Food Groups: Protein, Carbohydrates, Fats & Vegetables
Nutrition can become unnecessarily complicated very quickly.
Calories. Macros. Micronutrients. Meal timing. Glycaemic index. Supplements. Organic food. Ultra-processed food.
All of these things can matter in the right context, but most people don't need a degree in nutrition to eat well.
For coaching purposes, I like to keep things relatively simple.
Most of the food you eat can be thought about in terms of four broad groups:
Protein
Carbohydrates
Fats
Fruit and vegetables
These aren't perfect scientific categories—foods frequently contain more than one nutrient—but they're a useful way of building meals and thinking about what your diet provides.
PROTEIN
WHAT DOES PROTEIN DO?
Protein provides amino acids that your body uses to build and maintain tissues.
For anyone training regularly, we're particularly interested in its role in repairing, maintaining and building muscle.
Protein is also involved in countless other processes throughout the body, including the production of enzymes, hormones and other important structures.
You don't need to understand all of the biochemistry.
If you're training hard and want to get stronger, build muscle or retain muscle while losing body fat, getting enough protein is useful.
WHERE DO YOU GET PROTEIN?
Common sources include:
Meat
Fish
Eggs
Milk, yoghurt and cheese
Tofu and tempeh
Beans and lentils
Seitan
Protein powders and fortified foods
Foods such as nuts, oats and some vegetables also contain protein, but they're generally less protein-dense than the foods above.
You don't have to eat meat to get enough protein.
You may simply need to give your food choices a little more thought.
HOW MUCH PROTEIN?
For people who exercise regularly, somewhere around 1.4–2.0g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day is a useful evidence-based range.
You don't need to obsess over hitting an exact number.
If you don't want to track grams, our hand-portion method provides a simple alternative:
Start with roughly 1–2 palm-sized portions of protein at your main meals.
Spreading protein across several meals throughout the day is also a practical way of reaching your total intake.
And no, your body doesn't suddenly stop absorbing protein because you ate more than 30g in one meal.
CARBOHYDRATES
WHAT DO CARBOHYDRATES DO?
Carbohydrates are an important source of energy.
Once digested, carbohydrate can provide glucose for immediate energy or be stored as glycogen in the muscles and liver.
This becomes particularly useful when you're performing harder, higher-intensity exercise.
Lifting weights.
Running.
Carrying things.
Playing sport.
Picking up enormous rocks for reasons that seemed perfectly sensible at the time.
The harder you're training, the more useful carbohydrate tends to become.
SIMPLE VS COMPLEX CARBOHYDRATES
You'll often hear carbohydrates divided into "simple" and "complex", with simple carbs presented as bad and complex carbs as good.
Nutrition isn't quite that tidy.
The way a carbohydrate-containing food affects you depends on much more than whether its carbohydrate molecules are technically simple or complex.
Fibre, processing, cooking, ripeness, portion size and the other foods eaten alongside it can all influence digestion.
The glycaemic index (GI) can tell us something about how carbohydrate-containing foods affect blood glucose under controlled conditions, but it isn't a health-ranking system.
You don't need a GI chart to decide whether you're allowed to eat a potato.
WHAT CARBOHYDRATES SHOULD YOU EAT?
Across your diet, prioritise plenty of nutrient- and fibre-rich sources such as:
Potatoes
Rice
Oats
Wholegrains
Pasta
Beans and pulses
Fruit
Vegetables
But refined carbohydrates aren't forbidden.
White rice can be an excellent training food.
So can bread.
So can pasta.
And sometimes foods containing plenty of sugar are simply foods you enjoy.
Context and quantity matter.
CARBOHYDRATES AROUND TRAINING
Carbohydrate before training can help provide readily available fuel, particularly for demanding or prolonged sessions.
Carbohydrate afterwards can help replenish glycogen.
But unless you're training extremely frequently or competing again shortly afterwards, you generally don't need to sprint towards a bag of sugar the second you finish your final set.
Eat normally.
Your overall diet matters considerably more than hitting a tiny post-workout window.
FAT
WHAT DOES DIETARY FAT DO?
Fat is essential.
Among other things, dietary fat:
Provides energy
Supplies essential fatty acids
Helps us absorb the fat-soluble vitamins A, D, E and K
Contributes to cell membranes
Supports normal hormone production
Is involved in normal nervous-system function
It also makes food taste considerably better, which shouldn't be overlooked.
DIFFERENT TYPES OF FAT
Broadly, dietary fats include:
Saturated fats
Monounsaturated fats
Polyunsaturated fats, including omega-3 and omega-6 fatty acids.
You don't need to memorise their chemical structures.
For general health, favouring more unsaturated fats while keeping saturated fat within recommended levels is a sensible approach.
Useful sources include:
Olive oil
Nuts and seeds
Avocado
Oily fish
Nut butters
Foods containing saturated fat—such as butter, cheese and fatty meats—don't need to be completely eliminated.
Again, we're looking at the overall diet.
Industrially produced trans fats are best kept very low, but don't confuse that with saying that all processed foods contain dangerous trans fats. They don't.
FAT AND EXERCISE
Your body doesn't operate with a switch that says:
CARBS EMPTY → BEGIN BURNING FAT.
You're using a mixture of energy sources all the time.
The relative contribution changes depending on things like exercise intensity, duration, training status and what you've eaten.
Higher-intensity exercise generally relies more heavily on carbohydrate.
Lower-intensity activity generally derives a greater proportion of its energy from fat.
You don't need to micromanage this.
Your body is remarkably good at doing it without asking you.
FRUIT AND VEGETABLES
Fruit and vegetables provide fibre, vitamins, minerals and a huge variety of other compounds.
They're associated with good health for considerably more interesting reasons than simply being "low calorie".
FIBRE
Fibre is carbohydrate that isn't completely digested in the small intestine.
Different types of fibre perform different roles and can support digestive health, bowel function and the gut microbiome.
UK guidance recommends adults aim for around 30g of fibre per day.
Fruit, vegetables, wholegrains, beans, pulses, nuts and seeds can all contribute.
You don't need to calculate every gram if you don't want to.
Eating a varied plant-rich diet will take you a long way.
MICRONUTRIENTS
Vitamins and minerals are required in much smaller quantities than protein, carbohydrate and fat, but that doesn't make them unimportant.
Eating a varied diet makes it considerably easier to obtain what you need.
Different-coloured fruit and vegetables can provide different nutrients and plant compounds, so eating a variety of colours is a perfectly useful practical recommendation.
But colour isn't a direct measurement of nutritional value.
A cauliflower doesn't become nutritionally useless because it failed to dress brightly enough.
FRESH, FROZEN OR TINNED?
All can be excellent choices.
Fresh vegetables aren't automatically nutritionally superior to frozen ones.
Frozen fruit and vegetables are convenient, last longer and can retain nutrients extremely well.
Tinned options can also be useful—particularly beans, pulses, tomatoes and fruit.
Choose whatever helps you eat them consistently.
WHAT ABOUT FOOD QUALITY?
Food quality matters, but we need to be careful about what we mean by "quality".
The original version of this guide heavily favoured fresh, organic, minimally processed food.
There's nothing wrong with choosing those foods.
But organic doesn't automatically mean more nutritious, processed doesn't automatically mean unhealthy, and expensive doesn't automatically mean better.
Processing includes everything from freezing vegetables and pasteurising milk to turning potatoes into crisps.
Those aren't nutritionally equivalent processes.
Rather than trying to eat "clean", concentrate on building most of your diet around foods that provide useful nutrition while leaving room for foods you simply enjoy.
DOES EVERY MEAL NEED ALL FOUR GROUPS?
No.
The four groups are a framework, not a law.
A useful starting point for many main meals might be:
1–2 palms protein
1–2 fists fruit/vegetables
1–2 cupped hands carbohydrate
1–2 thumbs fat
Then adjust according to your size, activity, appetite and goals.
Some meals will contain more carbohydrate.
Some will contain more fat.
Some foods fit into multiple categories.
And occasionally you'll eat something purely because it's delicious.
That's allowed.
FOOD DOESN'T NEED TO "MAKE YOU STRONGER"
This is another thing I'd change from the original BearWolf approach.
The old guide divided foods into things that would "make you stronger" and foods that should be minimised for efficient results.
I don't think that's particularly useful anymore.
Your diet supports your training. Your training makes you stronger.
No individual food needs to justify its existence by improving your deadlift.
Food also has cultural, social and psychological value.
Birthday cake isn't a failed attempt at broccoli.
It's birthday cake.
The goal is to build an overall diet that supports your health, training and goals without making eating unnecessarily miserable or complicated.
IN CLOSING
You don't need perfect nutrition.
You need enough of the things that matter, consistently enough, over a long enough period.
Get sufficient protein.
Eat plenty of fruit and vegetables.
Include fibre-rich carbohydrate sources.
Get a sensible mixture of dietary fats.
Adjust the amount of food you eat according to your goals.
Then leave enough flexibility to actually enjoy your life.
Good nutrition isn't about making the perfect decision every time you eat.
It's about building a pattern of eating that supports what you want to do—and that you can realistically continue doing.