The most common nutrition question we get at My Fitness is which protein powder to buy. It is almost always the wrong first question. A member eating two proper meals a day and training four times a week will get far more from fixing the meals than from adding a shake. The good news is that the traditional Albanian table already contains nearly everything a lifter needs. It mostly needs organising.
Protein at every meal, not once a day
Aim for a palm-sized portion of protein at each meal — roughly 1.6 to 2 grams per kilogram of bodyweight across the day for someone training hard. That is easy here. Kos and yoghurt at breakfast, white cheese, eggs, tuna, chicken, lamb, and the beans and lentils that show up in every winter kitchen. Spreading protein across three or four meals gives you more of it than one large dinner does, and it is the single change that most improves recovery between sessions.
Carbohydrates are training fuel, not the enemy
Bread, rice, potatoes, corn and pasta get blamed for everything, but they are what fills the tank for a heavy squat session or an hour of circuits. Put most of your carbohydrates around training: a meal two or three hours before, and another after. On rest days, eat fewer of them and more vegetables. That simple pattern does more for body composition than cutting an entire food group and lasting nine days.
Fat: olive oil, yes; fried, less
Olive oil, nuts, olives and oily fish are worth keeping in the diet at every stage — they support hormone production and make food worth eating. What is worth reducing is the deep-fried layer: petulla, fried byrek and chips several times a week add hundreds of calories that nobody counts. Nothing needs to be banned. Frequency is the lever.
Vegetables and water, every single day
Half of at least two plates a day should be vegetables. A salad of tomato, cucumber, onion and olive oil next to lunch costs nothing and covers most of what a multivitamin promises. Water matters just as much: two to three litres a day, more in a Kamëz summer or after an evening circuit class. Most members who say they feel weak halfway through a session are simply dehydrated.