Bodybuilding Forums

Hey Everyone!

Alright, so I was curious about what you all do for a living?

Personally, I find it hard to get up to 6 'meals' a day. I can snack on ready-made stuff (nuts, yogurt, etc) but actually making mini meals it very time consuming and getting my butt in the kitchen to make them daily is a pain (by the time I get home after work, I have 3 hours before sleeping to workout, unwind, spend time with family, cook, eat and prepare for the next day!) Normally, I have a bunch of errands to run as well after work, so my workout feels rushed too.

So, how do you all find time for preparing the meals and a not-rushed workout? Are most of you in 9-5s, or entrepreneurs where you can set your own schedule? My company is the personification of a blood-sucking leech sent from a distant orange-planet to ensure our lifestyle is as bland as possible and to make our (employees') lives miserable!! Hence, in my search for a new job I decided to inquire what you all do!

Bye for now!

I'm finding it a damn sight harder to eat properly since I started my new job a week and a half ago. I'm a software project manager. Previously I was doing my own thing and from home, so it was easy. Now I'm out the house at 8 and back home 11-12hrs later. My plan to get back on track is to get up earlier to have time to cook eggs for breakfast, to cook plenty in advance to save time in the evenings and give me "snack" meals for through the day, and I will probably have to invest in protein shakes which I didn't before. A hassle, but it will be worth it to keep me achieving my goals. Good luck!

Easy snacks: tuna pasta, tuna sandwiches, chicken strips and beef mince in various forms. Some fruit might be a good idea to get some fibre and vitamins in there too, though watch the carbs if you are doing the MANS diet.

richard-a wrote: My plan to get back on track is to get up earlier to have time to cook eggs for breakfast, to cook plenty in advance to save time in the evenings

My slow-cooker gives me 5 days of breakfast for very little effort. Dump in a 5 serving bag of frozen veggies in the pre-sprayed crock pot, add 3 cups of egg white (or about 12 extra large eggs) and cook overnight on low. You can add pre-cooked bacon or sausage if you like, but I actually just serve up 1/5 of the pot by topping with deli-sliced turkey and cheese and nuking it and serving it on low-carb tortillas. Of course, you'll probably want to omit the tortillas if you're doing MANS though.

Hope it helps somebody!

marochka_raduga wrote:

richard-a wrote: My plan to get back on track is to get up earlier to have time to cook eggs for breakfast, to cook plenty in advance to save time in the evenings

My slow-cooker gives me 5 days of breakfast for very little effort. Dump in a 5 serving bag of frozen veggies in the pre-sprayed crock pot, add 3 cups of egg white (or about 12 extra large eggs) and cook overnight on low. You can add pre-cooked bacon or sausage if you like, but I actually just serve up 1/5 of the pot by topping with deli-sliced turkey and cheese and nuking it and serving it on low-carb tortillas. Of course, you'll probably want to omit the tortillas if you're doing MANS though.

Hope it helps somebody!

That's quite a cool idea, I like it. My GF cooks something similar as a snack, they come out like little veggie patties. Getting protein at breakfast is definitely the weak link in the chain for me, if I get up even 10 mins late then cooking eggs is right out and I'll only have time for my oats, being prepared is the key. Easier said than done though, this week has been a disaster for my workouts, nutrition AND sleep. I'm riding it out in the hope that next week is better!

I was thinking through other easy protein snacks and came up with hard boiled eggs and ham sandwiches (on wholemeal, or just the ham, if you are an ultra-no-carber I guess) - both easy to prepare in advance and in multiple servings.

Make a big tub of hard-boiled eggs, and eat them at breakfast and through the day. Cheese and pepperoni is also one of my favorite quick meals, although pepperoni isn't the best thing for you in regards to health (although it's still technically permissible on MANS). Lately I've been buying giant hams, cooking them up, and then slicing bits off when I need some fast food. Heavy whipping cream + protein powder is also a quick fix as well.

I don't know why I didn't think of it before, as it's startlingly obvious, but I cooked scrambled eggs the night before, put them in a tupperware container and had my breakfast all ready for me in the morning. That has to be the easiest solution of all. At the same time as cooking the eggs I made an extra portion of food for the afternoon. The whole process takes 15 mins max.

Hi all,

After looking around in SO many forums for SO long, finally I saw someone posted a question which me myself would like to know too; how did you guys manage to hit the gym regularly, have 6 meals a day while working?

Anyway this is what I do. Due to my work, my first 4 meals are normally easily prepared. My breakfast consists of instant oatmeal in protein shake. I will then roast sweet potatoes and boil some eggs while spending the cooking time to wash up and change up. After which I will pack cans of tuna and slices of whole grain bread into my bag. As you can see, the next three meals of mine are really quick and easy. Not very delicious but definitely time-saving. When I reached home from work, I will then take my time to cook my dinner and prepare my night snack.

Each night I will also spend 1 hour to plan my next day so that I know what I am going to do and going to eat. Just an hour a day is really very effective and may save up more time during the next day!

I'm a manager for a big logistics company and work 2 shifts.
The early shift sees me up at 4:30 for a protein shake with oats, creatine, efa's and a multi.
4 hours later, its nuked scrambled eggs and a pitta bread.
4 hours later it's a big ham, cheese, tomato & mayo sandwich, with fruit.
5 hours later, it's family dinner time 9anything at all)
4 hours, and it's a homemade protein shake and the rest of my supps.

All I have to prepare is a sandwich at night (or throw 2 or 3 cans of tuna & some microwavable rice into the bag)


On the other shift I eat much better !

It's funny re-reading my post from October as I've been doing this for 5 months with mixed success.

Basically as long as I nail breakfast (scrambled eggs cooked night before or a protein shake if I forget) then I stay sufficiently on track because even if I miss both daytime snacks I can still control lunch, post workout shake and dinner and hit my nutrition targets, though not as ideal as a 6 meal day. In all honesty though I've probably averaged 5 meals a day. If I plan my daytime snacks ahead by buying the right kinds of food at the weekend, then the effort required each evening is only 15 mins. And make sure you have lots of tupperware and ziplock bags handy. If I don't have the right ingredients in the kitchen at the time then forget it, it feels like a big effort at just the moment when I'm really tired and that's when the system starts to break down.

It just depends on the week though, sometimes work is insane or I'm constantly tired. On those weeks I probably get 4 meals a day but getting a good breakfast is the key so it's really worth the effort to make scrambled eggs the night before.

The easy meals for through the day: prepare 2-3 the night before.
-4 scrambled eggs
-Minced beef e.g. bolognese sauce in a tupperware
-Can of tuna and slice of bread in a ziplock bag
-Tortilla wraps with leftover of whatever I ate for dinner the night before

If anyone has any other "easy" recipes then please share them

Mark has some easy, quick low carb meals on Musclehack