Principles

Nutrition plays at least as much of a role in muscle gain and fat loss as does weight training. It is also arguably the more under-appreciated and misunderstood of the two, with a huge number of bogus and unhealthy "diets" which can be best compared to get-rich-quick schemes.

The basic principles of nutrition stay the same regardless of your goals, age, sex, or physical condition. The main differences will lie in meal sizes and proportions of different macronutrients in meals. You should always:

• Have 5 or more small to medium-sized meals throughout the day.
• Drink lots of plain water throughout the day. 8 cups of water is the minimum.
• Get at least 25% of your daily calories from protein, with some in every meal.
• Get 20-40% of your daily calories from carbohydrates.
• Get 20-40% of your daily calories from fats.
• Eat minimally processed and cooked foods whenever appropriate. Especially, eat a lot of raw vegetables.
• Avoid meals heavy in carbohydrates and/or fats.
• Avoid sweets and sugary foods, processed foods, fried foods, junk foods, and alcohol.

Best protein sources are lean meats, poultry, fish, cottage cheese, and eggs. Beans, lentils, other legumes, and nuts contain fair amount of protein and should become especially significant sources of protein for vegans and vegetarians. One of the very few worthwhile supplements is whey protein powder which can help if you are having difficulty getting enough protein from "normal" foods.

Most of your carbohydrate intake should come from fiberous vegetables, fruits, and whole grains. Green veggies such as green beans, broccoli, and spinach are nearly perfect carb sources. Plain oats, brown rice, and other whole grains and legumes are also terrific complex carb sources. Moderate amount of fruits or berries are also great for you.

Avoid processed sources of carbohydrates such as sweets, sugars, breakfast cereals (substitute oats or other plain whole grain in their stead), white breads and pastas, potatoes, and corn (sweet potatoes or yams are an excellent substitute for regular potatoes).

Even whole wheat breads should be passed over in favor of plain whole grains like oats or brown rice as much as possible. Dairy and fruits should be somewhat limited due to their high sugar content.

Healthy fat sources include nuts, egg yolks, flax seed, fatty fish such as salmon, olive and other plant-based oils (but only if not used in cooking). Animal and poultry fats are also OK in moderation.

Avoid processed fats such as found in most salad dressings and sweets. Also avoid cooking methods that use significant amounts of oils at high temperatures. Healthies ways of cooking vegetables, meats and fish are grilling, broiling, steaming, and others that do not require heating of oils.

How Much To Eat?

While the basic principles will apply for everyone regardless of their goals, the amounts of food you consume and the protein/carbs/fats breakdowns will be different depending on your present physique and your goals. There are two main directions in which you can go: losing fat and building muscle. While it is not impossible to achieve both, especially for beginners, you would do well to pick one or the other for a given period of time and structure your nutrition program accordingly. Toning, another popular goal, is really just a combination of losing fat and building muscle. For most people, "toning" nutrition would amount to conservative fat loss nutrition.

Nutrition for losing fat requires slight undereating to lose 1-2 pounds per week. Faster weight loss is unhealthy, causing significant muscle loss (as opposed to fat loss), and shutting down your body's metabolism thus sabotaging your fat loss. Nutrition for muscle gain requires slight overeating to add about 1 pound every 2 or more weeks. Faster weight gain will result only in unwanted fat gain (as opposed to muscle gain).

It is therefore very important to continuously monitor your weight and adjust your caloric intake to stay on course, whether it be towards fat loss or muscle gain. If you are of average build and are not sure what caloric intake to start with, use the Fitness Guide to get suggested diet. This diet should only apply to people with average physiques. It is important that you and your trainer custom-design a diet suited specifically to your needs and goals and continuously monitor and adjust it according to your progress. It's usually a good idea to gradually shift to a new diet plan over a couple of weeks.

In general, for fat loss diets, get 40% of your calories from proteins, 30% from carbs (mostly in the first half of the day), and 30% from fats. For muscle gain diets, get 30% of your calories from proteins, 40% from carbs, and 30% from fats. As with the total caloric intake, it is important that you and your trainer monitor your progress and make necessary adjustments.

Most Important Points

With all this advice about what to eat, how much to eat, and when to eat it may seem overwhelming to get one's diet exactly right. Don't stress over it too much and above all focus on what's most important: the kinds of foods you eat. Regardless of your physical condition or goals, make it your priority to eat a balanced diet composed of raw or lightly cooked vegetables, whole grains, fresh fruits, lean sources of animal protein, and healthy fats. That is by far the most important thing.

Secondary in importance is how much to eat. While it is possible to gain fat even while eating a healthy diet composed of the foods described above it's not easy. A thousand calories of, say, oatmeal will have a very different (and healthier) effect on your body than a thousand calories of ice cream. By simply eating the right foods you won't have to worry nearly as much about how much you eat. Once you are comfortable with your new diet and meals you can start tweaking it to pinpoint exactly the right portion sizes to achieve your fat loss (fewer calories so you lose 1-2 pounds of weight per week) or muscle gain (more calories so you gain about 1 pound every 2 weeks) goals.

Still less important is the exact proportions of protein to carbs to fats. Very few people will be able to manage to consistently come close to the 40%/30%/30% or 30%/40%/30% guidelines above. That doesn't mean you can't make good progress with, say, 20%/60%/20% or something similar. Make your diet as balanced as you can but don't stress over it.

Finally, the last optimization you can do is split your daily calories over as many meals as possible. But you can still make great progress with just 4 or even just 3 meals a day total. If you have time for more, smaller meals -- great! If not, don't worry about it.

Sample Nutrition Programs

Daily Nutrition, Fat Loss at 1509 Calories

Daily Nutrition, Fat Loss at 1930 Calories

Daily Nutrition, Fat Loss at 2363 Calories

Daily Nutrition, Muscle Gain at 2820 Calories

Daily Nutrition, Muscle Gain at 3261 Calories

Create Your Own Healthy Meals!

Instead of giving you specific recipes, I'll tell you how to design your own healthy meals. First, consider the following groups of equivalent foods:

Now, given those food groups, here is how you can make up your own healthy meals with following combinations:

• Very Lean Protein + Non-Starchy Carbs / Starchy Carbs / Legumes + Healthy Fats
• Lean Protein + Non-Starchy Carbs / Starchy Carbs / Legumes
• Legumes + Non-Starchy Carbs / Starchy Carbs + Healthy Fats
• Legumes + Healthy Fats

Include starchy carbs in meals in the first half of the day as well as meals before and after workouts. Include non-starchy carbs and legumes in the second half of the day.

Feel free to substitute or add as many non-starchy vegetables as you wish. These include lettuce, spinach, broccoli, cauliflower, squash, peppers, onions, tomatoes, cucumbers, and virtually any other vegetable besides potatoes and corn. Also, feel free to add calorie-free or low-calorie herbs and spices.

Myths and Lies About Nutrition

1. "Eating so often will make me fat."
Not true. Eating often is a great, natural way to boost your metabolism which means your body will be burning fat even when sleeping. Eating as much as you want would certainly cause you to gain fat, but if you follow a well designed diet plan with frequent small meals you will reach your goals in the fastest possible time.

2. "Eating before bed will make me fat."
Also not true. Once again, your goal is to keep your metabolism up which requires frequent meals. Every night you already don't eat for 8 or more hours. Don't extend this fast period even longer by avoiding evening meals. For the same reason it's important to eat a generous breakfast soon after waking up. Breakfast should be one of the if not the largest meal of the day.

3. "If I eat even less I will get slim even faster!"
Possibly the most dangerous myth: losing weight faster than 1-2 pounds per week is both unhealthy and counter-productive. Your body will enter starvation mode, shutting down your metabolism, and burning muscle while preserving fat. The slower your weight loss is, the more likely you are to succeed in the long run. If you are very obese you can safely lose weight quicker, but once you get to within 30 pounds of your desired weight you should try to lose weight only slowly and gradually.

4. "For Only $99 You Can Have The Magic Pill That Will Make You Slim And Muscular."
There is no magic pill. The multi-billion dollar supplement industry is barely regulated which allows it to make such unsubstantiated claims. There are very few legal, proven and safe supplements and none of them will give you results even remotely approaching the ludicrous ad claims. Plain whey protein powder is perhaps the most useful of them.