I struggle to put on weight
In the past, I’ve never paid much attention to how healthy the food that I consume is. I’ve never felt the need to, given that my metabolism means I could eat three fry-ups a day and still not gain any fat. I didn’t though, obviously. I ate just enough, but if I was going to take this transformation seriously and give myself the best possible chance to bulk up, that had to change.
My personal trainer at Ultimate Performance, Matt, talked me through my diet plan before I started training, and my initial reaction was one of shock. Shock at the sheer quantity of food I would have to eat. Shock at the mundanity of the meals I would be eating. But over time I’ve learned to wolf down as many calories as possible in a day, and adjusted to consuming the protein shakes.
I’ll now talk you through a day in the life of living by my current diet, which varies depending on my working hours, but for simplicity’s sake let’s say I start work at 9am.
7:00am: Get up, reluctantly, after five alarms. Shower, etc. You know how to get ready in the morning.
7:20am: Put four eggs and five egg whites in a bowl, whisk, and scramble in the microwave. Ideally, it’d be an omelette, but the microwave is a significantly more time efficient way of making a big, protein heavy breakfast with limited time. My mountain of eggs is accompanied by a black coffee and a serving my Chocotrients shake, which provides a huge chunk of my daily nutrients. It’s not exactly delicious, but again, it’s a very efficient way of getting all the essential nutrients in.
I do have the option to eat a bowl of 5% beef mince instead, but due to the cost and the utter weirdness of eating red meat first thing in the morning, this usually only happens once per week. I season the beef with salt, pepper, mixed herbs and some tomato ketchup. Sophisticated, I know, but you try eating plain beef at 7am.
8:00am: Head to work, try not to fall asleep.
12:30pm: Eat lunch one of two. This usually comprises a chicken breast cooked the night before, accompanied by basmati rice and some green vegetables. I tend to opt for cajun seasoning on the chicken, although it differs from week to week. Variety is the spice of life.
3:30pm: Eat lunch two of two. Literally exactly the same.
6:00pm: Head to the gym to work out with a shaker of creatine and amino acids to drink during my session. Creatine helps muscles to retain water and temporarily boosts strength. It does this by working on your body’s ATP energy system.
7:00pm: After a session, I have my post-workout protein shake, consisting of two scoops of chocolate flavoured whey and a spoonful of almond butter. This gives me the necessary protein to aid recovery and an extra dose of fat.
8:00pm: My dinner is largely similar to my lunches – I eat a lot of white meat and green vegetables, but this is normally accompanied by mashed sweet potato. Thanks to the many wonderful suggestions from readers of this blog, I have found ways to jazz up the sweet potato. Paprika works a charm.
The I wind down, watch whatever football is on that night and head to bed. I know, I truly live the life of a rockstar.
