Hollywood’s Favorite Personal Trainer Says This Type of Dieting Might Actually Be Sabotaging Your Gains
Any elite trainer or dietician worth their salt will tell you that a healthy life is all about balance. You can't keep your nose to the grindstone 100 percent of the time and expect to come out of it in one piece. Sure, we’ve all seen the rice, chicken, and broccoli bodybuilders eat for a few months out of the year to hit single-digit body fat. And don’t get me wrong, their tenacity and dedication are genuinely admirable.
But what the average gym-goer misses is that this isn't what their life looks like the majority of the time. In fact, most of the year, they’re going out to eat with their friends every few weeks just like the rest of us.
But what does an 80/20 rule or balanced approach even mean? It’s easy to think about it as if you have chicken and rice five days a week, then you can go all out on the weekends. While that makes sense in theory, balance is about more than just a weekend pass. It’s about giving in to that Friday night pizza once a month or taking your kids to get ice cream on a Sunday.
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"It doesn't make sense to me to go to the extreme where you're on a diet, where you're not allowed to eat a certain food," says Magnus Lygdbäck, a celebrity fitness trainer, nutritionist, and creator of the Magnus Method. "If you love pizza and burgers and ice cream, what type of diet or what kind of life are you living if you're not allowed to eat it?"
Driven by a desire to help his clients find balance throughout his 26 years in the industry, he created the Magnus Method—a holistic approach that combines training, nutrition, good habits, and balance. It was about preparing artists for their time on stage and helping them recover effectively afterward. It isn't only about looking good, but also maintaining overall well-being.
"I've tried every diet with my clients," he says. "I failed everything many, many times. And I just realized it's all about flexibility and enjoying life. Cause here's the thing as well, life is not always about optimizing or what's the best thing."
The new era in fitness is all about longevity. We’re trying to cold plunge, sauna, and red light therapy our way into being the healthiest versions of ourselves for the longest amount of time. Fitness wearables tell us what time to go to sleep, vibrate to tell us when to wake up, suggest step counts, and tell us if our heart rate is acceptable. But all of this data can be overwhelming. And according to Lygdbäck, sometimes you just have to take a step back from all that noise.
"I always say, if we found out if science proves that cold showers in the morning prolongs life, I'm okay with living a little shorter," he says. "And you're telling me that I can't have my burrata with my steak on a Saturday night, I'm like, no, I'll start throwing chairs at you."
That’s where the actual balance lives. By all means, go hard in the gym. Get your eight hours of sleep. Chug your water and hit your protein goals like it’s your job. But for the love of sanity, have the ice cream with your kids and eat the pizza with your wife. Life isn’t a math problem to be solved, and it certainly isn't all about optimization.