>>2 questions about dieting<<

[jmstoge]

I've always had trouble mixing and matching different things and trying to decide what foods are necessary to buy and how much of something I should have etc etc. I just gets a little tough to handle sometimes. Does anyone know of any books or just an actual strict "diet plan" where everything is laid out for me and nothing is generalized and nothing is left up to me to decide what is good and what is not good. One that tells me what to eat and how much to eat.

My second question is I've always read that eating 6 small meals a day is a great way to help in getting lean. And i completely agree and understand that, however my question is do protein shakes/bars count as a meal if you eat them by themselves? For example, say I have my first meal at 6:30 am. Then i have a mid morning EAS myoplex shake at 9:30am. Does the Myoplex count as a meal. Does a shake after your workout count?

 

[danzik17]

Worry about overall calories and macros, not so much the timing of meals. Studies have shown that meal timing does very little to aid in fat loss. What it DOES do is keep blood glucose stabilized which may help with hunger a bit.

The only meal that is really timing depending is a PWO shake where you want to down simple carbs and some protein shortly after working out, but that's it.

 

[danzik17]

As to your first question, I would honestly figure out your maintenance calories and then plan for at a minimum 1g protein/lb lbm (lean body mass) and 0.5g fat/lb lbm.

You have to be eating foods that you can tolerate. A diet where foods you hate are forced on you is a diet you ain't gonna be sticking to.