Hello fellow RVFers

Times are hard and I can only afford to spend $30 a week on food. However, I still strive to bench twice my body weight (5'7 155lbs). Is it possible to do so with this diet? What food should I buy weekly?

If you're living in USA, I would say your goal is impossible on the budget.

Eggs, butter, beans and rice go a long way.

Also see this post.

buy a tub of casein protein every week. One scoop will fill you up and you will get about 75g of protein per day.

To have a shot - you'd have to probably buy when things are on sale and freeze and store food.

I think you need to figure out your calorie requirements and how much excess calories you need to grow.

So if you want to really do it economically, you will need to crunch some numbers.

Learn to love chicken legs and thighs. They're usually $1.29 a pound. Get a big bag of parboiled rice, dried beans, and veggies.

Basically, buy food and cook like a Latino immigrant (but skip the soda and junk food, obviously).

No offense OP, or to anyone else, but just google it. So many things pop up. It didn't take much effort.

http://lmgtfy.com/?q=gain+muscle+on+a+budget

I googled "gain muscle on a budget"

Whey protein, rice, potatoes, cheapest meat you can find and some cheap vegetables

Milk. Drink half a gallon a day.

Quote: (05-15-2016 07:03 PM)RexImperator Wrote:  

Learn to love chicken legs and thighs. They're usually $1.29 a pound. Get a big bag of parboiled rice, dried beans, and veggies.

Basically, buy food and cook like a Latino immigrant (but skip the soda and junk food, obviously).

I buy the ten pound bag of chicken leg quarters for $5. That's only 50 cents a pound. So cheap I can afford to feed them to my dogs. Canned fish is a good cheap resource and full of plenty of Zinc and Omega oils. As other said learn to cook beans. Eggs are always a cheap and easy protein source. Organ meats are also very cheap as well as better for you than muscle only cuts.
There is already a thread on how to find cheap protein/meats.
thread-35512.html
In fact there are a few similar threads if you spend the time searching.

Thanks for the help guys, I googled this before and tried it many times but always overspend one way or another. I remember reading one article and one guy was like "yeah only $69 a week and I get jacked" , which was frustrating. I was just curious if anybody had a specific weekly meal plan they used and just spent around $30a week. I never tried the big bag of chicken so that's something I'll do.

Carbs will make you grow. So will pulses. Lentils are particularly great, plenty of protein and good roughage. Nuts are high in calories and full of good stuff. Dairy, if you tolerate it well, is a great source of calories and protein. A decent cheddar can usually be had relatively inexpensively, depending on where you are in the world. Pair that with brown bread and a little butter, and you have a good meal. Make sure you eat plenty of fruit and veg. If there is a market near you, you can probably pick up plenty of bruised fruit and veg at a real knockdown price towards the end of the day. This is the sort of stuff the stall holder would have to chuck before morning, so he'll probably gladly take some money rather than just toss it. Obviously you'll need to eat what you buy within the next day or two, but it's quite an effective way of getting your veg in cheap if you have time and low resources.

155 lbs?

We'll say 2800 calories to make you grow.

Lentils and rice are good. I agree with everything H1N1 said, but I'm going to do a price breakdown with macros so you can plan your trip to the store.

Lentils are $2 a pound and rice is anywhere from 40 to 80 cents a pound, so we'll say 60 cents to average that. I'm talking long grain white rice, not the Minute rice instant garbage.

Quote:Nutrition Facts Wrote:

1 cup dry white rice
735 calories
1.6 g fat
159 g carbs
2.3 g fiber
15 g protein

Quote:Nutrition Facts Wrote:

1 cup green lentils yields :
678 calories
2 g fat
115 g carbs
59 g fiber
50 g protein

There are approximately 2.5 cups of either of these ingredients in a pound, so

Rice : 24 cents a cup
Lentils : 80 cents a cup

Your budget is $120 a month. That grants you an approximate daily budget of $4. This is not the end of the world.

A rough guess is that you want 2800 calories to bulk.

So we'll throw down 2 cups of dry rice and 2 cups of dry lentils into the mix and see where we're at.

Rice and Lentils (2 cups each)
Price : $2.08
Calories : 2826
Fat : 7.2 g
Carbs : 425.4 g (net) = 548 (total) - 122.6 (fiber)
Protein : 130 g

I just Trumped your diet. Under time and under budget. Word of warning, this is a lot of food to eat. I highly recommend sauteing an onion to put in this, it will add a lot of flavor.

You're only spending $2 a day with this diet. You can afford to buy some meat and butter so you don't go insane.

Let the sales dictate your "extra" purchases. I'll let you decide, you have almost $14 a week to figure out what kind of meat you want.

I recommend taking away maybe 1/4 to 1/2 cup of rice and then eating a half pound of meat with this with a big chunk of butter.

As far as recipes, you can make rice and lentils on the stove, in a crockpot, or in a pressure cooker. Google is your friend, find what works.

Some thoughts
This is plant protein, so although you're getting 130 grams of it, you want to have some form of animal protein (be it cheese, meat, milk, or whey powder)

You are getting all the protein you need in a day, though. Your protein needs are :

155 x .8g = 124g per day

Even with this cheap ass diet, you're getting 130 g a day. That base is technically covered. Be prepared to rip some serious ass for the first couple days.

These prices might not be the prices of where you're living at. Either way, you should be able to live on 2 cups of lentils and 2 cups of rice a day for $4.

Amazon white rice is $1 a pound and lentils are $2 if you look for them. You're still under budget with those prices. You don't have to starve or lose your gains. Bust your ass and make some gains with rice and lentils.

Protip : Dump the lentils on a cloth or paper towel and check for small stones. Cheap lentils oftentimes have stones in them. Your teeth will thank you.
Source : personal experience, also I eat like this on a regular basis.

You want to de-emphasize high volumes of calorically lighter foods, and emphasize calorically dense food ie: fats.

Butter would be the best, but eating it in large quantities might be impractical for any number of reasons.

So, my overall best recommendation would be extra virgin olive oil. It's easily added to food and is safer to eat than is butter if you have a high sugar/carb diet. But be sure to research which brands are 100% extra virgin olive oil. On most grocery store shelves, that's only one or two brands and the other bottles lie to you. You need to research it on the internet. The bottle I buy costs $8. You don't need expensive oil, only real oil. Otherwise you are eating unsaturated vegetable oils that are bad for your system.

If you eat the olive oil at every opportunity (you an even take spoonfuls of it), you will gain weight. $30 will allow you to buy 3-4 bottles of the brand I buy per month. Assuming you can even eat that much, it will do the trick (and probably less). I use maybe one bottle per month but I'm also not trying to gain weight.

If you go the butter / saturated fat route, you can also buy heavy cream and add it to your coffee.

I'll start off by saying I am no way an expert when it comes to this area of fitness but I will share my experience.

I have been using Jay from Fab Fit Over 40's Budget on a diet for the last 3 months and have had steady progress with my weight and increasing muscle overall.

The Diet is :

"Here is a sample Daily Meal Plan.

Meal 1: 3 Eggs-3Egg Whites-3 Strips Turkey Bacon-1 English Muffin
Meal 2: 1 Whole Apple and 2 Tablespoons Natural Peanut Butter or these found at any Costco anywhere.
Meal 3: 1 Can of White Tuna and 1 Tablespoon Safflower Mayo(If Leaning Out no carbs/If maintaining 1 English Muffin/If trying to gain 2 English Muffins)
Meal 4: Same as Meal 3
Training Days
Meal 5: 16-24 Ounces of Lactose Free Milk/Almond Milk Before-During and After your training. If gaining or maintaining-throw in some cheap fruit like an apple or pear as your post workout carbs for glycogen replenishment.
Non Training Days(Meal 5)
Meal 6: 10 Ounces Salmon(or cheapest Clean Fish in Bulk at your Grocery)-Brown Rice and Green Veggie. We just started buying these amazing Salmon Burgers from Costco.
Night Snack: 2 Tablespoons Peanut Butter and 8 Ounces Lactose Free Milk(only if trying to gain muscle)
If you can’t prepare your dinner and/or leave your tuna cans at home, eat Fast Food and order only one of the following: (but doing this is going to run you over $50/week-DONT FORGET YOUR MEAL PREPARATION)

Grilled Chicken Sandwich-
Grilled Chicken Salad
Chicken Rice Bowl
Drink only water and strive for 12 ounces at every meal."

Original Link : http://fabfitover40.com/2014/04/10/fabfi...-a-budget/

With the help of this I have gone from 154lbs to around 168 APPX (slow progress I know as I have not always been completely on top of it)

On average my food shopping bill is under £40 a week if I keep on top of it and go to the cheapest places.

Have a Restaurant Depot in your area? You can buy a 50lb box of chicken breast for $1/lb. Buy in bulk, Spend $240 for eight weeks. Buy in bulk: Whole milk (drink one gallon every three days), Greek yogurt in bulk. Olive Oil (three, four spoons a day). Your best bet is to buy in bulk in freeze.

Quote:Quote:

You can buy a 50lb box of chicken breast for $1/lb

Goddamn, you Yanks can get really get food for pennies.

Here I have to pay at least 4-5€/lb.

Quote: (05-16-2016 01:10 PM)Chaos Wrote:  

Quote:Quote:

You can buy a 50lb box of chicken breast for $1/lb

Goddamn, you Yanks can get really get food for pennies.

Here I have to pay at least 4-5€/lb.

The food you get is probably better quality though.

^ Probably minimun differences in the long run.

Try GOMAD if you want to keep it simple and cheap.

Find a restaurant supply store and see what the pricing is on a box of chicken breast. I have a local one here where a 40 pounds case of boneless chicken breasts sell for 1.15 a pound ( as of last week ).

Buy dried beans and rice and mix in some vegetables from a produce wholesaler where you can get deals at closing time if they are cleaning off shelves. Talk to the manager and purchase some of the produce that is borderline about to get thrown out.

I had to do this in my early days when I was barely scraping by. Saved a lot of money.

Quote: (05-15-2016 06:38 PM)Phil Jackson Wrote:  

Hello fellow RVFers

Times are hard and I can only afford to spend $30 a week on food. However, I still strive to bench twice my body weight (5'7 155lbs). Is it possible to do so with this diet? What food should I buy weekly?

Wait, wait, wait. With proper form and no exaggerating how much can you bench now? You might be setting yourself up for failure. Don't do that. Have a reasonable goal. Benching twice your body weight would be an incredible feat only a few men in the world can do. Baby steps.

I bench about 200lbs now

Chicken: $17.5 for about 2.5kg = Approx 350g Per Day = 830 cal and 95 grams of protein.
Rice: $3 for around 2kg = Approx 300 grams [Uncooked] Per Day = 1095 cal and 21 grams of protein.
No brand Frozen Vegetables $2 for around 1kg = Not including calories. More for vitamins/minerals.
Skim Milk 4L: Around $5 = Approx 570ml Per Day = 200 cal and 20 grams of protein.
Coconut Cream 400ml: Around $3.50 for 7 cans from an Asian Store = 800 Cal Per Can and 12 grams of protein.

Totals: 2930 Cal. 148 grams protein and $31 Per Week.

[Note: these are Australian prices. From my time in America, you can probably do this much cheaper with your whole sale stores. I know you can most certainly get chicken for far far less - If so, you could probably add mixed berries for a wider array of vitamins in your diet plus some organ meat such as liver/kidney for iron and zinc which can be bought for less than $2 per kilogram].

Sounds like you should be more worried about what it will take to earn more money instead of how to save it on food.