Advice on nutrition plan for a female lifter - cheat days?

cschick2317

Hi! I'm new to fitness pal and am excited to see such an active community. I'm probably a bit different than most of you as I'm actually looking to gain weight (muscle weight), but I did see at least one post from a female who looks like she body builds so I thought I'd give posting a shot.

I'm 5'5" and I'm currently 114 or so pounds when I weigh myself mid-day(I don't have a scale at home so I have to use the one at the gym when I work out). I don't know my body fat%...but I'm definitely closer to lean than fat. My current goal is to hit a pretty lean 120 pounds (so I will most likely have to get up past 120 and cut a little). It's a small goal...but I have no idea how big I'll look at 120 so I'll re-evaluate when I get there.

Anyways, my question revolves around cheat days for a body building diet. My husband and I have adopted a pretty strict lean protein/whole grain diet while we try to bulk up (i'll give a sample of a day's meal plan later), but we throw in a cheat day on saturday where we can eat whatever we want. For any other body builders, do you have cheat days or do you find them detrimental to the process of gaining muscle?

If I eat that well all week, my thoughts are a cheat day won't hurt much (keeping in mind I'd be surprised if I hit 2500 calories on a cheat day...I have a small appetite). Thoughts? Also, feel free to critique my "average day" meal plan below.

Thanks!

Average day (shoot for 1800-2000 calories...I'm finally adding in cardio so I might need to eat a little more even).
Breakfast:
1.5-2C kashi go lean crunch cereal (high protein and fiber) with skim milk

Snack 1:
Banana
1/2 cup lowfat (1%) cottage cheese

lunch:
2 slices whole wheat bread
1 whole egg, 2 egg whites
handful of veggies

Snack 2:
optimum nutrition whey shake (1 scoop whey, 1-1.5 cups milk)

Dinner:
5-7oz lean protein (chicken breast/turkey breast/fish)
1/2-1c brown rice or potatos
1/2-1c veggies

Snack 3 (depending on calorie count for the day...lunch can be bigger):
2 slices whole wheat bread with 1.5 tbsp peanut butter and possibly a 2nd shake if I really failed on eating during the day.

introvert

You sound pretty lean to begin with and you appear to be doing it right as far as nutrition. Carbs intake looks good but it looks like you could use more protein. I would suggest going with 1 gram protein per pound of weight, meaning you should try and aim for 120 grams of protein per day.

With regards to cheat days, I usually will have something I won't normally eat. Like a steak, pizza or burger. For the burger and steak I'll skip the cheese, sauces and various other condiments to keep the fat content down.

While bulking you will definitely want to pay more attention to pre and post workout nutrition. I'd highly suggest a whey protein on both pre and postworkout as well as a scoop of casein protein just before bed. That coupled with the right amount of BCAAs should keep your body in an anabolic state which will help you build up faster.

Good luck!

WhiteStar2351

Welcome! Its great to see female body builders - you're a much missed rarity!

Your diet overall looks good - the only thing I'd consider altering is making your breakfast more substantial - replace the processed bar with something a bit more natural (Porridge with a bit of protein powder mixed in always goes down well). Also - if you have a late evening snack (Snack 3) - don't eat carbs/peanut butter - change it for cottage cheese. The casein protein will keep your muscles fed over night. I would highly doubt you'd burn off all the carbs in the bread that close to going to bed. Finally, with your post workout shake add a source of simple carbs (piece of fruit is always good) and subtract those carbs from the rice at dinner. Always remember that the carbs you take in need to be representative of your activity levels over the next 3 hours. If you plan to go for a long run on a full stomach immediately after your evening meal then the carbs are fine, but most people will veg out and relax at that time in the evening, needing minimal carb intake.

As for the actual question RE: Cheat days - what you put in is what you'll get out. Always remember that a single meal has the potential to wipe out your entire weeks progress. Try and stick to 90% clean eating - if you're eating 5 meals a day, then you can allow yourself a little leniency with 3 meals. I tend to eat clean all week apart from one evening at the weekend where I'll have something that I fancy, whether it be 1/2 pizza, a take away, a big bar of chocolate, etc. The rest of the time I keep clean.

Hope that helps!

cschick2317

Thanks for the replies! All very good suggestions:).

I figured I should be doing something more natural like oatmeal for breakfast but I looove cold cereal so I was hoping the kashi cereal would be ok...ah well, guess it's oatmeal time, haha.

The suggestion of cottage cheese as opposed to PB/bread is a good idea. I was going for something calorie dense as I do have a hard time eating enough, but if I eat some cottage cheese along with adding in some casein before bed I think that'll do just fine.

As far as the cheat day goes, "what you put in is what you'll get out" is a good thing to keep in mind. I'll try and keep it to one meal on the weekend as opposed to just eating whatever for a day. I actually enjoy breakfast/lunch on this plan so I won't mind sticking with those for the whole week.