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Turkey and Quinoa Prep Bowls

Recipe · Meal Prep / High-protein / Batch

Turkey and Quinoa Prep Bowls

One steady batch cook that boxes up four lunches in an afternoon — lean turkey mince, fluffy quinoa, roasted veg and a bright little dressing, split into four containers so the week is sorted before it even starts. Around 500 calories and 44g of protein a bowl, the macros already counted. This is the prep I reach for when I want lunch handled days ahead and I don’t want to think about it again.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 40+ times

GoalPrep

Total time45 min

Makes4 bowls

Protein / bowl44 g

Calories / bowl500 kcal

Four turkey and quinoa prep bowls lined up — seasoned turkey mince, fluffy quinoa and roasted vegetables, portioned under cold light

There was a stretch of years where I had no business eating well, and somehow I did anyway — and the reason was a stack of these bowls in the fridge. I was working long days, training in the evenings, getting home far too late to be trusted near a kitchen. If lunch wasn’t already cooked and boxed, lunch became whatever was nearest and saddest. A petrol-station sandwich. A handful of nothing. So one quiet Sunday I made a deal with myself: cook once, eat for four days, and never let a tired version of me decide what I had for lunch.

Turkey and quinoa became the backbone of that deal, and they’ve stayed there ever since. Turkey mince gives you a big lean wall of protein without much fat to carry. Quinoa cooks while you’re doing everything else and brings a bit of its own protein along too — sturdy, nutty, holds its shape in a box all week. Roast a tray of veg alongside, stir through a quick dressing, and you’ve got four bowls that taste like a proper lunch on day four, not leftovers someone forgot about.

I’ve made this for myself most weeks for years, and I’ve handed the method to friends who swore meal prep wasn’t for them — too fiddly, too bland, too much like punishment. It isn’t, when it’s done with a little care. They come back telling me Wednesday lunch was the easiest part of their week. That’s the bit I love. Not the macros, though they’re solid. The quiet relief of opening a fridge and finding that someone already took care of you. Let that someone be you, days ahead. I’ve got you on this one.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

This is built for the person whose weekdays are loud and whose lunches keep falling apart because of it. Cook one batch on a quiet afternoon, box four bowls, and lunch is decided through Thursday with no thinking required. Here’s how I steer the bowls depending on what you’re chasing.

On a cut

Lean on the veg

Keep the full turkey, trim the quinoa to two-thirds, and add an extra big handful of roasted veg to each box. You hold all 44g of protein and a full-looking bowl while the calories drop toward 420. Plenty of food, fewer calories — that’s the trick on a cut.

On a bulk

Add easy calories

Same turkey, a bigger scoop of quinoa in each box and a proper drizzle of olive oil over the veg. A spoon of avocado or some toasted seeds on top works too. You’ll clear 650+ calories a bowl on the same lean base — calorie-dense without feeling heavy.

On TRT

Steady through the day

The standard bowl is a calm, even meal — lean protein, a fist of quinoa, a pile of veg. Spread one across each midday and you keep full, steady energy without a big swing. Lean protein plus complex carbs is a dependable way to fuel a normal working week.

Timing: I built these as lunches, but they’re yours to place wherever the day needs them. One around training sits nicely — the protein and quinoa work either side of a session. Cold straight from the box on a hot day, or warm through when you want comfort.

02Ingredients

Makes 4 bowls, each landing near 44g protein and about 500 calories. Prepping more than four days? Multiply every line by however many bowls you want and keep the proportions the same — the method doesn’t change.

Per bowl ~44g protein · adjust on the live recipe card

Lean turkey mince, 5% fat600 g · 21 oz
Quinoa, dry180 g · 6.3 oz
Courgette, diced250 g · 8.8 oz
Bell peppers, sliced250 g · 8.8 oz
Red onion, wedged1 medium
Olive oil1 tbsp · 15 ml
Garlic, grated3 cloves
Ground cumin1 tsp
Smoked paprika1 tsp
Tomato purée1 tbsp · 15 g
Low-sodium stock or water400 ml · 13.5 fl oz
Lemon, juiced1 small
Fresh parsley, choppedsmall handful
Black pepperto taste
Saltto taste (go light)

Swaps I actually use: chicken mince or extra-lean beef mince stands in for the turkey one-for-one if that’s what you have. No quinoa? Brown rice, bulgur or couscous all work — keep the dry weight roughly the same and adjust the liquid to the packet. Any firm veg roasts well here: broccoli, carrots, mushrooms, aubergine. Vegetarian? A drained tin of lentils plus a block of browned firm tofu replaces the turkey and keeps the protein up — the bowl structure stays exactly the same.

03Step by step

Get organised

Four containers, one clear bench

Pull out four meal-prep containers and clear a stretch of bench. Set the oven to 200°C (400°F) and put the kettle on for the quinoa. This is a batch cook with a pan, a pot and a tray all going at once, so having everything to hand before you start keeps it calm.

Magnus says: prep is calmer when the kitchen is. Clear the decks first.

Four empty meal-prep containers and ingredients laid out on a clear bench under cold light

The quinoa

Rinse, simmer and fluff

Rinse the quinoa well under cold water — it takes a bitter coating off the grains. Tip it into a pot with the stock, bring to a boil, then drop to a low simmer with the lid on for 13–15 minutes until the liquid is gone and you see little curls on each grain. Take it off the heat, lid on, rest 5 minutes, then fluff with a fork.

Magnus says: rinsing isn’t optional, love. Skip it and the quinoa tastes soapy.

Fluffed quinoa in a pot, grains separated and curled

The veg

Roast the courgette, peppers and onion

Toss the courgette, peppers and red onion with the olive oil, a little black pepper and a light pinch of salt. Spread them on a tray in one layer and roast for 20–22 minutes until the edges char. Roasting beats boiling here — it survives the fridge far better and keeps its flavour all week.

Magnus says: boiled veg turns sad by Tuesday. Roasted veg holds up all week.

Courgette, peppers and red onion roasting on a tray with charred edges

The turkey

Brown the mince with spice

Get a wide pan hot. Add the turkey mince and break it up well, letting it catch some colour before you stir — that browning is where the flavour lives. Once it’s no longer pink, stir in the garlic, cumin, smoked paprika and tomato purée. Cook another 2–3 minutes until it smells warm and looks glossy, then season lightly.

Lean turkey mince browning in a pan with garlic, cumin and paprika

The dressing

Brighten it with lemon and parsley

Off the heat, squeeze the lemon over the turkey and stir through most of the chopped parsley. That hit of acid lifts the whole bowl and stops four days of the same lunch tasting flat. Taste it — a little more lemon or pepper here is what makes day-four lunch still feel alive.

Lemon being squeezed over seasoned turkey mince with parsley stirred through

Portion

Split it evenly across four boxes

Divide everything across the four containers — a quarter of the quinoa, the turkey and the roasted veg in each, scattered with the last of the parsley. Even portions mean even macros, so each bowl lands near 44g of protein and 500 calories. Let them cool fully on the bench, lids on, then into the fridge.

Magnus says: cool it before the lid goes on. Trapped steam is what turns prep soggy.

Four finished prep bowls filled with turkey, quinoa and roasted vegetables, portioned evenly

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The batch makes 4 bowls, each weighing about 440g cooked. Here’s what one bowl and a flat 100g actually give you, so you can slot a bowl into your day with the maths already done.

Macros — per bowl & per 100g
Nutrient	Per bowl	Per 100g
Energy	500 kcal	114 kcal
Protein	44.0 g	10.0 g
Carbohydrate	44.0 g	10.0 g
— of which sugars	7.0 g	1.6 g
Fat	16.0 g	3.6 g
— of which saturates	3.6 g	0.8 g
Fibre	6.5 g	1.5 g
Sodium	~0.42 g	~0.10 g

Calorie density

114 kcal / 100g

Low for a complete, hearty meal. That’s the gift of lean turkey and a tray of veg — you get a genuinely full bowl for a modest calorie count, which is exactly what you want whether you’re holding or losing.

Protein per 100 kcal

8.8 g / 100 kcal

A lifter’s metric. Strong for a full meal with quinoa and veg in it — most of the energy you’re eating is doing protein’s job, which is the whole point of a prep like this.

Key micros (per bowl, approx.)

Niacin (B3)~11 mg · 69% DV
Selenium~36 µg · 65% DV
Vitamin B6~0.9 mg · 53% DV
Phosphorus~410 mg · 33% DV
Magnesium~115 mg · 27% DV
Zinc~3.6 mg · 33% DV

Macros are calculated from standard food-composition data and will shift a little with your exact ingredients and brands. Micronutrient figures are estimates against general adult Daily Values. Numbers are for guidance, not medical advice — see our Nutrition Disclaimer.

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One prep, three jobs. The turkey base stays the same — you move the quinoa and the fat around it. Macros below are per bowl, adjusted for each goal.

Cut

The lean default

Keep every gram of turkey, trim the quinoa to two-thirds, and pile in extra roasted veg. Maximum food in the bowl, calories pulled down. This is how I run it when I want the scale moving and still want to feel full through the afternoon.

420Kcal

43G Protein

13G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Same turkey, a bigger scoop of quinoa in each box and a proper drizzle of olive oil over the veg. A spoon of avocado or toasted seeds on top if you want it. Clean, calorie-dense and easy to eat across a busy day.

660Kcal

45G Protein

24G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

The standard bowl, eaten as built. Moderate carbs from the quinoa, lean protein from the turkey, a little healthy fat from the oil. Full, steady energy across a working day without a big swing.

500Kcal

44G Protein

16G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

This whole recipe is a prep, so storage is the main event. Cool everything fully before the lids go on, label the boxes with the date if you’re cooking several days at once, and you’ve got lunch settled well in advance. The beauty of turkey and quinoa is that both hold their texture for days — no sad, mushy box on Thursday.

Fridge

4 days

Boxed and sealed, these bowls hold beautifully for four days. Cook on a Sunday afternoon and lunch is handled clean through Thursday with nothing left to decide.

Freezer

3 months

Turkey and quinoa both freeze well; the veg softens a touch on thaw but holds. Cool fully, freeze flat, and thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.

Reheat

3 min

Microwave the bowl for 2–3 minutes, stirring once, with a splash of water over the quinoa to loosen it. A fresh squeeze of lemon after reheating wakes the whole thing up.

A note on cooking days ahead, because that’s the heart of this one: the bowls you make on Sunday are at their best Monday through Wednesday, so if you want a full Friday lunch too, freeze one or two boxes from the batch and pull them the night before. Done that way, every bowl tastes like food, not leftovers — and the whole week’s lunch is sorted before Monday even arrives.

Free · the 7-day “Get Fed” plan

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07Common questions

Can I really make all four bowls days ahead? +

You can — that’s exactly what this prep is for. Cooked turkey and quinoa keep well for about four days in the fridge, so a Sunday batch carries you cleanly through Thursday. If you want a Friday bowl too, freeze one or two from the batch and thaw the night before. Cool everything fully before the lids go on and you’ll be opening a proper lunch all week, not a soggy one.

Why does my quinoa taste bitter? +

Almost always because it wasn’t rinsed. Quinoa carries a natural coating called saponin that tastes soapy and bitter if you leave it on. Give it a good rinse under cold running water in a fine sieve before it goes in the pot, until the water runs clear. After that it’s nutty and clean. Most packaged quinoa is pre-rinsed, but a quick rinse anyway is cheap insurance.

Can I swap the turkey for something else? +

Easily. Chicken mince or extra-lean beef mince drops straight in one-for-one if that’s what you’ve got — the macros shift only a little. For a vegetarian bowl, brown a block of firm tofu hard and stir in a drained tin of lentils to keep the protein up. The spices, the quinoa and the roasted veg all stay exactly the same, so the bowl still tastes like the same lunch.

Do I have to eat these cold? +

Not at all. They’re good cold straight from the box on a warm day, but a couple of minutes in the microwave with a splash of water over the quinoa brings the whole bowl back to life. Stir once halfway, and finish with a fresh squeeze of lemon after reheating — that little hit of acid is what stops day-four lunch tasting flat.

How do I keep the quinoa from going dry in the box? +

Two things. Don’t overcook it on the day — pull it off the heat the moment the liquid’s gone and let it steam under the lid, so it finishes gently. Then when you reheat, add a small splash of water over the quinoa first. The steam loosens it right back up to how it was on day one.

From my 7-day plans

This prep is the backbone of a full week of meals.

These bowls are the engine room of my meal plans — seven days of high-protein meals with the macros counted and the grocery list written. You pick the goal; I do the maths and the cooking order.

See the meal plans →

A batch of turkey and quinoa prep bowls laid out and portioned under cold light

08Pairs well with

Five containers of chicken, rice and roasted veg lined up under cold light

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

I’m Magnus — twenty years under the iron, from a cold gym in Stockholm to the classic-physique stage, and now mostly in my kitchen in a pink apron. I’ve cut for shows, bulked through winters, and I’ve been on TRT since I was thirty-five. I know what it takes to eat for the body you’re chasing, and I know it shouldn’t come with a side of shame.

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

Slim Diet Era shares recipes and general nutrition information. It is not medical or dietetic advice, and we do not provide guidance on obtaining or using any controlled substance. See our Medical Disclaimer and Nutrition Disclaimer.

August 14, 2026

What Should You Eat While on Steroids? A Full Day at My Table

BlogOn-Cycle Nutrition12 min read

What Should You Eat While on Steroids? A Full Day at My Table

Six meals, one Chicago kitchen, every macro counted — my honest on-cycle day of eating, from the 6 a.m. skillet to the last casein bowl.

Magnus Olafsson

Aug 11, 2026

Somebody asks me this almost every week, usually in a gym hallway, shaker bottle in hand: what should I eat while on steroids? And every week I give the same answer. Come sit at my table. One honest day of food teaches more than any list of rules I could hand you.

So that’s this post. A full day at my table in Chicago, on cycle, meal by meal — from the 6 a.m. skillet with two kids arguing about waffles behind me, to the casein bowl at a quarter to ten. Real portions, real macros, and a running total the whole way down.

I already wrote the rulebook version in my steroid diet guide. That one is the principles. This one is the practice: what those principles look like with a fork in them.

One thing before the first plate. I’m 40, on TRT since 35, and I run heavier cycles from time to time now that my stage days in Sweden are behind me. Nothing here is a prescription for your body. It’s my table, honestly documented. Get your bloodwork done, talk to your doctor, and eat like you plan to be lifting in thirty years.

The short answer, before the long day

Eating on steroids is not a secret diet. You eat the way any serious bulking lifter eats, just more of it, done more carefully, since the drugs raise both what your body builds with and what it punishes you for. Six things carry my whole day:

A protein anchor at every meal. Meat, eggs, dairy, or a shake. The plate gets built around it, never the other way.
Enough calories to grow. A modest surplus, roughly 10–20% over maintenance, is what the off-season research supports^[2]. On cycle I sit at the top of that range.
Carbs pushed toward training. The meals before and after the barbell carry most of the rice, oats, and pasta.
Fats late, fats moderate. Steak and olive oil live at dinner, not at 9 a.m.
Fruit and vegetables daily. Potassium, fiber, and micros, the quiet work that keeps bloodwork readable.
Water in liters, sodium watched. Cycles push blood pressure. Salt still goes on my food; it just stops getting a free pass.

What stays out of the kitchen on cycle matters just as much. I keep that whole list in foods to avoid while on steroids. Now let me show you the day.

6:00 a.m. — the skillet, and the school-morning chaos

My alarm goes off at 5:40. By 6:00 the pan is hot and my kids are negotiating waffle rights with my husband like two small lawyers. In the middle of that, I cook the most boring, most reliable meal I own: my beef and egg breakfast skillet. Two hundred grams of lean ground beef, three whole eggs, three hundred grams of diced potato, half an onion, whatever peppers survived the week.

Meal 1: 790 kcal · 58g protein · 52g carbs · 35g fat. Running total: 790 kcal, 58g protein.

I weigh the beef raw, straight into the pan, on a scale that has lived next to my stove since the lockdowns. That’s when cooking went from a thing I liked to the thing I do. No apps at the table, no drama. The scale takes four seconds and turns “roughly” into “actually,” and on cycle “actually” is what your bloodwork and your waistband are responding to. My daughter thinks the scale is for making the food fair. She’s not entirely wrong.

The principle this plate teaches is the anchor. Fifty-plus grams of protein before 6:30 means the day starts won, not chased. Research on drug-free lifters puts the useful per-meal dose around 0.40–0.55 g/kg, spread over the day^[2], and a man my size hits that with beef and eggs before the school bus comes.

Magnus’s rule

Every meal starts with the protein decision. Pick the anchor first — beef, eggs, chicken, casein — then build carbs and fat around it to fit the hour of the day. A plate with no anchor is a snack wearing a plate’s clothes.

9:30 a.m. — oats, and why calories on cycle are the whole game

By 9:30 the house is quiet and I’m hungry again. That’s not weakness — that’s testosterone doing what it does to appetite. Second breakfast is a bowl of peanut butter protein oats: 100 grams of oats cooked in water, a scoop of whey stirred in off the heat, 20 grams of peanut butter, one sliced banana.

Meal 2: 730 kcal · 43g protein · 100g carbs · 18g fat. Running total: 1,520 kcal, 101g protein.

Here’s the honest truth about calories on cycle: the drugs don’t build anything. They raise the ceiling. Food is still the bricklayer. The off-season literature lands on a surplus of roughly 10–20% over maintenance, gaining about 0.25–0.5% of bodyweight per week^[2], and on cycle I ride the top of that. Undereat on a heavy cycle and you’ve rented a crane to lift groceries.

Notice the shape of this meal, too: big carbs, modest fat, protein still present. Mid-morning is climb-toward-training time. The oats will be waiting for me under the bar at 5:30.

1:00 p.m. — lunch, the repeatable middle

Lunch is the meal most men ruin by making it interesting. Mine is deliberately dull: a creamy chicken pasta I batch on Sundays: 200 grams of chicken breast, 120 grams of dry pasta, a light cream-and-parmesan sauce that tastes far richer than its macros. Three containers of it sit in my fridge right now.

Meal 3: 850 kcal · 65g protein · 90g carbs · 22g fat. Running total: 2,370 kcal, 166g protein.

The batch happens Sunday afternoon: two kilos of chicken breast seared in one pan, a pot of pasta, sauce built in the chicken pan so nothing is wasted, everything portioned by scale into containers before it cools. Forty minutes of work buys me three lunches that require zero decisions. Decisions are the expensive part of eating big, not the food and not the cooking. The men I see fall off a bulk rarely run out of chicken. They run out of patience at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday.

The principle here: an on cycle meal plan is boring on purpose. Sixteen weeks is a long time. The men who eat well for all sixteen aren’t the ones with forty recipes; they’re the ones with six meals they never have to think about. Novelty lives on the weekend. Tuesday lunch is a system.

I learned this backstage at the B&K Classic in Sweden, half my life ago. I was young, orange with bronzer, and terrified, and the older competitor next to me sat calmly eating cold rice and chicken out of a scratched container like it was a Tuesday. I asked him how he stayed so relaxed. He tapped the container and said the food was the one rep he never missed. I’ve eaten a boring, repeatable lunch nearly every training day since — that habit has outlived every cycle, every stage, and one move across the Atlantic.

4:00 to 7:15 p.m. — the meals that surround the barbell

At 4:00 I eat small and sharp: 300 grams of fat-free Greek yogurt, 20 grams of honey, a big handful of blueberries. Light on the stomach, quick carbs, 30-odd grams of protein, almost no fat to slow it down. Ninety minutes later I’m training.

Meal 4: 330 kcal · 32g protein · 42g carbs · 2g fat. Running total: 2,700 kcal, 198g protein.

Training hunger on cycle deserves a sentence of its own, since nobody warns you. It’s not the polite hunger of a Tuesday afternoon. It arrives mid-session, somewhere around the fourth set of squats, loud and specific — my body doesn’t want food in general, it wants that ribeye it knows is in the fridge. I’ve learned to treat it kindly: finish the session, drive home, and let the biggest plate of the day answer it properly instead of raiding the cabinets like a bear in a tent.

Train 5:30 to 6:45. Then home, where the biggest plate of the day is waiting to happen: my ribeye with rice and broccoli. A 250-gram ribeye, 80 grams of dry jasmine rice, a full head of broccoli with lemon and salt. My husband and I eat this one together at the table like civilized people, which on cycle takes some acting.

Meal 5: 1,070 kcal · 78g protein · 75g carbs · 57g fat. Running total: 3,770 kcal, 276g protein.

The principle these two meals demonstrate: put your carbs where the work is. The research is calmer about the “anabolic window” than the forums ever were: the muscle-building effect of training lasts a day or more, and protein on either side of the session works^[3]. Practically, fueling before and feeding after is the pattern that makes hard training feel good and big eating feel easy. The window is generous. I still like to stand near it.

9:45 p.m. — the last bowl, and the quiet rules of night

Kids down, kitchen wiped, one last bowl: my casein loaded overnight oats, mixed the night before and eaten cold with a spoon in a mostly dark kitchen. A full scoop of casein, 40 grams of oats, milk. There’s real evidence behind the ritual: around 40 grams of protein before sleep measurably raises overnight muscle protein synthesis, more so on training days^[4].

Meal 6: 360 kcal · 37g protein · 35g carbs · 8g fat. Day total: roughly 4,100 kcal · 313g protein · 394g carbs · 142g fat.

Night is where the fats-late principle finishes its shift. Dinner and the evening carry most of my fat for the day: 57 grams at dinner against 2 grams pre-training. Fat slows digestion, and slow is exactly what I want between 7 p.m. and morning. And night is where water and sodium get their audit: I drink 4 to 5 liters across the day, salt my food normally, and skip the salt-bomb late snacks. On cycle, blood pressure is the number I respect most. My doctor keeps score; my kitchen keeps it low.

Kitchen math

313g of protein is about 2.5–2.7 g/kg for a man my size — above the 1.6–2.2 g/kg where growth plateaus in drug-free lifters^[2], inside the 2.3–3.1 g/kg-of-lean-mass range prep coaches use^[1]. Nobody has run the feeding trial on enhanced bodybuilders, so I’ll say it straight: part of that number is evidence, part is insurance, and all of it is delicious.

The whole day on one page

Here is the full day of eating, bulking, on cycle, exactly as it runs when the trains run on time. Steal the structure before you steal the portions; your maintenance calories are not mine.

Time	Meal	kcal	Protein	Carbs	Fat	Running kcal
6:00	Beef & egg skillet with potatoes	790	58g	52g	35g	790
9:30	Peanut butter protein oats + banana	730	43g	100g	18g	1,520
13:00	Creamy chicken pasta (batch-cooked)	850	65g	90g	22g	2,370
16:00	Greek yogurt, honey, blueberries	330	32g	42g	2g	2,700
17:30	Train	—	—	—	—	—
19:15	Ribeye, jasmine rice, broccoli	1,070	78g	75g	57g	3,770
21:45	Casein overnight oats, eaten cold	360	37g	35g	8g	4,130
Total	Six meals, zero drama	~4,100	313g	394g	142g	—

Full day of eating while on steroids: six-meal timeline with per-meal macros and running calorie total reaching about 4,100 kcal

How do I know 4,100 is the right number and not a wish? The scale and the mirror, checked weekly, adjusted slowly. Gaining faster than about half a percent of bodyweight per week means too much of it is fat, cycle or no cycle^[2], and I trim 200 kcal, usually the rice and the honey, never the protein. Gaining nothing for two weeks, I add 200. On rest days I keep the same six meals and just shrink the carbs at 9:30 and 16:00. The day flexes; the skeleton doesn’t.

If you want the deeper shelf, with more days like this plus the training-day and rest-day versions, everything lives in the bulking hub.

The same day, off cycle

People imagine two different men with two different diets. It’s one man, one menu, smaller numbers. Off cycle my appetite comes back down to earth, my maintenance drops, and the same six meals shrink at the edges. The structure never changes. That’s the point of having one.

Meal	On cycle (this day)	Off cycle (same day, resized)
Skillet	200g beef, 3 eggs, 300g potato	150g beef, 2 eggs, 250g potato
Protein oats	100g oats, whey, peanut butter, banana	60g oats, whey, banana — peanut butter rests
Chicken pasta	120g dry pasta	90g dry pasta, same chicken
Pre-training bowl	Yogurt, honey, blueberries	Yogurt and blueberries, no honey
Dinner	250g ribeye, 80g rice	200g sirloin, 60g rice — leaner cut, same table
Bedtime casein	Full bowl	Full bowl — sleep is sleep
Day lands at	~4,100 kcal · 313g protein	~3,150 kcal · ~275g protein

Two honest notes on that table. First, appetite: on testosterone, eating 4,100 is easy; the hunger shows up like a coworker. Some compounds go the other way; tren is famous for killing appetite dead, and men running it often have to eat by the clock, joylessly. Second, attention: off cycle I relax about sodium and blood pressure a little. On cycle, never. Less is safer in every part of this game. More was never the answer for me, on the plate or off it.

If this day looks like a lot of cooking, it’s really four recipes and a yogurt bowl, run on repeat. I put the whole system — portions, prep day, grocery list — into my meal plans, and there’s a free week to start with if you want to see how it fits your table before you spend a krona. Come eat.

Questions men actually ask

How many calories should you eat on cycle?

Start from your real maintenance and add 10–20%, the range the off-season research supports for muscle gain with minimal fat^[2]. On cycle I sit at the top of that range, around 4,100 kcal for me. The cycle raises what you build, not the laws of energy balance: track your weight weekly and adjust when the scale moves faster than about half a percent of bodyweight per week.

Do you need more protein on cycle?

The honest answer: the trials showing 1.6–2.2 g/kg is enough were done on drug-free lifters^[2], and nobody has published the enhanced version. Contest-prep reviews go to 2.3–3.1 g/kg of lean mass^[1]. I eat about 2.5–2.7 g/kg on cycle: part evidence, part cheap insurance, and protein keeps me full anyway.

Can you eat eggs on steroids?

Yes. I eat about three a day, yolks included. The big pooled analyses found up to one egg per day carries no added cardiovascular risk in the general population^[5]. On cycle your lipids deserve extra respect, so I balance eggs with fish, olive oil, and fiber, and I let bloodwork — not internet fear — decide if anything changes.

Should you eat before or after training on cycle?

Both, and calmly. The position-stand evidence says the anabolic effect of a session lasts at least 24 hours, and protein on either side works^[3]. My pattern: a light, low-fat carb-and-protein meal about 90 minutes before, then the biggest meal of the day after. That’s comfort and logistics as much as science.

What do bodybuilders actually eat in a day?

Less exotic food than you’d hope. Beef, eggs, chicken, rice, oats, pasta, potatoes, yogurt, fruit, a mountain of vegetables, whey and casein. The table above is a genuinely typical day: five or six meals, each anchored on protein, carbs stacked around training, fats toward evening. The magic is the repetition, not the ingredients.

References

The honest fine print: I’m a cook and a lifter, not your doctor. Nothing here is medical advice, and nothing here tells you how to obtain or use any substance — that conversation belongs to you, your bloodwork, and a physician. Full details: Nutrition Disclaimer · Medical Disclaimer.

Written by

Magnus Olafsson

The cook behind Slim Diet Era. Former Swedish stage competitor (B&K Classic Body Show, Swedish Grand Prix), on TRT since 35, cooking high-protein food in Chicago for his husband, two kids, and you. He counts the macros so you don’t have to.

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August 11, 2026

Beef and Rice Meal-Prep Bowls

Recipe · Meal Prep / High-protein / Batch

Beef and Rice Meal-Prep Bowls

One pan of lean beef, one pot of rice, one tray of veg — cooked in a single go on a quiet evening and split into four sturdy bowls that carry you through the working week. Around 640 calories and a solid 50 grams of protein a bowl, the macros already counted, the lids already on. This is the prep I reach for when I want the week handled before it even starts.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 50+ times

GoalPrep

Total time45 min

Makes4 bowls

Protein / bowl50 g

Calories / bowl640 kcal

Four beef and rice meal-prep bowls lined up — browned lean mince, fluffed rice and roasted vegetables, portioned and sealed under cold light

There was a stretch of years when my whole week ran on a bowl like this. I was working long shifts on a gym floor in Stockholm, training before dawn, and the last thing I had in me by Sunday evening was a complicated cook. So I worked out the simplest sturdy meal I could batch in one stretch — beef, rice, veg — and I made four of them at once, stacked them in the fridge, and stopped thinking about it. By Monday I’d already won the argument with myself about what to eat. The hard part was done.

That’s really all a good prep is, love. A decision you make once, on a calm night, so your tired self never has to make it again at six o’clock on a Wednesday. Beef does a lot of heavy lifting here — it’s rich, it holds up beautifully in the fridge, and it carries a real load of protein and iron without much fuss. Rice gives you the energy to actually train. The veg keeps the bowl honest and full. Four bowls, one pan, no maths at the desk.

I still cook this most weeks, and I’ve taught it to people who swore they couldn’t meal-prep to save their life — who thought it meant sad grey chicken and rubbery broccoli forever. It doesn’t. Done with a little care, a beef and rice bowl on day four still tastes like food someone cooked for you. That’s the bit I want for you. Not just hitting your numbers, but opening the fridge to something warm and waiting. I’ve got you on this one.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

This is built for the person who wants a real, filling meal ready to go and doesn’t want to cook every single night to get it. Batch it once, eat it for days, no decisions when you’re running on empty. Here’s how I steer the four bowls depending on what you’re chasing.

On a cut

Trim the rice

Keep the beef and the full tray of veg exactly as they are, and cut the rice down to two-thirds across the bowls. You hold all 50g of protein and a big plate of volume, and the calories drop toward 520. Full bowl, lower number — that’s the goal on a cut.

On a bulk

Add easy calories

Same beef, more around it. A bigger scoop of rice in each bowl, a drizzle of olive oil over the veg, maybe a spoon of the sauce. You’ll clear 800+ calories a bowl on the same lean base — sturdy fuel, not heavy stodge.

On TRT

Steady through the week

Four even bowls spread protein and energy across your days, which keeps you full and supports recovery without a giant evening overshoot. Lean beef plus a fist of carbs and veg is a calm, dependable way to fuel a normal working week.

Timing: I usually have one of these as lunch and lean on it again post-training, but it’s yours to place wherever your day runs. The protein and carbs sit nicely either side of a session, and the bowl reheats fast enough that even a rushed lunch break can carry it.

02Ingredients

Makes 4 bowls, each around 50g protein and about 640 calories. Prepping a longer stretch? Multiply every line by however many bowls you want and keep the proportions the same — the cooking order doesn’t change.

Per bowl ~50g protein · adjust on the live recipe card

Lean beef mince, 5% fat800 g · 28 oz
White rice, dry300 g · 10.6 oz
Broccoli florets300 g · 10.6 oz
Bell peppers, sliced300 g · 10.6 oz
Red onion, diced1 medium
Garlic, grated4 cloves
Olive oil1 tbsp · 15 ml
Soy sauce, low-sodium2 tbsp · 30 ml
Tomato purée2 tbsp · 30 g
Smoked paprika2 tsp
Ground cumin1 tsp
Beef stock or water150 ml · 5 fl oz
Black pepperto taste
Saltto taste (go light)

Swaps I actually use: turkey or chicken mince drops straight in for the beef if you want the bowls leaner, though you’ll lose a little of the iron and richness. No white rice? Swap in jasmine, basmati, or cooked quinoa one-for-one. For more fibre, run the rice half-and-half with brown rice. Any firm veg works — courgette, green beans, mushrooms — use what you’ve got and what holds up in the fridge.

03Step by step

Get organised

Four bowls, one clear bench

Pull out four meal-prep bowls and a clear stretch of bench. Set the oven to 200°C (400°F) for the veg. This is a one-cook prep running a pot, a pan and the oven together, so having everything to hand before you start is half the work done.

Magnus says: prep is calmer when the kitchen is. Clear the decks first.

Four empty meal-prep bowls and ingredients laid out on a clear bench under cold light

The rice

Get the rice going first

Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it however you normally do — pot, rice cooker, whatever you’ve got. Starting it first means it can cook while you handle everything else. Fluff it with a fork when it’s done and spread it out to cool a little before boxing.

Cooked white rice fluffed and spread on a plate to cool

The veg

Roast broccoli and peppers

Toss the broccoli and peppers with the olive oil, a little black pepper and a light pinch of salt, spread them across a tray and roast at 200°C for 18–20 minutes until the edges char. Roasting beats boiling here — it survives the fridge far better and keeps a bit of bite all week.

Magnus says: boiled veg turns sad by Tuesday. Roasted veg holds up all week.

Broccoli and peppers roasting on a tray with charred edges

The beef

Brown the lean mince hard

Brown the 5% beef mince in a dry hot pan — no oil needed, it has enough of its own. Break it up and leave it alone long enough to catch real colour before you stir; that browning is most of the flavour. Once it’s no longer pink, tip out any pooled liquid so the next bit can sear rather than stew.

Magnus says: a crowded, wet pan steams the meat. Give it room and a minute to colour.

Lean beef mince browning in a dry pan and catching colour

Build the sauce

Onion, garlic, spice, simmer

Add the diced onion to the beef and cook until soft, then stir in the garlic, smoked paprika and cumin for a minute until fragrant. Spoon in the tomato purée and low-sodium soy, pour in the stock, and let it bubble for 5–6 minutes until it’s glossy and just a little saucy — not dry, not soupy.

Beef mince simmering with onion, garlic and a glossy paprika-tomato sauce

Portion

Split it evenly across four bowls

Divide everything across the four bowls — a quarter of the rice, a quarter of the beef and a quarter of the roasted veg in each. Even portions mean even macros, so every bowl lands near 50g of protein and 640 calories. Cool the whole lot fully, lids on, and into the fridge they go.

Magnus says: cool it before the lid goes on. Trapped steam is what turns prep soggy.

Four finished meal-prep bowls filled with beef, rice and roasted vegetables, sealed and ready for the fridge

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The batch makes 4 bowls, each weighing roughly 420g cooked. Here’s what one bowl and a flat 100g actually give you, plus the headline of 50g protein a bowl.

Macros — per bowl & per 100g
Nutrient	Per bowl	Per 100g
Energy	640 kcal	152 kcal
Protein	50.0 g	11.9 g
Carbohydrate	65.0 g	15.5 g
— of which sugars	7.0 g	1.7 g
Fat	16.0 g	3.8 g
— of which saturates	5.5 g	1.3 g
Fibre	6.5 g	1.5 g
Sodium	~0.52 g	~0.12 g

Calorie density

152 kcal / 100g

Moderate for a full, hearty meal. Beef and rice carry more energy than a chicken-and-veg box, but the roasted veg keeps the bowl big and filling for the calories — a genuinely substantial plate that still works whether you’re holding or losing.

Protein per 100 kcal

7.8 g / 100 kcal

A lifter’s metric. Solid for a bowl built on beef and rice — a real chunk of the energy you’re eating is doing protein’s job, which is exactly what you want from a prep that’s also meant to fuel training.

Key micros (per bowl, approx.)

Vitamin B12~3.5 µg · 146% DV
Zinc~9 mg · 82% DV
Selenium~28 µg · 51% DV
Niacin (B3)~10 mg · 63% DV
Vitamin B6~1.0 mg · 59% DV
Iron~4.5 mg · 25% DV

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One prep, three jobs. The beef base stays the same — you move the rice and the fat around it. Macros below are per bowl, adjusted for each goal.

Cut

The lean default

Keep every gram of beef and the full tray of veg, but cut the rice to two-thirds across the bowls. Maximum food on the plate, calories pulled down, protein untouched. This is how I run it when I want the scale moving and still want a real bowl at lunch.

520Kcal

49G Protein

15G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Same beef, a bigger scoop of rice in each bowl and a teaspoon of olive oil over the veg. Add a spoon of the sauce or a piece of fruit on the side if you want it. Sturdy, calorie-dense, and easy to eat across a busy day of training.

820Kcal

52G Protein

22G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

The standard bowl, spread evenly across the week. Moderate carbs, lean protein, a little healthy fat from the oil and the beef. Full, steady energy without a big evening overshoot.

640Kcal

50G Protein

16G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

This whole recipe is a prep, so storage is the main event. Cool everything fully before the lids go on, label the bowls with the day you cooked them if you’re making the full four ahead, and treat the rice with a little respect — it’s the one component that doesn’t love being left at room temperature.

Fridge

4 days

Boxed and sealed, the beef, rice and veg hold beautifully for four days. Cook a Sunday batch and you’re set with lunches straight through Wednesday or Thursday.

Freezer

3 months

Beef and rice freeze especially well — the veg too, knowing it softens a little on thaw. Cool fully, freeze flat, and thaw a bowl overnight in the fridge before reheating.

Reheat

3 min

Microwave the bowl for 2–3 minutes, stirring once, with a splash of water over the rice to bring it back. Make sure it’s piping hot all the way through before you tuck in.

A note on rice, because I’d be a poor cook not to say it: cool it quickly, keep it cold, eat it within a few days, and only reheat it once until it’s steaming hot the whole way through. Treated kindly, rice is the backbone of cheap, easy prep all week long. The same care goes for the beef — cool it fast, keep it cold, reheat it properly.

Free · the 7-day “Get Fed” plan

Want a whole week built around food like this?

Drop your email and I’ll send you my free 7-day plan — meals, macros already counted, grocery list written. No spam, no lectures.

No spam. Unsubscribe whenever. See what’s in the plan →

07Common questions

Can I make all four bowls days ahead? +

That’s exactly what this is for. Cooked beef, rice and roasted veg are best eaten within about four days in the fridge, so a Sunday cook covers you comfortably to Wednesday or Thursday. If you want a longer stretch, cook the full batch and freeze the bowls you won’t reach in four days, thawing one overnight before you need it.

Why lean 5% beef mince and not regular? +

Lean mince keeps the protein high and the fat — and the calories — sensible, which is the whole point of a bowl you’re eating most days. Regular mince works fine too; it’ll taste a touch richer, but the fat and calories climb, so drain it well and know your per-bowl numbers will shift up. Either way, brown it hard for the flavour.

How do I keep the rice from going hard? +

Two things. Cool it spread out rather than in a lump, and when you reheat, add a splash of water over the rice before it goes in the microwave. The steam loosens it right back up. A lid or a damp paper towel over the bowl while it heats helps too.

Can I make this leaner without losing the protein? +

You can. Swap the beef for turkey or chicken mince to drop the fat and calories while holding the protein steady, and cut the rice to two-thirds — that’s the cut version above, landing nearer 520 calories a bowl. You keep the full plate of veg for volume, so it still eats like a proper meal, not a sad one.

Do I have to eat it cold? +

Not at all — this one is much happier hot. A couple of minutes in the microwave with a splash of water over the rice brings the whole bowl back to life. Stir it once halfway and make sure it’s steaming all the way through before you eat. Beef and rice were never meant to be eaten straight from the fridge.

From my 7-day plans

This prep is the backbone of a full week of meals.

These bowls are the engine room of my meal plans — seven days of high-protein meals with the macros counted and the grocery list written. You pick the goal; I do the maths and the cooking order.

See the meal plans →

A week of beef and rice meal-prep bowls laid out and portioned under cold light

08Pairs well with

Chicken, rice and veg prep (5 days)

48G Protein

520Calories

Burrito bowl meal prep

46G Protein

560Calories

Salmon and rice prep boxes

42G Protein

560Calories

Browse all recipes →

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

August 10, 2026

Chicken, Rice and Veg Prep (5 days)

Recipe · Meal Prep / High-protein / Batch

Chicken, Rice and Veg Prep (5 Days)

One steady cook on a Sunday and five lunches are done — chicken, rice and roasted veg, portioned into five containers and waiting in the fridge for the week ahead. Around 520 calories and a sturdy 48g of protein per box, the macros already counted so you never have to think at your desk. This is the plain, dependable prep I come back to more than any other.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 50+ times

GoalPrep

Total time70 min

Makes5 boxes

Protein / box48 g

Calories / box520 kcal

Five meal-prep containers lined up — chicken, white rice and roasted vegetables, portioned and ready for the week under cold light

There’s a stretch every winter where my weeks get loud. Coaching, the gym, family, the kind of admin that piles up when you’re not looking — and that’s exactly when most people stop eating well. Not because they don’t care. Because by Wednesday they’re tired, the fridge is bare, and a sad sandwich is the path of least resistance. I’ve been that tired person. I know how fast a good plan falls apart when there’s nothing cooked.

So years ago, in that cold little kitchen in Stockholm, I made myself a promise: I’d never again let a busy week decide what I ate. Sunday evening, oven on, one pot of rice, two trays in the oven, and by the time I’d cleaned the bench I had five lunches sealed and stacked. Monday me didn’t have to think. Thursday me — the one running on fumes — just lifted a lid. That’s the whole gift of this prep. It’s not clever. It’s chicken, rice and veg, the most honest plate there is. But cooked once and boxed for five days, it quietly takes care of you when you’ve got nothing left to give yourself.

I’ve taught this one to more people than I can count — busy parents, shift workers, a young lad who’d never owned a set of containers in his life. Every one of them came back saying the same thing: it wasn’t the recipe that changed anything, it was opening the fridge on a hard day and finding lunch already done. That look of relief is the whole reason I cook. Five boxes, love. Let me show you.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

This is for the person who’s tired of deciding what to eat every single day, especially at lunch when the week is already winning. Cook it once, eat it five times, and let the macros stay steady whether you’re holding, losing or building. Here’s how I steer the boxes depending on what you’re chasing.

On a cut

Trim the rice

Keep the full chicken and the whole tray of veg, and cut the rice down to two-thirds across the boxes. You hold all 48g of protein and a big plate of volume, and each box drops toward 430 calories. Plenty to fill you; lighter on the day.

On a bulk

Add easy calories

Same protein, a bigger scoop of rice in each box and a good drizzle of olive oil over the veg. Add a piece of fruit on the side if you want it. You’ll clear 680+ calories per box from the same lean base — sturdy, not heavy.

On TRT

Steady through the day

A balanced box — lean protein, a fist of carbs, a little fat — eaten at the same time each day keeps energy even and supports recovery without a giant evening overshoot. Dependable fuel for a normal working week.

Timing: I treat this as lunch, one box a day, Monday through Friday. But it’s yours — eat it around training if that suits you, since the protein and carbs sit nicely either side of a session. A box also makes a quiet, easy dinner on a night you can’t be bothered.

02Ingredients

Makes 5 boxes — one full work week — at about 520 calories and 48g protein each. The amounts below are the full batch; keep the proportions and you can scale up or down without losing the macros.

Per box ~48g protein · adjust on the live recipe card

Chicken breast, skinless1.1 kg · 2.4 lb
White rice, dry375 g · 13.2 oz
Broccoli florets400 g · 14.1 oz
Bell peppers, sliced300 g · 10.6 oz
Courgette (zucchini), sliced250 g · 8.8 oz
Olive oil3 tbsp · 45 ml
Garlic, grated4 cloves
Smoked paprika2 tsp
Dried oregano1 tsp
Soy sauce, low-sodium2 tbsp · 30 ml
Lemon, juice of1
Black pepperto taste
Saltto taste (go light)

Swaps I actually use: chicken thigh works in place of breast if you want it juicier — it adds a little fat, so trim a touch of oil to keep the box near 520. No white rice? Swap in jasmine, basmati, or cooked quinoa one-for-one, or run it half-and-half with brown rice for more fibre. Any sturdy veg roasts well here — green beans, carrots, red onion, cauliflower — use whatever’s good and cheap that week. Going meat-free? A block of firm tofu, browned hard, slots straight into the same box; you’ll want a little more of it to match the protein.

03Step by step

Get organised

Five containers, one clear bench

Pull out five meal-prep containers and clear a good stretch of bench. Set the oven to 200°C (400°F). This is a one-cook prep with the oven, the hob and a pot all going at once, so having everything to hand before you start is half the work done.

Magnus says: prep is calmer when the kitchen is. Clear the decks first, love.

Five empty meal-prep containers and raw ingredients laid out on a clear bench under cold light

The chicken

Season and roast the breast

Pat the chicken dry, then rub it with two-thirds of the garlic, the smoked paprika, the oregano, black pepper and a light pinch of salt. Lay it on a lined tray and roast at 200°C for 22–28 minutes, until it reaches 74°C / 165°F in the thickest part. Rest it five minutes before you slice or cube it.

Magnus says: a dry surface and a hot oven gives you colour. Colour is flavour.

Seasoned chicken breasts roasting on a lined tray until golden

The rice

Cook the rice, fluff and cool

Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it however you normally do — pot, rice cooker, whatever you’ve got. Fluff it with a fork and spread it out on a tray to cool a little before boxing. Cooling it spread out keeps it from going gluey and helps it hold up all week.

Cooked white rice fluffed and spread on a tray to cool

The veg

Roast broccoli, peppers and courgette

Toss the broccoli, peppers and courgette with the olive oil, the rest of the garlic, a little black pepper and a light pinch of salt. Spread them across one or two trays — don’t crowd them — and roast alongside the chicken for the last 20–22 minutes until the edges char. Roasting beats boiling here; it survives five days in the fridge far better.

Magnus says: boiled veg turns sad by Tuesday. Roasted veg still tastes like food on Friday.

Broccoli, peppers and courgette roasting on a tray with charred edges

Dress it

The little hit of brightness

Stir the low-sodium soy and the lemon juice together in a cup, then trickle it over the sliced chicken and toss. It’s a small thing, but five days of plain chicken gets dull — this keeps every box tasting alive without adding any real calories. Taste, and adjust the pepper.

Sliced roast chicken being tossed with a soy and lemon dressing in a bowl

Portion

Split it evenly across five boxes

Divide everything across the five containers — roughly a fifth of the chicken, rice and veg in each. Even portions mean even macros, so every box lands near 48g of protein and 520 calories. A kitchen scale helps here if you’ve got one; eyeballing is fine once you’ve done it a couple of times. Cool fully, lids on, into the fridge.

Magnus says: cool it before the lid goes on. Trapped steam is what turns prep soggy.

Five finished meal-prep boxes filled evenly with chicken, rice and roasted vegetables

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The batch makes 5 boxes of about 425g of food each. Here’s what one box and a flat 100g actually give you, with the headline of 48g protein and 520 calories per box.

Macros — per box & per 100g
Nutrient	Per box	Per 100g
Energy	520 kcal	122 kcal
Protein	48.0 g	11.3 g
Carbohydrate	54.0 g	12.7 g
— of which sugars	6.0 g	1.4 g
Fat	12.0 g	2.8 g
— of which saturates	2.4 g	0.6 g
Fibre	4.6 g	1.1 g
Sodium	~0.42 g	~0.10 g

Calorie density

122 kcal / 100g

Low for a complete, satisfying meal. That’s the gift of a high-protein, veg-heavy box — a genuinely full plate for a modest calorie count, which is exactly what you want whether you’re holding or losing.

Protein per 100 kcal

9.2 g / 100 kcal

A lifter’s metric, and a strong one for a full meal with rice and a tray of veg in it. Most of the energy you’re eating is doing protein’s job — exactly the point of a prep like this.

Key micros (per box, approx.)

Niacin (B3)~18 mg · 113% DV
Vitamin B6~1.3 mg · 76% DV
Selenium~40 µg · 73% DV
Vitamin C~95 mg · 106% DV
Phosphorus~410 mg · 33% DV
Potassium~780 mg · 17% DV

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One prep, three jobs. The chicken and veg stay the same — you move the rice and the fat around them. Macros below are per box, adjusted for each goal.

Cut

The lean default

Keep every gram of protein and the full tray of veg, but cut the rice to two-thirds across the boxes and go light on the oil. Maximum food on the plate, calories pulled down. This is how I run it when I want the scale moving and still want to feel full at my desk.

430Kcal

47G Protein

9G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Same protein, a bigger scoop of rice in each box and a good drizzle of olive oil over the veg. Add a piece of fruit on the side if you want it. Sturdy, calorie-dense and easy to eat across a busy day.

690Kcal

49G Protein

18G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

The standard box, eaten at the same time each day. Moderate carbs, lean protein, a little healthy fat from the oil. Full, steady energy without a big evening overshoot.

520Kcal

48G Protein

12G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

This whole recipe is built to be made days ahead, so storage is the main event. Cool everything fully before the lids go on, label the boxes with the day if it helps you, and treat the rice with a little respect — it’s the one component that doesn’t love sitting at room temperature.

Fridge

5 days

Boxed and sealed, chicken, rice and roasted veg hold beautifully across a full work week. Cook on Sunday evening and you’re sorted clean through Friday lunch — that’s the whole design.

Freezer

3 months

The chicken and rice freeze very well; the veg softens a little on thaw but still eats fine. Cool fully, freeze flat, and thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.

Reheat

3 min

Microwave the box for 2–3 minutes, stirring once, with a splash of water over the rice to bring it back. A lid or damp paper towel over the top steams it gently and stops the chicken drying out.

A word on the rice, because I’d be a poor cook not to say it: cool it quickly, keep it cold, eat it within five days, and only reheat each box once until it’s piping hot all the way through. Treated kindly, rice is the backbone of cheap, easy prep all week long.

Free · the 7-day “Get Fed” plan

Want a whole week built around food like this?

Drop your email and I’ll send you my free 7-day plan — meals, macros already counted, grocery list written. No spam, no lectures.

No spam. Unsubscribe whenever. See what’s in the plan →

07Common questions

Is five days too long to keep cooked chicken in the fridge? +

Five days is the sensible upper edge for cooked chicken kept cold and sealed, and this prep is built to land right on it. The two things that matter most: cool it fast after cooking and keep your fridge properly cold. If your fridge runs warm or you know you won’t get to the last box, freeze days four and five on prep day and thaw them the night before — nothing ever sits too long that way.

Can I swap the chicken for something else? +

Easily. Chicken thigh makes the boxes juicier (trim a little oil to hold the calories), turkey breast keeps it just as lean, and a block of firm tofu browned hard takes it meat-free — you’ll want a touch more of it to match the 48g protein. Whatever you choose, the box structure of protein, rice and roasted veg stays exactly the same.

How do I keep the rice from going hard in the fridge? +

Two things. Cool it spread out on a tray rather than in a lump, and when you reheat, add a splash of water over the rice before it goes in the microwave. The steam loosens it right back up. A lid or a damp paper towel over the box while it heats helps too.

Can I eat it cold, straight from the fridge? +

You can — plenty of people eat this as a cold lunch and it’s perfectly good. But it’s at its best reheated: a couple of minutes in the microwave with a splash of water over the rice brings the whole box back to life. If you’re eating it cold, that little soy-and-lemon dressing earns its keep, since brightness reads stronger when food is cool.

How do I keep five days of the same lunch from getting boring? +

This is the real question, and I love it. Vary the veg across the batch — peppers and broccoli in some, carrots and green beans in others. Keep a few sauces in the fridge to add at the table: hot sauce, a spoon of Greek yoghurt, a different dressing. Same base, different finish each day, and the prep work stays the same. Variety lives in the last thirty seconds, not the cook.

From my 7-day plans

This prep is the backbone of a full week of meals.

These boxes are the engine room of my meal plans — seven days of high-protein meals with the macros counted and the grocery list written. You pick the goal; I do the maths and the cooking order.

See the meal plans →

A week of chicken, rice and veg prep boxes laid out and portioned under cold light

08Pairs well with

Beef and rice meal-prep bowls

50G Protein

640Calories

Sheet-pan chicken and vegetables

47G Protein

480Calories

Turkey and quinoa prep bowls

44G Protein

500Calories

Browse all recipes →

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

August 7, 2026

Bodybuilding Meal Prep: My Sunday System, Start to Finish

BlogAnabolic Kitchen12 min read

Bodybuilding Meal Prep: My Sunday System, Start to Finish

The 2.5-hour Sunday block that feeds my training week: grocery list, parallel-cook timeline, container macros for bulking or cutting, and real cost per meal.

Magnus Olafsson

Aug 7, 2026

Bodybuilding meal prep has a bad reputation, and it earned it. Eight identical boxes of dry chicken and sad rice, cooked with resentment on a Sunday, eaten with more resentment by Thursday. Then the whole thing collapses into drive-thru burritos and a promise to restart Monday.

Mine doesn’t collapse. I’ve run the same Sunday block for years: two and a half hours, one oven, one wide skillet, one rice cooker. It feeds my training week and covers most of my family’s dinners on top. Twenty boxes, five breakfast jars, real macros, food I want to open at 1 p.m. on a Wednesday.

This is the whole thing, start to finish. The grocery list, the minute-by-minute cook, the container math for bulking and for cutting, the food-safety lines I don’t cross, and what a box honestly costs. Steal all of it, big man. That’s what it’s for.

Why it’s a system and not a mood

The point of meal prep isn’t the cooking. It’s the deleting of decisions. Every meal you never have to think about is a meal that can’t go sideways at 3 p.m. when you’re hungry, tired, and standing in front of a vending machine.

I feel this more than most men. On TRT my appetite is steady and polite. On the heavier runs I’ve done since leaving the stage, it swings. Some weeks I could eat the table. Some weeks food is a chore I keep postponing until my macros are a crater. The boxes don’t care either way. Lid off, ninety seconds in the microwave, 47 grams of protein, done. Hungry me and indifferent me eat the same week.

Motivation is a bad employee. The system shows up.

The bodybuilding meal prep grocery list

One list, three jobs: protein anchors, carb bases, and vegetables that ask nothing of me. I shop the same skeleton every week and swap the details, so nothing gets old and nothing gets forgotten.

Protein anchors: a 6 lb family pack of chicken breast, 3 lb of 90/10 ground beef, 18 eggs, a big tub of Greek yogurt, and casein for the breakfast jars. Two cooked proteins is my minimum. One protein all week is how a man learns to hate a food.
Carb bases: jasmine rice, 3 lb of sweet potatoes, rolled oats, and tortillas for the wildcard meals.
Vegetables: five steam-in-bag frozen vegetables (broccoli, green beans, a stir-fry mix), a bag of spinach, peppers and onions for the beef. Frozen isn’t the compromise here. It’s the plan. Nothing wilts, nothing gets thrown out on Friday.
The flavor kit: two dry rubs and three sauces, restocked as they die. More on this further down. It’s the part everyone skips, and it’s where most preps quietly fail.

Buy everything plain. Pre-marinated chicken and “seasoned” beef carry sugar, a day’s worth of sodium, and a price markup for the privilege. You own the flavor in this system, and you add it later, where it counts. On a tighter month, the swaps are easy: chicken thighs run cheaper than breast and forgive an extra ten minutes in the oven, and eggs are still the cheapest protein in the store per gram. The skeleton holds; the parts flex with the week’s budget.

Raw weights matter more than they look. Six pounds of raw breast cooks down to roughly 2 kg of meat, which portions into 13 to 15 boxes at 140–150 g each. The beef gives six or seven more. If the raw-versus-cooked gap has ever thrown off your numbers, I weighed and roasted my way through it in how much protein is in a chicken breast, raw vs cooked.

The 2.5-hour Sunday, minute by minute

Three stations run at once. The oven does the slow work, the stove does the fast work, and the rice cooker minds itself. I’m the fourth station, working the counter. Nothing here is clever. It’s sequencing.

The kit is short and boring, and every piece pays rent. A digital kitchen scale, non-negotiable — eyeballed rice is how a cut stalls for three weeks. An instant-read thermometer, so “is it done?” stops being a guess. Three half-sheet trays, a 10-cup rice cooker, one wide skillet. That’s it. You don’t need a vacuum sealer or a second fridge or whatever the meal-prep influencers are holding this month. My whole setup cost less than one month of bought lunches, and half of it came with the apartment.

Bodybuilding meal prep Sunday timeline showing oven, stove, rice cooker, and counter tasks running in parallel across 2.5 hours

0:00 — Oven to 425°F. Rice cooker loaded and started (batch one, 3 cups dry). A pot of water goes on the back burner for eggs.
0:05 — Trim the chicken onto two sheet trays, rub one tray one way and the second the other. Sweet potatoes get chunked onto a third tray with a little oil and salt.
0:15 — Chicken and potatoes into the oven. Beef into the wide skillet with the peppers and onions.
0:20 — Eggs into the boiling water. Eleven-minute timer.
0:30 — Beef’s done. Spread it on a tray so it cools fast. Eggs out and into ice water.
0:35 — Rice batch one done: spread it thin on a tray, start batch two. Pull the chicken when the thickest piece reads 165°F on a real thermometer^[2] — for me that’s around now, give or take five minutes. Rest it under foil.
0:55 — Potatoes out. Everything is now cooked. Dishes and wipe-down happen inside this cooling window, not after.
1:20 — Slice the chicken against the grain.
1:30 — Assembly line: scale on the counter, protein first, carb second, vegetables third. Frozen veg goes into the fridge boxes still frozen. It thaws in there and steams itself at reheat. Sauce goes in little cups, never on the food.
2:00 — Lids on, masking-tape labels (day and goal), four days of boxes into the fridge, the rest straight to the freezer.
2:20 — Kitchen’s clean, counter’s clear, week’s done.

The clock matters for more than pride. Cooked food needs to reach cold storage within two hours, and shallow trays are what get it cool fast enough to make that honest^[2]. Spreading the rice thin isn’t chef theater. It’s the safety step most home preppers skip.

Backstage at the B&K Classic, years ago in Sweden, every gym bag on that floor held the same thing: scratched plastic containers, rice pressed flat, chicken sliced thin, lids taped shut. Grown men in bronzer, quietly eating cold rice with plastic forks an hour before stage. None of them were tougher than you. They’d stopped letting meals be decisions, that’s all. I never unlearned it.

Container math: meal prep for muscle gain or a cut

A box is a macro decision you make once and eat twenty times, so get the math right on Sunday and never again. The research is friendly here. Protein does its best work spread across the day: about 0.4 g per kilo of bodyweight per meal, across at least four meals, to reach the 1.6 g/kg/day floor^[3]. The ISSN’s position stand lands in the same place in plainer terms: 20 to 40 g of quality protein every three to four hours, inside a 1.4–2.0 g/kg day^[4].

Kitchen math

A 90 kg man aiming at 1.8 g/kg needs about 160 g of protein a day. Across four feedings, that’s 40 g a box. Roasted chicken breast carries about 31 g of protein per 100 g, so 130 g clears the bar and 150 g gives you headroom. Scale it to your own bodyweight; the rest of the box is carbs and fat doing goal work.

Protein stays fixed. The goal lives in the carb scoop and the added fat:

What’s in the box	Bulking	Cutting
Protein anchor	150 g roasted chicken breast (~47 g protein)	150 g roasted chicken breast (~47 g protein)
Carb base	250 g cooked jasmine rice (~70 g carbs)	125 g cooked jasmine rice (~35 g carbs)
Vegetables	1 cup broccoli	2 cups broccoli — volume is your friend
Added fat	10 g olive oil, added after reheat	cooking spray only
Rough totals	~650 kcal · 49P / 77C / 17F	~450 kcal · 50P / 48C / 7F

That’s kitchen math, rounded. Weigh your own food and trust your scale over my table. The quiet win is that one cook serves every mouth in the house: a bulking me, a cutting me, and family dinner all come off the same trays. Only the scoop changes.

Adjust with the scale trend, not with feelings. If two weeks of bulking boxes move the morning weight too fast, pull 25 g of rice out of each box. If a cut stalls for two honest weeks, take out another 25 g, or add ten minutes of walking and leave the food alone, which is usually the kinder trade. Small levers, moved slowly. The box makes that possible: you can’t fine-tune a diet you never measured in the first place.

Bulking vs cutting bodybuilding meal prep container macro split with gram amounts and calories

If you’d rather have the math pre-chewed, my 100 g protein meal prep containers lay out three days of boxes where the protein is already counted for you.

The honest shelf life: four days, then the freezer

I know men who eat Sunday’s chicken the following Saturday and call it toughness. It’s not toughness. Cooked meat and poultry keep for 3 to 4 days in a fridge at 40°F or colder — that’s the federal cold-storage chart, not a food blogger being careful^[1]. Past that, the bacteria that make you ill don’t announce themselves with a smell.

So my split is fixed: Monday through Thursday eat from the fridge, Friday onward eats from the freezer. Frozen boxes stay safe indefinitely at 0°F, and they hold their quality for 2 to 6 months; in practice mine taste right for about two^[1]^[2]. The night before, a box moves from freezer to fridge and thaws overnight; reheat everything to 165°F, leftovers included^[2]. The freezer is my winter store. Sunday keeps it stocked.

One more habit from the same page: food goes into boxes warm-ish, not steaming. Lidding hot rice traps condensation, and a wet lid means soggy food and a warmer fridge than you think. The cooling window in the timeline handles this on its own: by the time I’m slicing chicken at 1:20, everything is cool enough to box without sweating the lids.

Magnus’s rule

Day-six chicken is not a badge. Four days in the fridge, the rest in the freezer, and Friday’s lunch thaws overnight Thursday. You lift heavy enough already — don’t test your gut for sport.

The flavor problem, solved at reheat

Most bodybuilding meal prep ideas fail on flavor, not on macros. Day-one chicken is fine. Day-four chicken, seasoned once on Sunday and microwaved flat, tastes like a contract you regret signing. The fix is simple: cook the protein nearly plain, and put the flavor at the reheat.

Two rubs go on before the oven — one tray smoky (paprika, garlic, cumin), one tray lemon-pepper. The real work happens in the sauce cups: salsa verde, a yogurt-garlic sauce I make in two minutes, sriracha-honey, chimichurri when the herbs are cheap. Same box, different cup, different meal. Sauce never touches the food until you eat it, so nothing turns to mush in the fridge.

Reheating has its own small craft. A spoonful of water over the rice before the microwave brings it back to life. The olive oil in a bulking box goes on after reheating, never before. Hot oil in a sealed box turns everything greasy. And give the box a minute to rest when the microwave beeps, the same way you’d rest a steak; the heat evens out and the broccoli stays a vegetable instead of becoming a warning.

The carb base rotates the same way. Beef and rice plus salsa is a loaded beef burrito bowl. Chicken and the stir-fry veg plus sriracha-honey is takeout you didn’t order. Wrap the beef in leaves with the yogurt sauce and you’re running the same trick as my turkey lettuce wraps. Breakfast preps itself in five minutes: five jars of casein-loaded overnight oats, one scoop each, done for the week. When you want more bodybuilding meal prep recipes to rotate through, the recipe index is built for exactly this — high protein, honest macros, nothing precious.

What a box costs, honestly

My last full run, Chicago prices, rounded to the dollar:

Item	Amount	Cost
Chicken breast, family pack	6 lb	$19
Ground beef, 90/10	3 lb	$17
Eggs	18	$5
Jasmine rice	about half a 5 lb bag	$4
Sweet potatoes	3 lb	$4
Frozen vegetables	5 steam bags	$9
Greek yogurt	1 large tub	$5
Oats, tortillas, sauce restock	—	$11
Total	20 boxes + 5 jars	$74

Seventy-four dollars across 25 meals is about $3 a box. Your store will drift from mine, and casein adds a little to the jars, so call it $3 to $4 with margin. Now the honest part: prepping is not cheaper than cooking the same food fresh every night. Same groceries, same register. The money you save is in the defaults: the $15 lunch you don’t buy on Wednesday, the delivery you don’t order on Thursday when the fridge looks like a shrug. That’s where the real $40 or $50 a week hides.

Your first Sunday, shrunk to fit

Don’t copy my full board on week one. Start with one protein, one carb, one vegetable: 3 lb of chicken, one rice batch, three steam bags. That’s 90 minutes and eight boxes, and it teaches you the rhythm without burying you in dishes. Add the second protein when the first Sunday feels boring.

And if you’d rather skip the trial and error, I’ve already done it for you. The free 7-day plan is this exact system on paper — list, timeline, boxes matched to your goal — and the full meal plans go deeper for bulking, cutting, and everything between. Cook once, big man. Eat like it mattered all week.

Questions men actually ask

How many days can you meal prep chicken?

Three to four days in a fridge at 40°F or colder, per the federal cold-storage chart^[1]. I eat fridge boxes Monday through Thursday and pull the rest of the week from the freezer. Smell is not a test — the bacteria that hurt you are quiet.

What are the best containers for bodybuilding meal prep?

28 to 34 oz, single compartment, one brand so every lid fits every base. Glass for the fridge-and-microwave rotation, cheap polypropylene for the freezer set. Two-compartment boxes look tidy and hold too little food for a man eating 3,000 calories.

How do bodybuilders meal prep for the whole week?

Two honest ways: cook twice (Sunday plus a 45-minute Wednesday top-up), or cook once and freeze the back half of the week. I run the freezer version — fridge through Thursday, frozen after, each box thawed overnight in the fridge and reheated to 165°F^[2].

Is meal prepping cheaper than cooking daily?

On groceries, no — the same food costs the same money. The savings live in the defaults: takeout you don’t order and lunches you don’t buy when the boxes are already there. My boxes land near $3; a bought lunch is five times that.

How do you meal prep without eating the same thing every day?

Cook the protein nearly plain and put the flavor at reheat. Two rubs, three or four sauce cups, two carb bases, and one wildcard meal a week. Same cook, five different dinners — the macros never notice.

References

Written by

Magnus Olafsson

More about Magnus →

Hungry for a plan, not just a post?

Start with the free plan — macros counted, grocery list written, in your inbox. You cook and eat; I’ll do the math.

Get my free plan →See the meal plans

August 7, 2026

How Much Protein to Build Muscle After 50 (It’s More Than You Think)

BlogMuscle After 5011 min read

How Much Protein to Build Muscle After 50 (It’s More Than You Think)

The RDA was never a muscle number, and anabolic resistance means your muscle needs a bigger dose after 50 — here’s how much protein it actually takes.

Magnus Olafsson

Aug 4, 2026

If you want to know how much protein to build muscle after 50, here’s the honest answer up front: more than the government number, more than you were told, and more than most men your age actually eat. The old RDA of 0.8 grams per kilogram of bodyweight was never a muscle-building number. It was a floor — the minimum to keep a sedentary person from slowly wasting away. It was never meant to grow anything.

Building muscle after 50 sits well above that floor, and the gap gets wider with every birthday. There’s a physical reason for it, and once you understand it, the plate makes sense. If you want the full eating picture first, start with my complete guide to building muscle after 50 — this piece goes deep on one number that matters more than any other: protein.

I’m 40. I’ve been on TRT since I was 35, and I already feel the difference from my competition days back in Sweden. The same food does less than it used to. Past 50, that curve gets steeper. So let’s put real numbers on it — per day, per meal, and on the plate — and let’s put the tired kidney fear to bed while we’re here.

The 0.8 number was never about muscle

The RDA — 0.8 g/kg — is a public-health minimum. It answers one question: how little protein can a healthy adult eat and not lose ground? That’s a survival number, not a growth number. Nobody built a set of shoulders on it.

Here’s the part that gets buried: the RDA fails older lifters harder than anyone. It was set on nitrogen-balance studies that lean young. When researchers pooled the modern evidence for older adults, they landed somewhere else entirely. The PROT-AGE expert group — the position paper most geriatric nutrition leans on — put healthy older adults at 1.0 to 1.2 g/kg per day, active older adults at 1.2 g/kg or more, and older adults dealing with illness at 1.2 to 1.5 g/kg.^[1] That’s not a small bump. For a 90 kg man (about 198 lb), the RDA says 72 grams. The active-aging recommendation says 108 and up. Same man, a 50 percent difference — and the higher number is the one built on the newer science.

Anabolic resistance: why muscle listens less after 50

The reason older men need more protein has a name: anabolic resistance. Your muscle still responds to protein — it just responds less, to the same dose, than it did when you were 25. Feed a young man and an older man the identical amount of protein, and the young man’s muscle-protein synthesis switches on harder. The older man’s muscle is a little deaf. It needs a bigger knock to open the door.

The clearest measurement of this came from a study that fed men graded doses of protein and measured how hard their muscle turned on. To maximally stimulate myofibrillar protein synthesis, younger men (around 22) needed about 0.24 g/kg of bodyweight in a meal. Older men (around 71) needed about 0.40 g/kg — roughly two-thirds more protein per meal to hit the same ceiling.^[2] That single finding is why “just eat the RDA” quietly betrays men over 50. The RDA assumes an efficient machine. After 50, the machine costs more to run.

Chart showing anabolic resistance: older men need 0.40 g/kg of protein per meal versus 0.24 g/kg for younger men to build muscle after 50

Two things drive this. First, aging muscle is less sensitive to the amino acid leucine — the specific trigger that flips the growth switch. Second, blood flow and nutrient delivery to muscle drop with age. Neither one means you can’t build. Both mean you need a stronger signal. And the way you send a stronger signal is more protein, in the right size dose, more often.

How much protein per day to build muscle after 50

Stack the active-aging recommendation on top of what we know about anabolic resistance, and a working daily target for a man over 50 who’s lifting to build muscle lands around 1.4 to 1.6 g/kg of bodyweight — the top of the expert band and a little past it. Not because more is magic, but because your muscle is charging you a tax and you’re paying it with food.

Protein per kg over 50 is the cleanest way to set the number, so here’s the math laid out by bodyweight:

Bodyweight	RDA (0.8 g/kg) — the floor	Active aging (1.2 g/kg)	Lifting to build (1.6 g/kg)
70 kg (154 lb)	56 g	84 g	112 g
82 kg (180 lb)	66 g	98 g	131 g
90 kg (198 lb)	72 g	108 g	144 g
100 kg (220 lb)	80 g	120 g	160 g

Look at that right-hand column and then think about what most men over 50 actually eat: a splash of milk in coffee, a sandwich, a normal dinner. That’s often 70 or 80 grams on a good day — the survival floor, dressed up as “eating fine.” No wonder the muscle won’t come. You’re feeding it to maintain, then wondering why it won’t grow.

Magnus’s rule

If you’re lifting after 50 and the scale by the bathroom sink says 90 kg, your protein target isn’t 70 grams. It’s closer to 140. Write it on the fridge. That one number does more than any supplement in the cabinet.

The number that matters more than the daily total: per meal

Here’s where most men go wrong even when the daily total is right. They eat almost nothing until dinner, then land 90 grams on one plate at 8 p.m. The daily math checks out. The muscle-building doesn’t — because there’s a per-meal ceiling, and after 50 that ceiling sits higher.

Remember the 0.40 g/kg figure. That’s the per-meal dose an older man needs to fully switch on muscle-protein synthesis.^[2] For a 90 kg man, that’s about 36 grams in a sitting — call it a clean 30 to 40 grams, every meal, with enough leucine in it to trip the switch. Leucine is why animal proteins, dairy, and whey pull their weight here: they’re leucine-dense, so they clear the older man’s higher bar more easily. In the trial that fed sarcopenic older adults a leucine-enriched whey protein, muscle mass and lower-body function both improved over 13 weeks.^[3] The trigger is real, and it’s buyable at the grocery store — meat, eggs, dairy, fish.

Go below that per-meal dose and the meal barely registers for growth. Pile way above it in one sitting and you don’t get a bigger response — you just top out, and the rest gets used for energy or stored. That’s the case for spreading protein across the day instead of hoarding it for dinner.

Spread it out: four solid doses beat one big one

The practical version of everything above: aim for roughly four meals of 30 to 40 grams, spaced across your waking hours. Four times you clear the per-meal threshold. Four times your muscle gets the full signal. That’s a fundamentally different day from grazing all afternoon and feasting at night.

Diagram of a day's protein for building muscle after 50: four meals of about 40 grams each totalling 160 grams, breakfast to bedtime — Diagram of a day’s protein for building muscle after 50: four meals of about 40 grams each totalling 160 grams, breakfast to bedtime

Front-load it. Older men tend to eat the least protein at breakfast and the most at dinner — exactly backwards. A real breakfast changes the day. My steak and eggs with spinach lands 40-plus grams before you’ve done anything, and it holds you till lunch. A tuna salad power bowl does the same job at midday without cooking. And the meal men forget is the last one — a slow-digesting dose before bed keeps the signal going overnight. That’s what my casein-loaded overnight oats are built for, and on a lazy night a bowl of my high-protein cottage cheese bowl does it in two minutes flat.

Best protein sources over 50, and what 40 grams looks like on a plate

The best protein sources over 50 are the leucine-dense, easy-to-chew, easy-to-digest ones: meat, poultry, fish, eggs, and dairy up front, with beans and soy backing them up. The goal isn’t exotic. It’s hitting 30 to 40 grams a meal without a struggle. Here’s what that actually looks like, with real numbers:

Food	Protein per typical serving	To hit ~40 g
Cooked chicken breast	~31 g per 100 g^[5]	a 5–6 oz cooked breast
Lean (90/10) ground beef, cooked	~26 g per 100 g	a 6 oz cooked patty
Canned tuna in water, drained	~30 g per 5 oz can	1 can plus a boiled egg
Large eggs	~6 g each	3 eggs + 2 oz cheese, or eggs + yogurt
Low-fat cottage cheese	~25 g per cup	1.5 cups, or 1 cup + a scoop of whey
Greek yogurt, nonfat	~17 g per container	2 containers, or 1 + a scoop
Whey protein	~24 g per scoop	1.5 scoops, or 1 scoop + milk

Kitchen math

Forty grams of protein is a real amount of food — a full chicken breast, not a garnish. If a “high-protein” meal fits in your palm, it isn’t one. This is why men undershoot without knowing it: they picture protein, but they plate a portion built for the RDA. Weigh it once or twice. You’ll recalibrate your eye fast.

A note for the men who can’t chew a steak three times a day, or whose appetite isn’t what it was: this is exactly where a scoop of whey, a tub of Greek yogurt, or blended cottage cheese earns its place. Soft, fast, leucine-rich protein counts every bit as much as the plate that took effort. After 50, getting the grams in beats being a hero about it.

“But is all that protein bad for my kidneys?”

You’ve heard it your whole life, probably from a well-meaning doctor or a brother-in-law: too much protein wrecks your kidneys. For a man with healthy kidneys, the evidence doesn’t back it. A systematic review and meta-analysis pooling dozens of trials found that higher-protein diets did not adversely change kidney function — measured as glomerular filtration rate — in healthy adults.^[4] Yes, a high-protein diet raises filtration rate in the short term. That’s your kidneys working, the way your legs work harder on a hill. It isn’t damage, and when the researchers compared the actual change in function, there was no difference.

The honest exception matters, so I’ll say it plainly. If you already have chronic kidney disease, the rules change — protein does get managed in that situation, and that’s a conversation for your doctor and a dietitian, not a blog. And whatever you run, whatever your age, get your bloodwork done. I say that as a man who checks his own. Know your numbers before you change your plate.

The honest line

This is nutrition from a cook and a lifter, not medical advice. I don’t diagnose and I don’t prescribe. If you have kidney disease, diabetes, or any medical condition — or you’re on medication — talk to your doctor before you overhaul your protein. Food is powerful. Respect it.

When I was competing back in Sweden — the B&K Classic, the Grand Prix stage — I weighed my protein to the gram because the stage doesn’t forgive lazy math. I was in my twenties then, and honestly, my body forgave a lot; the muscle came easy and it stayed. Then I hit 35, went on TRT, and something shifted that no dose fixes: the same food just did less. My appetite would drop on a heavier run and I’d coast on too little without noticing. That was my first real taste of the thing this whole article is about. I’m 40 now. I already eat like the older man in that research, because the mirror doesn’t lie and neither do the numbers. If it’s already true for me, big man, it’s true for you — and the fix isn’t a compound. It’s the plate.

None of this is complicated. It’s just bigger than you were told. Set your daily target by your bodyweight, hit 30 to 40 grams four times a day, lean on the leucine-dense foods, and stop fearing your own kidneys. Do that consistently and the muscle comes — slower than at 25, but it comes.

If you’d rather not do the arithmetic yourself, that’s what I’m here for. Grab my free eating plan and I’ll set the protein target and the four-meal structure for you, or browse the recipe kitchen and build your own day of 40-gram plates. Either way — you’re going to eat well, and I’ve got you.

Questions men actually ask

How much protein per day for a 55-year-old man building muscle?

Set it by bodyweight, not by age. For a man over 50 lifting to build muscle, aim for about 1.4 to 1.6 grams of protein per kilogram per day — the top of the active-aging recommendation and a little past it. A 90 kg (198 lb) man lands around 130 to 145 grams; a 100 kg (220 lb) man, around 145 to 160. That’s well above the 0.8 g/kg RDA, which was never a muscle-building number.

Is 100 grams of protein enough after 50?

For most lifting men over 50, no. A hundred grams is fine maintenance for a smaller or lightly active man, but if you weigh 90 kg and you’re training to grow, your target is closer to 140. The bigger and more active you are, the more 100 grams undershoots. Check it against your own bodyweight rather than treating 100 as a finish line.

Is too much protein bad for your kidneys?

For a man with healthy kidneys, the evidence says no — a meta-analysis of dozens of trials found higher-protein diets did not harm kidney function in healthy adults. The short-term rise in filtration rate is the kidney working, not the kidney failing. The real exception is existing chronic kidney disease, where protein is managed with your doctor. Get bloodwork, know your numbers, then eat.

What are the best protein sources over 50?

The leucine-dense, easy-to-digest ones: lean meat, poultry, fish, eggs, dairy, and whey lead the list, with beans and soy backing them up. Leucine is the amino acid that triggers muscle growth, and after 50 you need a stronger trigger — so animal and dairy proteins clear the bar more easily. If chewing or appetite is a limit, whey, Greek yogurt, and cottage cheese count just as much as a steak.

Does protein timing matter more after 50?

Spacing matters more than clock-precision. Because older muscle needs a bigger per-meal dose to fully respond — about 0.40 g/kg, versus 0.24 for younger men — you get more growth from four meals of 30 to 40 grams than from one huge dinner. Front-load breakfast, hit each meal’s threshold, and add a slow protein like casein or cottage cheese before bed. That beats obsessing over a post-workout window.

References

Written by

Magnus Olafsson

More about Magnus →

Hungry for a plan, not just a post?

Start with the free plan — macros counted, grocery list written, in your inbox. You cook and eat; I’ll do the math.

Get my free plan →See the meal plans

August 4, 2026

100g-Protein Meal-Prep Containers

Recipe · Meal Prep / High-protein / Batch

100g-Protein Meal-Prep Containers (One Cook, Whole Day)

One steady Sunday cook that hands you a full 100 grams of protein across the day, boxed and ready — chicken, lean beef, rice, roasted veg and a soft-boiled egg, split into containers so a big number stops feeling like a mountain. Around 900 calories across the day’s boxes, the macros already counted. This is the prep I lean on when life gets loud and I still want to eat well.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 50+ times

GoalPrep

Total time75 min

Makes1 full day, 3 boxes

Protein / day100 g

Calories / day900 kcal

Three meal-prep containers lined up — chicken, lean beef, rice, roasted vegetables and a soft-boiled egg, portioned under cold light

The first time someone told me to eat 100 grams of protein in a day, I nearly laughed. Not because it’s hard — it isn’t, once you know the trick — but because of how it’s always sold. As a chore. As a punishment. As one of those things you “have to” do, said by someone who clearly doesn’t want you to enjoy a single bite of it. I was about fifteen years into training by then, prepping for a winter of solid work, and I remember sitting in my cold little Stockholm kitchen thinking: there has to be a kinder way to do this. So I started boxing it instead of dreading it.

That’s all this prep really is, love. A big number, broken into three calm meals you can actually look forward to. I cook everything in one go on a Sunday — chicken in the oven, lean beef in the pan, a pot of rice, a tray of veg, a couple of eggs gently boiled — and then I split it into containers so that by the time Tuesday lunch rolls around, hitting 100 grams of protein is just lifting a lid. No maths at the desk. No panic at 9pm. The whole day’s protein is already done and waiting for you.

I make this for myself most weeks, and I’ve made it for people who’d never weighed an ingredient in their life and were sure they couldn’t possibly eat “that much protein.” They could. They did. And they came back the next week asking how to do it again. That’s the bit I love. Not the macros — the look on someone’s face when a scary number turns out to be three nice meals in a box. I’ve got you on this one.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

This is built for the person who knows they should hit their protein but keeps losing the war at lunchtime. Cook once, eat all day, no decisions to make when you’re tired. Here’s how I steer the three boxes depending on what you’re chasing.

On a cut

Trim the rice

Keep the protein boxes exactly as they are and cut the rice down to a half portion across the day. You keep all 100g of protein and a big plate of veg for satiety, and the calories drop toward 720. Volume stays high; that’s the whole point on a cut.

On a bulk

Add easy calories

Same protein, more around it. A bigger scoop of rice in each box, a drizzle of olive oil over the veg, a piece of fruit on the side. You’ll clear 1,300+ calories across the day with the same lean base — clean, not heavy.

On TRT

Steady through the day

Three even meals spread the protein and energy out, which keeps you full and supports recovery without a giant evening overshoot. Lean protein plus a fist of carbs in each box is a calm, dependable way to fuel a normal working day.

Timing: I split it three ways — a box for late morning, one mid-afternoon, one for the evening — but it’s yours to spread however your day runs. Eat a box around training if that suits you; the protein and carbs sit nicely either side of a session.

02Ingredients

Makes one full day — 3 boxes, totalling 100g protein and about 900 calories. Cooking for the whole week? Multiply every line by however many days you’re prepping and keep the proportions the same.

Per box ~33g protein · adjust on the live recipe card

Chicken breast, skinless200 g · 7.1 oz
Lean beef mince, 5% fat150 g · 5.3 oz
Egg soft-boiled1 large
White rice, dry120 g · 4.2 oz
Broccoli florets200 g · 7.1 oz
Bell peppers, sliced150 g · 5.3 oz
Olive oil2 tsp · 10 ml
Garlic, grated2 cloves
Smoked paprika1 tsp
Soy sauce, low-sodium1 tbsp · 15 ml
Black pepperto taste
Saltto taste (go light)

Swaps I actually use: turkey mince or extra chicken works in place of the beef if you want the day leaner. No white rice? Swap in jasmine, basmati, or cooked quinoa one-for-one. For more fibre, run the rice half-and-half with brown rice. Vegetarian? Drop the meat and lean on a block of firm tofu and a scoop of Greek yoghurt to keep the protein up — the structure of the prep stays exactly the same.

03Step by step

Get organised

Three containers, one clear bench

Pull out three meal-prep containers and a clear stretch of bench. Set the oven to 190°C (375°F). This is a one-cook prep, so having everything to hand before you start is half the battle — you’ll be running the oven, a pot and a pan at once.

Magnus says: prep is calmer when the kitchen is. Clear the decks first.

Three empty meal-prep containers and ingredients laid out on a clear bench under cold light

The chicken

Season and roast the breast

Pat the chicken breast dry, rub it with half the garlic, the smoked paprika, black pepper and a light pinch of salt. Roast at 190°C for 22–26 minutes until it hits 74°C / 165°F in the centre. Rest it five minutes, then slice or cube.

Magnus says: a dry surface and a hot oven gives you colour. Colour is flavour.

Seasoned chicken breast roasting on a tray

The beef

Brown the lean mince

While the chicken roasts, brown the 5% beef mince in a dry hot pan — no oil needed, it has enough of its own. Break it up, let it catch a little colour, then stir in the remaining garlic and the low-sodium soy. Cook until no pink remains.

Lean beef mince browning in a pan with garlic and soy

The rice

Cook the rice, fluff and cool

Rinse the rice until the water runs clear, then cook it however you normally do — pot, rice cooker, whatever you’ve got. Fluff it with a fork and spread it on a plate to cool a little before boxing. Cooling it spread out keeps it from going gluey.

The veg

Roast broccoli and peppers

Toss the broccoli and peppers with the olive oil, a little black pepper and a light pinch of salt, spread them on a tray and roast alongside the chicken for the last 18–20 minutes until the edges char. Roasting beats boiling here — it survives the fridge far better.

Magnus says: boiled veg turns sad by Tuesday. Roasted veg holds up all week.

The egg

Soft-boil one egg

Lower the egg into gently boiling water for 7 minutes for a just-set yolk, then straight into cold water. Peel it once cool. One egg is your little extra hit of protein and a nice change of texture in the box.

A peeled soft-boiled egg halved to show a just-set yolk

Portion

Split it evenly across three boxes

Divide everything across the three containers — roughly a third of the chicken, beef, rice and veg in each, with the halved egg shared between two of them. Even portions mean even macros, so each box lands near 33g of protein and 300 calories. Cool fully, lids on, into the fridge.

Magnus says: cool it before the lid goes on. Trapped steam is what turns prep soggy.

Three finished meal-prep boxes filled with chicken, beef, rice, roasted veg and egg

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The full day makes 3 boxes, about 900g of food total. Here’s what one box (about 300g) and a flat 100g actually give you, plus the day’s headline of 100g protein.

Macros — per box & per 100g
Nutrient	Per box	Per 100g
Energy	300 kcal	100 kcal
Protein	33.3 g	11.1 g
Carbohydrate	30.0 g	10.0 g
— of which sugars	3.2 g	1.1 g
Fat	5.6 g	1.9 g
— of which saturates	1.5 g	0.5 g
Fibre	3.0 g	1.0 g
Sodium	~0.34 g	~0.11 g

Calorie density

100 kcal / 100g

Low for a complete meal. That’s the magic of a high-protein, veg-heavy box — you get a genuinely full plate for a modest calorie count, which is exactly what you want whether you’re holding or losing.

Protein per 100 kcal

11.1 g / 100 kcal

A lifter’s metric. Strong for a full meal with rice and veg in it — most of the energy you’re eating is doing protein’s job, which is exactly the point of a prep like this.

Key micros (per box, approx.)

Vitamin C~70 mg · 78% DV
Selenium~32 µg · 58% DV
Vitamin B6~0.7 mg · 41% DV
Niacin (B3)~9 mg · 56% DV
Zinc~3.4 mg · 31% DV
Iron~2.3 mg · 13% DV

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One prep, three jobs. The protein base stays the same — you move the rice and the fat around it. Macros below are per box (a third of the day), adjusted for each goal.

Cut

The lean default

Keep every gram of protein and the full tray of veg, but halve the rice across the boxes. Maximum food on the plate, calories pulled down. This is how I run it when I want the scale moving and still want to feel full at my desk.

240Kcal

33G Protein

5G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Same protein, a bigger scoop of rice in each box and a teaspoon of olive oil over the veg. Add a piece of fruit on the side if you want it. Clean, calorie-dense, and easy to eat across a busy day.

440Kcal

34G Protein

10G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

The standard box, spread evenly across the day. Moderate carbs, lean protein, a little healthy fat from the egg and oil. Full, steady energy without a big evening overshoot.

300Kcal

33G Protein

6G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

This whole recipe is a prep, so storage is the main event. Cool everything fully before the lids go on, label the boxes if you’re making several days at once, and treat the rice with a little respect — it’s the one component that doesn’t love being left at room temperature.

Fridge

4 days

Boxed and sealed, the chicken, beef and veg hold beautifully for four days. Cook a Sunday batch and you’re sorted through Wednesday or Thursday.

Freezer

2 months

The protein and rice freeze well; freeze the veg too, knowing it softens a little on thaw. Cool fully, freeze flat, thaw overnight in the fridge before reheating.

Reheat

3 min

Microwave the box for 2–3 minutes, stirring once, with a splash of water over the rice to bring it back. Add the egg cold after reheating so it doesn’t go rubbery.

A note on rice, because I’d be a poor cook not to say it: cool it quickly, keep it cold, eat it within a few days, and only reheat it once until it’s piping hot. Treated kindly, rice is the backbone of cheap, easy prep all week long.

Free · the 7-day “Get Fed” plan

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Drop your email and I’ll send you my free 7-day plan — meals, macros already counted, grocery list written. No spam, no lectures.

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07Common questions

Is 100g of protein a day right for me? +

It depends on your size, your training and your goals, so I can’t put a number on you from here — that’s a conversation for you and a doctor or dietitian if you want one. What I can tell you is that 100g is a common, sensible target for many active adults, and this prep is just a calm way to reach it if it’s the number you’re working toward. Adjust the portions to fit your own plan.

Can I make a whole week at once? +

Yes, with a small caveat. Cooked chicken, beef and rice are best eaten within about four days in the fridge, so for a full seven days I cook half fresh and freeze the rest, thawing two days’ worth at a time. That way nothing sits too long and every box still tastes like food, not leftovers.

How do I keep the rice from going hard? +

Can I make this vegetarian and still hit the protein? +

You can. Swap the chicken and beef for a block of firm tofu, browned hard, plus a generous scoop of Greek yoghurt or a vegetarian protein source you like across the day. You’ll need a touch more volume to reach 100g without meat, but the box structure — protein, rice, veg — stays exactly the same.

Do I have to eat it cold? +

Not at all — reheat it. A couple of minutes in the microwave with a splash of water over the rice brings the whole box back to life. I add the soft-boiled egg cold after reheating, since eggs go rubbery if you blast them, but everything else is happiest warm.

From my 7-day plans

This prep is the backbone of a full week of meals.

These boxes are the engine room of my meal plans — seven days of high-protein meals with the macros counted and the grocery list written. You pick the goal; I do the maths and the cooking order.

See the meal plans →

A week of meal-prep boxes laid out and portioned under cold light

08Pairs well with

Chicken, rice and veg prep (5 days)

48G Protein

520Calories

Beef and rice meal-prep bowls

50G Protein

640Calories

Sheet-pan chicken and vegetables

47G Protein

480Calories

Browse all recipes →

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

August 3, 2026

Anabolic Banana Bread

Recipe · Anabolic / Breakfast / High-protein

Anabolic Banana Bread

A proper banana bread loaf, built to feed a lifter — ripe bananas, oat flour, a scoop of protein and a spoon of Greek yoghurt for the crumb. About 20 grams of protein and 290 calories a slice, and it lasts you the whole week. Sturdy, soft, honestly sweet. This is the loaf I keep on the counter, love, and I want you to have it.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 31 times

GoalAnabolic

Total time65 min

Servings8 slices

Protein / serving20 g

Calories / serving290 kcal

A sliced loaf of high-protein banana bread, golden-topped and soft inside, plated under cold light

Every week there are three or four bananas on my counter going past the point where anyone wants to eat them — soft, freckled, a little sad-looking. My partner won’t touch them once they turn. I can’t bear to bin them. So years ago I started turning that little graveyard of fruit into a loaf, and somewhere along the way I taught it to carry real protein. Now those forgotten bananas are the best thing in my kitchen by Wednesday.

This is not a sad, dry, sawdust loaf. I want to be clear about that, because protein baking has a bad name and it earned most of it. The trick is the yoghurt and the egg whites keeping the crumb tender, the oat flour for body, and only enough protein powder to do the job — not so much it turns to chalk. What comes out is soft, properly banana-sweet, and it slices clean. A slice gives you around 20 grams of protein for 290 calories, which is a genuinely lovely number for something that eats like a treat.

I bake one loaf on a Sunday and it feeds me all week. A slice with coffee before the gym. A slice in my bag for the drive home. A slice warmed with a smear of peanut butter when I want something kind at the end of a long day. No counting agony, no shame, no wasted fruit. Just a sturdy, honest loaf that’s there when you need it. Make it once and I think you’ll keep those over-ripe bananas on purpose. I’ve got you.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

One loaf, three jobs. The bread itself stays the same; what changes is when you reach for it and what you put alongside. Here’s how I steer it.

On a cut

The honest sweet fix

One slice with your morning coffee or after training, when you want something that tastes like a treat but keeps the calories sensible. High protein, real food, and it scratches the sweet itch so you’re not raiding the cupboard later. No shame in it at all.

On a bulk

Easy clean calories

Two slices with a scoop of Greek yoghurt or a spread of peanut butter on top. Soft, calorie-dense, easy to get down when you’re struggling to eat enough. A painless way to add protein and carbs around training.

On TRT

Steady morning fuel

A slice with a couple of whole eggs makes a balanced, satisfying breakfast — protein, slow carbs from the oats, and just enough sweetness to look forward to. Gentle on the stomach and it keeps you full to lunch.

Timing: this shines as a breakfast or a post-training slice — the bananas and oats give you carbs to refill on, and the protein does its quiet work. It also packs beautifully, which is the whole point of baking a loaf instead of a single serving.

02Ingredients

Makes 8 slices — one standard loaf, cut even. Want more? This doubles cleanly into two tins; keep the banana-to-flour ratio the same so the crumb stays soft.

Servings 8 · adjust on the live recipe card

Ripe bananas the freckled ones3 medium · 330 g
Oat flour or blitzed oats160 g · 1⅓ cups
Protein powder vanilla or unflavoured60 g · 2 scoops
Eggs2 large
Egg whites2 · 66 g
Greek yoghurt 0% or 2%120 g · ½ cup
Baking powder2 tsp · 8 g
Cinnamon1 tsp
Saltpinch
Dark choc chips or walnuts optional40 g · ¼ cup

Swaps I actually use: no oat flour? Blitz rolled oats in a blender until fine — same thing, cheaper. Whey makes a lighter crumb; a casein or blend bakes denser and a touch moister, so add a splash of milk if your batter looks tight. No protein powder at all? See the variations and the questions below — you can still make a lovely loaf. And if the bananas aren’t quite ripe enough, roast them in their skins for ten minutes to coax the sweetness out.

03Step by step

Mash

Mash the bananas properly

Peel the bananas into a big bowl and mash them with a fork until almost smooth — a few small lumps are fine, they keep the loaf interesting. The riper they are, the easier this is and the sweeter your bread will be.

Magnus says: the browner the banana, the better the loaf. Don’t fear the freckles, love.

Very ripe freckled bananas being mashed with a fork in a large mixing bowl

Wet mix

Beat in the eggs and yoghurt

Crack in the whole eggs, add the egg whites and the Greek yoghurt, and whisk it all into the mashed banana until smooth. This is the part that keeps the crumb soft, so take a moment and get it properly combined.

Eggs, egg whites and Greek yoghurt whisked into mashed banana until smooth

Dry mix

Stir the dry ingredients separately

In a second bowl, stir together the oat flour, protein powder, baking powder, cinnamon and the pinch of salt. Mixing the dry bits first stops the protein powder clumping when it hits the wet — a small step that saves you lumps.

Oat flour, protein powder, baking powder and cinnamon stirred together in a bowl

Fold

Bring the two together — gently

Tip the dry into the wet and fold just until you no longer see flour. If you’re adding choc chips or walnuts, fold them through now. The batter should be thick and spoonable; if it’s stiff, loosen it with a splash of milk.

Magnus says: do not overmix. The second the flour disappears, you stop. Beating it gives you a tough, rubbery loaf.

Dry ingredients being folded gently into the wet banana batter with a spatula

Pour

Into a lined tin

Line a standard loaf tin (about 9×5 inch / 23×13 cm) with baking paper and scrape the batter in, levelling the top. A few extra banana slices or a scatter of chips on top is nice if you’ve got them.

Thick banana batter scraped into a paper-lined loaf tin and levelled

Bake & cool

175°C for 45–55 minutes, then wait

Bake at 175°C (350°F) for 45 to 55 minutes, until the top is golden and a skewer comes out clean or with a few moist crumbs. Then — and this is the hard part — let it cool fully in the tin before you slice it.

Magnus says: cool it completely before slicing. Cut it warm and protein loaves crumble. Patience gives you clean, sturdy slices.

Baked golden banana bread loaf cooling in the tin before slicing

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The loaf makes 8 slices of roughly 90 grams each. Here’s what one slice and a flat 100 grams actually give you. Your exact figures will shift a little with your protein brand and how big your bananas are.

Macros — per slice & per 100g
Nutrient	Per slice	Per 100g
Energy	290 kcal	322 kcal
Protein	20.0 g	22.2 g
Carbohydrate	30.0 g	33.3 g
— of which sugars	12.0 g	13.3 g
Fat	7.0 g	7.8 g
— of which saturates	2.2 g	2.4 g
Fibre	4.0 g	4.4 g
Sodium	~0.28 g	~0.31 g

Calorie density

322 kcal / 100g

Moderate for a baked good — far gentler than shop banana bread, which often lands well north of 400. The yoghurt and egg whites are doing the heavy lifting here.

Protein per 100 kcal

6.9 g / 100 kcal

Strong for something sweet. A normal banana bread gives you almost none; this one carries real protein in every slice, which is the whole reason it earns a place in your week.

Key micros (per slice, approx.)

Potassium~310 mg · 7% DV
Magnesium~42 mg · 10% DV
Vitamin B6~0.3 mg · 18% DV
Phosphorus~180 mg · 26% DV
Manganese~0.9 mg · 39% DV
Calcium~70 mg · 5% DV

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One loaf, three ways to lean it. The bread is the same; you adjust the slice and what sits on top. Macros below are per slice, with the additions counted in.

Cut

The lean slice

Make it with 0% yoghurt and skip the choc chips, then have one plain slice with your coffee. Maximum protein per calorie, real sweetness from the banana alone. This is the version I keep around when I’m tightening up before a shoot.

260Kcal

20G Protein

5G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Keep the choc chips or walnuts in, then top a slice with a heaped tablespoon of peanut butter and a spoon of Greek yoghurt. Soft, calorie-dense and easy to eat when your appetite’s lagging in a bulk.

470Kcal

27G Protein

20G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

One slice alongside two whole eggs for a full, balanced breakfast — protein, slow carbs and a little healthy fat. Satisfying, gentle on digestion, and nothing overshot for the day ahead.

440Kcal

33G Protein

17G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

This loaf was built to be made ahead. I bake it Sunday, cool it fully, slice the whole thing, and I’m set for the week — a real meal-prep bake, not a one-off. Here’s how to keep it good.

Fridge

5 days

Store the cooled, sliced loaf in an airtight container in the fridge. It keeps soft and the flavour actually deepens by day two.

Freezer

3 months

Freeze individual slices with baking paper between them so they don’t fuse. Pull one out the night before, or warm it straight from frozen.

Reheat or cold

20 sec

Eat it cold from the fridge — it’s lovely that way — or warm a slice for 20 seconds in the microwave so it goes soft and the banana smell comes back.

For prep, I wrap two slices for the gym bag and leave the rest cut in the container. Because the macros are already counted, it slots into any day without fuss — which is exactly what you want from a bake that has to last you a whole week.

Free · the 7-day “Get Fed” plan

Want a whole week built around food like this?

Drop your email and I’ll send you my free 7-day plan — meals, macros already counted, grocery list written. No spam, no lectures.

No spam. Unsubscribe whenever. See what’s in the plan →

07Common questions

My loaf came out dry — what went wrong? +

Almost always too much protein powder or too long in the oven. Protein powder soaks up moisture as it bakes, so the more you add the drier it gets — stick to the two scoops here. Pull the loaf the moment a skewer shows a few moist crumbs, not bone-dry, and don’t skip the yoghurt. A splash of milk in a tight batter helps too.

Can I make it without protein powder? +

You can, love. Swap the 60g of powder for another 60g of oat flour and keep the eggs, whites and yoghurt — they still bring real protein. You’ll land lower, around 13–14g per slice, but it’s a lovely soft banana bread and a fine breakfast. The powder is what pushes it up to 20g; everything else stands without it.

What can I use instead of oat flour? +

The cheapest swap is rolled oats blitzed fine in a blender — that is oat flour. Wholemeal or plain flour works too and gives a slightly lighter crumb. If you need it gluten-free, a 1:1 GF baking blend behaves well here. Whatever you use, keep the weight the same so the batter stays the right thickness.

How ripe do the bananas need to be? +

Properly ripe — soft, heavily freckled, almost too far gone to eat raw. That’s where the natural sweetness and the easy mash come from, so this is the recipe to save your sad counter bananas for. If yours are still firm and yellow, roast them in their skins at 175°C for about 10 minutes until the skins blacken, then let them cool and mash.

Can I freeze the baked loaf? +

Yes, and it freezes beautifully. Cool it fully, slice it, and freeze the slices with baking paper between them so they pull apart easily. They keep about three months. Thaw a slice overnight in the fridge, or warm it straight from frozen in the microwave for 30–40 seconds. Freezing in slices means you only ever defrost what you’ll eat.

From my high-protein meal plans

This loaf lives inside a full week of meals.

A slice of this banana bread is one breakfast in my high-protein meal plans — seven days of food with the macros counted and the grocery list written. You pick the goal; I do the maths and feed you well.

See the meal plans →

Sliced high-protein banana bread plated under cold light

08Pairs well with

A soft high-protein cinnamon roll with a thin glaze, plated under cold light

Anabolic cinnamon roll

26G Protein

360Calories

High-protein pancakes

38G Protein

480Calories

Peanut-butter protein oats

40G Protein

640Calories

Browse all recipes →

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

July 31, 2026

Foods to Avoid While on Steroids: What Stays Out of My Kitchen on Cycle

BlogOn-Cycle Nutrition11 min read

Foods to Avoid While on Steroids: What Stays Out of My Kitchen on Cycle

On cycle your margins shrink, so the food that was fine off cycle starts to cost you — here’s my honest out-list and the why behind each one.

Magnus Olafsson

Jul 31, 2026

Off cycle, a Friday burger is just dinner. On cycle, it’s a line on a blood panel.

Nobody gets shamed in my kitchen for a burger — hear that first. But when you’re running something, your body is already working overtime on the quiet things food touches: blood pressure, your lipids, your liver, the water sitting under your skin. So the honest answer to which foods to avoid while on steroids has nothing to do with willpower or being “clean.” It’s about margins. On cycle your margins shrink, and food that was neutral off cycle stops being neutral.

I’ve been on TRT since I was 35, and I still run a heavier cycle now and then, off the competitive stage. I’ve watched my own bloodwork move because of what was on my plate, not just what was in the syringe. This is the out-list I actually keep — every item, and exactly why it earns its place.

Why “fine” food stops being fine on cycle

Here’s the thing I wish someone had said to me plainly years ago. Testosterone and the compounds stacked with it push on a handful of markers at once. They tend to drop your good cholesterol, nudge your blood pressure up, park extra water under the skin, and lean on the liver — especially with orals in the mix. None of that is the food’s fault. But it means you start every day with less headroom than a natural lifter has.

So what not to eat on cycle isn’t a moral list. It’s a math problem. If your blood pressure is already sitting higher than you’d like, a 2,000 mg-sodium takeout meal is a bigger deal than it was last year. If your HDL is already suppressed, the deep-fryer isn’t a treat — it’s a second hit on a marker that’s already down. Same food, different body, different cost.

Diagram showing how blood pressure, cholesterol, liver, and water margins shrink on a steroid cycle versus off cycle

Read the table below as the short version. The rest of the article is me explaining each line, because you deserve the why, not just the “don’t.”

What I keep out (or way down)	The marker it leans on	What I reach for instead
Alcohol	Liver load, estrogen, recovery, sleep	Sparkling water, or nothing, on the heavy weeks
Sodium bombs (fast food, cured meats, salty snacks)	Blood pressure, water retention	Home-salted whole food, potassium-rich plates
Trans fats and deep-fried food	Cholesterol (raises LDL, lowers HDL)	Olive oil, oily fish, air-fryer or oven
Added-sugar floods (soda, candy, sweet coffee)	Blood pressure, triglycerides, appetite	Fruit, real carbs around training
Grapefruit, if you take daily meds	Drug metabolism (a caveat, not a ban)	Other citrus — check with your doctor

Alcohol on cycle: the one I dig my heels in on

If I could only pull one thing off your plate on a heavy week, it’d be the drink. Alcohol on cycle hits three of the exact systems your cycle is already stressing, all at once.

Start with the liver. Your liver is already the busiest organ on a cycle, and it’s the one clearing your alcohol too. Ask it to process a stack and a night of drinking on the same shift and something gives. The literature on alcohol and the male reproductive system is blunt about it: heavy drinking damages hormone handling at the liver, the testes, and the brain’s signalling all together^[4]. That’s not a moral point. That’s your recovery organ doing two hard jobs at once.

Then estrogen. Your liver is where a chunk of your hormone metabolism happens, and drinking tilts that balance in the direction most guys on cycle are already fighting. A systematic review and meta-analysis found that heavy alcohol intake is associated with lower testosterone in men, and named alcohol overuse a genuinely destructive factor for the whole testosterone axis^[3]. On cycle you’ve got exogenous test covering the T side, but the estrogen tilt and the recovery cost don’t care that your levels look fine on paper.

Last, recovery. Booze wrecks the sleep you’re counting on to actually turn food and training into muscle. You didn’t run a cycle to sleep badly and eat worse the next day. That’s the real tax — not the calories in the beer, but the loose, salty, late-night eating that rides in behind it.

Magnus’s rule

Less is always safer than more, with everything we’re talking about here. I’m not going to pretend I’ve never had a glass of wine with my husband. But on a heavy week, I keep it off the table — not out of guilt, out of respect for the organ doing the cleanup. More was never the thing that helped me.

Sodium on cycle: the bombs that puff you up and push your pressure

Salt gets a bad name it only half deserves. Sodium isn’t poison — you need it, and if you train hard and sweat you need a fair bit. The problem with sodium on cycle is two-sided: it pulls water, and it leans on blood pressure that your compounds may already be raising.

The water piece is the one you see in the mirror. That puffy, smooth, blurry look — the face that isn’t quite yours — is often a sodium swing riding on top of the water your cycle already holds. It’s not fat. It moves in a day. But it tells you your balance is off.

The blood pressure piece is the one you don’t see, and it’s the one that matters more. The American Heart Association puts the ceiling at 2,300 mg of sodium a day, with an ideal closer to 1,500 mg for most adults, and notes that cutting back by about 1,000 mg a day measurably improves blood pressure^[1]. Now look at where sodium actually comes from — it’s almost never your salt shaker.

Ranked bar chart of high-sodium foods to avoid on a steroid cycle, from fast food to home cooking, against the AHA 1,500 mg daily target

Kitchen math

A single fast-food combo can hand you 2,000 mg or more of sodium in one sitting — past a whole day’s ideal before dinner’s even done. Salt your own cooking to taste and you’ll still land under it, easily. The shaker was never the villain. The drive-through is.

The fix isn’t a low-sodium punishment plan. It’s cooking your own food so you’re the one holding the salt, and building plates around potassium-rich stuff — greens, potatoes, fish — that helps balance the scale. A plate like my baked cod and greens is exactly the shape I’m talking about: lean protein, real vegetables, and I decide every gram of salt that touches it.

Trans fats and the deep-fryer: your cholesterol on cycle

This is the one guys underrate the most, and it’s the one your cardiologist would care about first. Anabolics are hard on your lipids on their own. A study of young men using anabolic-androgenic steroids found their HDL — the cholesterol that clears the junk out of your arteries — did its job measurably worse, and a quarter of the users already had early plaque in more than one coronary artery, in men who none of the non-users could match^[5]. Your cycle is already spending your cholesterol margin.

Now bring in trans fats and heavy deep-fried food. The American Heart Association is clear that trans fats raise your bad (LDL) cholesterol and lower your good (HDL) cholesterol, and that a diet high in them raises the risk of heart disease and stroke — with some evidence artificial trans fats are worse for your heart than saturated fat^[2]. That’s the same HDL your cycle is already knocking down. Two hits, same marker. That’s why the fryer comes off the menu on cycle even though it’s “just a bit of fat.”

I don’t eat zero fat — that’s its own mistake, and your hormones need dietary fat. I eat the right fats. Olive oil, whole eggs, oily fish. Sardines are one of my quiet weapons here; a plate like my grilled sardines and greens brings the omega-3s that your lipid panel actually likes, for about the price of a coffee. The oven and the air-fryer do the work the deep-fryer used to. You lose nothing but the number on the panel you didn’t want.

The added-sugar flood

Sugar itself won’t undo a cycle. A square of chocolate is a square of chocolate. What I pull back on is the flood — the litre of soda, the sweet coffee twice a day, the candy that shows up when appetite is roaring and you’re bulking anyway.

Two reasons. Added sugar in big daily volumes pushes on the same blood pressure and triglyceride numbers we’ve been protecting this whole time. And on cycle your appetite can be a liar — hungry all day, never quite full — so a sugar flood becomes a calorie flood you didn’t decide on, riding under a “dirty bulk” excuse. Real carbs around your training do everything the soda promised and none of the damage. Rice, potatoes, oats, fruit. That’s fuel with a job. The soda is just water spending your markers.

The sneaky one here is liquid sugar, because it doesn’t fill you up. A plate of rice tells your body it ate. A bottle of soda tells it almost nothing, so you drink it and eat your full dinner on top. On cycle, when you’re already primed to eat big, that’s how a couple of hundred “invisible” calories a day turn into a gut you didn’t plan for and a triglyceride number that creeps. If you want something sweet, I’d rather you have the real thing on a plate, sat down, and enjoy it — fruit, a square of good chocolate, honest dessert. It’s the mindless litre-a-day drip that costs you, not the enjoyment.

The grapefruit caveat

This one’s short and it’s a caveat, not a scare. If you take any daily medication, grapefruit is worth a second thought — and this is general information, not medical advice, so the real answer comes from your doctor and your pharmacist.

Grapefruit isn’t unhealthy. The issue is that it blocks a liver enzyme called CYP3A4 that your body uses to break down a long list of drugs. Peer-reviewed work shows grapefruit’s furanocoumarins shut that enzyme down and can push the blood level of an affected drug up — in some cases several-fold, lasting around a day^[6]. If you’re on a statin, a blood pressure med, or anything your doctor put you on, that interaction is a real thing, and it has nothing to do with your cycle specifically — it’s just the kind of quiet detail that’s easy to miss. Other citrus doesn’t do this. Ask, then decide.

“Dirty bulk everything” — the mindset, not a food

The most damaging thing on this whole list isn’t a food at all. It’s a mindset: I’m on cycle, I’m anabolic, it all goes to muscle, so I can eat anything. I understand the appeal. When you’re growing and hungry and strong, it feels like the rules got suspended.

They didn’t. Your muscles might forgive the junk. Your blood pressure, your liver, and your lipids keep the receipts. That’s the difference between a cycle you look back on proud and one your fifty-year-old self has to clean up after. Eating with some care on cycle isn’t clean-eating moralism — it’s the same bloodwork math, just taken seriously because the stakes went up.

The first time I really sat with my own lipid panel after a cycle, I didn’t like what I saw. My HDL had dropped, and I couldn’t blame the compound alone — I’d been eating like the rules were off. I’d competed back in Sweden, at the B&K Classic and the Grand Prix; I knew how to be strict when a stage demanded it. But somewhere off the stage I’d let “anabolic” become an excuse for the fryer and the drive-through. That panel was the day I stopped treating my kitchen like it didn’t count. Nothing dramatic changed. I just started cooking again, salting my own food, and leaving the beer for the light weeks. The next panel thanked me.

If you want the full picture of how I actually build plates on a heavier run — not just the out-list but the in-list — I laid it all out in how I really eat on cycle, and the bigger framework for eating to grow lives on my bulking guide. This article is the fence; those two are the field inside it.

None of this is about fear, and none of it is about shame. It’s about keeping your margins wide enough that the good stuff — the strength, the size, the recovery — actually lands, and the invisible costs stay small. Cook your own food. Salt it yourself. Save the drink for the easy weeks. Build your plates around protein and real carbs and the fats your heart likes. A weeknight like my salmon, sweet potato and asparagus does more for you on cycle than any supplement in the cupboard.

And if you’d rather not think about all of it every night, I built a free eat-well plan that does the balancing for you — real macros, real food, plates that keep your markers quiet without asking you to earn a single meal. Take it. I’ve got you.

Questions men actually ask

Can you drink alcohol on cycle?

You can — nobody’s stopping you and you won’t undo a cycle with one glass. But alcohol leans on the three things your cycle is already stressing: your liver, your hormone balance, and your recovery sleep. On a heavy week I keep it off entirely and save a glass for the lighter weeks. Less is always safer than more here.

Does salt really matter on cycle?

More than it did off cycle. Sodium pulls water — that’s the puffy, smooth look in the mirror — and it pushes on blood pressure that your compounds may already be raising. The AHA ideal is around 1,500 mg a day, and one fast-food meal can blow past that alone. Cook your own food and salt it to taste and you’ll land well under, easily.

Can you eat junk food and still grow on cycle?

Your muscles might grow anyway — that’s exactly what makes the “dirty bulk everything” trap so easy to fall into. But your blood pressure, liver, and cholesterol keep the receipts even when the scale and the mirror don’t. You can grow on junk. You just pay for it on a panel you’d rather not read.

What foods help blood pressure on cycle?

The ones you cook yourself, salted by your own hand, built around potassium-rich foods — leafy greens, potatoes, fish, beans — that help balance sodium’s pull. Oily fish for the omega-3s your lipids like. And plain water instead of the soda and the beer. It’s less about magic foods and more about who’s holding the salt.

Do you need to eat clean on steroids?

Not “clean” in the shame sense — nobody earns their food in my kitchen. But you do need to eat with more care than a natural lifter, because your margins on blood pressure, liver, and cholesterol are already spent by the cycle. It’s not moralism. It’s bloodwork math with the stakes turned up.

References

Written by

Magnus Olafsson

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July 31, 2026

High-Protein Loaded Nachos

Recipe · Anabolic / Dinner / High-protein

High-Protein Loaded Nachos

A whole plate of loaded nachos built to feed one hungry lifter properly — seasoned lean mince, a sensible pile of baked chips, light cheese, and a cold drift of Greek-yoghurt “sour cream” on top. About 42 grams of protein and 560 calories, and not one ounce of shame on the plate. This is sharing food made just for you.

By Magnus Olafsson Updated 28 June 2026 Tested 30 times

GoalAnabolic

Total time25 min

Servings1 plate

Protein / serving42 g

Calories / serving560 kcal

A loaded plate of high-protein nachos topped with seasoned mince, melted cheese, Greek-yoghurt sour cream, salsa and jalapeños under cold light

The thing I missed most when I started eating for the stage wasn’t the food itself — it was the sharing of it. A big communal plate of nachos in the middle of the table, everyone’s hands going in at once, somebody arguing over who took the last chip with the most cheese on it. That’s a warm thing. And for a long while I thought I had to give it up entirely, that nachos were simply off the table for a man counting his macros. I was wrong about that, and somebody should have told me sooner.

So I built my own version. Not a sad pile of plain chips with a spoon of beans — a proper loaded plate, made to feed one big hungry person all on its own. Lean mince, seasoned until it actually tastes of something. A measured handful of baked chips instead of a whole greasy bag. Light cheese where it counts, and a cold spoonful of Greek yoghurt standing in for the sour cream so well you won’t miss the real thing. It lands at around 42 grams of protein and 560 calories for the whole plate, and it eats like a treat because it is one.

There’s no catch here, love. You’re not paying for this later, you didn’t have to be good all day to deserve it, and nothing about it is a slip. It’s just a smart, satisfying plate of food that happens to love you back. Make it on a Friday night, put your feet up, and eat the whole thing. I’ve got you.

01Who it’s for & when to eat it

This is one base plate that bends to whatever week you’re in. The nachos stay the same; what you do is nudge the chip count, the cheese, and the mince to fit your numbers. Here’s how I steer it.

On a cut

Lean it down

Use turkey mince and high-protein lentil chips, drop the cheese to a light scatter, and pile on extra salsa and jalapeños for flavour and volume. You still get a full loaded plate — just lighter and even higher in protein per calorie.

On a bulk

Build it up

Add another handful of chips, a few more grams of cheese, and a scoop of black beans or guacamole. Easy extra calories with the same comfort. Numbers are in the variations below.

On TRT

Steady fuel

The plate as written is a tidy balance — lean protein, a moderate carb portion, a sensible bit of fat. Good as an evening meal that keeps you full and supports recovery without overshooting.

Timing: this is a brilliant post-training dinner — fast carbs from the chips, a big slug of protein from the mince and yoghurt, and enough on the plate that you actually feel fed. It’s also my honest answer to a Friday-night craving, no negotiation required.

02Ingredients

Makes 1 big plate — one full serving, built to fill up one hungry lifter. Want to feed two? Double every line; the only thing that matters is keeping the chip portion honest so the macros hold.

Servings 1 · adjust on the live recipe card

Baked tortilla chips or high-protein chips45 g · 1.6 oz
Lean beef or turkey mince 5% fat120 g · 4.2 oz
Taco seasoning, cumin & paprika blend2 tsp
Light grated cheese30 g · 1.1 oz
0% Greek yoghurt “sour cream”60 g · 2.1 oz
Salsa3 tbsp · 45 g
Pickled jalapeñosto taste
Spring onion, sliced1 stalk
Lime to finish½, wedged
Fresh coriandersmall handful

Swaps I actually use: shredded cooked chicken breast works beautifully in place of the mince — same seasoning, same numbers, less washing up. For a deeper cut, lentil or chickpea chips push the protein up and the calories down. No fresh coriander? Leave it out; never sub dried, it does nothing here. And a spoon of mashed black beans folded into the mince stretches the plate and adds fibre without much fuss.

03Step by step

Brown the mince

Sear it hard, then season

Get a dry non-stick pan properly hot. Add the lean mince and leave it alone for a minute so it catches and browns before you break it up — lean mince needs that heat or it just goes grey and sad. Once it’s broken down and cooked through, stir in the taco seasoning, cumin and paprika with a splash of water and let it bubble for a minute.

Magnus says: lean mince has no fat to fry in, so the pan does the work. Hot pan, patience, then season.

Lean mince browning in a hot dry non-stick pan with taco seasoning being stirred in

Arrange the chips

Lay them out in one even layer

Spread your measured chips across an ovenproof plate or small tray in a single layer, not a tall heap. You want every chip to get a little something on it, and a flat bed melts and crisps far more evenly than a pile.

Baked tortilla chips spread in a single even layer across an ovenproof plate

Layer it up

Mince and cheese over the top

Scatter the hot seasoned mince evenly across the chips, then sprinkle the light cheese over the lot. Try to get a bit of both into every corner so there are no bare chips left out in the cold.

Magnus says: spread, don’t dump. A plate where every chip is loaded is the whole point of loaded nachos.

Seasoned mince and grated cheese scattered evenly over the layer of chips

Melt the cheese

Grill until just bubbling

Slide the plate under a hot grill for two to three minutes, until the cheese melts and turns glossy and the chip edges go golden. Watch it the whole time — thin baked chips catch fast, and there’s no saving a burnt one.

The loaded plate under a grill with the cheese melting and bubbling over the mince

Add the cold bits

Spoon on the yoghurt, salsa & jalapeños

Out it comes. Now spoon the Greek yoghurt over in soft dollops, add the salsa, scatter the jalapeños, spring onion and coriander, and finish with a hard squeeze of lime. The cold against the hot melted cheese is the best part — don’t rush it on while everything’s scalding.

Magnus says: the yoghurt is your sour cream, and a good one. Cold, tangy, and it carries a third of your protein.

Greek yoghurt, salsa, jalapeños and coriander being spooned over the hot loaded nachos

Serve fast

Eat it while it’s hot and crisp

Nachos wait for no one, love. Carry the plate straight to the table and dig in while the chips are still crisp and the cheese still pulls. This is a plate built to be eaten now, with your hands, happily.

The finished loaded nachos plated and ready to eat, cheese pulling, chips crisp

04The spec sheet

Real numbers, calculated — not guessed. The recipe makes one full plate of roughly 330g. Here’s what the whole serving gives you, and the same plate flattened to a per-100g view so you can compare it against anything else in your week.

Macros — per serving & per 100g
Nutrient	Per serving	Per 100g
Energy	560 kcal	170 kcal
Protein	42.0 g	12.7 g
Carbohydrate	45.0 g	13.6 g
— of which sugars	6.0 g	1.8 g
Fat	22.0 g	6.7 g
— of which saturates	8.0 g	2.4 g
Fibre	5.0 g	1.5 g
Sodium	~0.9 g	~0.27 g

Calorie density

170 kcal / 100g

Moderate. For a plate that eats like a proper treat, that’s a kind number — you get real volume, real cheese, real chips, and still a sensible total. Volume on your side.

Protein per 100 kcal

7.5 g / 100 kcal

Solid for comfort food. The mince and the Greek yoghurt do the heavy lifting here, turning a snack-shaped plate into a meal that actually holds you.

Key micros (per serving, approx.)

Zinc~7 mg · 64% DV
Vitamin B12~2.4 µg · 100% DV
Selenium~25 µg · 45% DV
Niacin (B3)~7 mg · 44% DV
Iron~3 mg · 17% DV
Calcium~200 mg · 15% DV

A quick honest word on sodium: it sits moderate here, coming mostly from the chips, the seasoning and the salsa. If you’re watching it, reach for low-salt chips and a no-added-salt salsa and you’ll bring it down nicely. Macros are calculated from standard food-composition data and shift a little with your exact brands. Micronutrient figures are estimates against general adult Daily Values, for guidance, not medical advice — see our Nutrition Disclaimer.

05Bulk / Cut / TRT variations

One plate, three jobs. The build stays the same — you adjust the chips, the cheese, and the protein to fit the week. Macros below are for the full plate with the changes listed.

Cut

The lean default

Turkey mince and lentil chips, cheese dropped to a light scatter, double the salsa and jalapeños for volume. Still a full loaded plate — just lighter, leaner, and even higher in protein for the calories. My pick when the numbers are tight.

440Kcal

45G Protein

12G Fat

Bulk

Build it up

Another handful of chips, a bit more cheese, and a scoop of black beans plus a spoon of guacamole on top. Easy extra calories with the same comfort, and the fibre and fats round it out into a big, satisfying plate.

780Kcal

50G Protein

34G Fat

TRT

Steady & balanced

The plate as written, with a few avocado slices added for healthy fat. Lean protein, a moderate carb portion, balanced fats — full, satisfied, and nothing overshot for an everyday evening meal.

620Kcal

43G Protein

28G Fat

06Meal prep & storage

The trick with nachos and prep is simple: prep the parts, never the plate. Cook the components ahead, keep them separate, and build the plate fresh in five minutes when you want it. Here’s how I store each piece.

Fridge

4 days

The seasoned mince keeps beautifully in an airtight container for up to four days. Reheat it in the pan or microwave just before you build the plate.

Freezer

3 months

The cooked mince freezes well — portion it flat in bags so it thaws fast. Defrost overnight in the fridge, then reheat through before topping fresh chips.

Assemble

Fresh

Chips, cheese, yoghurt, salsa and the cold bits go on at the last minute only. Built fresh, the whole plate comes together in about five minutes.

Please don’t assemble these ahead, love — it’s the one rule. Chips go soft and sad the moment they sit under wet toppings, and a soggy nacho is a betrayal. Prep the mince in batches, keep everything else apart, and load a fresh crisp plate each time. Five minutes, every time, properly good.

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07Common questions

Which chips should I use to keep calories down? +

Baked tortilla chips are the easy win over fried — same crunch, far less fat. For the leanest plate, reach for lentil or chickpea chips: they bring a little extra protein and fibre and let you eat a slightly bigger handful for the same calories. Whatever you pick, weigh the portion once so the maths stays honest, then you’ll know it by eye.

How do I keep the chips from going soggy? +

Two rules. Spread the chips in a single layer so heat and cheese reach all of them evenly, and put every wet topping — yoghurt, salsa, jalapeños — on right at the end, off the heat, and eat straight away. The cold bits sitting on hot chips for any length of time is what turns them limp. Build fast, serve faster.

Turkey or beef mince — which is better here? +

Both work and both are good. Lean 5% beef gives you more iron and a richer flavour; lean turkey is a touch lighter and even leaner. On a hard cut I lean to turkey for the slightly better protein-per-calorie; the rest of the time I cook whichever’s in the fridge. Either way, season it well — lean mince needs the cumin and paprika to sing.

How do I make these spicier? +

Plenty of room to turn the heat up. Add chilli powder or a pinch of cayenne to the mince, choose a hot salsa, and be generous with the jalapeños. A few drops of hot sauce over the finished plate costs you almost nothing in calories and lifts the whole thing. Build the heat in layers and taste as you go.

Can I make this vegetarian? +

Easily, and it stays high in protein. Swap the mince for a tin of black beans (drained and seasoned the same way) or a good soy mince. Beans add fibre and bring the protein along nicely; soy mince keeps it closest to the original in texture. Same chips, same cheese, same cold toppings — the plate barely notices the difference.

From my high-protein meal plans

This plate lives inside a full week of meals.

These loaded nachos are one dinner in my high-protein meal plans — a full week of satisfying, macro-counted meals with the grocery list already written. You pick the goal; I do the maths.

See the meal plans →

A loaded plate of high-protein nachos as featured in Magnus's meal plans, under cold light

08Pairs well with

Anabolic mac and cheese

46G Protein

560Calories

High-protein flatbread pizza

44G Protein

560Calories

Loaded beef burrito bowl

50G Protein

780Calories

Browse all recipes →

About the author

Magnus Olafsson

Everything here is food I actually cook and macros I actually count. I don’t diagnose, I don’t promise, and I never make a number up. I just feed you well and tell you the truth.

B&K Classic Body Show Swedish Grand Prix · Super Series On TRT since 35 20 years training

July 27, 2026