I recently interviewed Tom Venuto, author of Burn The Fat, Feed The Muscle, and asked him a question that I'm sure all of you want to know.  I asked him, "Is it possible to get a flat stomach, six-pack abs and single digit body fat, while still enjoying your favorite foods like chocolate or pizza?"

Here was Tom's answer…

Yeah, of course it's possible. You just have to eat small enough portions of chocolate or pizza so you're still in a calorie deficit. In fact, you can eat a 100% pizza and 100% chocolate diet and still lose weight – all you need is a calorie deficit. Now I don't recommend you do that, I'm just trying to make the point that it all revolves around that calorie deficit.
 
We have some diet book authors, some of them even bestsellers on the top of the charts right now, who are saying the same myth that diet gurus have been saying for decades.  They're saying calories don't count, and it's utter complete BS. Calories in vs. calories out is stating the first law of thermodynamics. Apparently, we have a group of people who claim to have figured a way to avoid the law of thermodynamics, but energy balance is a physical law. It's a natural, unbreakable law of physics. You can't turn this off any more than you can turn off the law of gravity.
 
There's actually an explanation of why they say that though. What these guys are really doing is giving you a list of eating rules, and it makes it almost impossible to overeat. You could say they're basically tricking you into eating less. I wouldn't necessarily say that's a bad thing if you eat less, because the foods you choose spontaneously make you feel fuller on fewer calories. I would even argue that's a good thing.
 
So a diet book author can say calories don't count, don't count calories and their diet can work very well. But they're misrepresenting how it works because there's a huge difference between saying that you have to count calories and calories don't count. Do you see the difference? If anybody listening doesn't see the difference, then make sure that you get the difference because it's huge.
 
Suppose I tell you that the only thing you can eat is lean protein, like egg whites, chicken, fish and green veggies, salads and other vegetables. So lean plus green, and maybe I'll let you take in some essential fats and oils to make sure you get all the essential nutrients, and I say you can eat as much as you want.
 
I bet you're going to have a really hard time eating on a calorie surplus because I've removed some food groups that are dense in calories, like starches and grains and sugars. But does that mean that calories don't count? No, it means that I gave you a bunch of eating rules and I said you could eat as much as you want, instead of counting calories. But again, it doesn't mean calories don't count.
 
So the idea that calories don't count is one of the worse myths out there because if people don't understand the calories in vs. calories out in that equation, they're not going to be able to get past the plateau that we just talked about, and they're going to start to think there's a cause-effect relationship between eating specific foods and gaining fat. They're going to figure eating pizza equals getting fat. It doesn't. They're going to figure eating chocolate equals getting fat. It doesn't. It's not a cause-effect relationship. Eating too many calories equals gaining fat.
 
Now if you take a pizza and you load that thing up with triple cheese, sausage, pepperoni, and olives and just stack the calories in there, that's a calorie dense food. Now even though no food in itself makes you fat, calorie dense foods, if you eat them frequently, you're more likely to get a calorie surplus. Or, some calorie dense foods just stimulate your appetite and then you eat more of other stuff, then you're more likely to eat more calories.
 
So the bottom line is, as far as your favorite foods go, my philosophy is that depriving yourself completely of your favorite foods is a great way to make yourself miserable, and it is almost certain you will fall off your diet very quickly. So my philosophy is allow yourself your favorite foods, as long as you acknowledge that calories count and you obey the law of calorie balance.
 
And this is one reason that I don't prefer the full day off the diet, free for all cheat day, but only because some people might interpret that loosely and may almost feel obligated to see how much food they can eat and how much they can shove down their throats. It's cheat day, so I have to cheat real good. I don't want to miss out on this. They're in a huge surplus, and if they go so far over on their surplus on the cheat day, that when it all averages out over the week, they're even, and they haven't lost any body fat.
 
So it's a matter of looking at quantity vs. quality and understanding the calorie equation. I call this the 'health/body fat paradox', and what I mean by that is that eating for health and eating for body composition are separate things. Your body fat and your body mass are dictated by energy balance, or the quantity of food you eat. But your health is dictated by the nutrient balance, or the quality of the calories you eat. And when I say quality foods, I'm usually talking about natural foods that are not processed or refined, and that are very nutrient dense, especially the fruits and vegetables.
 
Some people would just call it 'clean eating', and it's been a whole debate. Because I was brought up as a bodybuilder, I was programmed to believe that you can't have pizza, chocolate and that you have to eat 100% clean, or close to 100% clean to get lean, and it's just not true – you just need the calorie deficit. But there's a problem on either extreme, if you get so caught up with just calories, with just the quantity and not the quality, then you're going to start heading down a really slippery slope towards health problems or nutrient deficiency because you're not taking in the quality calories. And when you're going for fat loss this whole issue is just so much more pronounced.
 
If you have a limited calorie budget, you don't want to spend too many of those calories on low quality foods – you want to get the essentials in first. You don't want to fill up too much on pizza, chocolate, alcohol and soda, if you haven't gotten all the essentials in first: essential amino acids and proteins. Essential fatty acids, which means you're going to get in fish, fish oil, nuts, and seeds in first. Essential vitamins and minerals, which means you especially get the fruits and vegetables in first. Those are all the essentials. If you fill up your calorie budget with junk food first, you're displacing all of those essentials and those high quality calories.
 
So, your best approach is knowing your calorie target, at least the ballpark, and inside that calorie target give yourself a compliance rule. One that works really well for me and for my clients is 90%. I give you a list of clean foods, for example, some of the high quality foods and essentials that I mentioned, and I say eat these 90% of the time, and then the other 10% of the time, eat whatever you want. If you look at it from this perspective, then you can see that there's absolutely no such thing as forbidden foods.
 
So if you're a competitive bodybuilder and you have no emotional connection to food, don't eat for taste and pleasure, and you eat for fuel and building material, you don't really need to have this conversation. But for most people, in the long run, any diet that gives you flexibility is going to work better than a diet that demands 100% clean eating. 

Awesome answer by Tom. If you're interested in learning more, check out Tom's presentation on How To Transform Your Body Forever in 49 Days Flat.