I received the following questions about the WLC System and wanted to share my answers with everyone as this may help many others.
If you have issues that you might need help with, you can also leave comments at the end of this page.
I will gladly answer any questions about the WLC System that you have.
Questions About the WLC System
Hi Josh
Hope you are well, I have some further questions as a result of completing my 1st week of training and diet from your WLC programme.
Question About Fibrous Veggies
1. I noticed from your sample diet plans that you don't include the calories from any fibrous carbs, why is that? So, likewise whenever I have had some greens or veg with my meals as instructed from the meal plans I don't include those calories as part of my daily totals.
But if don't include the calories, how are we supposed to know what portion size to have with each meal?
Answer About Fibrous Veggies
I don't count fibrous carbs at all in calorie calculations. This means broccoli, cauliflower, leafy green veggies, peppers, etc are never counted unless there are some hidden calories. For example, broccoli smothered with cheese and butter counts. Raw broccoli doesn't.
I want you to eat as many fibrous green veggies that you want and not count the calories. Eat as much as you want when it comes to this. They are very powerful, and the benefits they provide and the work your body does to digest them will cancel out much of the calories.
I highly recommend fibrous veggies as they will keep you very healthy. Just have a good portion of them. Don't worry so much about how much of them you are eating. Just make sure you are having plenty.
Question About Strength Base Workout Program
2. From the beginner base strength programme, you have instructed for us to perform only 1 set of Dead lifts, chins ups, and dips, but yet the rest of the exercises involve doing 3 sets.
How come we are only doing 1 set for these 3 exercises and not 3 sets like the others.
Answer About Strength Base Workout Program
When designing a workout program, you have to balance 3 factors in order to get the best out of each workout program. There's volume, frequency, and intensity. For the beginner workout program, I want to make sure you are not doing too much volume and intensity at the same time since frequency is high for this program.
When I say frequency, I mean the number of times you are working each muscle group. By limiting volume or number of sets and reps on some of the exercises, this creates less overall stress on your body and allows your body to recover better from each workout.
The workout program was designed for the average recovery level so most people would be able to handle the volume, frequency, and intensity levels. Some people might be able to handle more while others won't. I want to ensure people are making progress. By going with less, this ensures people are not overtraining.
Question About a Structured Diet Plan
3. In terms of diet and nutrition, as you know we all have social events, party's, friends and family gatherings that we attend throughout the year that interfere with our ideal in control of what we eat days, ie: when we are at home all day by ourselves, likewise everyday life can also mean that when we need to get stuff done this sometimes involves being out of the house for 5 or 6 hours or spending the day weekend away or even a weeks holiday away with a loved one or partner, and while we are out I or we if I'm with a girl might not get the opportunity to eat during those 3hour windows of ideal eating periods which you suggest in the book. Another example would be when on holiday for a week or so in a place where we are not always in control of the food sources we have to choose from.
I know you suggest packing a few shakes when you know you are going to be on the move, but my point is that as you know, sometimes we can only plan so much ahead in life, so what is your advice for those days when you don't want feel so regimented in our eating patterns or routine of doing things, ie when we are on holiday with friends and family, in your experience how have you dealt those situations described above? so that we can still enjoy ourselves without the expense of undoing all the hard work we have sacrificed to get to this point in our muscle/fat loss efforts.
I'm not just talking about resisting the urge to turn down junk food, I eat very little crap as it is none at all most weeks that's not what bothers me, but what does is the bigger picture, sometimes I feel that the whole diet thing dictates most of my day and It makes me feel so regimented in my routine of doing things that it ends up dictating most of my day. I sometimes question is this a normal way of living and am I sucking the fun out of life by living this way, even though I'm doing it to achieve a better body. Can you relate these thoughts feelings?
Don't want that to sound to dark and depressing. Haha! But just wanted to get that off my chest and hear your advice on that.
As always thank you. I look forward to hearing your experienced thoughts on this.
Answer About a Structured Diet Plan
I always throw in some differently planned days to give you a break from all the scheduled meals. You can actually make this work however you want and however it works best for you.
For example, you can throw in a day of fasting if you're tired of eating so many times during the day. You could do this once every 2 weeks, once a week, or any other frequency. I probably wouldn't do more often than once per week, though, while you are working out really hard with heavy weights.
You can also change some of the days any time you need it to eat only a couple meals per day. You are the boss here. If you're tired of eating scheduled meals, take a break for a few days. Then you can go back on schedule OR you can stay with 3 meals per day versus 6 or more.
It's up to you and what works best for you.
The most important thing you can do is to eat the healthiest sources of food possible. If you do that at all times or even the large majority of time, you will do great. It's okay to have junk food sometimes as long as you don't let it bother you and as long as you don't begin eating more junk food.
I've found that staying away from junk food completely works best for me. Once I start eating junk food, I always want more. So I stay away completely most of the time.
If you have further questions, please let me know.
Chris says
atI read your article “How much wright to lift after a break.”
This article was fantastic and answered my main question about gains. Like you, I’ve read many say that you should start off with sets of ten, etc., without any discussion about how to increase weight each week. This is pretty much what I’ve done, and the result has been that I kind of stay at the same weight bench pressing for months. Only a few times I tried starting out light – but those times I’ve made enormous gains and end up lifting even more than I hoped to. But I guess my ego has gotten in the way and I’m back to starting in too heavy- like just barely getting up that tenth rep. And then I burnout quickly and start losing strength again.
May I ask- is this what you have found in your own experience?
President of WLC says
atChris,
Yes, you are exactly right. I also believe you should cut back on the total amount of volume and this means not doing so many sets. If you’ve seen my workouts page, I highly recommend trying one of those. I will be adding more and more to the site in the future. They are all free so give them a shot. You’ll be amazed at how much progress you can make when you don’t overdo it with volume, frequency, and intensity. The right balance of those 3 factors will get you going in the right direction.
Combine those workouts with the WLC System and you’ll find exactly what works the best for you, and you’ll be learning more about your individual body. You won’t have to rely on others to give you advice because much of that advice is based on one’s own personal experiences and everyone is different when it comes to building muscle and burning fat.
I’ve done something completely different than anyone else out there and that is to show you how to find what works best for you. I’ve given you workouts, diet plans, and more to start with and then allow you to modify them to fit your needs as you measure your progress on a weekly basis. You then make changes when progress is not going in the right direction.
If you need any further help or have any questions, please let me know. I am more than glad to help at any time!
Dean says
atHi Josh
In the article above where I was questioning the 1 set exercises i.e: dips, chin ups, rows, and deadlifts) vs the 3 set exercises (bench squats and overhead press) for the base level strength based programme.
If I feel I can do more than 1 set for the deadliest, rows, chin ups and dips exercises during a workout session. Is it ok to do so? and instead bring that up to 3 sets like the others, providing of course that it doesn’t affect my recovery, or do you strictly advise against this, and instead just stick to the 1 set instruction as outlined in the WLC Workouts manual for this programme?
President of WLC says
atDean, if you are making good strength gains workout to workout with 1 set then I definitely wouldn’t change it at all. If you’re sure you can handle the 3 sets, then you can go for it BUT I wouldn’t start out by going to failure on the chin ups and dips. I personally would stick with just the 1 set and see how progress goes for you. Let me know what you decide and keep me updated. Glad to help along the way.
Tim Grant says
atHello, Josh, I just came across your website while looking for information on making good use of the Bowflex I have. It looks very interesting to me but I just have one question: Does the order in which I do the workout exercises matter? If I could sequence them to use the same equipment setup for some of them before having to reconfigure pulleys to do others it would be more time-efficient, if you see what I mean. Thanks.
Josh, President of WLC says
atTim,
Sometimes the exercise order matters. For example, you don’t want to pre-exhaust smaller muscle groups before hitting a larger muscle that uses more weight… unless that’s a strategy you are using. Think if you have reached your max weight on the Bowflex and can’t raise the weight any more. You would pre-exhaust a muscle so it would have to use less resistance but still get stressed in a different way.
I usually recommend using the heaviest weight possible and that means no pre-exhaustion. So do more compound exercises first. For example, do rows before curls because rows use the biceps muscle. If you fatigue the biceps before rows, you will lift less overall weight on the bigger compound exercise.
BUT…
If you want to save time and use the same setups with totally different muscle groups, then I do recommend that. For example, squats followed by bench press is perfectly fine.
I hope I have answered your question. If you give me more specifics on which exercises you want to change around, I will further help. Please let me know.
Thanks much,
Josh