Help with my diet

kevinmitch14

Hi guys ,

I've recently got into health and fitness and i'm trying to gain muscle.
This is my diet.What do ye think , im at a caloric deficit so can i gain muscle?


Breakfast:
Porridge
2 Scrambled Eggs

Pre-Workout:
Yogurt
Strawberries
Apple

Post-Workout:
Whey Protein
Banana

Dinner:
Chicken Breast
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Frozen Veg

Snacks:
Rice Cakes
Grapefruit
Sweet Potato


Plz comment any mistakes or anywhere i can improve

ninjabox

Does the yoghurt have sugar? The best option is natural greek style yoghurt (not low fat). Also is the whey protein a good brand like gold standard? If the whey protein is some cheap stuff with aspartame etc your better off without it. Also I wouldn't bother with the rice cakes as they're not a nutrient-dense food. It doesn't look like you're getting enough fat in your diet, you might be interested in this article about fat: Definitive Guide to Fats.. Finally your varying this diet and not eating it every day?

kevinmitch14

I usually wouldn't eat the rice cakes unless i want a small snack. I'm getting about 30-35 grams of fat at the moment , any tips to incorporate fat into my diet? Nuts etc... Just wondering as well can you gain muscle at a caloric deficit??

ninjabox

I can't say for definite because there's so much disagreement about it. I don't count calories and follow a paleo diet, but I do try to avoid eating excessive amounts. I've found that I've lowered my %body fat while doing this (along with weight training of course), although I'm a girl so its a lot harder. Maybe you could pair your training with intermittent fasting and HIIT training.

kevinmitch14

Okay, thanks for your help

InTheTrees

I've been using a food log:

www.myfitnesspal.com

and its been a revelation for me. I was consistently under estimating and not getting anywhere. Basically you're not going to gain anything if you're running a deficit. What about Lunch? I didnt see you list anything for lunch, you should really have a substantial meal then too. And rice cakes have nothing to them at all.

Working out (properly) uses a whole lot more calories so you have to take those into account too.

A six foot guy around 10-11 stone and working out hard for a hour every day may need around 3500 calories daily to gain a little? (I'm no expert, just guessing).

colman1212

Its always hard to see when someone just writes out a diet.
You need to get out calorieking.com or one of those and work out how many calories you are eating and how that breaks down into carbs, fats and protein.
Once you have that done you can see exactly where you are lacking.
Aim for around 30% protein, 30%fat, 40% carbs. (different people respond to fats and carbs differently)
Then if you are trying to add muscle, up your diet by 200 calories each week until you start to put on weight.
A lot of people get bodyfat meaurements done, this basically tells you if your lean body mass is going up or down and is very useful.

oeb

kevinmitch14 wrote: »

Hi guys ,

I've recently got into health and fitness and i'm trying to gain muscle.
This is my diet.What do ye think , im at a caloric deficit so can i gain muscle?


Breakfast:
Porridge
2 Scrambled Eggs

Pre-Workout:
Yogurt
Strawberries
Apple

Post-Workout:
Whey Protein
Banana

Dinner:
Chicken Breast
Mushrooms
Broccoli
Frozen Veg

Snacks:
Rice Cakes
Grapefruit
Sweet Potato


Plz comment any mistakes or anywhere i can improve

Now, you don't have amounts here, so I am going to assume 1 chicken breast for dinner, and 1 scoop of protein shake (assuming ~30-40g protein per shake). You also have not told us other important things, like weather you are male or female, or what weight you currently are, and how much of it is fat, so anything we really recommenced might well be useless. Depending on your size, you might be eating way too much, or way too little.

First two things that pop out at me, compared to my diet anyway (male, 6'5" and about 180lbs of lean body mass, I'm on a deficit and I have temporally reduced the hell out of my carbs. My macros currently look like this: ~180g pro, 200g fat 30g carb), is no where near enough protein, and not enough healthy fats either.

You can gain muscle at a caloric deficit, it's just much slower, I would focus on cutting down fat and quickly building muscle as separate goals.

Good sources of healthy fats are red meat (most days I'll eat lamb or beef instead of chicken, unless I'm far behind in my protein for the day (And normally, I find it much harder to hit my fat macros than anything else)), nuts (Walnuts, Brazil nuts, Cashews), oils (Olive, Canola, Coconut), dairy (milk, cheese, sour cream, eggs (yoke) and some fruits (mostly avocado and olive).