of obesity and chronic illness including cardiovascular disease, cancer, hypertension, and depression.

Benefits of the 30-30-30 Method

The 30-30-30 Method offers a simple and effective way to achieve weight loss. Below, we discuss the benefits and reasons to try this method.

Easy to Follow and Sustainable

The 30-30-30 method offers simple rules for weight loss that are easy to follow. While many weight loss programs attempt to establish their own rules and routines, the 30-30-30 Method does the opposite, using tried and tested methods to help you lose weight.

Displayed in the name and performed in the initial phases of the day, it uses evidence-based principles of protein intake and regular exercise to start each day with a healthy, positive bias.

This can be incredible when we are tired, fatigued, and unmotivated, presenting immediate, achievable goals that can help get us back on track.

Encourages Daily Movement

One of the best things about hte 30-30-30 Method is it not only encourages movement, it makes it achievable. While some weight loss programs require intense training sessions, the 30-30-30 Method requires a low-intensity walk to wake you up and start your day.

This places a greater emphasis on daily movement, helping to increase blood flow to working muscles, loosening joints, and engaging our cardiorespiratory system. Walking specifically reduces blood pressure, resting heart rates, body fat, body mass, and cholesterol.

Helps Reduce Mid-Morning Cravings

The 30-30-30 Method is excellent for reducing mid-morning cravings. Breakfast can be hit or miss when it comes to satiety, as processed carbohydrates such as toast, muffins, pancakes, and waffles while delicious spike blood sugar levels, leading to a crash shortly after.

Eating 30 grams of protein for your first meal fills you up and helps you maintain satiety. This reduces the mid-morning snack which can lead to a calorie blowout. Food such as eggs, oats, buckwheat protein pancakes, and salmon are all great for hitting your morning protein targets.

Preserves Muscle and Bone Mass

Hitting your daily protein target and routine physical activity are greater for preserving muscle and bone mass.

Preserving and building muscle mass is determined to occur when muscle protein synthesis exceeds muscle protein breakdown, which can be achieved through protein ingestion and resistance training. Meanwhile, preserving bone mass requires mechanical stimuli which can be applied using muscle contraction and gravity.

The 30-30-30 Method’s focus on protein intake and exercise provides overload and protein intake to support muscle growth. While walking and performing low-intensity aerobics each morning is not as effective as resistance training, the loading of muscles may be able to preserve and promote muscle growth. This can also provide mechanical stimulus in the form of muscle contractions and gravity required to preserve and strengthen bone mass.

Potential Drawbacks of the 30-30-30 Method

The 30-30-30 Method’s simplicity makes it a great tool for losing weight. However, this doesn’t mean it doesn’t have its downsides. Below, we highlight the drawbacks to ensure you get the full picture of this weight loss program.

Lack of Calorie Control

A major drawback of the 30-30-30 Method is its lack of calorie control. Its simple approach to nutrition while convenient for reducing hunger and preserving muscle mass, does not address the need to control calorie intake.

Weight loss requires a calorie deficit: eating fewer calories than you consume. This helps to burn fat, leading to weight loss. Consuming 30 grams is an essential component of the weight loss picture, however, when calories aren’t tracked, they can exceed our daily limit leading to weight gain.

Remedy this by tracking your calorie, macronutrient, and protein intake. This will ensure you are in a calorie deficit, helping you lose weight.

Low-Intensity Exercise May Be Insufficient

Correct nutrition and a calorie deficit are king for weight loss. However, this doesn’t mean exercise doesn’t play its part. Exercise can help burn additional calories, contributing to your calorie deficit.

The 30-30-30 Method’s use of low-intensity exercise can help burn calories and come with several improvements to health and wellbeing. However, it limits the ability to increase muscle mass, strength, and function.

This is why physical activity recommendations suggest two or more resistance training workouts each week to reduce the risk of injury and preserve muscle mass and strength. We recommend adding resistance training sessions to your session to fill the gap.

Risk of Unhealthy High-Protein Choices

Starting your day off with a dose of protein doesn’t always lead to consuming unhealthy food choices. The 30-30-30 Method recommends 30 grams of protein without stipulating the protein source which may lead people to reach for unhealthy protein sources such as fatty bacon, sausage, and other processed meats. While they will help you hit your protein goal, they are loaded with fat which uses up much of your daily calorie limit.

This is why calorie control is essential, ensuring we can hit our morning protein target without blowing our daily calorie intake. Foods such as eggs, lean meat, fish, oats, and protein supplements are all excellent sources of protein that can give you a healthy boost each morning.

How to Optimize the 30-30-30 Method

The 30-30-30 Methods has a solid foundation of healthy weight loss principles which are easy to follow. However, its simple approach lacks specificity, which may result in ineffective weight loss.

Below, we discuss ways to optimize the 30-30-30 Method to ensure successful weight loss including healthy protein sources, exercise intensity, and pairing protein with balanced nutrition.

Choosing Healthy Protein Sources

Correct nutrition is essential for weight loss, however, this doesn’t mean all protein sources are created. As mentioned, unhealthy protein sources can be calorie-dense, leading to excess calories and weight gain.

Below we list healthy and unhealthy protein sources with total protein in grams and total calories. The healthy protein sources consist of mostly whole foods, while the unhealthy options are mostly processed foods.

Healthy and Unhealthy Protein Sources

This table presents general information about different protein sources. From this view, these protein sources seem equal, which is what many of us see when we are browsing the aisles at the supermarket. However, with closer inspection, we begin to notice why some sources are healthier than others.

For example, chicken breast is an obvious choice for loading up on protein, compared to a calorie-density of sausage with half the amount. This is due to sausage's large massive fat content. Here is a quick calorie and macronutrient comparison:

A more challenging comparison is regular oats to premade protein oats. Both offer similar portions of protein, however, some things make regular oats come out on top despite having more calories.

Protein oats provide similar protein content to standard oats despite the premade protein version being half the serving size. However, this doesn’t mean they are better.

The premade protein oats contain more sugar and less fiber. Sugar is high on the glycemic index, and provides a quick release of energy. Meanwhile, fiber is a non-digestible carbohydrate that improves fullness. The combination of these two spiking energy levels, before quickly crashing, leading to hunger.

Regular oats on the other hand while great in calories, have far less sugar and more than three times the fiber. This combined with double the food volume will keep you fuller for longer.

One of the most effective ways to select healthy protein sources is by choosing whole foods. While they do not always have the same protein content as fortified foods, they contain far fewer additives, sugars, and unhealthy fats which can affect your nutrition plan and energy levels.

Increase Exercise Intensity Gradually

Low-intensity exercise is excellent for your health, however, we may want a great challenge, which can be done by gradually increasing exercise intensity. We discuss different ways to increase intensity and expand your training.

Adding Short Intervals of Moderate Activity

A great way to optimize your 30-30-30 Method is to add short intervals of moderate activity exercise. Physical activity recommendations also suggest 75–150 minutes of vigorous aerobic exercise or a hybrid of moderate and vigorous intensity to meet general health requirements.

For example, during your 30-minute walk, add 60 seconds of brisk walking every 5 minutes. This is a simple way to increase intensity without exerting yourself. To take this further, increase the number of intervals or duration. This can help you gradually increase your fitness.

Incorporating Strength Training

Incorporating strength training is a great way to optimize. As mentioned, low-intensity exercise can increase muscle and bone mass, however, this is less effective than resistance training.

Resistance training using body weight, free weight, cables, and machines safely overloads muscle groups to increase strength and enhance function. Furthermore, resistance training can boost our metabolism, increasing energy expenditure at rest. This combined with low-intensity exercise will turn your body into a fat-burning machine.

Pairing the Method with Balanced Nutrition

One of the 30-30-30 Method’s biggest drawbacks is it lacks focus on nutrition. While it prioritizes protein, it doesn’t address daily calorie and macronutrient intakes, which are essential for weight loss.

Fortunately, we can fill in the blanks by identifying our daily calorie limits and macronutrients and consuming a balanced, nutrient-dense diet.

For example, the average calorie intake for women is 2,000 per day. However, to ensure steady weight loss we need to create a calorie deficit of 200–300 calories. This will ensure slow and sustainable weight loss.

Alongside this, you should determine your macronutrients to ensure you are getting enough complex carbohydrates for fuel, protein to preserve muscle and satiety, and healthy fats to absorb essential nutrients. Below are the recommended macronutrient ratios for a balanced diet:

• Carbohydrates: 45–65% of total daily calories
• Protein: 10–35% of total daily calories
• Fats: 20–35% of total daily calories

For example, say that our daily calorie intake is 2,000 per day, and we are in a deficit of 300 calories. This leaves us with 1,700 calories. This number is then divided up by our macronutrients. Here we will use 50% carbohydrates, 20% protein, and 30% fat.

Below is an example of your weight loss calorie and macronutrietn targets:

• Calories: 1,700
• Carbohydrates: 50% 212 grams
• Protein: 20%                85 grams
• Fats: 30%                57 grams

If this sounds complicated, don’t worry. Most nutrition apps have calorie and macronutrient calculators that help determine daily intakes and streamline the tracking process.

From here you can accurately log your morning protein intake alongside your carbohydrates and healthy fats while sticking to your daily calorie limit. This will improve your chances of achieving your weight loss goals.

Recap: 30-30-30 Method for Weight Loss

The 30-30-30 Method builds its success on a strong foundation of evidence-based weight loss principles. Offering easy, accessible, and actionable tasks it helps set the tone of physical activity and correct nutrition from the moment you get up.

However, its simplicity leads to drawbacks that may disrupt the weight loss process, including:

• Lack of calorie control
• Low-intensity exercise may be insufficient
• Risk of unhealthy food choices

Fortunately, we can easily fill in the gaps by:

• Tracking daily calorie and macronutrient intakes
• Select healthy protein sources
• Eat a balanced nutrient-dense diet
• Add two to three resistance training sessions each week
• Gradually increase exercise intensity.

The 30-30-30 Method has some gaps, but with a minor adjustments to exercise and nutrition, it is a promising method for weight loss.

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