Muscle Building / Bodybuilding Diet

Muscle Building Diet
This diet is a happy medium between convenience and nutrition.
Ideally it would be wheat and dairy free and every meal would be from proper food instead of protein drinks.

Diet at your own risk

8am
Whey protein drink in water
2 cups of porridge oats*
1 cup of ground almonds
Handful of sesame seeds
teaspoon of raw or manuka honey

*this is a lot of oats. It’s easier to consume if you make overnight oats – just leave the oats in the milk overnight in the fridge

10.30am
2 slices of wheat-free toast with organic peanut butter (no added sugar version) or
2 rice cakes with organic peanut butter
banana

or

Mashed banana mixed with almond butter on toast

12pm
2 Ham and cheese salad sandwiches with wheatfree or wholemeal bread
300ml hemp milk / full fat milk
2 pieces of high-quality dark chocolate
1 piece of fruit

3pm
Whey protein drink
Piece of fruit
or 1 tin of sardines

5pm – approx 1 hr before training
2 cups of wheat free cereal or porridge oats
with 150-200ml hemp or almond milk and a sliced banana
apple
handful of nuts and seeds

20 mins before training  
10g BCAA or 10g whey protein

Post Workout (within 30 mins)
1 piece of fruit (preferably a banana, as these contain glucose as well as fructose)
Post workout drink:
30g maltodextrin
40g whey protein
4g creatine
500mg Alpha lipoic acid

Evening Meal (1 hour after training)
– Couscous 70g – get from supermarks, 125ml water in a pan per 100g of couscous, Bring to the boil. Take off the ring as soon as boiled. Leave to stand for 2 mins. Fluff with fork. Season. Add a little olive oil, balsamic vinegar.
– Salmon 100g – poach in water, with a little butter for approx 15 mins.
– Roasted vegetables – onions, sweet potatoes, carrots.  Chop up vegetables, put on a baking tray with oil drizzled on them. Add seasoning e.g. thyme or chinese five spice. Put in the oven, 180 degrees for 15-20 mins.

Supper
Casein protein drink or tub of cottage cheese or whey protein with milk

Calories approx – 3200

• For extra calories make an additional protein smoothie:
  40g Hemp seeds/hemp protein powder
  25g dried coconut milk
  1 banana
  Handful of spinach
  20g flaxseed powder/coconut oil
  Blend together – makes 500 to 600 calories

To build muscle, you will ideally have an excess of about 200 calories per day.
This depends on your training history however, if you have just started doing weight training, you can build muscle and certainly strength without a surplus of calories.
To ‘tone up’ keep your calories in slight deficit or spot on. Manipulate until you start to see results without losing strength.

Read the first few paragraphs in this article to find out how to work out your Basal metabolic rate and calorie needs.  I’m 20olbs, train 4 times a week, and will therefore need about 3000 calories a day to maintain my weight.

Supplements:
Krill oil, creatine, alpha lipoic acid, possible a strong probiotic tablet (ideally you’d just eat and drink high probiotic foods like Miso soup), magnesium spray or bath salts, zinc.  I also take b12 because of the tablets I have for indigestion which impair it’s absorption.  I’ve started using hemp and egg protein powder instead of whey.

Easy Meals:
Scrambled eggs on toast, porridge with ground almonds and seeds, thick peanut butter on rice cakes, jacket potato and tuna, tin of chunky chicken soup, full fat milk, pure coconut milk (not that crap in cartons with 95% water).

I make pea and ham soup, and store it in different containers in the fridge, and take it in a thermas flask to work.  Obviously I heat it up before I put it in the flask!

Download more bodybuilding diet Plans in a word doc by clicking here: BodyBuilderDietPlan