Typical Bodybuilder Diet Plan - How Much Food Do Bodybuilders Eat

Example 1

Even during the offseason, I don't eat much fatty food, but one of my favorite foods is salmon. I love it poached. I enjoy lox, too. Most of the time, I choose a leaner fish, but I include salmon in my offseason diet.

Salmon is fatty, so many bodybuilders avoid it altogether. The fat it contains, though, is healthy - it's a good source of omega-3 oil. Salmon is low in saturated fat, unlike a big steak marbled with fat or a pork chop or other fatty meat source. That fat isn't good for you.

I poach the salmon and add lemon and herbs, such as dill and parsley. When I'm off my diet, I like to have Hollandaise sauce on it. That's the kicker. It's by no means a bodybuilding food, but I love it.

On the side, I like angel hair pasta, but I eat a very small portion. I keep the calories from pasta down to about 200-250. I also have steamed vegetables - usually asparagus. Asparagus is good for bodybuilders because it's a natural diuretic. It helps remove excess water from your body and keeps your system flushed. The only negative thing about eating asparagus is that it makes your piss smell so bad.

I drink Crystal Light with my meals. It's low calorie, but I only drink it with meals because I don't want to take in too many artificial sweeteners. The rest of the day, I drink water. I can't get enough of it. At home, we have a bottled water dispenser, and we go through three five-gallon bottles a week. It's great to have clean cold water on hand.

Example 2

One of the meals I make frequently is grilled orange roughy. I cook it on my George Foreman Grilling Machine, and I put spices and lemon on it - maybe even a little lemon pepper.

Orange roughy is a great bodybuilding food. It has little fat, no carbohydrates, and it's almost all protein - eight ounces has almost 40 grams of protein. That makes orange roughy a great protein source offseason and precontest. Besides that, it's a tasty white fish.

I prepare it with pineapple and rice. Rice is a complex carb, and pineapple is a simple carb. The pineapple makes it taste sweet without adding a sauce - it doesn't have much sugar, and it adds a lot to the rice without adding many excess calories. I'm not against using barbecue sauce or pasta sauce, but it's not a good idea to have a heavy sauce with every meal.

I'm not a big veggie guy, but I eat salads. A small side of greens is a good addition to this meal. My wife's a salad freak, so I can't get away from it. She makes me eat salad.

When I do eat vegetables, it's more for their nutrient value than because I enjoy them. I get enough fiber from other food sources, such as oatmeal, so I don't need to add vegetables. Many bodybuilders complain about getting stopped up because they eat a huge amount of meat. I don't eat a ton of food like some bodybuilders do, who say they need to eat an immense amount of vegetables to help with digestion. I think a body adapts to having that much roughage to clean everything out, so it's almost like the body starts to rely on it. I'd rather keep everything moderate. That's what works for me.

Example 3

I don't choose my meals because they taste good. I eat foods that help me best attain my objectives as a professional bodybuilder, which are to maintain and support muscle growth while allowing me to remove bodyfat from my physique.

I eat the same thing every day when I train for a competition. It's very simple. I eat egg whites and oatmeal in the morning for my first meal. Then, for each of my other four or five meals, I eat chicken breast and sweet potatoes. That's about it. My body responds well to the protein and carbohydrates in chicken and sweet potatoes. Some bodybuilders consume a higher percentage of calories from protein, but I try to eat about a 50:50 ratio of protein to carbs, and I attempt to stay away from fats altogether.

A lot of bodybuilders use other starchy carbs, but I don't eat white potatoes, rice or pasta because they're higher in sugar than sweet potatoes. Plus, I like the taste of sweet potatoes, which go well with chicken. Sometimes, I'll add a vegetable, such as broccoli. I'm not much of a vegetable person, though, so when I eat vegetables, I do it for the nutrients.

Since I do all my own food preparation, I use foods that are easy to prepare. When it's time to eat, it's time to eat - I don't want to waste time cooking. I make my food three days ahead of time. I bake the chicken and the sweet potatoes separately, because they have to cook for different lengths of time at two different temperatures. I can warm the meal if I want, but I often eat it cold. I'm not eating for taste, but to keep up my energy and to build muscle.

I eat about 12 ounces each of chicken breast and sweet potato (that's about three chicken breasts) at every sitting. I mix them together because it makes the chicken taste less dry, and it's easier to get down. I can down the whole thing in about five minutes. It doesn't take long because I'm pretty hungry by the time I eat.

Example 4

Everybody in the bodybuilding industry has been saying to cat more beef. I followed that advice, and I've been able to put on quality weight. Bodybuilders used to cut beef out of their precontest diets, but I don't know many pros who do that now. Last year, Ronnie Coleman told me to eat beef. This year, Flex Wheeler told me the same thing, so I started eating beef and severely cutting back on carbohydrates. I found myself saving more muscle mass and staying stronger as I got in shape.

One of my favorite meals is noodles and beef. I use low-fat, low-cholesterol or wheat noodles as my carbohydrate source. I buy the eye of the round. It's a very lean cut that I can eat all year. It isn't the tastiest beef, so it must be good for you.

To prepare the beef, I cut it into little strips and saute them with seasoning. Instead of adding spaghetti sauce, which can be high in sodium, I add fresh tomatoes. When you stew that for a while with the seasoning and meat, it makes a tasty sauce that's low in fat and full of vitamins. Often, I'll add broccoli and other vegetables for even more nutrients. When it's finished cooking, I put it over the noodles, and it's similar to goulash.

I eat about eight to 10 ounces of beef in a serving and about three to six ounces of noodles, depending on now many carbs I want to take in. Usually, the calorie ratio is about 50% protein to 40% carbs with no added fat. I don't use oil to cook it, io the only fat calories come from the beef.

This is a great meal to make ahead of time and take on the road. After I finish preparing it, I put it in individual Tupperware containers and freeze it. The beef keeps well when I take it with me, and I can warm it in a microwave oven.

This meal sustains me because beef stays with me when I eat it. Beef also helps keep my bodyfat down, but allows my muscles to grow. Since I do appearances year-round, I don't want to look like Santa Claus.