But understand that without a grasp of proper muscle building and/or fat burning nutrition, you won't be able to make the progress that you desire, and you won't reach your potential.

With a well implemented nutrition plan, you'll be on your way toward achieving your fitness goals.

Why does nutrition seem so confusing?  For starters, there are too many choices. This makes it very difficult to decide the appropriate course of action.

We have the Hollywood diet, the cabbage diet, the grapefruit diet, the juice diet, the zone diet, high carb, low carb, no carb, high protein, low protein, no protein (okay, maybe not but it wouldn't surprise me), high protein foods, high fat, low fat, slim fast, Weight Watchers, Jenny Craig, Nutri-System, etc, etc.

Obviously, nutrition is big business.

It can become very frustrating trying to sort through all this information.

I've read hundreds of articles, books, and medical journals on nutrition, and I've come to decide on some fundamental principles that all nutrition programs do include.

Remember, we are all different, but all essentially the same.  What this means is that the principles of proper nutrition apply to all of us, but we will need to make certain adjustments for the individual.

The important thing is to understand the general principles of a nutrition program so that you can tailor it to your specific needs, whether it be to build muscle, burn fat, get stronger, or nutrition for your specific sport.

Let's take a look at some general principles of a proper nutrition program.

We'll start with a brief introductory look at the three macronutrients - carbohydrates, protein, and fat.  All play an important role in your sports nutrition program.  And YES...there are only three macronutrients!!!  Vegetables ARE carbohydrates!

Carbohydrates - Carbs are your muscles preferred energy source for short, intense muscular contractions, i.e. weight training.  They supply the energy for these sessions as well as play a crucial role in recuperation and muscle growth.

Ingesting carbs signals your body to release insulin, which transports the amino acids (the building blocks of protein) and the carbs into your muscle cells.  This absorption by your muscles is a very important part of the muscle growth and repair factor.

Carbohydrates are stored as glycogen in your body's muscles, and it's this glycogen storage that gives the muscles their fullness.

This is the basis of the idea of carb depleting and then loading before a bodybuilding contest, the idea that when you deplete your body of glycogen and then "carb up," your body will store even more glycogen then before in the muscles, making you look larger, tighter, and more ripped than ever.

In addition, the consumption of carbs creates a "protein sparing" effect, in that more of your protein will be used for the muscle building process instead of being burned as energy.  As you'll see below, this "protein sparing" is a key element in your nutrition program.

Some important rules to keep in mind with regard to carbohydrate consumption are...

Avoid all processed foods.  Processed foods are 'empty' calories that do nothing for your health or your fitness.  By dropping them from your sports nutrition program, you'll go far in improving your results - building muscle, losing fat, improving sports performance, increasing energy - not to mention vastly improving your health.

Processed foods include things like cookies, chips, donuts, pastries, soda, candy - your basic junk food.  But beware, processed foods can be dressed up in "healthy" packaging.  Read labels.  Stay away from these foods, especially one's that contain high fructose corn syrup

That low fat muffin you're about to eat... put it back.  It's loaded with unhealthy sugar.  The regular muffin would actually be a better choice.

Processed foods should never be a part of your sports nutrition program, no matter what your fitness goals are.

Instead of processed foods and high fructose corn syrup, get the carbohydrates in your nutrition program from whole grains, fruits, and vegetables.

Protein - Protein, as most of you know, is the building block of muscles.  Without adequate protein consumption, you will be spinning your wheels with regard to your resistance training program.  No nutrition program is complete without proper adequate protein intake.

You should consume a MINIMUM of 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass every day.

And you may find better results taking in up to 2 grams per day per pound of body weight.  At 225 pounds, I've found that roughly 400-450 grams of protein per day works very well for me, which is about 2 grams per pound of body weight.

Fats - Yes, fats.  A macronutrient that is more misunderstood than carbohydrates, if that's possible.

Here's a neat little factoid for you.  The United States went on a low fat, high carb craze in the 80's and began to get fatter and fatter as a nation.

Fat is not your enemy.  Good or "healthy" fats such as omega 3's and omega 6's are essential to good health and a properly functioning body.

Hey, maybe that's why they are known as Essential Fatty Acids.

Here's the problem with most people's nutrition.  They are taking in enough fat but they are taking in the wrong fats by consuming too many trans fatty acids and saturated fats, and not enough good fats.

Try and eliminate the bad fats (in things such as margarine, shortening, snack foods, and most fast foods).

Consume more of the good fats, such as cold-water fish (salmon), walnuts, ground flax seeds of flax seed oil, hempseed oil, safflower oil, sunflower oil, fish oils, and olive oil.

In addition, taking in enough EFA's (essential fatty acids) is imperative when trying to put on muscle.  Low fat diets suppress the body's ability to produce testosterone, a cardinal sin when trying to build muscle.

Fats also supply chemical substrates that are necessary for proper hormonal production, as well as protect our vital organs and carry the fat-soluble vitamins to where they are needed.

Fats are an important part of your sports nutrition program to develop muscle, burn fat (yes, burn fat) and get fit and healthy.

Water - Drink it...Drink lot of it...And drink it often.

Seriously, you should be consuming at least 8 - 10 eight ounce glasses of water every day.  Our bodies are made up of 75 percent water.  It's not uncommon for people to dehydrate by 2 percent to 6 percent of their body weight during exercise.  The result isn't good.  Cell function is disrupted, muscle growth stops, you become mentally and physically sluggish, have a general sense of fatigue and can no way be on the top of your game.

There you have it.  Sound  nutrition includes ALL of the macronutrients.  It does not eliminate any of them like most of the "fad" diets do.  Keep that in mind the next time you want to start eliminating carbohydrates or fats from your nutrition program.