Weightlifting Meal Plan (2023)

FAQs

Weightlifting Meal Plan? ›

If you eat 3 meals a day and pay careful attention to the distribution of your daily protein intake and food quality, you can probably stimulate maximum muscle growth.

If you eat 3 meals a day and pay careful attention to the distribution of your daily protein intake and food quality, you can probably stimulate maximum muscle growth.

More Meals = Muscle Growth

Although you need protein, you really don't have to spread it and eat it over six or seven meals. The aim is to reach the daily intake without fail and this will help you develop muscle. An average man needs about 4-6 meals a day plus the right amount of exercise for steady muscle growth.

Eat frequently, every 3-4 hours, and aim for 6 small meals during the day. Try not to lump your calories into 3 big meals, as it will make you feel sluggish. Eat a minimum of 20-30 grams of protein at each meal.

Your diet should include nutrient-dense foods, have plenty of protein with each meal and snack, and you should restrict alcohol and deep-fried or high-sugar foods. This ensures you get all the important nutrients your body needs for building muscle and overall health.

Most bodybuilders eat 6 to 8 meals per day usually every 2 to 2 and a half hours apart. This gives them proper nutrition and regulates their bodies. Most bodybuilders eat as much as 2000 to 6000 calories a day depending on your body type and genetics.

Eat More Meals More Often

If you're active and train hard, you likely burn a lot of calories each day. It's very difficult to eat clean foods that replace all the energy you've spent in just three meals. That's why bodybuilders—competitive and recreational alike—eat 5-8 meals per day to support mass-building.

The frequency of cheat meals will depend on your personal goals. Preferably, it is important to make an exception once a week. This can increase fat loss. Thus, doing cheat meal 1 time in 7 days allows you to restore your glycogen reserves.

Perhaps the most popularized aspect is meal frequency. Bodybuilders spend hours at the gym building large amounts of muscle mass, and they support that with regular feedings—this usually means six meal times a day.

Simply Avoiding Binging. Your metabolism is not going to come to a halt and you certainly will not lose muscle mass. The biggest advantage of eating frequent meals every three hours is simply so that you do not get ravenous and then go and binge for your next meal.

How much should I eat if I'm lifting? ›

According to a study published in a 2010 edition of the “Journal of the International Society of Sports Nutrition,” strength-trained athletes participating in intense training should consume 50 to 80 calories per kilogram of body weight, or about 22.7 to 36.4 calories per pound of body weight each day.

Cheat meals have been used for years within the bodybuilding world and are a mainstay in pretty much every diet that coaches practice. The purpose being: a) to provide a mental break from dieting, used as a reward for a strict 7-14 days.

According to a study of bodybuilders during their bulking phase, women consumed an average of 3,200 calories per day. Men took in 3,800 calories per day on average. These numbers give you a good idea of what real bodybuilders eat because researchers based the numbers on nearly 400 competitors.

To make gains you have to have the right nutrients in your body to construct muscle. This means that what you eat, and how much, is essential in making muscle gains. Lifting and doing strength training without adequate nutrition, especially without enough protein, can actually lead to loss of muscle tissue.

His diet consisted of five to six small meals per day, with 30-50 grams of protein consumed per meal every three hours. He also replaced beef and pork with chicken and fish to load up on the lean protein.

Use the "2 for 2" rule when deciding if it's time to increase the amount of weight you're lifting: When you can do 2 more reps with a given weight than you started out with for 2 consecutive workouts, increase the weight.

One of the main reasons bodybuilders eat rice and chicken is because it's cheap, clean, and incredibly good for building muscle. This is because it gives a good mix of carbs to replenish the muscles right after a workout, with a ton of protein to start the muscle-building process as well.

Try to eat every 2 to 3 hours. Do not eat complex carbohydrates after 6:00 p.m. or four to five hours before going to bed. Try to eat one gram of protein per pound of lean body mass on lifting days and .

Bodybuilders and weightlifters have higher protein needs because they are looking to add mass and are simultaneously using their muscles more than the average person or non-lifter. Of course, it is entirely possible to overdo it.

That study suggests that the fixed amount of high-quality protein intake (e.g., 0.24 g/kg BW) is required at the three traditional meals (breakfast, lunch, and dinner) to maximize MPS throughout the day. Consequently, achieving 0.24 g/kg BW of protein intake at three meals can be effective for maintaining muscle mass.

How much rice do bodybuilders eat per meal? ›

Start with six ounces of meat (cooked) and one cup of rice. Over time, work up to eight ounces of meat and two cups of rice. The point of this isn't so much to increase caloric intake as it is to maximize timing.

Do cheat days ruin your progress? A cheat day every once in a while will not erase weeks and months of consistent workouts and healthy eating. Cheat days can help keep you stay motivated long-term if you practice mindful eating.

If you eat 1500 calories daily and 3000 calories on Saturdays (or another cheat day of choice), your metabolism will experience a small boost and your will burn more calories on “normal” days. Just do your best to lower the glycemic index of the cheat meals so you burn them more slowly and absorb less as fat.

Bodybuilders sometimes consume up to 15 eggs a day and while egg yolks are good for the reasons mentioned above, consuming too many of them is not recommended at all. Overconsumption of egg yolks will cause your bad cholesterol to skyrocket.

Not only did his diet consist of five to six small meals a day, but he supplemented with protein shakes and plenty of vitamins and minerals. Put it all together and you end up with a grand total of 3825 calories per day, which Schwarzenegger burned through at the gym.

What Is the OMAD Diet? OMAD is actually quite simple in its design in that it allows you to just eat one meal per day. OMAD is essentially run as intermittent fasting with a 23:1 fast:feed ratio. In other words, you have one hour to eat all of your calories.

Since carefully spreading out protein throughout the day is vital to our health, dieticians recommend the "30-30-30" rule for our daily intake: 30 grams at breakfast, 30 grams at lunch and 30 grams at dinner.

Protein pacing is the title given to the act of spacing out your protein quota throughout the day, instead of only at breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Experts recommend eating around 0.12 to 0.2 grams of protein per pound of body weight every four hours or so.

You can use roughly 30 grams of protein per meal to build muscle at rest. After a workout, you can make use of up to 40 grams if you have just completed a half-or full-body workout. If you've only worked a muscle or two, you reach that ceiling at 20 grams of protein.

What happens if you lift weights but don t eat enough protein? ›

Your body needs protein to build and repair tissues, so if you aren't eating enough, your muscles won't have the material they need to grow. You could feel “punch drunk” after working out, your arms and other muscles might ache more than usual, and your body may even feel generally weaker.

If you're trying to build muscle mass you need to be eating in a calorie surplus, so you need to actually up your intake.” “When you strength train you get little tears in your muscles. When those tears heal, they grow back stronger, but the body needs fuel to do that.

“Lifting weight can increase your body's metabolic rate for up to 36 hours after performing the exercises,” she says, meaning you're burning more fuel at rest which, in turn, signals the body to consume more or increase hunger.

But since the cutting phase strives to lose weight, lose fat and get lean, cheating smart may be ideal for optimal results. Since cutting is such a precise stage, most fitness experts recommend limiting your cheat meal to once a week, not one day a week…

While you can certainly eat whatever you want and gain weight (assuming you are in a caloric surplus), the types of foods (macronutrients) you consume can and will impact your lean muscle growth, fat gain, and performance.

Many people scoff at the notion that having just one cheat day per week will ruin their fat-loss efforts, but it absolutely can.

Anywhere from 10 to 35 percent of your calories should come from protein. So, if your needs are 2,000 calories, that's 200-700 calories from protein (50-175 grams). The recommended dietary allowance to prevent deficiency for an average sedentary adult is 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

In case you were wondering, 300 grams is actually a lot of protein. By way of reference, 300 grams of protein equals 7.5 ounces of chicken (60 grams), one 12-ounce steak (85 grams), two 6-ounce cans of tuna (80 grams), a half dozen eggs (35 grams), 3 cups of milk (25 grams), and 7 ounces of tofu (15 grams).

So the 200-pound bodybuilder eating 3,840 calories (160 grams of protein, 107 grams of fat, and 560 grams of carbohydrates) each day would divide these numbers by six to yield 27 grams of protein, 18 grams of fat, and 93 grams of carbs for each meal.

You need to be eating enough for your body to build and maintain muscle, a sports dietitian said. Symptoms like constant fatigue, sleep loss, soreness, and hunger may mean you've cut calories too low. To prevent muscle loss, make sure you get enough food, including carbs, to fuel your workouts.

Will my muscles shrink if I don't eat? ›

Fasting can cause muscle loss, but it's normally well after 24 hours. And that's not something commonly done by those practising intermittent fasting. The process in which we "lose" muscle occurs when, in order to maintain blood glucose, our amino acids must then be converted into glucose (called de novo glucogenesis).

You can easily buy large amounts of chicken, ground meats, beef, oatmeal, rice, frozen vegetables, milk, and other staples of a bodybuilders diet plan. You will have large amounts of food and less trips to the store.

High protein foods such as chicken, salmon, Greek yogurt, skim milk, and beans are some of the best foods to help you gain lean muscle (67).

Just one tablespoon of peanut butter has four grams of protein, making it a good source of protein for building muscle. Peanut butter is also a good source of monounsaturated fat and antioxidants as well as vitamins and minerals that will help your body stay healthy and function properly.

The fat and cholesterol from yolks, which was once thought of as harmful, appears to provide benefits for those who do strength training. In fact, in a head-to-head egg comparison, consuming more whole eggs was shown to help with muscle gain and strength.

Arnold Schwarzenegger's “sleep faster” strategy

The former Mr Olympia sleeps just six hours a night so that he has at least 18 hours of productive time during the day. The seven-time bodybuilding champion reportedly spent as much time in the gym as he did in bed during his early career.

Either do high-intensity interval training (HIIT), very low-intensity cardio like walking, or ideally, a mix of both. As the fat within your muscles decreases, you will appear more toned and less flabby.

"Across all peer-reviewed research and health practices, three meals a day is a general recommendation to encourage consistent, adequate energy intake," Miluk said.

Essentially, it is recommended you eat three square meals a day so your body is given enough time to digest the food you consume while utilizing the nutrients required. Doing so will also help you feel less inclined to overeat during any one particular meal.

So, the science seems to say the healthiest way to eat throughout the day is to have two or three meals, with a long fasting window overnight, to not eat too early or too late in the day, and to consume more calories earlier on in the day.

Is it better to eat 3 meals a day or 5? ›

World renowned nutrition expert, Dr. Eric Serrano agrees that most people would be better off sticking with 3 meals per day. “The liver has a 4-hour clock and when we eat more frequently than this, we break the body's natural digestive rhythm.” Serrano recommends eating at 8 am, 12 pm and 5 pm.

While the logic is solid, results have been mixed. Participants in a study who ate six small meals showed no metabolic advantage over those who ate three large meals. What did separate them from the three-meal group was that they reported higher levels of hunger and an increased desire to eat.

Spacing several smaller meals better ensures greater bioavailability of what you're eating, as the full brunt of your digestive processes such as enzyme release comes to bear earlier during a particular eating session, so smaller amounts are being digested during the most optimal period in the digestive cycle.

About 64 percent of people in the U.S. report consuming three meals per day, while 28 percent report eating two meals per day. Ninety-three percent of adults in the U.S. snack about two or three times per day.

Summary. Eggs are a wonderful source of nutrition. Two to three eggs a day can be safely eaten as long as they are eaten as part of a healthy diet.

The results showed that eating one or two meals daily was associated with a relatively lower BMI compared with three meals daily. Interestingly, they found a positive relationship between the number of meals and snacks (more than three daily) and increases in BMI.

Specifically, those who consume at least three meals per day are more likely to have a greater intake of vegetables, greens, legumes, fruit, whole grains, and dairy. These individuals are also more likely to consume less sodium and added sugars than those who consume two meals per day.

There is literally no difference. Multiple studies have compared eating many smaller versus fewer larger meals and concluded that there is no significant effect on either metabolic rate or the total amount of fat lost ( 1 , 2 ).

For most people, there are no serious dangers involved in eating one meal a day, other than the discomforts of feeling hungry. That said, there are some risks for people with cardiovascular disease or diabetes. Eating one meal a day can increase your blood pressure and cholesterol.

To make gains you have to have the right nutrients in your body to construct muscle. This means that what you eat, and how much, is essential in making muscle gains. Lifting and doing strength training without adequate nutrition, especially without enough protein, can actually lead to loss of muscle tissue.

Should I overeat to build muscle? ›

To increase muscle mass, you must “eat more calories than needed to maintain your body weight”, says personal trainer Scott Laidler. "A high proportion of your extra calories should come from foods containing protein, which will give you the necessary amino acids to build muscle mass.