Today, I simply want to stress the importance of balanced meals for use with the WLC System.
You have 3 types of food when it comes to making a typical meal.
Most food can be classified into a protein, a carbohydrate, or a fat. All 3 of these types of food are VERY important.
You need all 3 macronutrients in order to make optimal progress.
Let's talk about each one and the importance of each so you don't fall for any diet tricks or scams out there telling you that protein is bad, carbohydrates are bad, or fats are bad.
The truth is… none of them are bad if you eat healthy sources of each.
Protein
Protein is a must — it's the building block for lean muscle construction.
You're going to be lifting weights and breaking down your muscle mass in the process. In order to build your muscles back stronger and larger than before, you must have protein readily available in your body.
If you don't have the building blocks there for your body to utilize, you'll be breaking muscle down and never building it back up. In other words, you could lose precious muscle.
ALWAYS include a complete source of protein in every meal.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are premium fuel for your body. Carbs have gotten a bad rap over the years because most people eat horrible sources of carbohydrates.
If you cut out carbs from your diet, your workouts will suffer. The key to changing your body is making progress in the gym. You can't push yourself and you'll run out of energy if you aren't eating good sources of carbohydrates.
Since carbohydrates are fuel, you can slowly taper down your carbohydrate intake before bed. You don't need much fuel if you're resting, right?
If you're going to have a full rest day, there's also no reason to eat so many carbohydrates as you won't be using them.
Eat only the best sources of fuel and carbohydrates will never make you gain body fat. For example, raw oats are premium fuel for your workouts and will never make you fat.
On the other hand, white refined bread is horrible fuel and will lead to fat rolls around you waist.
Fats
Fats have also gotten a bad reputation over the years too but they've made a come back due to some very unhealthy and popular low carb diets.
Many people believe they can eat all the protein and fat that they want as long as they aren't eating carbohydrates. They eat bad fats and wonder why they look and feel so bad all the time.
You should include good fats throughout the day and with every meal.
Essential fats do so many things for your body … they create the optimal environment for building muscle and burning fat.
If you cut out fat from your diet, your blood sugar levels will be all over the place and you will feel hungry all day long — you will be miserable.
Don't forget to eat essential fats with every meal — they are very important to your success.
Combine Protein, Carbohydrates, and Fats for Powerful Meals
If you follow the guidelines for the best food sources in the previous lessons and you combine these foods into a single meal, you will build muscle and burn fat with each and every meal that you eat.
For example… here is a VERY POWERFUL breakfast meal for building muscle and burning fat:
- 3 Whole Eggs Scrambled
- 1 Slice of Whole Grain Bread
- 8 ounces Raw Milk
- 1/2 Cup of Raw Oats Cooked
- 1 Tbls of Natural Peanut Butter
- Handful of Blueberries
- Sliced Strawberries
- 3 Fish Oil Capsules
Now imagine yourself REALLY HUNGRY sitting at the breakfast table and taking your time to enjoy your breakfast.
You can even have some real butter on your toast and a little bit in your oatmeal. Add some cinnamon on top of your oatmeal too. Put the blueberries and slices of strawberry in your oatmeal.
Take the natural peanut butter and mix it in your oatmeal — this tastes very good by the way.
I am a believer in BIG breakfasts and the above is a BIG breakfast — about 800 calories or so. For some of the more muscular men/women or others with a high metabolism who are trying to build muscle, you will need even more than that.
Food is very, very powerful and you must not under estimate it's power. You will never be hungry ever again and you will enjoy food so much better.
It feels great to eat real foods — no more of that manufactured and processed junk. You're going for real food from here on out.
Dennis Habern says
atAre there printable 7 day, 5-6 meal diet
plans for weight-lifters, available on the
Internet?
Joshua says
atHey Dennis, are you looking for complete 5 to 6 meals per day meal plans that list out everything to eat for each meal? If so, I do not have that here at Weight Lifting Complete. I can tell you that we do have meal plan layouts available that tell you what type of food to eat and then gives you a list of foods to choose from.
We have a muscle building meal plan layout and a fat loss meal plan layout. Depending on your goals, you choose the meal plan layout you want.
For example, Meal 1 might look like this:
Lean Protein Source
Natural Starchy Carbohydrate Source
Natural Sugary Carbohydrate Source
Essential Fats Source
And then we give you a huge list of foods from each of the category shown above. We have never put together full meal plans with each food because it’s very difficult to do and meet everyone’s needs and tastes.
We have people from all over the world that come here so that makes it even tougher. So we tried to do something that makes it very easy for everyone to put their own healthy meal plans together using the above templates.
If you need any help putting something together, just email us and let us know. Or, we can help you here. Good luck! Let us know if we can help.