Troubles with the WLC System

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.