What Is The 30-30-30 Diet and Is It Worth It for Triathletes?
There are so many diets out there claiming to be effective for weight loss or performance, but the reality is most of them are unrealistic, unsustainable and, quite frankly, dangerous.
Now, there’s this diet that has gone viral called the 30-30-30 diet. It’s been adopted by people across the globe and has heaps of reported potential benefits.
But is it actually safe, healthy, and something that you, as a triathlete, should follow?
In this article, I’ll discuss the 30-30-30 diet for triathletes, providing all the details to help you decide if it’s worth trying.
The Rise of The 30-30-30 Diet
I saw a TikTok the other day from a certain Gary Brecka.
It got my interest, so I started looking into it. I realise he mightn’t have been the person who first suggested this and that it might have been Tim Ferris, but I don’t care about the origin; I care about the science.
It seems like the idea might be to improve one's ability to burn fat and reduce body fat, so lots of people are using it for this, but there are also people who are following it for triathlon performance.
I considered this from a weight loss, health, and triathlon point of view and whether there was actually any merit to following a diet like this.
What is the 30-30-30 diet and why could it work?
The whole concept of this routine is to eat 30 grams of protein within 30 minutes of waking up, followed by 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise, hence the 30-30-30.
The idea is that you give your body a big blast of protein first thing because protein is satisfying and makes you feel full. It’s also involved with appetite regulation later in the day and contributes to healthy, functioning muscles.
There is loads of evidence to back the health benefits of dietary protein. When it comes to weight loss, the nutrient can reduce cravings and the need for snacking, as protein helps you feel full and satisfied. This can then aid you in staying in a calorie deficit, which is what you need to lose weight.
It also contributes to muscle maintenance, and I’m talking just healthy, functioning muscles here, so it is definitely important for triathletes.
Eating a good amount of protein in the morning is a fantastic thing to do—there’s some evidence that having a high-protein breakfast reduces the likelihood of overeating later in the day, which is definitely a helpful benefit for people trying to lose weight!
A study also demonstrated that spacing protein intake evenly across the day was associated with improved body composition in females, so more muscle and less fat, and this is definitely a big plus.
Unfortunately, breakfast is one meal people fall short on in terms of protein intake. This approach from the 30-30-30 diet, prioritising protein at breakfast, should mean that more people eat more protein at breakfast, which is a great outcome, in my opinion.
Can the 30-30-30 diet help you burn more fat?
Now, there’s the diet component: 30 minutes of low-intensity exercise after consuming your 30 grams of protein.
In theory, this is awesome because if followed, you’d be doing 30 minutes of exercise a day, which, if we’re being honest, is probably far more than a lot of people do.
The 30-30-30 diet focuses on low-intensity exercise, and let me say I think that’s brilliant.
Low-intensity exercise means exercise in which your breathing doesn’t really increase above your baseline—so you can still talk fully and breathe in and out through your nose.
If you like numbers, this would correspond to about 65% of your maximum heart rate, loosely speaking.
For a lot of people, this can feel pretty strange and like they aren’t really doing anything, but I can promise you it is doing you good, and I’d actually encourage this approach.
It’s such a common theme to see people exercising way too hard, too frequently, which means they end up burning out and not being able to stick to their exercise routine over the long term, defeating its purpose.
So, aiming for low intensity is definitely a good option for many people, especially if they’re new to exercise. This might be as simple as walking at a slightly brisk pace.
The nuance to the 30-30-30 diet helping to burn fat
In that video from Gary Brecka I referenced above, he also suggests that by doing low-intensity exercise, you burn more fat, which can be true, but that’s not the whole story. You might burn more fat for energy, but this doesn’t mean you burn more calories overall or that you burn more body fat.
This is a subtle but crucial point to highlight, so don’t be fooled. Unfortunately, this diet and low-intensity focus on exercise won’t magically burn and reduce your body fat percentage because your overall calorie amounts will be the true players in that.
But the 30-30-30 diet ticks some of my favourite nutrition concepts that contribute to general health, so I’m a huge fan of this approach.
I should highlight that this article on the 30-30-30 rule is based on no actual evidence. There aren’t any trials involving this dietary approach, so there’s no way to quantify its benefits, but it definitely does follow some good dietary principles.
However, like most things, it isn’t quite as clear-cut as this, and there are some potential drawbacks, especially for triathletes, which we should consider.
Downsides of the 30-30-30 rule
While I think this 30-30-30 rule has some real benefits, I don’t think it’s quite as simple as saying it’s the best diet for normal healthy living, weight loss, or performance in a triathlon, and we should dive into this.
The first issue is that 30 grams of protein is hard to get out of your everyday breakfast, regardless of what type of diet you follow.
Foods like cereals or toast do contain some protein, but not heaps of it, making this more difficult for you to achieve.
Meat is obviously an option, but I’m not sure many people would want to eat that within 30 minutes of waking up and then go and exercise.
Your other options would be something like low-fat dairy, such as, 200 grams of low-fat Greek yoghurt or cottage cheese, and then some like bran flakes or oats, or a meal with several eggs.
Of course, you can have something like a protein shake, which is a convenient and easy way to get protein in, and I’m not specifically against that, but I think, where possible, this shouldn’t be an everyday thing for breakfast.
So, logistically, this 30g of protein within 30 minutes of waking might be quite difficult for many people to do. Honestly, if everyone got over 20g of protein in their breakfast, I would be super pleased, as that’s a great start to the day.
Is the 30-30-30 diet good for triathletes?
I always consider things from a sports and exercise perspective and one of my worries about this diet is that it encourages people to exercise soon after eating.
Unless you’re going to consume a protein shake without anything else, you’re going to end up eating a reasonable amount of slow-digesting food, and that means you're at an increased risk of having stomach upset, especially if you do something like a triathlon.
I’d rather recommend eating carbohydrates before your triathlon, which means you would need to add those in and the 30g of protein.
So, if you do run and you don’t get any tummy problems, then that’s fine. However, you can run at any point of the day, and I’d be more keen for you to just work out when it fits into your schedule and lifestyle rather than saying it has to be first thing in the morning.
Wait a few hours after breakfast to run, or you could run in the afternoon or evening if that’s better for you. Basically, just exercise whenever it works for you in the day. It’s way more beneficial for you to just do it consistently, and if morning doesn’t fit your routine - that’s okay.
If you want nutritional advice related to your daily diet, check out my free triathlete’s nutrition email course.
What about the rest of your diet?
The other thing that is super important to highlight is that this diet doesn’t really give much advice for the rest of the day. Sure, you’ve followed the 30-30-30 rule first thing, but then what?
Do you need to worry about your diet? Can you eat whatever you like at other points of the day? Do you need protein at lunch and dinner?
The problem is that it doesn't really give enough context or guidance on your diet as a whole. Maybe that wasn’t ever the intention, but I’ve learned through my experience working with clients that, generally, the clearer, more actionable advice you can give, the better.
I could see this as an issue with triathletes or for someone trying to lose weight, where someone thinks because they’ve followed this protocol for the morning, they don’t really need to worry about their diet for the rest of the day.
So, they are much more lenient at lunch and dinner time, and even with snacking, too. On top of that, because the rule emphasises protein at breakfast, they don’t bother much with it at other points of the day, meaning they fall short of their protein requirements.
This could easily mean that someone’s diet for the rest of the day is poor because they’ve followed the rule for breakfast and thought that they’re sorted.
Maybe I’m overthinking it, but these are the main issues that spring to mind for me. If I were to improve this, I would say it’s the 30-30-30-30 diet, where you focus on 30 grams of protein for breakfast, lunch, dinner, and snacks throughout the day, plus 30 minutes of exercise at any point.
However, that’s not as catchy and won’t make the rounds on the internet.
Nonetheless, you could definitely use this diet for general healthy living as a runner, but you’ll need to follow more than just this rule. You’ll still need to eat satiating, filling, healthy food that is high in protein, fibre, wholegrain carbs, veggies, and healthy fats throughout the day, but I think the essence of the diet isn’t bad at all.
It doesn’t hurt to be curious about nutrition trends, but they aren’t always worth following.
I discuss what I think is the optimal diet for triathletes, and I highly recommend checking that out!
