Muscle 4 Hardgainers

Need to gain weight? Aspiring to build big muscles but feeling lost and confused?

If you need to gain weight but don’t know what to eat to gain weight or exactly how to go about your diet to build muscle fast, you’re going to love this article.

I know that many hardgainers (including myself) struggle to gain muscle weight primarily because we undereat or we don’t eat often enough.  As someone who’s trying to gain weight, you must ensure that you achieve calorie surplus everyday, but only from clean food – and therein lies the challenge. Many of us find it hard to plan and prepare healthy, nutritionally-balanced meals every day (hardgainers even need to eat 5 to 6 times a day – roughly every 3 hours).

Junk Food will not make you gain muscle weight, they will make you FAT

Yes, many of us fail to eat the right foods in the right frequency and quantity because we are either “too busy”, or we don’t have easy access to food that meet our bodybuilding requirements or we don’t plan ahead or we think we lack culinary skills. But there’s simply no way around this – you have to be consistent with your bodybuilding diet; you must eat clean, healthy, nutritionally balanced meals; you must learn how to plan your meals in advance and prepare them yourself; you must have something to eat wherever you go to avoid missing your quota of 5-6 meals a day.

You must absolutely avoid to go hungry because this often leads to muscles loss – so don’t let your hard work at the gym go to waste!

For tips on HOW to eat to gain weight, check out my other post, Need to Gain Weight? How to Eat to Gain Weight.

Now I know many of you guys are like me: culinary challenged (is that even a phrase?). So I’ve put together a mini collection of recipes that are easy, healthy, dead-simple and fast:

Lamb Surprise

Lamb served with courgette (zucchini), pink grapefruit and feta.

Ingredients:

• 200g lamb loin, cut into strips
• 10 x small slices of courgette
• 6 x slices of pink grapefruit
• handful of rocket
• 1 tbsp feta Cheese
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Add olive oil to a frying pan and cook the lamb to your preference.

Add the courgette and cook until slightly browned. Remove from heat and put in a bowl. Add the grapefruit and rocket salad in the bowl, then mix together.

Serve on a plate with crumbled feta as a topping. Done!

Vegetable Couscous

Ingredients

• 500 g couscous
• 2 x courgette, cleaned and diced
• 1 x red onion, diced
• handful of raisins
• 2 x pepper, diced
• sun dried tomatoes
• balsamic vinegar
• 1 tbsp tomato sauce
• basil, thyme and oregano, to taste
• 1 tbsp olive oil

Cook couscous following the instructions on the packet. When fully cooked and ready, empty couscous into a mixing bowl.

Stir the vegetables and sun dried tomatoes into the bowl, mixing well. Serve on a small bowl. Done!

Chili Prawn Pasta

Chili Prawn Pasta

Ingredients:

(serves 6)

• 500g pasta of your choice (wholewheat is best)
• 250g  fresh prawns
• 1 medium onion, cut into small pieces
• chili powder
• 1 tbsp creme fraiche
• Sun dried tomatoes or fresh tomatoes or a mix of both
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• roughly chopped parsley

Cook the pasta following the instructions on the packet.

About 5 minutes before the pasta gets cooked, heat an oiled saucepan and add the onion – cook it for about a minute. Next add the prawns and cook for about 30 seconds per side. Do NOT overcook the prawns. It’s done the moment it doesn’t appear translucent anymore.

Add the tomatoes and chili powder to taste. Take off the heat. Season with salt and pepper.

The pasta should be ready by now. Test it first and if done then drain the pasta and add it to the saucepan where the rest of the ingredients are. Stir in the creme fraiche and sprinkle with chopped parsley.

Done!

(It’s perfect served with a fresh vegetable salad. Store the left overs in the fridge. You might want to store the food in resealable freezer packets, so that each packet is good for one serving size.)

Cajun Chicken with Salsa and Sweet Potato

Ingredients

• 1 chicken breast
• 1/2 pepper, finely chopped
• 1/2 juice of lime
• 1 spring onion, finely chopped
• 1 pineapple ring, finely chopped
• 1 tbsp olive oil
• 1/4 hot chili, finely chopped
• 1 sweet potato, peeled and cut into small chunks
• Cajun spice

Put the chicken breast into boiling water and let simmer for 15 minutes.

While waiting for the chicken, boil the sweet  potato in another pan. Cook until soft and then mash.

While waiting for the chicken and sweet potato to cook, make the salsa by getting a bowl and mixing in the pepper, lime juice, olive oil, pineapple and chili. Set aside.

When the chicken is done, take chicken out of the water and add cajun spice to taste.

Serve chicken on top of the mash, then spoon over some salsa on top of the chicken. Done!

Recommended

Empowered Nutrition Plan

If you want convenient, fast, easy meals that are great for bodybuilders without having to research, calculate and plan, here are done-for-you meal plans. All you need is follow instructions.

Vince DelMonte’s Empowered Nutrition Done-For-You Meal Plans will show you EXACTLY what to eat, how much to eat, when to eat it, how to cook it and exactly what to shop for.

You can easily tailor the meal combinations and portion sizes to suit your bodybuilding needs, whether you’re on the bulking phase or cutting (getting ripped) phase. These meal plans are for men and women who want to make their own healthy meals – without the hassles of meal planning.

If you find meal planning confusing, challenging and time-consuming, this ready made meal plans is the answer. I highly recommended you check it out now.