The Minimum Effective Diet

TLDR — I recently got into the best shape of my life and created The Minimum Effective Diet to help you do the same. Check it out at diet.lukefernandez.io.

A few months ago, I committed to getting into better shape.

My goal was to gain muscle and strength, something I had struggled to do for much of my life. To make those gains, I sought a solid workout plan and an effective diet that I could stick to.

Since I already enjoyed working out and I figured building that habit would boost my appetite, I decided to research and integrate the workout plan first.

I wanted a workout plan that I could follow at home and spend minimal time and energy thinking about. I wanted something prescriptive. Having tried CrossFit in the past and enjoyed it, I went through the most popular at-home CrossFit programs, picked the one that resonated most, and got started.

This was a good strategy, because I quickly started to notice results and my appetite grew. That gave me the push I needed to get my diet in order. I didn't want my nutrition to get in the way of my training. I wanted it to fuel and enrich my training.

So I got to work ironing out what my diet would look like.

In the past, I have tried the Renaissance Periodization dieting app and templates, but I struggled to adhere to them closely on a vegan diet. I needed something a little more flexible.

This time, I read The Renaissance Diet 2.0 so I could build a nutrition plan from the ground up. Combining this with guidance from NutritionFacts.org, I designed a diet that would, in theory, result in a ~7 pound weight gain, a new all-time high weight, and a more muscular body composition.

I built a spreadsheet to calculate and track everything, committed myself to the process, and began.

12 weeks later, I reached my goal.

It worked!

Excited, I wanted to figure out a way to make designing future diets simpler and perhaps help others get similar results. My spreadsheet was great, but it wasn't easy to use or adjust, and it would be hard for a third-party to adopt.

I wanted a tool where I could enter my weight, choose from a small set of already-vetted options, and quickly generate an effective, evidence-based nutrition plan. I wanted to take the guess work out of my diet.

And so The Minimum Effective Diet was born. It gets its name from the term Minimum Effective Dose, the smallest dose that will produce the desired outcome.

Check it out at diet.lukefernandez.io.

Building The Minimum Effective Diet has been a lot of fun and a great learning experience. It has also been a good exercise in "building for yourself". Because I am the target audience, design decisions are simpler and velocity is higher.

In its current state, I like it and use it. As I use it more, I will continue to improve it. Hopefully it can be of some help to you.

Let me know what you think!

@lukefernandezio