Bodybuilders Breakfast Ideas: Easy Meals To Start Your Day

Everyone has a routine they usually follow before they go to work out. For most people it usually includes sleeping in for a few minutes and then rushing out to the gym without grabbing a bite while for others who know the importance of eating before exercising always make sure they eat first.

We know bodybuilding itself is not easy, it leaves you very exhausted but nothing good comes easily. Those biceps and abs that everyone will be drooling over when summer comes are totally worth it. Adding to the fact that bodybuilding is hard and tiresome, another thing that makes people want to quit is figuring out what they should eat before or after their morning workout. You don’t have to worry about that anymore as here are easy bodybuilders breakfast ideas designed just for you. 

How Much You Need To Eat To Bulk Up

It is important to know the calories you should be taking in as well as the different amounts of the various macronutrients. 

Calories

When you are in the process of bulking up, bodybuilding experts recommend aiming for a 10% calorie surplus (1). What this means is that you should eat 10% more than your total daily energy usage. Bulking up works the opposite of how losing weight works. When you take in more than your body needs, you create a calorie surplus and this leads to gaining muscles, gaining fat or gaining both muscles and fat. To prevent gaining mostly fat, you need to accompany your calorie surplus diet with strength training.

There are various online calculators that can help you calculate your total daily energy expenditure and this helps you to be able to know how many calories you should add to your daily calorie intake to create a 10% calorie surplus.

Proteins

Proteins are crucial for every bodybuilder’s diet. Proteins are important because they contain amino acids which are the building blocks for muscle growth (3). Proteins are important for building muscles and strength. They are also important for repairing worn out muscles and preserving existing muscles (4). After an exhausting work out, proteins help with muscle recovery (4). 

If you are trying to build muscles and strength, bodybuilding experts recommend up to 2 to 2.5 grams of proteins for every kilogram of your bodyweight per day (1).

Read More: When To Eat Protein: Answering The Most Commonly Asked Questions About Protein Consumption

Carbohydrates

Carbs are important for providing energy (4). You cannot be as effective as you need to be in the gym if you don’t provide your body with enough energy. The more active you are, the more carbs you should take in. Bodybuilding experts suggest that people who are less active should aim for 2 grams of carbohydrates for every kilogram of their bodyweight. Highly active people like athletes and bodybuilders should aim for 4 to 7 grams of carbohydrates for every kilogram of their bodyweight (1).

Fats

Fats are usually left out when people are talking about bodybuilding and this should not be the case as fats help provide energy and are very crucial for the production of testosterone (1). Testosterone is important as it helps in building muscle mass and strength in men. Bodybuilding experts also suggest that a person should aim to consume 0.5 to 2 grams of fats per every kilogram of their bodyweight (1).

Easy Bodybuilders Breakfast  Ideas

Since you now know the number of calories you should take in while in a bodybuilding meal plan as well as the quantities of the various macronutrients, here are easy breakfast ideas for a bodybuilder: 

• Banana Pancakes

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of coconut oil
• 2 eggs
• ¼ cup of ground almonds (almond flour) 
• 1 banana 
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon (optional) 
• ½ cup greek yogurt 
• 1 cup berries

Nutritional profile: Calories 680, Carbohydrates 50 grams, Protein 25 grams, Fat 45 grams

• Chicken Omelette

Ingredients

• 4 eggs 
• Salt and pepper
• 1 teaspoon of  olive oil
• 3 oz cooked and chopped chicken
• ¼ cup of shredded cheese
• 1 cup of spinach or arugula

Nutritional profile: Calories 520, Carbohydrates 3 grams, Protein 50 grams, Fat 33 grams

• Smashed Chickpea and Avocado Toast

Ingredients

• ½ cup of canned chickpeas, rinsed and drained
• ½ teaspoon of olive oil
• Salt and pepper
• 2 slices toasted whole wheat bread
• ½ avocado
• ½ cup arugula

Nutritional profile: Calories 510, Carbohydrates 65 grams, Protein 20 grams, Fat 20 grams

• Greek Yogurt With Nuts, And Berries

Ingredients

• 1 cup of nonfat greek yogurt 
• ½ cup of nuts 
• 1 tablespoon of honey 
• 1 cup berries

Nutritional profile: Calories 645 , Carbohydrates 55 grams, Protein 35 grams, Fat  35 grams

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• Eggs And Avocado Toast

Ingredients

• 3 eggs
• ½ cup of 2% milk 
• 1 teaspoon of coconut oil
• 2 slices whole grain bread
• Choice of greens or tomato slices 
• ½ sliced avocado 
• Salt and pepper

Nutritional profile: Calories 615, Carbohydrates 40 grams, Protein 35 grams, Fat 35 grams

• Coconut Coffee Buzz Smoothie

Ingredients

• ¼ cup nuts
• 4 dried dates
• 1 cup of 2%milk
• 1 teaspoon of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of instant coffee powder
• 3 tablespoons of unsweetened shredded coconut
• ¼ cups rolled oats

Nutritional profile: Calories 610, Carbohydrates 65 grams, Protein 20 grams, Fat 35 grams

• Chocolate, PB And Berry Smoothie

Ingredients

• 1 cup of Greek yogurt, plain (full-fat)
• ½  a cup of strawberries
• ¼ cup peanut butter powder
• ¼ cup peanuts 
• 1 tablespoon of raw cocoa powder
• 1 banana

Nutritional profile: Calories 660, Carbohydrates 70 grams, Protein 30 grams, Fat 35 grams

• Green Protein Smoothie

Ingredients

• 2 frozen bananas
• 1 cup spinach
• 2-4 pitted dates
• 1 scoop vanilla protein powder of choice
• 1 cup Almond or any non-dairy milk
• 1 tablespoon of hemp seeds
• 1 tablespoon of chia seeds

Nutritional profile: Calories 270, Carbohydrates: 38.5 grams, Protein 15.5 grams, Fat 3 grams

• Protein Oatmeal Pancakes

Ingredients

• 2 cups of oat flour (If you don’t have oat flour, grind up two cups of old fashioned oats in a food processor until it resembles corn meal).
• 1 scoop of protein powder of your choice.
• ½ teaspoon of baking soda
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla
• 1 tablespoon of stevia
• 1 large egg
• ½ cup  of Skim milk
• ½ cup of water

Nutritional profile: Calories 520, Carbohydrates 60.5 grams, Protein 45 grams, Fat 1.8 grams

• Cottage Cheese, Berries And Ezekiel Bread

Ingredients

• 1 cup of low fat cottage cheese
• 2 slices of Ezekiel bread
• ¼ cup of mixed berries

Nutritional profile: Calories: 370, Carbohydrates: 30g, Protein: 32 grams, Fat: 4 grams

• Bacon, Eggs, Hash Browns, Avocado, And Berry Platter

Ingredients

• 3 slices of bacon
• 3 large eggs
• 200 grams of shredded hash browns
• ½ Avocado
• ½ a cup of mixed berries

Nutritional profile: Calories 675, Carbohydrates: 50.8 grams, Protein 31 grams, Fat 40 grams

Read More: How To Eat Avocado For Weight Loss: Eating Fat To Burn Fat

• Greek Yogurt And Oatmeal Casserole

Ingredients

• 2 cups all natural oats
• ⅓ cup brown sugar (i used the splenda blend)
• 1  teaspoon of  baking powder
• 1  teaspoon of  cinnamon
• ½  teaspoon of  salt
• ½ cup dark chocolate chips
• 2 cups of mixed fruit (i used strawberries, pineapple, and peaches)
• 1½ cup of 2% milk
• 1 single serving container of plain greek yogurt
• 1 large egg
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla

Nutritional profile: Calories 235, Carbohydrates 35 grams, Protein 7 grams, Fat 9.5 grams

• Strawberry, Banana & Peanut Butter Refrigerated Oatmeal

Ingredients

• 1 cup old fashioned oats
• 1 cup skim milk
• ½ cup plain greek yogurt
• 1 banana
• 10 strawberries, sliced
• 2 tablespoons natural peanut butter
• 1 teaspoon of vanilla extract (optional)
• 1 tablespoon chia seeds
• stevia if desired for extra sweetness

Nutritional profile: Calories 385, Carbohydrate 50 grams, Protein 18 grams, Fat 13.5 grams

• Early Riser Breakfast

Ingredients

• 1 cup of liquid egg whites
• 3 whole asparagus spears
• ½ cup of brown rice
• ¼ whole red onion, diced or sliced
• 1 clove garlic, chopped
• ½ fruit (3-3/4″ dia) grapefruit, raw, pink and red, Florida
• 1 scoop dymatize iso-100

Nutritional profile:  Calories 695, Carbohydrate 100 grams, Protein 66 grams, Fat 4 grams

• Red-Eye Chocolate And Peanut Butter Protein Parfait With Blueberries And Dark Chocolate Chips

Ingredients

• 1 scoop gaspari  of Nutrition Myofusion Advanced Protein
• 1 tablespoon of instant coffee
• 1 tablespoon of unsweetened cocoa powder
• 1 cup of nonfat plain Greek yogurt
• 2 tablespoon of powdered peanut butter
• ⅓ cup of granola
• 6 berries blueberries
• 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate chips

Nutritional profile: Calories 560, Carbohydrate 56 grams, Protein 55 grams, Fat 13 grams

•  Anabolic Muscle Bowl

Ingredients

• 6 large egg whites
• ½ cup of rolled oats
• ½ medium (7″ to 7-7/8″ long) banana
• ⅛ cup of walnuts, chopped
• ¼ cup of raspberries
• 1 dash of cinnamon
• 1 tablespoon of organic honey

Nutritional profile: Calories 420, Carbohydrate 65 grams, Protein 27 grams, Fat 6 grams

• Dark Chocolate Gluten-Free Protein Waffles

Ingredients

• 1 scoop of gaspari Nutrition Myofusion Advanced Protein
• 1 egg
• 1 egg whites
• ¼ cup of sorghum flour
• ⅛ cup of almond flour
• ⅓ cup of almond milk
• 1 g powdered Stevia
• 1 tablespoon of dark chocolate baking powder

Nutritional profile: Calories 420, Carbohydrate 65 grams, Protein 27 grams, Fat 6 grams

• Post Cardio Protein Banana Split

Ingredients

• 1 medium (7″ to 7-7/8″ long) banana
• ¾ cup nonfat plain Greek yogurt
• ½ scoop dymatize ISO-100
• 1 whole strawberries, sliced
• ¼ cup blueberries
• 1 tablespoon of granola
• 1  tablespoon of dark chocolate chips

Nutritional profile: Calories 400, Carbohydrate 53 grams, Protein 33 grams, Fat 6 grams

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• Asparagus Soldiers With A Soft-Boiled Egg

Ingredients

• 1 tablespoon of olive oil
• 50g fine dry breadcrumbs
• A pinch of paprika
• A pinch chilli 
• 16-20 asparagus spears
• 4 eggs

Nutritional profile: Calories 180, Carbohydrates 12 grams, Proteins 12 grams, Fats 10 grams

Importance Of Bodybuilding

Now that you have all those breakfast bodybuilding ideas, it is essential to highlight the benefits associated with bodybuilding. Bodybuilding just like any other type of exercising helps with overall health. Here are some other benefits:

Building Strength Helps Lower Abdominal Fat

Abdominal fat is a problem that affects people of all genders and ages. Nowadays, all people want to get rid of excess belly fat. Abdominal fat is usually caused by weight gain, different lifestyle choices like too much consumption of alcohol, eating fast foods and junk foods, lack of exercise and all. One study conducted by Havard Researchers found that resistance training was more effective at preventing the increase of abdominal fat compared to cardiovascular exercises (6). Strength training exercises help fight abdominal fat in a number of ways, for starters they burn calories.

Even though strength training exercises are not as effective at burning calories compared to cardiovascular exercises, the little they burn helps get off some pounds and this leads to reducing your stomach overhang. Although people are usually under the impression that there are some strength training exercises like sit-ups and crunches that can be done to target losing belly fat, this is actually not true. Target weight loss is not possible. Target weight loss is where you aim to lose some weight at a certain area of your body only. Weight loss happens all across the body and hence if you want to reduce your abdominal fat, you have to reduce fat in your whole body. 

Another way bodybuilding helps reduce abdominal fat is by increasing lean muscle mass. The more muscles you build the more fat mass you reduce. This means as you continue doing the various resistance training exercises you are  also reducing the fat levels. Building muscles also helps increase your body’s metabolism. Muscles are metabolic active tissues and this means they burn calories even at rest. Increasing your metabolism also helps reduce your abdominal fat (2).

Bodybuilding Lowers The Risk Of Injuries

Having a strong muscle base helps improve your movement, balance, coordination, and injury prevention (2). Having balance helps prevent fall injuries which become more common as you age. This goes on to highlight the importance of building muscles even as you grow older. As you get older, you start experiencing things like lack of balance among others. Muscular strength exercises help improve your balance, build your bone density, reduce the risk of falls and being dependent on people for things like movement. 

Having muscles also help prevent injuries by helping reduce strain on your bones and various tissues like the tendons. Lack of strain on these tissues helps you to prevent them from getting injured.

Bodybuilding Increases Your Confidence

Having a body that people crave for will boost your confidence levels to an all time high. Most people want to have thick muscles, six packs, nicely curved calves and all. A good way of getting all this is by strength training. Most strength training exercises are compound exercises and this means they work more than one muscle at a time and this helps you work on more than one of these different body parts simultaneously.

If you want to be the envy of everyone when summer comes, you should try an effective strength training exercise program. Don’t expect it to be easy and for the results to be instant as that is not how it works, it is exercising not a magic spell. You have to  invest a lot of time and energy to get the results you want.

Bodybuilding Makes Everyday Tasks Easier

Building strength helps make everyday activities easier and more manageable. Everyday activities include things like carrying groceries, walking up a flight of stairs, carrying your child and the likes. If you work in an industry that requires you to lift a lot of heavy objects like the construction industry, packaging industry and the likes, building strength helps make your job easier. Building strength also makes it easy for a person to workout effectively as you are able to do all exercises as they should be done hence positive results. 

Bodybuilding Helps With Cardiovascular Health

Exercising is known to help with heart health and since strength training is part of exercising it also comes with this benefit. As we have discussed in earlier parts of these read, resistance training helps lower abdominal fat. Visceral fat is usually around vital body organs like the heart, liver and the likes (2).Getting rid of abdominal fat helps improve your heart health as it helps prevent various cardiovascular conditions like heart attacks. In addition to that, resistance training helps with cardiovascular health in that people who strength train may have better functioning HDL compared to those who do not (5).

The Bottom Line

With the bodybuilders breakfast ideas highlighted in this article, you are able to figure out what to eat without having to scratch your head. When making any of the foods highlighted above, make sure to check if you are allergic to any of the ingredients. If you are allergic to any of the ingredients, make sure to remove or replace them with ingredients that you are not allergic to yet are healthy. Bodybuilding comes with many benefits as highlighted. It helps improve your cardiovascular health and reduce risks of various cardiovascular conditions.

It also helps make work and normal everyday tasks easier. Bodybuilding helps reduce the risk of getting injured, boost self confidence and body image and helps with weight loss. These are among the reasons you should try to body build. To be effective in your strength training exercises, you need enough energy and the various carbohydrates in the meals provided help with that. You also need a lot of proteins as proteins are crucial for bodybuilding.

DISCLAIMER:

This article is intended for general informational purposes only and does not address individual circumstances. It is not a substitute for professional advice or help and should not be relied on to make decisions of any kind. Any action you take upon the information presented in this article is strictly at your own risk and responsibility!

SOURCES:

1. 7 Bulking Breakfast Ideas (With Calorie Breakdowns) (n.d., fitbod.me)
2. 11 Benefits of Strength Training That Have Nothing to Do With Muscle Size (2018, health.usnews.com)
3. Bodybuilding and sports supplements: the facts (2018, nhs.uk)
4. Muscle-building breakfasts (2018, bbcgoodfood.com)
5. Untrained young men have dysfunctional HDL compared with strength-trained men irrespective of body weight status (2013, ncbi.nlm.nih.gov)
6. Weight training, aerobic physical activities, and long-term waist circumference change in men (2014, onlinelibrary.wiley.com)