How I Structure My Diet: Protein, Carbs, Fats and Keeping This Shit Simple

You don’t need a revolutionary diet. You need enough protein, enough fuel to train, mostly decent food, and something you can actually follow for longer than three fucking weeks.

Fitness has a remarkable ability to make eating unnecessarily complicated.

One month everybody is eating six meals a day.

Then carbohydrates are evil.

Then fat is evil.

Then breakfast is apparently killing you.

Then nobody eats until 4 PM.

Then some asshole discovers butter and suddenly we’re all supposed to eat like stranded pioneers.

I’ve tried different approaches over the years, paid attention to how I perform, how I recover and how my body responds, and eventually settled into something considerably less exciting:

I eat mostly whole foods.

I prioritize protein.

I use carbohydrates to fuel my training.

I get adequate dietary fat.

I generally eat five times per day.

And I adjust everything depending on whether I’m trying to gain muscle, lose fat or maintain what I’ve built.

That’s basically it.

This isn’t me telling you that everyone needs to eat exactly the way I do.

In fact, let’s establish something immediately:

Everyone’s genetic response will differ.

What works exceptionally well for me may need to be adjusted for you.

This is how I structure my diet.

Start With the Goal

Before worrying about rice versus potatoes or whether you need the latest $79 tub of powdered bullshit advertised on Instagram, answer a considerably simpler question:

What are you trying to accomplish?

Gain muscle?

Lose body fat?

Maintain?

Improve training performance?

Because the amount of food I’m eating changes depending on the answer.

The foods themselves don’t necessarily change very much.

That’s one of the things I’ve come to appreciate about keeping my diet relatively simple.

If I’m trying to gain, I can increase calories.

If I’m trying to lose fat, I can decrease them.

The basic structure remains recognizable.

Protein Is the Foundation

When I’m structuring my own diet, protein is the first macronutrient I think about.

My personal target is generally around:

0.8–1 gram of protein per pound of body weight per day.

That also happens to sit reasonably close to published sports-nutrition recommendations. The International Society of Sports Nutrition has stated that roughly 1.4–2.0 grams per kilogram per day is sufficient for most exercising individuals, with higher amounts potentially useful for resistance-trained people during calorie restriction.

But I’m not walking around with a calculator trying to determine whether an additional three grams of chicken will unlock another level of hypertrophy.

I establish my target and consistently get close to it.

My regular protein sources include:

Chicken. Steak. Fish. Turkey. Shrimp. Nonfat Greek yogurt. Skim milk. Protein powder.

Protein powder gets treated like some magical substance by one side of the fitness industry and radioactive waste by the other.

It’s neither.

It’s fucking protein.

I use it because it’s convenient.

If I need more protein and don’t feel like cooking another chicken breast, drinking a shake is considerably easier.

Whole foods make up the foundation.

Protein powder helps fill the gaps.

Why I Eat Five Times a Day

This is another place where fitness nutrition gets weird.

I’m not interested in convincing you that eating five times per day magically speeds up your metabolism.

That’s not why I do it.

Five meals works for me.

It makes eating enough protein easier.

It lets me spread food throughout my day.

It gives me opportunities to put carbohydrates around my training.

It keeps me from reaching the end of the day and discovering that I still need 130 grams of protein.

And from a muscle-building perspective, spreading protein throughout the day is perfectly reasonable. The ISSN has suggested general protein doses around 20–40 grams—or approximately 0.25 g/kg—distributed roughly every three to four hours, while emphasizing that individual needs vary.

That doesn’t mean your body suddenly stops absorbing protein at gram 41.

Please don’t start that shit.

It means distributing adequate protein across several meals provides repeated opportunities to stimulate muscle protein synthesis.

For me, five meals makes that easy.

What About OMAD and Intermittent Fasting?

If you enjoy eating once per day, have at it.

If intermittent fasting helps you control calories and you feel fantastic doing it, I’m not coming to your house and confiscating your frying pan.

It’s simply not how I prefer to eat for my goals.

Research doesn’t establish one universally superior meal frequency for body composition. A systematic review of randomized trials comparing different eating frequencies found the evidence insufficient to establish a clear overall advantage, and newer research on time-restricted eating combined with resistance training suggests it can be compatible with maintaining lean mass, although the evidence remains limited.

For me?

I’d rather distribute my nutrition across the day.

Especially my protein.

Carbohydrates Are Fuel, Not the Devil

At some point carbohydrates became the dietary equivalent of Gerry Johnson.

Every time something goes wrong, somebody finds a way to blame them.

I don’t.

I train hard.

I want carbohydrates available to support that training.

My staple carbohydrate sources are boring:

Rice. Potatoes. Quinoa.

I’ll use other carbohydrate sources too, but those are some of my regular staples.

More importantly, I tend to concentrate a substantial portion of my carbohydrates around my workouts.

Before, During and After Training

I personally like having carbohydrates available before training because I’m about to ask my body to perform.

Depending on the workout and what I’m doing, I can also use carbohydrates during training.

And afterward, carbohydrates become part of my recovery nutrition.

There’s legitimate physiology behind emphasizing carbohydrate availability around demanding exercise. Muscle glycogen is an important fuel source, and sports-nutrition literature supports carbohydrate and protein intake around training as tools for performance and recovery.

But again, I’m not pretending there’s a magical five-minute window where you need to sprint out of the gym and assault a bowl of jasmine rice.

Your overall daily nutrition still matters.

I simply prefer organizing a meaningful portion of my carbohydrate intake around the period when I’m actually asking my body to do something with it.

Then There Are Fats

Fat isn’t something I try to eliminate.

My regular sources include:

Olive oil. Avocado oil. Macadamia nut oil. Nuts. Avocados. Cheese.

I’ll obviously get dietary fat from foods like steak and fish as well.

Dietary fat has legitimate physiological roles and provides essential fatty acids and helps with absorption of fat-soluble vitamins. Sports-nutrition guidance therefore doesn’t recommend treating fat as something athletes should simply eliminate.

I personally tend to put more of my dietary fats later in the day.

That’s how I’ve found I like structuring my food.

I Also Tend to Separate Higher-Carb and Higher-Fat Meals

This is one of those places where I want to make the distinction between what I personally do and something I’m declaring everyone else must do.

I generally avoid combining large amounts of carbohydrates and fats in the same meal.

My higher-carbohydrate meals tend to cluster around training.

My higher-fat meals tend to land farther away from those meals and often later in the day.

I’ve used that structure because I’ve found it works well for me—for controlling my diet, organizing my macros, supporting my training and getting the body-composition results I’m looking for.

I’m not telling you that eating an avocado with a potato instantly causes fat gain.

That’s not how this works.

I’m telling you:

This is how I organize my diet.

That’s an important distinction.

Everyone’s Genetic Response Will Differ

This might be one of the most important things I’ve learned.

Two people can follow similar programs and not look remotely identical afterward.

Appetite differs.

Digestion differs.

Training response differs.

Recovery differs.

Lifestyle differs.

Genetics differ.

One person seemingly looks at a squat rack and grows legs.

Another person can train the living shit out of them and fight for every inch.

Nutrition isn’t exempt from individual variation.

That’s why I don’t believe in taking somebody else’s exact diet and blindly copying it.

You can borrow the principles.

You can experiment with the structure.

But eventually you have to pay attention to your own results.

Mostly Whole Foods

The foundation of my diet isn’t complicated.

For protein:

Chicken. Turkey. Steak. Fish. Shrimp. Greek yogurt. Skim milk.

For carbohydrates:

Rice. Potatoes. Quinoa.

For fats:

Olive oil. Avocado. Avocado oil. Macadamia nut oil. Nuts. Cheese.

Add fruits and vegetables, season your fucking food, drink water, and suddenly you’ve got the majority of a perfectly reasonable grocery cart.

Does that mean I never eat pizza?

No.

Does it mean I’m going to have a psychological crisis because somebody put a french fry on my plate?

Also no.

Fitness needs to fit into my life.

My life doesn’t exist to serve my diet.

Boring Works

Here’s the problem with sensible nutrition:

It’s difficult to sell.

“Eat mostly nutritious food, consume adequate protein, adjust calories for your goal, fuel your training and remain consistent” doesn’t make a particularly exciting Instagram reel.

There’s no secret.

There’s no forbidden food.

There’s no ancient nutritional technique recently rediscovered by a shirtless man selling supplements.

It’s just repetition.

And that’s mostly what my diet has become.

How I Put It Together

Most days, the exact foods can change, but the structure remains pretty recognizable.

I eat approximately five times per day.

I distribute protein throughout those meals.

I personally aim for roughly 0.8–1 gram of protein per pound of body weight across the day.

I put a significant portion of my carbohydrates around training.

I tend to keep my higher-fat meals separate from my highest-carbohydrate meals.

I generally move more dietary fat toward later in the day.

And then I adjust the total amount of food according to what I’m trying to accomplish.

That’s my system.

Not a commandment.

Not a prescription.

Not THE ONLY DIET THAT BUILDS MUSCLE AFTER 40!!!

Just the result of years of training, eating, adjusting and paying attention.

Your Diet Doesn’t Need a Name

You don’t necessarily need keto.

You don’t necessarily need carnivore.

You don’t necessarily need intermittent fasting.

You don’t necessarily need OMAD.

And you sure as shit don’t need to change your entire diet every time social media discovers another acronym.

Maybe one of those approaches works beautifully for you.

Great.

Use it.

I prefer something considerably less exciting.

Eat mostly real food.

Get enough protein.

Eat enough carbohydrates to support your training.

Get adequate dietary fat.

Eat some fucking vegetables.

Adjust your calories according to your goal.

Then give the plan enough time to determine whether it’s actually working.

Because everyone’s genetic response will differ.

Your body doesn’t care what’s trending.

It gives you feedback.

Pay attention to it.

⭐⭐⭐⭐☆

Five stars require seasoning.

Sources:

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28642676/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/28919842/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/37964316/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/41687432/

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/19278045/

The same principle applies to choosing a training split: use the approach that fits your actual life.