Beginner Mesomorph Muscle Building Nutrition

The "Goldilocks" Body-type - You're generally athletic with a mid-sized frame.

You can build muscle fairly easily and can remain lean without too much extra effort.

Usually, you're focused on optimizing your performance or appearance.

​(Note - If this DOESN'T sound like/represent you, you may need to go back and take a look at the questions again to get more appropriate recommendations for your true body-type)

You've indicated that your experience level is on the lower end, so keeping it simple is the best idea.  You don't need to worry so much about calorie counting and tracking exact grams of intake for protein, carbs, fat, etc and should focus mostly on improving overall healthy eating habits.

As a Mesomorph, you are fortunate to have a body that will (generally) respond quickly to exercise and nutrition adjustments, so simply ensuring you are eating enough to keep yourself from getting too hungry and eating a good balance between protein and carbs while resistance training should yield good results.

Since as a beginner the goal is to keep it simple, instead of trying to track the amount of calories you burn and the total calories you eat - the best way to measure a deficit is by hunger.  You should try to avoid feeling "very hungry", and should try to eat a meal when you start to feel about a 3-4 ("kind of hungry" to "ready to eat") on a scale of 5 (1 being "full" and a 5 being "holy s*** I'm ready to kill a buffet").

The Key factors you need to focus on are:​

• Try to follow a consistent eating schedule, whatever it may be (once every two hours, or only 2-3 meals a day) so long as you are as consistent as possible with the meal times.
  • Since your goal is to gain lean muscle mass - while we like to offer you the freedom to eat when/how it works best for you, it may be too difficult to eat enough total calories to gain weight with only 2-3 meals a day.  For that reason, it will probably work best to eat a minimum of 4 meals each day, and even up to 6 depending on your activity level and metabolism in order to eat enough to add muscle.

• As explained earlier - try to minimize how often you allow yourself to pass a 4 on a hunger scale of   1-5

• Try to follow the meal guidelines below as much as possible.  The goal here is progress, not perfection - so only make changes to your diet to meet these guidelines that you feel confident you can stick with and follow consistently, and progress from there.​

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• Try to include as much food as possible from the "superfoods" listed below.

• Eat until you feel around 90% full, if after a few weeks of following these recommendations you are not seeing any weight gain eat until you feel completely full and increase your overall daily caloric intake (increase the portion sizes slightly in each area or with just the protein and carbs).
  • If you increase your food portions and notice you are putting on weight, but not necessarily muscle mass then decrease the carb portion and increase your protein intake.

• Obviously, to build muscle you need to be following an exercise plan in addition to getting proper nutrition.

For Men, at each meal try to eat/include:

• 2 Palms (measure with the size of the palms of your hand) of a Protein food
• 2 Fists of vegetables
• 2 cupped handfuls of a carb source
  • less is more when trying to drop weight
• 2 thumbs of a fat source

For Women, at each meal try to eat/include:

• 1 Palm of a protein food
• 1 Fist of vegetables
• 1 cupped handfuls of a carb source
  • Again, Less is more when trying to drop weight
• 1 thumb of a fat source

If you are following an exercise/workout routine -  eat a meal 1-2 hours pre and post workout.

Superfoods:

Proteins:

• Lean Red Meat (Beef, Venison, Bison, Preferably Grass-Fed)
• Chicken (Ideally Free-Range and/or Grass-Fed)
• Salmon (Preferably Wild-Caught).
• Eggs (Ideally Omega-3 and/or Cage-Free)
• Plain Greek Yogurt
• Cottage Cheese
• Coconut Milk Yogurt
• Protein Supplements

Carbs:

• Mixed Beans
• Quinoa
• Whole Oats
• Sweet Potatoes
• Rice (depending on how/what you cook with it.  Preferably organic and/or brown rice.)

Drinks:

• Green Tea (or any Tea not sweetened artificially or with sugar)
• Sports Drinks (Such as a Pre/Post-Workout)
• Purified/Mineralized Water

Fruits/Vegetables:

• Spinach
• Tomatoes
• Broccoli
• Cabbage
• Cauliflower
• Kale
• Generally Any Coniferous Vegetables
• Carrots
• Mushrooms
• Mixed Berries
• Oranges
• Pineapple
• Grapefruit

Fats:

• Raw, Unsalted Mixed Nuts
• Avocados
• Extra Virgin Olive Oil
• Fish Oil
• Coconut Oil
• Flax Seeds
• Grapeseed Oil (Non-GMO, preferably Organic)

Herbs & Stuff:

• Garlic
• Ginger
• Turmeric
• Cumin
• Cinnamon

This list is by no means all-inclusive, but should give you an idea where to start and should serve as a guide for some of the best foods to include in your diet.

If you are following these guidelines and are doing well with watching what you eat and want to boost your progress, you may want to try one (or both) of these:

Muscle Building Training Info

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