Tailoring your diet

Last week’s article looked at how best to begin meal planning and what ways make it easier for your own regime. This week we shall begin to look at how to tailor that preparation for your own regime and requirements.

We’ll also begin to include any supplements you may need dependant on your training schedule and how they can affect your progress in a positive way.

Let’s begin at how to meal prep for a person who is looking to bulk heavily over the next few months. These people will be training heavily and will be required to pack on the size with regular meals and feeding of the body.

These trainers will probably eat between 4-6 meals a day with a very high protein value and large amounts of carbohydrates in order to fuel their heavier training regime.

Meal 1 (morning)

• Porridge oats, protein powder, flaxseed oil and banana in a protein shaker with milk.

Meal 2 (mid morning snack)

• Boiled egg x2, bread x2 for toast, Apple and protein bar.

Meal 3 (dinner)

• Chicken curry, wholemeal rice, peanuts or protein powder shake with porridge oats and flaxseed oil in milk.

Meal 4 (afternoon snack)

• Dried fruit, beef jerky, boiled egg, protein bar.

Meal 5 (evening meal post training)

• Tuna steak, mixed salad with nuts, white rice and spinach.

Meal 6 (pre bed snack)

• Salmon, sweet potato, and green vegetables
• Casein protein shake with water.

Following the above types of meals and varied and nutritious foods you can see that the meal planning is focused on getting plenty of carbohydrates and a high amount of protein in the system throughout the day. This is essential to a trainer who is bulking heavily and needs the fuelling constantly through the day to keep their energy up for their own training regime whenever that may be.

You can alter this type of planning however you wish using the tools we discussed last week and it can be tapered to the individual and their training style. We’ll change it up here so you get an idea.

Let’s take a look at how a long distance runner would maybe plan their daily meals. These types of trainer have a high focus on increased carbohydrate and healthy fat energy deposits for their prolonged training and a high protein intake after their training has ended to be able to recover from it.

Meal 1 (morning)

• Boiled egg and toast x2, protein bar.

Meal 2 (dinner)

• Turkey sandwich with avocado filling, banana, protein shake.

Meal 3 (evening after training)

• Chicken breast x2 with wholemeal pasta, steamed vegetables, sweet potatoes and protein bar.

Meal 4 (pre bed)

• All in one protein shake, cottage cheese and beef jerky.

Meal 5

• Salmon, rice, avocado or nuts
• Casein before bed

Following this particular diet and meal plan we can see the need for refuelling after training heavily to restock the bodies energy levels. We can also see the lighter meals overall as runners need to maintain a slimmer physique. There is also a focus on a high protein intake throughout the day to build those muscles up with vital food.

Hopefully the above plans have shown you what you can achieve given your own training regimes and has also shown how you can incorporate supplements into your daily meals. This is just an example and you should always try to tailor your own meals to your specific training needs to get the best out of your weekly and monthly efforts. Vary the foods and always keep the high protein values mixed with a good amount of fibre high foods to keep your immune system and bodily functions at the best they can be.