omaragha wrote:...I just sometimes cant be bothered to cook is all.
Do what I do: Cook just a couple of times per week. Load up the grill with hamburgers, chicken breast, fish, etc. Just go on a cooking frenzy for like one hour. Hamburgers cook in 5-6 minutes; fish and chicken a little longer, but 10 minutes tops. On my big George Foreman, I can whip up a week's worth of protein in around one hour; on my outdoor grille, even more.
Next, spend an hour shopping. Pick up your high-protein & high-fat convenience foods as well as your carb sources: pork rinds, dry-roasted edamame, nuts, hard cheeses, frozen or fresh berries, lots of tuna, sliced pre-cooked ham, cream cheese, veggies, etc.
Now, take one more hour and pre-package this stuff into meals for the week. I cut my chicken breast into 100g servings and wrap them in Glad sandwich bags. Same with my burgers, though I usually put a slice of cheese in with them because if I'm eating a hamburger, I need the fat anyway. I wrap up my walnuts and edamame in 30g servings in those Glad bags, too.
That's it. 3 hours a week, and you have a whole week's worth of protein ready-to-eat. Chuck in some broccoli with your lunches, as broccoli self-steams in the microwave, and keep salad fixings ready so you can just chop them up and toss them in a big 1-gallon bag to take to work/school/whatever.
The only prep work I have to do on a daily basis is to chop up my salad fixings (they bruise and taste gross after a couple of days if sliced too far in advance) and if I'm eating my tuna with mayo or cream cheese, I have to mix that. It's not "cooking" by any means, but preparing my meals for the day is perhaps a 10 or 15-minute daily discipline.
You certainly don't have to cook every day to eat like a body builder. Cooking once a week and living on leftovers is how I live my life! Of course, the problem I have is that my kids will often grab my protein sources during the week if they are ready-cooked and convenient -- I don't object, I love for them to make healthy choices! -- so I really have to over-cook to have a hope of not cooking again mid-week.
On another note I have started using Fitday...
Great step. Fitday.com or thedailyplate.com tracking are a superb daily diligence that will serve you well. When you screw up your diet, if you track religiously, you'll know EXACTLY why something didn't work. I really messed up this week because we had too many sweets around the house (excuse alert! excuse alert!), and those Snickers bars are TRACKED, baby, yeah!
In order to gain lean mass and lose fat what should be my calorie intake a day ?
If you are low-carbing, ignore calories to start. Focus on eating enough fats to stay satiated, enough protein to meet your daily targets, and keep your carb count down to 30g/day or less until you're fat-adapted (usually a two-week process). If you are currently over-fat, eating low-carb will usually cause you to lose fat without any caloric restriction whatsoever. If you're obese, go ahead and put yourself on a five thousand calorie a day diet if you like, and you'll still drop substantial body fat -- NOT water weight! -- for the first couple of months as long as you keep your carbohydrate intake below 20g/day.
If you are not low-carbing but eating "traditional bodybuilder style" or GLAD-style, you still want to keep your insulin response down so that your body doesn't prioritize fat accumulation. I'd focus on eating low-glycemic carbohydrates and trying my best to eat my meals on-time, tracking everything. After a month of eating healthy, I'll have a good idea how many calories I'm eating per day, and can evaluate my progress to determine if I need to raise, lower, or maintain my caloric intake.
Remember MEMAR: Measure, Experiment, Measure, Adjust, Repeat! It's your body; it's your science project.
Regards,
Matt B.
