True Natural Bodybuilding

Bodybuilding Diet Plan

Below I present a good example of a diet plan for a true natural bodybuilder who needs about 3700 calories per day. The diet plan consists of 5 solid meals and 3 protein shakes in between the meals. This results in a total of 8 small meals per day, each two and a half hours apart.

07:00: wake up
07:30: breakfast: 500 kcal
10:00: protein shake: 400 kcal
12:30: lunch: 800 kcal
15:00: protein shake: 400 kcal
17:30: dinner: 550 kcal
19:00: workout
20:00: post-workout protein shake: 400 kcal
21:00: snack: 400 kcal
22:30: bed time meal: 300 kcal
23:00: bed time

The total daily intake of protein should be at least 1 gram of animal protein for each pound of body weight. The rest of your calories should mostly come from carbohydrates. A good target formula is to get about 30% of your calories from protein, 50-55% from carbohydrates, and about 15-20% from fat.

Of course there are countless ways to compose the meals in order to get the target calorie and nutrient content. Great sources of protein are non-fat milk products, egg whites, poultry, meat and fish. Good sources of carbohydrates are vegetables, fruit, milk, pasta, rice, bread, potatoes and cereals. Good sources of fat are egg yolks, fat fish, and some vegetable sources such as olives, nuts and flaxseed oil.

Variation is a key aspect of every healthy diet; therefore it is advised to change slightly the composition of your meals every day by choosing different meat, fish, poultry, fruit, vegetables and cereals. One example is presented below.

Kcal         Protein (g) Carbs (g)   Fat (g) 
 
07:30 Breakfast 490 23.0 68.8 13.6
2 eggs 144 12.6 0.8 10.0
100 g wholemeal bread 226 8.0 41.0 3.3
300 mL orange juice 120 2.4 27.0 0.3
 
10:00: Protein shake 382 42.4 48.4 2.1
1 banana (100 g) 99 1.1 23.0 0.3
500 mL skimmed milk 171 16.5 24.0 1.0
30 g milk protein powder 112 24.8 1.4 0.8
 
12:30: Lunch 792 52.4 107.6 17.0
150 g tuna 163 39.0 0.0 0.8
150 g pineapple 109 0.6 26.3 0.2
100 g pasta 358 12.0 75.0 1.1
100 g olives 164 0.8 6.3 15.0
 
15:00: Protein shake 399 36.6 58.4 2.2
250 mL apple juice 105 0.3 25.5 0.3
250 mL skimmed milk 86 8.3 12.0 0.5
30 g milk protein powder 112 24.8 1.4 0.8
30 g whole grain wheat flour 97 3.3 19.5 0.6
 
17:30: Dinner 546 43.1 84.6 3.9
150 g turkey 147 31.5 0.0 2.3
100 g rice 358 8.8 78.0 1.2
100 g broccoli 41 2.8 6.6 0.4
 
20:00: Post-workout shake 392 42.3 48.3 3.3
250 mL orange juice 100 2.0 22.5 0.3
500 mL skimmed milk 171 16.5 24.0 1.0
30 g whey protein powder 121 23.8 1.8 2.1
 
21:00: Snack 394 9.7 77.8 4.9
100 g muesli 394 9.7 77.8 4.9
 
22:30: Bed time meal 329 49.0 30.0 1.4
400 g quark or cottage cheese   251 48.0 12.0 1.2
100 g cherries 78 1.0 18.0 0.2
 
Day total 3724 298 524 48
% of total calories 32% 56% 12%

Note that in the above example only 12% of the calories come from fat. However, the real amount might be a bit higher since I did not include any butter, oil and/or sauces used to prepare the meals.

If you think you still need more fat, you can easily adjust it by changing some products (e.g. 1% fat milk instead of skimmed milk, fine oat powder instead of whole grain wheat flour (Brinta Classic), salmon instead of tuna, steak instead of turkey) or by adding some nuts, olives, fish oil capsules or flaxseed oil.

If you want to build your own diet plan or customize this example to your own needs, please download my bodybuilding diet plan excel sheet. You can watch the youtube demo video below or download the high quality video in Flash (.swf) or Windows Media Video (.wmv) format.



Top