For the next month, (APRIL), we are going to support all those who want to take part in what is called, “The 800 Gram Challenge”. The 800 Gram Challenge is the brain child of Eva Clair Synkowski. EC, who now lives in Colorado, has formed a company call “OptomizeMe NUTRITION”. It is through her company and website that she offers the formal 800 Gram Challenge. We are going to run our 800 Gram Challenge on our own keeping it simple and fun.
The 800 Gram Challenge (#800gChallenge®)
The 800 Gram Challenge (#800gChallenge®) is a tool to guide healthy eating. It provides a way to measure quality in the diet. It provides a simple method to make sure you hit a healthy daily dose of fruits and veggies! As a result, people experience weight loss, better performance, improved recovery, and a better relationship with food.
The Challenge
- Eat 800 grams (g) of fruits and/or vegetables, by weight, a day.
- No foods are restricted during the challenge; you continue to eat whatever else you want.
- You pick which fruits and vegetables to eat, and you can weigh them cooked, canned (drained), frozen or fresh.
What “Counts”
Remember, no foods are eliminated for the #800gChallenge®. Below, are the answers to frequently asked items in terms of what “counts” and doesn’t towards your 800 grams.
Yes, They Count
All fruits and vegetables which includes:
- Avocado
- Canned items if in water and spices only (weighed drained)
- Coconut (fresh/frozen chunks)
- Corn
- Fermented/pickled foods (e.g., kimchi, sauerkraut, pickles)
- Legumes (beans), lentils, and peas
- Olives
- Potatoes if they are not commercially fried
- Recipes with fruits and veggies if you can weigh the qualifying items before cooking/prepping
- Salsa if without added water, oil, or sugar
- Smoothies if made at home and you can weigh the qualifying items before blending
- Tofu if beans and spices only
- Tomato sauce if without added water, oil, or sugar
- Store-bought or pre-made items that contain fruits or vegetables like soups, smoothies, frozen burritos
- Dried anything including fruit, veggie chips, coconut flakes
- Juices or milk of any kind
- Commercially fried anything like french fries or tempura
- Grains of any kind (e.g., quinoa, buckwheat)
- Nuts including peanuts (a legume) & seeds
- Popcorn
Do I have to weigh and measure it?
It is recommended you do at home or at the office for education. However, 1 cup is about ~100 grams and a closed adult fist is about 1 cup. About 6 cups (6 fists) ends up being 800 grams. Except, leafy greens in salads don’t weigh much. They only weigh ~25g/cup – so think about it as 6 cups a day and as many leafy greens as you want when you are estimating.
The cup/fist method can be used to estimate grams on the road or out at restaurants. And the more you weigh and measure at home, the more accurate your estimates become.
Add up all the qualifying items in the recipe, and then divide by the number of servings. It will be close enough!
Yes. While not a single number can be perfect for everyone, 800 grams is considered the baseline where people can scale up from there. Eight hundred grams of mixed fruits & veggies ends up being ~400-500 calories (up to 600 calories with avocado and potatoes). This is usually about a quarter of most people’s daily caloric needs. The carbohydrate load depends on the types of fruits and veggies consumed; it will often be 100g of carbs or less.
People also eat about 3,000 grams a day of food by weight, so 800 grams is a reasonable volume dedicated for fruits & veggies.
Sure. Remember, it’s ideal to eat a diverse array of fruits and vegetables to maximize the variety of vitamins, minerals, fiber and phytochemicals in the diet. ANY fruit and vegetable choice is usually better than other items in the diet (e.g., grains, processed carbs), but then to optimize that, you need variety.
Yes, they do but remember: you can “cheat” any diet. If you are relying on pickles to hit your 800 grams every day, you can do better (they are heavy with low nutrient value). Also remember, people may be at different stages in their diet. Someone eating a standard American diet is WAY better off eating 800 grams of pickles and white potatoes a day. But, is that an optimal nutrient density? No.
Am I going to lose weight?
Maybe! What usually happens with the #800gChallenge® is that people fill up on the lower calorie fruit & veggies, and don’t have as much room for all the junk food. So, many people have lost weight. However, if you continue to have too much beer, pizza, and ice cream on top of the 800 grams of fruits and vegetables, you will not lose weight.
How long is the #800gChallenge®?
As long as there is value for you! While the metric can be used as a nutrition challenge of a specific length, it also can be applied as a daily “challenge” to one’s day-to-day choices for any length of time. OptimizeMe Nutrition’s founder EC Synkowski has been using it since June 2017 because of the simple accountability it provides each day.
To learn even more Click HERE.
Here is how we will score the competitive part of the 800g Challenge:
- 4 points – Eat your 800 grams of fruit and vegetables in a day.
- 1 point – complete a CrossFit type workout.
- 1 point – post your workout result on SugarWOD or text your workout and the result to Cal each day.
Weigh yourself on Monday morning, take a picture of the scale with you on it. We will weigh again at the end of the month. If you lose weight and want to that is a bonus. the best part of the entire challenge is that we learn to eat the right kind of foods.
Send Cal an email at sevenvslash@hotmail.com and he will send you a score sheet for the 800g Challenge.