Anabolic Cookbook
Anabolic is a term that means muscle growth promoting and an anabolic cookbook is just a list of foods that are great for muscle growth promoting. Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking is usually what comes to people minds.
Click Here to See Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking
Dave’s book is great, and highly recommended, but I also suggest that everyone have their own favorite anabolic recipes, whether you physically have them all written down and in a folder or even bound or stored electrically, or maybe just in your head.
Mine contains a number of favorite recipes from Dave’s book, as well as some of my own.
One of the biggest failures with bodybuilding diets is boredom and failure due to lack of tasty variety.
You and your palate get bored. Having a list of easy foods that rock, anabolically speaking, helps avoid this. Hey, if your body demands nutrients and your mind agrees and all you have is potato chips and chocolate chip cookies it may get ugly. Now occasional cheating is fine, but not more than occasionally!
I always keep good ingredients on hand, as well as a few simple and quick recipes to help avoid the train wreck mentioned above . . .
My most commonly made recipe is one of my omelets, which is simple, fast, and only has rough directions. 3 eggs, some extra whites if I have them handy, and whatever veggies I have at hand. I break the eggs into a lightly buttered non-stick pan, add extra egg white, loosely scramble in the pan, and then add veggies. Depending on the veggies I might lightly cook them first, like the mushrooms and spinach I used today, or drop them right into the egg mixture like the onions and red peppers I often use.
I also have a great Chinese black bean scallop dish that is low in fat, high in protein, simple to cook, and always a hit.
Of course you can’t have fresh seafood just lying around like I do with many other ingredients, like eggs (I get mine from a neighbor, they taste better), veggies (usually fresh, I also have some canned or frozen just in case), beans, tuna fish, and a lot more.
Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking has simple simple recipes anyone can cook easily, and I mean ANYONE, that promote muscle growth, discourage cheating, and taste great. Recipes range from 2 dozen great breakfasts to over a dozen anabolic desserts, and include the likes of: apple and cinnamon muffins, classic Denver omelets, Chicken Marsala, Tangy Thai Chicken, Chili, Jamaican Pork, New England Crabcakes, lots of salads, many types of inexpensive and easy to make protein bars, and much more.
Click Here to See Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking
This is a great start, and all most people need, to an Anabolic Cookbook.
You can eat awesome tasting food, healthy muscle-building fat-melting food, that is easy to prepare, and inexpensive.
Or instead maybe you want to eat egg whites, tuna straight out of the can, chicken and steamed veggies, and cheat several times a week and make minimal if any progress? The choice is yours!
JJ McCoy
Eating healthy has become much easier now that I have about a dozen standards I cook – all fast and easy and high in protein. Not sure if you’d call it a cookbook, but I’ve got my recipes in a red folder I keep on the microwave. When I occasionally cook for friends, I don’t mention the food is healthy, but they notice its tasty. I used to eat out far too often (easy and convenient for a single guy), and my gut showed it!
Ted Baldwin
JJ, one of my problems is that I’m an absolute foodie, I LOVE food. Loving food and eating well doesn’t have to be incompatible with building a great body as you’ve found out!
Ed
Awesome article! I went from eating out too much because I couldn’t cook at all and didn’t even try, to having about 12-15 really really to cook meals I can whip up quickly.
I am eating so much better (and my body shows it) and it is much cheaper too. Some of my favorites do come from Dave Ruel’s Anabolic Cooking, some I got from friends and family, and some I’ve made up!
It also amazes me how impressed women are when I guy can cook anything!
Ted Baldwin
Women are very impressed if a man can cook ANYTHING! I say this in my current experience as a single guy. They seem to appreciate a home cooked meal even more than we do, and if you casually mention during or after the meal that it not only tastes great, but that it is healthy, they’ll be mightily impressed!
Helmut
I do have a small bunch of pretty healthy and protein high recipes I usually cook. Never thought of actually combining them and storing them in one place. Good idea.
Maybe I’ll start a free blog somewhere and each time I cook a new recipe, I’ll post it there – then regardless of where I am I’ll have the recipes handy.
Fred
OK, you’ve gotten me motivated. I’ve started writing down my favorite healthy recipes and making my own unofficial Anabolic Cookbook. I’ve found since I’ve started I’ve been eating better.
Ted Baldwin
Fred, if you have any favorite recipes I may not have, send them to me and maybe I get a chance to try them and write them up for this site (giving you credit of course!)
Luther
Love the idea of having a list of great tasting, easy to cook, and healthy recipes for bodybuilders. I can only make a few things, but trying several of your recipes lately with success
Ethan
I’m impressed by the enormous variety of recipes, and at least many that I’ve tried are just soooo simple even I can’t mess them up. I AM eating more healthy and have dropped 5% body fat (down to 12%) in the last two months because of it. Everyone says I look great and I feel better than ever
Ted Baldwin
Wow, congrats Ethan – so you went from 17% to 12% body fat. That is an enormous and very strikingly visible change/improvement!
Keep up the great work buddy!
Saul
I just tried three of the recipes.
The Tilapia, ehhh, ok. Not a fish lover anyways.
The Beef and Broccoli Stir Fry – awesome!
And the Easy Texas Rubbed Steak – the WINNER!
2 awesome out of three – is great!
Easy to cook also. I can barely cook but these three were simple
James Jones
So I have about 7 recipes I now use a lot – all fast, easy, and great for a body builder. The problem was that I had them at home, but often was trying to make them from memory at my girlfriends or other places – I have hard copy printouts. I can’t find them all online easily, although there are three from this site I use over and over!
My girlfriend had the simplest and easiest solution! I just snapped pictures of each recipe and now they are all on my phone – problem solved!
Ted Baldwin
James,
I do similar things – and I always take a picture of any hardcopy recipe before heading to to market just in case I have questions re: ingredients etc.
Leani
Hey, Ted – learning to cook healthy from your site! No more late night pizzas and burritos, and my body shows the difference 🙂