My Diet & Supplements

When talking about the gym to friends, family or members of the gym, usually the main topic of conversation is what goes on inside the gym, i.e what exercises I perform for my chest, or abs. However I don't think people understand how important what they do outside the gym is also, like watching what they eat, to aid gym results or their health in general. To build a fitness modelling/bodybuilding competition winning physique, eating whatever you like (cheat meals here, there and everywhere) such counterintuitive actions wont get you very far. Discipline is most certainly something I've had to learn when it comes to food!

My weekly food shopping:

Sweet potato
Quaker Oats
Pure & Natural Honey

Wholemeal seeded bread
Bananas
Apples
Brown rice
Wild rice
Spinach

Brown Pasta

Broccoli
Carrots
Organic peanut butter
Mackerel

Chicken 

Turkey
Eggs
Salmon

My daily nutritional plan:

8am. Meal 1. Breakfast - Oats with 1 diced banana & 2 table spoons of honey & flax seed oil. Gold Standard Whey Protein shake.

10am. Meal 1 part 2. Breakfast - 6 Scrambled eggs

12.30pm. Meal 2. 2x Chicken breast fillets & Wild rice

3.30pm. Meal 3. 2x Chicken breast fillets & Sweet potato. Flax seed oil. Gold Standard Whey Protein shake.

6.30pm. Meal 4. (Pre workout meal) Salmon & Sweet potato & broccoli

7.30pm. (Beginning of workout) 2x Kre Alkalyn creatine pills

9pm. (15 minutes after workout) Gold Standard Whey Protein Shake + 50g of Dextrose. 2x Kre Alkalyn creatine pills

9.45pm. Meal 5. (Post workout meal) 2x Turkey breast fillets & Wild rice

11pm. Gold Standard Casein shake

Side notes - I'm continuously drinking water throughout the day, making sure I stay hydrated. Also I'm not the type of bodybuilder who counts every single calorie that enters their mouth. I go by average & approximates at the moment and let the scales and mirror tell me what's going on. I'm aware I'll have to start being a little more specific when competing, but for now slightly more laid back.

                                           Supplements

Gold standard 100% Whey. 1 scoop = 24g of protein. 3g carbohydrates.
5.5g of BCAA's (Branched chain amino acids) 4g of Glutamine.
w/  250ml water. 120 calories. 73 servings

I take whey protein shakes to help me reach my target of protein by the end of the day. From doing research, I've read the optimum amount for those engaged in strength training should be about 1.7 - 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight.

Gold Standard 100% Casein. 1 scoop = 24g of protein. 3g of carbohydrates.
 10g of essential amino acids. 1.5g of sugar.  w/ 250ml water 120 calories. 55 servings.

Casein proteins are slow digesting proteins which can take twice as long to be broken down by the body as normal protein. This is the reason I take it before bed, as whilst asleep I won't be eating for approx 8 hours.

Dextrose is a sugar like powder which I take 50g of added to my post workout Gold standard Whey shake. It has a high glycemic index rating (G.I) which means it enters the bloodstream very quickly, this stimulates an almost instantaneous insulin response. Insulin is a natural hormone with anabolic properties which assists the muscles to absorb nutrients like creatine, which is a plus after an intense weight training session!

Creatine can help the body hold water which makes the muscles temporarily stronger. This helps with those extra reps. It also re-synthesizes Adenosine Triphosphate (ATP) the primary energy source used in the initial 10 seconds of exercise.

Flax seed oil is a rich source of omega-3 fatty acids which enhance fat burning, glycogen synthesis, prevent fat storage, and strengthen the cardiovascular system.

Your initial thoughts must be "How does he afford all of that?", "How can he eat so much" or "He can't possibly stick to such a strict diet plan and eat at those exact times everyday".
Pretty much all of my student grant goes towards whatever food/supplements I deem necessary to excel in gym performance. Without it, I doubt any progress I've made would have been possible.
The meals I eat aren't as big as they would be if I only had breakfast, lunch & dinner. They're relatively smaller, which is why they're more frequent.

You're right, as I'm at Uni with lectures here there and everywhere and doing stupidly long shifts in the library etc. This can be quite the inconvenience. As my meals are small, I have no problem doubling up. For example, when I'm eating meal 2 at 12.30pm, If I know I won't be able to eat meal 3 at 3.30pm I'd either put it together with meal 2. Or put meal 3 in tupperware and carry it with me. (Usually only when travelling, I'm not sure how well it would go down with my physiology lecturer during class if I said "Meal 3 time, sorry bro")

Oh another thing you must be thinking is "How boring, I didn't see chips, burgers, pizza, chocolate, sweets, fizzy drinks, cakes, or biscuits". You didn't see any of those things because I don't eat or drink them :0) Staying away from them became easier over time, I only really had a thing for biscuits anyway...and occasionally I might have had a chicken supreme pizza, bbq base with extra mozzarella, only occasionally.

I've read that it's ok for a bodybuilder to have a cheat meal approximately once every 2 weeks. However I still keep them less frequent than that, mainly because I don't crave those kinds of foods very often at all, and when I do it's not long enough for me to go out of my way to buy/order it. My boys who I live with at Uni are really encouraging always making pancakes, eating pizza and burgers in my face. I figured I'd have to make some form of cheat meal that I could have to snack on to see me through to my next meal of the day. My solution was peanut butter sandwich (organic peanut butter on wholemeal seeded bread), or 2 apples cut into pieces with honey on them. Hardly "Cheat" meals, but I'm not going to complain as this only works to my advantage of staying cleaner for longer!

The diet plan above is a maintenance diet plan. The off season/mass diet plan would have increased carbohydrates (Wild rice, brown pasta, brown rice, sweet potato), and a change in supplements would be in order as I'd require protein shakes which provide a whole lot more calories than the ones I take when in cutting phase. In my last mass phase between August 2011 - February 2012 I used USN's Hyperbolic Mass and went through approx 30 kilos in total, each tub was 2kg and cost me £31.99 with a gold card from GNC...you do the math. Even though Hyperbolic mass helped me gain nearly 13kilos (2 stones) when next going into my mass phase which will be approximately September 15th this year, I'll be trying a new mass gaining supplement. Unsure of which one exactly but will keep you posted!

USN Hyperbolic Mass. ( *In mass phase only* 2x Half Portions a day)
3 scoops = 25g of protein. 110g carbohydrates.
w/ 400ml water 557 calories*. w/ 400ml full fat milk 805 calories*

Hydroxycut is a thermogenic product I've used in the past when in my in season/cutting phase. What it's supposed to do is help you get ripped by providing extreme energy (via caffeine) to enable intensity to be kept at its peak. It gave me more energy whilst working out but I didn't see much weight change on the scales nor did I see any difference in the mirror so during my next cutting phase approx March 2013. I'll be moving onto "Grenade fat burner". I'll be sure to let you know how that goes!