Meal Plan for Building Muscle

I’m pretty sure that most people that are looking to bulk up and build muscle already know this, but you can’t build muscle without a good diet and meal plan.

While some of the muscle building nutritional “experts” would have you believe that you need to be extremely precise and accurate with the amounts of everything you eat, it really doesn’t need to be that complicated! The good news is that you aren’t going to need a calculator, or any mathematical formulas to measure out every little bit of food you eat. While this approach to your diet, probably would see slightly better results, who really has the time!?

Well below you can find a quick and simple meal plan, that will take away all the frustrations you may have found when trying to get your meal plan for building muscle right.

Before you start thinking about what you are going to eat, you first need to get your eating habits right.

Meal Plan for Building Muscle – Your Eating Habits
Eat often! – 5-6 meals per day
Some people will tell you to eat every couple of hours, but this can sometimes be a bit overkill, and it can often be difficult to do this, especially when you are at work. However, if you aren’t eating regularly throughout the day, you are going to really struggle to put on the lean muscle you want. You need to be feeding your body every 3-4 hours.

When you only eat 2 or 3 big meals a day, you shut down your body’s ability to digest what you are giving it, as you tend to overfeed during these meals. This gives your body more than it can burn through and the rest is stored as fat. This is what you really don’t want! 5-6 smallish meals a day will give your body what it needs, when it needs it, and allow your metabolism to run at the optimal level.

Eat Good Foods
It sounds so simple, but you would be amazed how many people get this wrong when creating their meal plan for building muscle. Like most things in life, you get out of it what you put in. If you put crap foods into your body, you will get crap results. You put good foods into your body, you will get good results. Its that simple!

Remember, when it comes to food, quality is always better than quantity.

Listen to What Your Body Is Telling You
Are you feeling hungry? This is your body telling you that it needs food, so listen to it and give it what it needs. Your body will tell you when it needs food, and this will help you to plan out when to feed. I said earlier that you should be aiming to eat every 3-4 hours, but this is only a rough guide and everyone will be different. Listen to your body, and use what it is telling you, and you will soon find it really easy to eat the right amounts at the right times. This is an extremely important aspect to your meal plan for building muscle.

Eat Enough Throughout The Day
To put it simply, to build muscle and bulk up, you needs to consume for calories than you are using up. And don’t make the really common mistake of neglecting fats. So many people make the mistake of cutting out fats altogether, as they assume that eating fats makes you fat. This this really isn’t the case. Fats are vital for building up levels of important hormones within your body, such as testosterone. Fats are not bad for you, bad fats are! If you get enough fats from good sources such as red meat, fish oils, nuts, avocados and olive oils etc. you will start to see results, as these are really good for you (in moderation)

What You Should Be Eating
I said before that setting out your meal plan for building muscle really doesn’t require a PhD in Maths, and below I will show you what I mean. This is what you need for each meal throughout the day, and it really doesn’t need to be more complicated than this:

Protein:

For each meal of the day, choose one of the following:

A fist sized portion of meat (any lean meat that takes your fancy, such as chicken, fish or beef)
1 Can of Tuna
4 Cups of Whole Milk
2 Scoops of Protein Powder
250ml of Cottage Cheese
4 Eggs
Carbohydrates:

If you weight under 200 pounds, choose one of the following for each meal. Or if you weight over 200 pounds, choose 2 of the following for each meal.

3 Slices of Wholemeal Bread
1 Large Baked Potato
1 Medium Bowl of Oatmeal
4 Cups of Whole Milk
1 Cup of Cooked Rice
1 Plate of Pasta
2 Whole Wheat Bagels
2 Pieces of Fruit
1 Large Bowl of Cereal (preferably sugar free)
Fruits and Vegetables:

You should be aiming to have eat least two of the below with every meal. But remember not to just focus on the low calorie vegetables, mix it up!

High Carb:

Oranges
Grapes
Apples
Berries
Melon
Bananas
Low Carb:

Tomatoes
Spinach
Cabbage
Cauliflower
Green Beans
Broccoli
Fats and Oils:

Like I said earlier, fats and oils are good for you and are a necessary part of your meal plan for building muscle. What you need to limit is your intake of saturated fats, and more importantly trans fatty acids. Instead, enjoy the healthy fats that you can find in the following, and mix them in with your meals:

Fish Oils
Natural Nut Butters (such as peanut and almond butters)
Olives
Coconut Oils
Flax Seed Oils
Avocados
Mixed Nuts
Olive Oil
Also make sure to keep yourself well hydrated by drinking lots of water, and cut out fizzy drinks as much as possible. Follow these steps and you will have a meal plan for building muscle that will really get you the results you want.