Meal Plans

Iano_128

Just wondering if anyone knows someone who would be helpful with doing up meal plans, long story short, I'm a hardgainer, work my a$$ off in the gym but always fall down when it comes to food, which I know is super important.

I'm looking for someone to help me with a meal plan (am obviously willing to pay as someone has put a lot of time and effort in to educating themselves on this type of stuff).

Ideally my meal plan is on a budget of maybe 50€ a week but if that's too low I can raise it a bit, although I don't want to go too much above. Also looking for something that won't mean me spending hours and hours in the kitchen after work and the gym, as this is the main reason I always fall down.


Any input ya'll can give would be appreciated .

Iano_128

Whats your site Mark?

thegreatiam

please dont feed the trolls

Jerrica

Iano_128 wrote: »

I'm looking for someone to help me with a meal plan (am obviously willing to pay as someone has put a lot of time and effort in to educating themselves on this type of stuff).

Ideally my meal plan is on a budget of maybe 50€ a week but if that's too low I can raise it a bit, although I don't want to go too much above. Also looking for something that won't mean me spending hours and hours in the kitchen after work and the gym, as this is the main reason I always fall down.

Keep it really simple.

Porridge or eggs for breakfast.

Piece of fruit and/ or small handful of nuts as snacks.

Make lunch and dinner the night before and split the portion so you have two meals. Base it on meat and veg, add some brown or basmati rice if it's a training day.

That's honestly as complicated as it needs to be. It's not necessarily the BEST, but it's a very good start. If you're not a great cook or don't have a lot of time there's a couple of sauces you can use to make things a bit more interesting.

Idea 1. Blend pesto with cottage cheese in a 1:2 ratio.
Idea 2. Mix one cup of greek yoghurt, one teaspoon curry poweder, two tablespoons lemon juice, salt & pepper.
Idea 3. Mash one avocado with chopped onion (spring or red), add juice of half a lime, salt and pepper (it's a basic guacamole recipe but works great with chicken, minced beef or ground turkey).

Lidl are great for big bags of nuts and cheap veg, invest in tupperware to bring all meals with you to work/ out for the day.

Iano_128

Cheers Jerrica! I went to Musgraves yesterday and bought 2.7kg of ground beef, 25 chicken fillets, a big bag of pasta and rice and a big bag of broccoli and spinach and some spices to not make it too boring to eat! I like the pesto and cottage cheese idea so I'll definitely give that a go.. Would you only eat the rice on training days?

Jerrica

Sorry, I misread your OP, I missed the bit where you said you were trying to gain, in that case you can include eating rice for any meals. I'm coming at this from a relatively "clean" point of view, others might tell you to eat a lot of everything around you. 1kg tubs of Meridian peanut butter (nothing in it but nuts) will be a help too, they'll cost around €8-9 in a health food shop.

If you know that you fall down on the food side of things, personally my advice would be to get into the habit of making and eating food regularly at first, then you can tweak what the make-up of all that food is. Avocados, nuts, meat, eggs, oats - all these are really basic staples but tend to be on the calorie dense side so you can eat quite a bit of them guilt free if you're trying to gain weight. If you were trying to lose it you'd still eat them but in smaller amounts.

thegreatiam

Youre in a catch 22. (actually 23,24 and 25)
You want to gain, but on a budget, but you don't want to cook?
Pick 2.


If youre on a budget, you need to know how to cook, youll need to buy cheap cuts of meat, and spend time cooking them, spend time shopping for bargains (as suggested lidl and aldi is your first stop)

gaining means eating loads, and eating loads ain't cheap.

the protein is the most important thing, so if you're on a budget then do the leg work and find cheap sources of eggs and chicken. and beef mince.

If I were you I would buy whole chickens in bulk (7/8 at a time if you get a good deal) as it will be cheaper than buying cuts, cook them all in one day, and freeze the meat.
then choke down as much meat and eggs as you can in any given day.

hit up lidl and aldi once or twice a week, and supervalue for the veg deals, when things like banana, beetroot, carrots, parsnips baby potato are on deal buy a load, slice them up and freeze them.

Buy frozen spinach, berries and tinned fruit and veg, all of this will save you money.

get cheap cuts of beef like shin and oxtail and cook it very slowly in a slow cooker or heavy pan on the hob on a low heat, plenty of herbs and root veg and it will taste great.

That is all if your budget is tight, with a bit of prep you can stretch €50 a week very far.

if you want to be a bit more free with the budget then you can bulk buy turkey breasts and chicken breasts quite cheap and minced beef.
fry it up add spiced and herbs some vinegar and oil for flavour and its grand.

as far as individual meals go simply cook up a big meal of veggies and meat each evening and eat half, take the other half for the next days lunch.

Its cheaper to buy and cook in bulk.

Iano_128

thegreatiam wrote: »

Youre in a catch 22. (actually 23,24 and 25)
You want to gain, but on a budget, but you don't want to cook?
Pick 2.


If youre on a budget, you need to know how to cook, youll need to buy cheap cuts of meat, and spend time cooking them, spend time shopping for bargains (as suggested lidl and aldi is your first stop)

gaining means eating loads, and eating loads ain't cheap.

the protein is the most important thing, so if you're on a budget then do the leg work and find cheap sources of eggs and chicken. and beef mince.

If I were you I would buy whole chickens in bulk (7/8 at a time if you get a good deal) as it will be cheaper than buying cuts, cook them all in one day, and freeze the meat.
then choke down as much meat and eggs as you can in any given day.

hit up lidl and aldi once or twice a week, and supervalue for the veg deals, when things like banana, beetroot, carrots, parsnips baby potato are on deal buy a load, slice them up and freeze them.

Buy frozen spinach, berries and tinned fruit and veg, all of this will save you money.

get cheap cuts of beef like shin and oxtail and cook it very slowly in a slow cooker or heavy pan on the hob on a low heat, plenty of herbs and root veg and it will taste great.

That is all if your budget is tight, with a bit of prep you can stretch €50 a week very far.

if you want to be a bit more free with the budget then you can bulk buy turkey breasts and chicken breasts quite cheap and minced beef.
fry it up add spiced and herbs some vinegar and oil for flavour and its grand.

as far as individual meals go simply cook up a big meal of veggies and meat each evening and eat half, take the other half for the next days lunch.

Its cheaper to buy and cook in bulk.

It's not that I don't want to cook, it's just the fact I'm out the door at 7:30 in the morning and not back home until at least that that night, so I don't want to spend every bit of spare time I do get cooking, as my last post said I went to Musgraves yesterday and got a load of meat/chicken/veg/pasta and rice. I also bought coconut oil as I've been told it's great to eat a spoonful of it a day (as disgusting as it may be :rolleyes: ) I'm going to go down the route of coming home and cooking for either dinner and lunch, or 2 days dinner and 2 days lunch which means I won't have to cook every single day.

thegreatiam

Iano_128 wrote: »

It's not that I don't want to cook, it's just the fact I'm out the door at 7:30 in the morning and not back home until at least that that night, so I don't want to spend every bit of spare time I do get cooking, as my last post said I went to Musgraves yesterday and got a load of meat/chicken/veg/pasta and rice. I also bought coconut oil as I've been told it's great to eat a spoonful of it a day (as disgusting as it may be :rolleyes: ) I'm going to go down the route of coming home and cooking for either dinner and lunch, or 2 days dinner and 2 days lunch which means I won't have to cook every single day.

when I started eating right I had a 2 hour commute each way, left the house at 6 am to get to the gym, came home at around 7pm in the gm again til 9 ish.
I cooked on sundays. I spent the afternoon chopping veg for stirfrys for the next 6 days, I boiled 18 eggs or made a large egg bake for the week.
I chopped up chicken breast, froze fruit and veg.
,made a huge bowl of tuna mayo enough for 5 days.


each evening i made the lunch for the next day at work. (tuna mayo with boiled eggs spinach and rocket).
When I left for work I grabbed a few eggs, ate the tuna at my desk, when I came home I threw a hand full of chicken peices into a hot wok and a hand full of veg, 5 minutes later I had a tasty stir fry.

Just because you dont have much time doenst mean you cant cook, you just need to plan it better.

and you dont need to eat a spoon full of anything disgusting just because someone told you its good for you, just cook with it.