Diet for a week for gaining muscle mass

In principle, as usual, everything seems simple and clear in theory, but as soon as it comes to making a menu, problems begin. Fantasy, as a rule, lasts for 1-2 days, and then stupor. It is clear that no one will make a menu for us, and we will have to do everything ourselves. But again, I would like to have at least a small example.

This is exactly the kind of example we will now offer our readers. This is an approximate menu of a diet for gaining muscle mass, calculated for 7 days with six meals a day:

Monday

1 breakfast – buckwheat porridge with a piece of liver baked in the oven (it has a lot of protein, but you can’t forget about fats), tea, toast with a piece of cheese

2nd breakfast – homemade yogurt with pieces of fresh fruit

Lunch – boiled pasta with chicken breast, fresh vegetable salad with olive oil, fruit compote

Afternoon snack – low-fat cottage cheese with a teaspoon of honey

1 dinner – baked vegetables with a piece of boiled fish, green tea

2 dinner - a tablespoon of peeled walnuts

Tuesday

1 breakfast – oatmeal with jam, cocoa with milk, a small bun

2 breakfast – 2 apples

Lunch – pea soup with a piece of meat, Greek salad, berry juice

Afternoon snack – yoghurt with muesli

1 dinner – rice with fish stewed in gravy, a portion of seaweed, tea

2nd dinner – a glass of fermented baked milk

Wednesday

1 breakfast – omelette of 3-4 eggs, tomatoes, green tea with toast

2nd breakfast – orange, a couple of pieces of brine cheese

Lunch – beef stew, pickles, compote

Afternoon snack - milkshake

1 dinner – a piece of baked turkey with vegetables, a salad of fresh cabbage and cucumbers, green tea

2 dinner - a small portion of cottage cheese

Thursday

1 breakfast – beef cutlet with pearl barley, any vegetables, cocoa

2nd breakfast – orange juice, a piece of brine cheese

Lunch – buckwheat porridge with steamed patty, cabbage stewed with mushrooms, compote with a bun

Afternoon snack – cottage cheese with raisins and prunes

1 dinner – chicken breast, stewed vegetables, toast with not very fatty hard cheese (about 30-40% fat), tea with mint

2 dinner – a portion of natural yogurt

Friday

1 breakfast – 3 eggs scrambled with bacon and tomatoes, cocoa with milk

2nd breakfast – a small portion of cheesecakes cooked in the oven or microwave, jelly

Lunch – a portion of borscht with beef, wheat porridge with meatballs in sauce, compote

Afternoon snack – a mix of dried fruits

1 dinner – buckwheat porridge with stewed liver, salad of tomatoes, cucumbers and onions, tea with bergamot

2nd dinner – a small portion of cottage cheese, kiwi

Saturday

1 breakfast – oatmeal with steamed chicken cutlet, cheese sandwich, milk

2nd breakfast – yogurt with honey or jam

Lunch – pasta with mushrooms, a piece of baked beef, vegetable salad, compote

Afternoon snack – protein drink

1 dinner – boiled rice, stewed fish, zucchini caviar, black tea

2nd dinner – a glass of whey

Sunday

1 breakfast – 2 scrambled eggs, buckwheat cutlets, cucumbers or tomatoes, cocoa with milk

2nd breakfast – light vegetable soup,

Lunch – wheat porridge, meatballs with gravy, salad of fresh and boiled vegetables with canned mushrooms, jelly

Afternoon snack – milkshake

1 dinner - beef stewed with beans, fresh vegetable salad with olive or vegetable oil, green tea

2nd dinner – cottage cheese with raisins

We spent very little time to create a complete menu, based on which you can create your own, more interesting and appetizing. And those who are weak in imagination can use a ready-made version of the protein-carbohydrate diet menu.

True, in both cases you will have to work a little to calculate the appropriate portion weight. We cannot offer you a ready-made option, if only because each person is individual with their own weight, height and body type. The frequency and intensity of training also differ, so there can be no talk of any general figures.

Sport is a load for the body plus following strict rules. And menu development and calorie calculations are exactly the kind of mental exercise that gives room for creativity. So we get the all-round development of the personality that is so much written about in smart books. But everything turns out to be much simpler.

General questions

While examining in detail various diet options for gaining muscle mass, we focused mainly on healthy and permitted products, considered what type of nutrition they belong to, and even tried to create an effective menu using them. But we only mentioned prohibited products a couple of times, and even then in passing. But how can you create a diet on your own without understanding which products should not be included in the menu.

So, what you shouldn't eat according to the muscle building diet:

• Any fatty meat (domestic chicken, pork, lamb, duck), because along with the muscles the volume of fat cells will also increase,
• Candies and sweets, because they are a source of fast carbohydrates, whose excess energy goes to the formation of a fat layer,
• Sweet pastries, cookies, cakes, pastries, because they contain a lot of fast carbohydrates and fats, but very little protein,
• Various sausages, smoked meats, canned goods (previously, the main part of them was meat, but now it’s all fat and a bunch of different E’s),
• White flour products that contribute to weight gain (and not the right kind)
• Carbonated drinks, and especially sweet soda (not only do they contain simple carbohydrates, but they are also stuffed with strange additives that do not help quench your thirst),
• Alcoholic drinks (well, this is not sports nutrition at all),
• Various snacks (crackers, chips), semi-finished products, fast food (as a rule, such food products contain a lot of fat and harmful additives that do not contribute to muscle growth),
• Store-bought fruit juices due to added sugar and preservatives,
• Fatty dairy products: cream, butter, sour cream, fatty cottage cheese, whole milk with high fat content - these are products whose consumption should be limited to a greater or lesser extent due to their high fat content.

The diet for gaining muscle mass does not apply to strict diets. Many of the above products can be occasionally included in small quantities in your diet, but in this case you will need to strictly monitor the number of calories per day and exercise hard.

Don't think that by eating foods rich in fats and carbohydrates along with protein, you risk not gaining muscle mass. No, the muscles will not go anywhere if the body receives enough building material and energy to build them. But whether their growth will be noticeable under the increased thickness of the fat layer is an interesting question.

The same should be done if after a few days of starting the diet the athlete's condition worsens: fatigue, shortness of breath, heaviness in the epigastrium, problems with stool. Thus, hidden diseases may appear, which in any case are best learned about at an early stage of development.

According to reviews from those who have tried to build muscle mass with the help of high-calorie diets, they are a great addition to training, but without physical exercise, this is a direct path to obesity, heart problems, gastrointestinal tract problems, etc. But you also need to train correctly, paying attention to both strength exercises and cardio training. You need to train the whole body, not individual muscles, otherwise your sports career may end earlier than you would like.

Budget Diet for Muscle Gain

It just so happens that creating a beautiful relief is not a cheap matter. Natural quality products, good baby food and effective protein shakes, as well as training in the gym, cannot have a low price. And buying low-quality ones is more expensive.

The diet for gaining muscle mass itself, upon careful study, is far from budget, especially considering the current prices for meat, milk, eggs and many other natural food products. But bodybuilders and weightlifters need to eat a lot so that their muscles start growing, and their diet should include complete animal protein, not its cheap plant substitutes.

And even with all this, home nutrition cannot always satisfy the body's need for protein during high physical activity. And this means that in order to achieve a beautiful relief, you will have to turn to sports nutrition.

To make the diet for muscle growth a little cheaper, you can replace some of the animal proteins with plant proteins, after all, peas are much cheaper than meat or fish. But you need to understand that you can't expect rapid muscle growth in this case. You will need to be patient.

Meat protein is good, but very expensive. At the same time, meat can be easily replaced with fish, which is not inferior in animal protein content. If fish is not to your taste, then we choose cheaper meat. This is primarily chicken, from which you can prepare many healthy and tasty dishes. Turkey is a little more expensive, but even more useful.

Still too expensive? Let's move on. Among the relatively inexpensive products with a high protein content, we can highlight cottage cheese (it has almost 10 times more protein than milk) and eggs or egg powder (now these are the record holders in the world of protein products). It is clear that you won't last long on cottage cheese and eggs alone, but no one is stopping you from including vegetables, fruits and berries (preferably unsweetened) in your diet.

For example, cottage cheese goes well with cherries and currants, but you only need to add a little bit of fruit and berries to give the dish a completely new taste. And tomatoes go well with eggs. Moreover, the taste of the resulting duet will depend on the color (red, yellow, pink, green, black) and taste (sweet or sour) of the tomatoes.

The cheapest protein option is whey. You can drink this useful penny product instead of a drink, and it perfectly quenches thirst, so it will be useful after training. This drink does not contain fat, which means there are no special restrictions on its use. By the way, many drinks from the sports nutrition series contain whey protein. So, drinking a glass or two of whey, you are unlikely to go wrong.

Cereals are considered a cheap and very useful source of slow carbohydrates. They can be added to soups and borscht, served as a separate dish or as a side dish, and used to make delicious casseroles. Moreover, even the most expensive cereal (buckwheat) will be economically advantageous if you consider how many times it increases during cooking.

Probably the most expensive part of the diet will still be protein drinks. But you don't have to drink them all day like water. The main thing is to do it regularly before training, and if possible, after it. It is important that the rest of the diet is complete and the body does not feel hungry and does not use up its own energy reserves.

The diet for gaining muscle mass does not contain much fat, so there is nothing to save on. We add a little vegetable oil to vegetable dishes - and we get the required percentage of fats in our diet. So in any situation you can find a way out. The main thing is not to despair, train steadily and relentlessly follow your dream, then no crisis in the country will be an obstacle.