This is an excerpt from The Fighter’s Diet

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Dinner means different things to different people. Most of the time we call the meal around 6 o’clock ”dinner”, but I suppose when you’ve adopted the eat every three hours schedule…things can get a little confusing.

Sometimes if I eat dinner at 6 I still will have two more meals before I hit the sack.

So in this post we’ll cover what to eat for dinner and principles to live by for all other late night meals.

Eating Out is OK

Don’t let those health nuts that say ”oh I never eat out because its unhealthy” fool you. Most of time you can find something moderately healthy at every restaurant, and even most fast food places. You just want to stick with the principles laid out in this diet.

Actually, the ones who say such things are usually fat anyways…just sayin’.

I use my dinner around 6 o’clock as my variety. I don’t have a set meal that I eat and if I have the money I like to go get something.

I like to go to my favorite mexican restaurant and get two chicken burritos or I like going to get japanese food with the hibachi chicken. Chick-fil-a has that spicy chicken cool wrap, and taco bell has that lower-fat fresco menu.

Is this optimally healthy for me? No, of course not. But I still make sure I don’t sway too far from my own guidelines.

I always make sure that there’s protein. I exercise portion control. And depending on my mood I may or may not watch the carbs.

Yes, There’s a Catch

You may look at what I eat for dinner and be like, ”well, that’s not all that disciplined”...and you’re right its not.

But I also typically have an evening workout and those are the last carbs I’ll be consuming for the day.

If I didn’t have a workout coming up I’d probably be more conscientious of my dinner carbs, but I do—so that gives me a little more leeway in my diet.

Cut off Carbs at 6

Notice I said cut off carbs at 6…I didn’t say don’t eat after 6.

The reason being is once your body burns through all the carbs you’ve ingested it then turns to your fat stores.

So the later you consume carbohydrates the less time your body will chew on your fat stores.

The idea is to increase your metabolism by eating every three hours throughout the day, exercise intensely so your body expends a lot of energy trying to repair itself, and then take that momentum into the evening by removing the late night carbs from your diet so the body can strip away your fat while you sleep.

Is this optimal for muscle gain? No, absolutely not…but we’re trying to lean down.

Protect Your Muscle

Going no carb in the evenings sucks, but necessary if you want a nice lean physique.

With this tactic there are two issues that we need to address:

1. Muscle Protection

2. Hunger

You need to maintain your protein consumption every 3 hours right up until bedtime.

We do this to sustain the muscle we have—we want to protect it and burn the fat. If you don’t consume the protein your body will turn to eating muscle tissue for energy.

The protein keeps the body’s focus on burning the fat stores.

My favorite way to stave off hunger is to eat a salad with chicken.

You get your protein with the chicken, and the lettuce contains a lot of water so it’s pretty filling.

And right before you go to bed I like to mix a scoop of whey powder and a scoop of casein powder with water. The casein protein is a slower digesting protein that’ll help protect your muscles for the several hours you sleep.

If you have a workout in the evening your post workout nutrition can vary depending on where you’re at physically.

If you need to cut down more or you’re unhappy with your current level of bodyfat then consume whey with water…no carbs. However if you’ve accomplished your goal weight or appearance feel free to go ahead with the normal post workout protocol.