Protein, Carbs, and Fats
Learn the truth!

Protein, Carbs, and Fat all need to be a part of your diet no matter what you've heard in the past. All of these have gotten a bad rap at one point in time. Let me tell you, though, none of these are bad! The types of carbs you eat, the type of meats you eat, and the type of fats you eat is what really matters! Stick with the good protein, carb, and fat sources and you'll build more muscle and lose more fat than you ever imagined.

It's all up to you! Make good food choices, and build more muscle and lose more fat. It really is that simple. Pay attention here. This is very important to your weight lifting progress.


Remember, the WLC Program is all about weight lifting, diet, and cardio combined. I do not like to do one without the other. Why not start a complete weight lifting program today and supercharge your results? Stop getting mediocre or no results at all. Do it right with WLC!

This is the best of all three! I don't know what kinds of horrible things you may have heard about protein, but more than likely none of it is true. You're going to need more protein than usual if you are lifting weights. I'm not here to argue with anyone about the daily recommendations, but let's get real! If I followed the daily recommendations and tried to gain weight, I would have a big gut and lots less muscle. I would have to eat more carbs and fat and a lot less protein. What would that lead to? Fat gain! Let's think about this for a second, okay? Let's say I'm trying to eat 4000 calories a day to gain weight. But the daily recommendation says for me to eat around 100 grams of protein. That's only 400 calories out of 4000! That's only 10 percent of my diet. So, I need 3600 more calories from carbs and fat. Let's say that I split that equally between carbs and fat. That would mean I need 200 grams of fat per day and 450 grams of carbs. I don't care how well your choices of food, you're going to be gaining much more fat following the daily recommendations. Eat more protein. Less carbs and less fat! How much Protein? I don't like to tell people exactly how much protein to eat based on their body weight. I like to base the amount on a percentage of total calories and with that, I only ensure that the person is within a range of percentages.

Some people will tell you to eat 1-2 times your body weight in protein grams. For example, I weigh 230 pounds at this time, so I would eat 460 grams of protein a day if I followed the 2 times your body weight recommendation.


But if I am eating 4000 calories per day and want 40% of my diet coming from protien, I would eat 400 grams per day. Compare that to the daily recommendation of approximately 100 grams!


I like to calculate percentages just because it's easier to scale back or increase the amount of food than to add more of something different. I do this for convenience. A diet will work either way, so don't get too wrapped up in all the details!


I like to stay within 30 to 50 percent for calories coming from protein. For people on lower calorie diets for fat loss, the percentage is usually on the higher end. For people on muscle gain diets, the percentage is usually towards the lower end.

Remember, protein has 4 calories per gram. So, if you want 1000 calories of your diet to be from protein, you will want to shoot for 250 grams of protein per day. If you want 1500 calories from protein, you will shoot for 375 grams per day. Simply divide the total calories you need by 4 and you will have your daily total!

I don't even know where to start with carbs! There is so much bad information out there on carbs that it would be impossible for me to fix it all right here. Let me get one thing straight right here, though. Carbs are your friend! They are not bad. They will not make you fat. Only you will make you fat by eating the wrong types and too much of the wrong types. People that go out and eat a bunch of chips or donuts or anything high in carbs always blame the carbs! Why don't you blame the type of food you are eating? You know that chips, donuts, cookies, twinkies, etc are bad for you. They have bad carbs and bad fats all mixed into one. When you combine the two, you are really asking for a bigger belly or bigger thighs or even a bigger butt depending on where your body chooses to store those donuts! I know what you'd rather have! There are so many good carbs out there, but people would rather have those treats that taste so much better. What you're going to need to do is learn how to eat the good sources of carbs. Common sense will usually tell you what is good and what is bad. Any fruits and vegetables are going to be good sources of carbs.

I don't care what anyone says about fruits. They are good for you! Just don't overdo it. If you're following you're diet, you won't overdo it.


Any breads you have should be whole grain and should specify that as the first ingredient. Whole grain breads taste better anyway. You'll learn to like the taste. Some manufacturers will try to trick you into thinking their bread is whole grain so always check the ingredients. Always look at that first ingredient on the label and ensure it's a whole grain source.

The best source of carbs are going to be leafy green veggies. You can have as many of them as you want. Go ahead and eat you two heads of lettuce if you like lettuce that much! You want to make sure you are getting your veggies in. Be sure to eat several sources of veggies per day. I like to make up baggies full of different vegetables and eat them with several meals throughout the day. I like to have broccoli, carrots, green peppers, red peppers, yellow peppers, cucumbers, cauliflower, and squash. Those are my favorites.


Beans are also good carb sources. Any kind of bean will work. And most of them are pretty tasty too under the right conditions. I like green beans, lima beans, and all the different types of other beans like pinto beans and kidney beans. Just make sure you don't eat those baked beans with all the brown sugar and other goodies mixed in. Those are good to save for those holidays like Thanksgiving and Christmas!

When I say low, I mean extremely low carb. I do not mean 100 to 200 grams per day. I just wanted to get this straight in case someone has a different definition of low carb.


Unless you are a bodybuilder getting ready for a show, I have no idea why you would be on a low carb diet and stay on it every day for weeks or years at a time.


You might lose you some fat along the way, but I guarantee you will get it all back unless you know exactly what you are doing. Let me say it again, the carbs are not making you fat! You were either eating way too many of them and/or you were mixing them with bad fats along the way.


What you need to do is get your carb choices corrected and learn how to eat the right way. If you have enough discipline to do a low carb diet, you can learn to eat the right way. Carbs are very important for gaining muscle and that's our number one goal here! So, don't take the carbs out of your diet. Just diet the right way.


You know what I think happens with many of these people who choose to eat low carb? I think they start eating bad sources of protein that are high in saturated fats, like bacon and sausage. Then they start getting tempted to eat carbs and they give in to the temptation. But they forget to change their protein source to a much better source.


So, they eat a bad source of protein and mix it with bad carbs. Their diet is now horrible. They might only do it a few times per week, but this can make a huge difference in body composition. I've seen too many people do this!

Like protein, carbs have 4 calories per gram. So, the easy calculation is to take the total calories from carbs that you need and divide by 4. Very easy to do. Let's say you are eating 3000 calories per day and 30 percent of these calories are coming from carbs. 30 percent of 3000 is 900 calories. So, take 900 calories and divide by 4. This leaves you with 225 grams of carbs per day.

Fats have always gotten bad press, but most of that has finally started to turn around. Good fats are great for muscle building and weight gain diets. Sometimes too many fats might not be great for a weight gain diet because they'll make you feel full, and some people won't have the willpower to shove any more food down.


For fat loss diets, fats are great because they'll give you a full feeling for longer after you eat a meal. Carbs will not give you that same feeling. Fats are great for many more reasons than that and, for now, let's just say they will help you build muscle.

You're going to want to get many of your fats from oils if you can afford them. If not, we will go another route. The types of fatty acid oils that I would look into are in the Supplements section of the website and include fish oil, olive oil, and flax oil.


If you can't afford those, then include good sources of fat from nuts like walnuts, almonds, pecans, and sunflower seeds. Those aren't much cheaper so I would go with a variety of oils and nuts. A variety of fats from different sources is always the best way to go! And the price will be about the same anyway.

Fat is also an easy calculation but you need to know that fats contain 9 calories per gram. So, you will need to divide the total calories you need from fat by 9. If you're having 3000 calories per day and you need 30 percent of those to be from fats, you will need 900 calories from fat. 900 divided by 9 will be 100 grams of fat per day.