Bodybuilding diet plan for women that is of high quality and results oriented is the winning equation. Research has shown that with 30 percent of Americans suffering from obesity in America and a very high percentage of people being overweight around the globe, it is about time that a wider muscle building diet for women should be looked into.
This bikini competition diet and workout plan is the most complete one that I have seen. It explains everything you need to know and gives you a detailed plan on how to reach your goals with the right bodybuilding marcos ratio. You will find the health benefits of bodybuilding below.
Muscle Building Diet for Women
With a muscle-building diet for women, you can get the tight, toned body you’ve always wanted. And muscle building isn’t just for men or athletes!
Now more than ever, women are jumping on the bandwagon of building lean muscle to accelerate weight loss, improve body composition, and achieve the figures they desire.
Women benefit from muscle-building diets and drinking protein shakes just like men.
Regular resistance training and eating a well-balanced, protein-rich diet helps:
- Improve body composition
- Create aesthetically pleasing body contours
- Increase metabolism
- Decrease body fat
- Reduce waist circumference
- Make you look years younger
Even if you don’t drop weight right away when following a muscle-building diet for women, you’ll notice improvements in body shape and reductions in fat.
Because muscle burns more calories than fat, even when you’re resting, building muscle boosts metabolism to enhance weight loss over time.
Keep reading and get started with your muscle-building diet for women today!
Bodybuilding Macros Ratio
You’ve probably heard the term macro thrown around a fair bit recently. Macros – short for macronutrients – can be used to help provide a more detailed understanding of your dietary intake so you can tailor a better bodybuilding diet plan to maximize your gains.
The three main macros that are dealt with in the world of the bodybuilder are protein, fat, and carbs. Each provides the body with a particular type of energy and a number of different benefits. Different people will want to arrange their macro consumption based on what they’re hoping to achieve with their diet.
A good recommended macro balance for women hoping to gain weight is about 30% protein, 30% fat, and 40% carbs. This will help to provide the ideal amount of energy while giving enough protein for them to actually put on pounds.
PROTEINS
Protein is incredibly important for women bodybuilders (and for everyone) because protein helps build cells. If we didn’t have enough protein then our cells wouldn’t be healthy and we wouldn’t be able to build or repair new cells.
In terms of muscle building, this would be massively impractical since the growth of new muscle tissue means that you need more cells to form. For this to happen, you’re going to need an abundance of protein – especially if you’re working out your whole body.
Some professional trainers recommend that you try to consume about one gram of protein per pound that you weigh. Good sources of protein include fish, lean meat, and various protein powders.
CARBS
Carbohydrates are necessary for providing energy to your body and your brain. Without carbs, your body won’t have access to glucose, which is the primary energy source that your muscles and nervous system use.
In addition to this, carbs supply calories to your body – meaning that they’re a great way to help meet your calorie intake once you’ve decided on a bodybuilding diet plan for women that provides you with enough protein.
Healthy sources of carbs come largely from vegetables like sweet potatoes and whole grains. Avoid processed carbs like white bread and sugar, which are devoid of nutrients and actually very unhealthy for you.
FATS
Fat is quite often overlooked in regards to female bodybuilding, but it’s still very important to make sure that you get enough dietary fat. Fat is one of the staples that we need to survive.
In addition to being very rich in calories – fat is much more dense in calories than either protein or carbs – fat is necessary for helping to maintain the integrity of your cells and your nervous system.
This means that fat (from healthy sources such as avocados and olive oil) can be a great way to quickly boost up your calorie count while making sure that your body functions at its optimal level.
The Basics of a Muscle Building Diet for Women
There are numerous dietary components to consider when muscle building and fat loss are your goals.
Determine Muscle Building Calorie Needs
Weight maintenance calorie needs for moderately active and active women, based on the Dietary Guidelines for Americans include:
- Ages 19-25: 2,200-2,400 calories
- Ages 26-30: 2,000-2,400 calories
- Ages 31-50: 2,000-2,200 calories
- Ages 51-60: 1,800-2,200 calories
- Ages 61 and up: 1,800-2,000 calories
If muscle-building plus weight loss is your goal, aim to consume 1,200-1,800 calories daily, depending on how active you are and your starting body weight.
Fill Your Plate Properly
When dieting for muscle building and fat loss, use the following healthy eating guidelines to fill your plate:
- Half full of vegetables
- One-fourth full of protein foods
- One-fourth full of starches
Don’t forget to consume about 2-3 servings of dairy foods or calcium-rich equivalents daily, fruits, and healthy fats at each meal to round out nutritious menus.
Know Muscle Building Protein Requirements
When you work out regularly, especially if you’re training for muscle building, your protein needs are higher than people who are sedentary.
Today’s Dietitian recommends consuming about 1.4-2.0 grams of protein per kilogram of your body weight daily, which equates to 0.6-1 gram of protein per pound of your ideal weight each day.
For example, if your goal weight is 130 pounds you’d need about 78-130 grams of protein daily to build or maintain lean mass and burn fat.
Examples of protein-rich foods and corresponding protein content (provided by the Academy of Nutrition and Dietetics) is as follows:
- 3 ounces of lean ground beef: 22 grams
- 3 ounces of skinless chicken: 26 grams
- 3 ounces of grilled salmon: 21 grams
- 1 cup of plain low-fat yogurt: 12 grams
- 1 cup of low-fat cottage cheese: 28 grams
- 1 scoop of protein powder: 25 gram
- 1/2 cup of cooked lentils: 9 grams
- 3 ounces of tofu: 9 grams
- 1 cup of low-fat milk: 8 grams
- 1/2 cup of cooked quinoa: 4 grams
- 1/2 cup of cooked black beans: 7 grams
- 2 tablespoons of peanut butter: 8 grams
- 2 large eggs: 12 grams
Choose a variety of proteins to meet your daily needs for muscle building and fat loss.
Bikini Competition Diet and Workout Plan
Achieve peak performance and look your best with this detailed nutrition plan
If you’ve always wanted to hit the stage in a bikini or figure competition, this is your time. Our comprehensive plan includes the Workout Plan, this nutrition plan, and motivational tips to help you get a winning physique in just 12 weeks. Give it a try—even if you’re not ready for the spotlight, you’re guaranteed to get into the very best shape of your life.
THE DIET PLAN
How it works: This nutrition program is designed to help you drop fat without losing muscle. In each phase, you’ll have three daily meals and three snacks. After every four weeks, you’ll reduce the number of calories in your diet, without sacrificing protein. In the week before the show, you’ll vary the amount of carbs, sodium, and fluids to help your muscles get that ultra-cut, superlean look just in time for your moment in the spotlight.
PHASE 1: WEEKS 1-4
Follow the meal plan outlined here, which also includes a Food Swaps guide below. In addition, try to consume at least one gallon (16 cups) of water a day. And a limited amount of sodium helps regulate body fluids, so don’t be afraid to use low-calorie condiments like mustard and hot sauce.
BREAKFAST
- 4 egg whites
- ⅓ cup (uncooked) instant oatmeal
- 10 almonds
Totals: 240 calories, 20g protein, 22g carbs, 8g fat
MID-MORNING SNACK
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- 3 oz sweet potato, boiled or baked, without skin
- ½ oz English walnuts, shelled
Totals: 258 calories, 26g protein, 17g carbs, 11g fat
LUNCH
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- ½ cup long-grain brown rice
- 1 cup chopped broccoli, boiled or steamed
Totals: 263 calories, 29g protein, 34g carbs, 3g fat
MIDDAY SNACK
- 1 scoop whey protein isolate
- ½ large (8″) banana
- 1 tbsp natural peanut butter
Totals: 271 calories, 29g protein, 19g carbs, 9g fat
DINNER
- 5 oz cod
- 1 white corn tortilla
- 1 cup sliced zucchini, boiled
Salad with dinner
- 2 cups mixed greens
- 10 almonds, crushed
- ¼ cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
- ¼ cup red onion
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Totals: 328 calories, 32g protein, 32g carbs, 9g fat
EVENING SMOOTHIE
- 1½ scoops whey protein isolate
Totals: 158 calories, 38g protein, 0g carbs, 1g fat
Daily Totals: 1,518 calories, 174g protein, 124g carbs, 40g fat
PHASE 2: WEEKS 5-8
In this phase, you’ll trim calories slightly to help drop body fat, although protein intake will stay steady to make sure your metabolism remains high and you’re not losing muscle tissue along with the fat. Feel free to keep referring to the Food Swaps list on page one. And keep up your fluid intake, drinking at least one gallon of water per day.
BREAKFAST
- 3 egg whites
- 2 oz 99% fat-free ground turkey breast
- ⅓ cup (uncooked) instant oatmeal
Totals: 214 calories, 29g protein, 19g carbs, 3g fat
MID-MORNING SNACK
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- ⅓ cup long-grain brown rice
Totals: 172 calories, 25g protein, 15g carbs, 2g fat
LUNCH
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- 1 cup black-eyed peas, boiled
- 1 cup chopped broccoli, steamed
Totals: 355 calories, 40g protein, 47g carbs, 3g fat
MIDDAY SNACK
- 4 oz 99% fat-free ground turkey breast
- 2 white corn tortillas
- 1 oz avocado
Totals: 257 calories, 31g protein, 20g carbs, 6g fat
DINNER
- 4 oz cod
- 1½ oz avocado
Salad
- ½ tbsp extra-virgin olive oil
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
- 2 cups mixed greens
- ¼ cup tomato
- ¼ cup onion
Totals: 290 calories, 23g protein, 17g carbs, 14g fat
EVENING SMOOTHIE
- 1 scoop whey protein isolate
- 1 tbsp organic flaxseeds
Totals: 160 calories, 27g protein, 3g carbs, 5g fat
DAILY TOTALS:
1,448 calories, 175g protein, 121g carbs, 33g fat
PHASE 3: WEEKS 9-12
Your carb and protein intake drop a bit more during this phase, reducing your total calories and helping your body dig further into its fat stores. (Healthy fat intake stays steady, though, to help you feel full and to fuel your muscles.) Keep drinking plenty of water so you stay well-hydrated. And don’t forget to swap out for your favorite foods!
BREAKFAST
- 5 egg whites
- ⅓ cup (uncooked) instant oatmeal
Totals: 188 calories, 22g protein, 20g carbs, 2g fat
MID-MORNING SNACK
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- 1 cup raw green beans
- 10 almonds
Totals: 200 calories, 27g protein, 10g carbs, 8g fat
LUNCH
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- ⅓ cup long-grain brown rice
Salad with lunch
- 2 cups mixed greens
- ¼ cup tomato
- ¼ cup onion
- 1 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Totals: 227 calories, 26g protein, 26g carbs, 2g fat
MIDDAY SNACK
- 4 oz skinless, boneless chicken breast
- 3 oz sweet potato, boiled or baked, without skin
- ½ oz English walnuts, shelled
Totals: 258 calories, 26g protein, 17g carbs, 11g fat
DINNER
- 4 oz skinless, boneless turkey breast
- 1 oz avocado
- 10 almonds
Salad with dinner
- 2 cups mixed greens
- ¼ cup cherry tomatoes, quartered
- ¼ cup yellow onion
- 2 tbsp balsamic vinegar
Sample Muscle Building Diet for Women
When choosing a muscle-building diet plan for women, it’s helpful to have a sample menu in place to guide you through the process. An example includes:
Breakfast
- Whole-grain Ezekiel toast topped with nut butter and bananas
- Low-fat cottage cheese
- Coffee or tea
Snack
- Veggie sticks
- Hummus
Lunch
- Whole grain pasta topped with olive oil pesto sauce
- Grilled chicken
- Veggies
Snack
- A whey protein shake made with protein powder, plant milk, and fruit or nut butter
Dinner
- A taco salad made with lean ground turkey, taco seasonings, lettuce, tomatoes, black beans, avocados, and salsa
Snack
- Greek yogurt topped with raspberries and walnuts
Find out what and when to eat before a workout to maximize your fat loss and muscle gain.
Health Benefits of Bodybuilding
1. Bodybuilding is the safest way to fitness
The first benefit of bodybuilding is its safety. The table below shows the injury rates for elite competitive bodybuilders versus Crossfit, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, team sports, and running.
Elite bodybuilders have an injury rate less than one-tenth that of Crossfit, Olympic lifting, powerlifting, or gymnastics. Running is touted as a “natural” activity, and bodybuilding is sometimes slandered as “unnatural,” yet runners have an injury rate 50 times that of elite bodybuilders!
Most injuries incurred during physical activities result from impact forces, acceleration forces (from rapid changes of velocity or direction), excessive ranges or motion, or excessive repetition during the activity.
Team sports – soccer, American football, basketball, baseball, hockey, and so on – require explosive and uncontrolled movements that strain tendons and muscles. Most also involve trauma from uncontrolled impact forces from collisions.
Running involves excessive repetition of high impact reaction forces from pounding the ground mile after mile. Bicycling involves pumping your legs while sitting on a seat that damages the sensitive perineal area.
Crossfit, Olympic lifting, power lifting, and gymnastics have relatively low rates in injury compared to contact sports, but because the practice of these activities involves explosive movements or impact against resistance (e.g. the ground or the bar in gymnastics), they subject the joints of the limbs and lower back to impact forces that can cause damage to either soft or hard tissue.
Proper bodybuilding – precision resistance training – involves little or no exposure to impact forces, as it is based on slow, controlled movement against resistance in natural ranges of motion. Proper bodybuilding also utilizes a variety of movements to guard against repetitive stress injuries resulting from overuse of some muscles and underuse of others.
Hence, you can obtain all the other benefits of bodybuilding without incurring injuries that could wreck your physical fitness for a lifetime.
2. Bodybuilding produces general functional strength
You may think it is crazy to suggest that one of the primary benefits of bodybuilding is functional fitness. There exists a myth that bodybuilding – building muscle and losing fat – doesn’t benefit physical performance in other activities because it uses “isolation” exercises. Many people claim that bodybuilding training that isolates muscles only improves appearance and suggest that if you want to be athletic you should engage in so-called “functional” training, supposedly provided by Olympic lifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, calisthenics, and CrossFit. According to proponents of “functional” training, the muscular development produced by bodybuilding is not functional.
The Encarta World English Dictionary defines “functional” as
1) Having a practical application or serving a useful purpose
2) In good working order or working at the moment
3) Without apparent organic or structural cause
4) Relating to the function of language as a communicating tool, rather than to its form
Strength has practical application and useful purpose, like enabling you to carry your own groceries. If a muscle has good strength and remains free of injury, then it works well. Therefore, regardless of what means you use to develop or maintain it, muscular strength in and of itself qualifies as functional. And muscular strength is proportional to muscular size.
Further, the term “functional fitness” has no more meaning than “fitness.” Strength, as I noted, provides the basis for fitness, and it consists of the ability to exert muscular force. Since strength is by definition an ability it is by definition functional. Lack of muscle and strength is dysfunctional; presence of muscle and strength is functional. In other words, the ideas of “non-functional fitness” and “non-functional strength” contradict themselves, just like the concept of a square circle. You can’t produce non-functional fitness, or non-functional strength, any more than you can draw a square circle.
The “functional fitness” movement rests on a fallacious idea that practicing things like burpees and Olympic weight lifting produces a more “functional” type of muscle or strength than practicing safer, controlled bodybuilding exercises.
It is often claimed that doing Olympic lifts or powerlifting produces skill, speed, power, or strength that transfers to other sports but the extra muscle developed by bodybuilding does not. In fact, the specific movements used in Olympic lifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, and CrossFit develop specific skills that do not transfer to other activities, whereas one of the primary benefits of bodybuilding – increased muscle mass – does improve performance in any sport.
All activity is produced by the neuromuscular system generating forces to move the limbs against some sort of resistance. The nervous system governs the skills involved in any specific activity, while the muscles produce forces that act on the limbs to move the body (swimming, running, gymnastics, combat sports, etc.), and sometimes objects (balls, bats, weights, other people, etc.). To produce an improvement in functional ability or performance, you have to either improve skill or improve muscular force production.
Motor learning of skills is very specific. Practicing the Olympic lifts will never improve your functional ability in any other sport, it will only make you better at performing the Olympic lifts. Practicing the three power lifts – squat, bench press, and deadlift – will not improve your functional ability in any other sport, it will only make you better at squatting, bench pressing, and deadlifting with barbells. Similarly, practicing swimming will not make you a better runner or lifter, it will only make you a better swimmer. To get better at any skill or sport, you have to practice that sport. That’s just the way the nervous system works.
That leaves only one path by which resistance training can improve your sports performance: by increasing the force production capacity of your muscles. Because it focuses on isolating and efficiently loading muscles, bodybuilding increases the normalized fiber length, pennation angle, and cross-sectional area of muscles far more efficiently than so-called “functional” training methods such as Olympic lifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, and whatever, simply because bodybuilding is focussed on improving the architecture of muscles, not on improving skill in specific movements. It bears repeating that just as a larger rope is a stronger rope, a larger muscle is a stronger muscle, and the best way to develop larger muscles is through properly isolated training, i.e. bodybuilding.
The functional benefits of bodybuilding are due entirely to the focus of isolating muscles. When you use exercises that isolate and efficiently load muscles in accord with their biomechanical functions, without involving development of specific skills, you know that when your strength increases in those exercises, this represents a change in the muscle, not any of the adaptations I listed above that can enable you to add a load to the exercise even without a change in the strength of the muscles. Contrary to the claims of the functional fitness crowd, isolating muscles with so-called isolation exercises is the key to producing true generalizable muscular strength gains that can enhance functional ability in specific sport skills.
Hence, developing more muscle mass and reducing your body fat – the main benefits of bodybuilding – will improve your performance at any sport in which strength is an advantage. There exist very few sports in which increased strength would not confer an advantage. Numerous studies have shown that in a wide variety of sports, including volleyball, swimming, sprinting, surfing, baseball, basketball, judo, soccer, field throwing events, rugby, sumo wrestling, Olympic lifting and powerlifting, the more successful athletes have more muscle mass and less body fat than less successful athletes.
In summary, if you want to improve your sports performance, you should increase your muscle mass and, if strength-to-weight ratio is important in your sport (it is in most sports), reduce your body fat. That means you should do some bodybuilding training, not Olympic lifting, powerlifting, gymnastics, or any other activity wherein you focus on developing sport-specific skills rather than muscle mass.
3. Bodybuilding probably promotes longevity
Bodybuilders focus on adding muscle mass to their physiques. We have evidence that invididuals with greater muscle mass live longer than those with less muscle mass.19 Elderly individuals who have the lowest muscle mass have a 2-fold increase in total mortality and cardiovascular mortality in comparison to those with normal or high muscle mass.20
Muscle is a “use it or lose it” tissue. If you don’t use it, you will gradually lose it as you age. If you lose enough muscle mass, you will become increasingly dysfunctional or non-functional, unable to carry out even simple tasks like getting up and down stairs, washing dishes, carrying groceries or putting your own clothes on.
Even if bodybuilding does not increase your total lifespan, it will increase your functional lifespan, giving you the ability to be active and productive for the entirety of your life.
Thus, bodybuilding – increasing your muscle mass – is essential to health-maintenance as you age, and one of the benefits of bodybuilding is an increased functional lifespan.
4. Bodybuilding is best for reducing body fat and improving lipid metabolism
Some people claim that bodybuilding training has only cosmetic effects on your body composition, but no benefit to internal health. In fact, the benefits of bodybuilding include improved lipid and insulin levels.
A systematic review and meta-analysis of 66-population based studies found that bodybuilding-type resistance training – consisting of doing for each major muscle group 2-to-3 sets of 6-to-10 reps with a load at least 75% of maximum, using whole body and free-weight movements – was more effective than either endurance training alone or a combination of endurance training and resistance training for improving body composition (reducing fat and retaining muscle), reducing total cholesterol, LDL cholesterol, fasting insulin levels, and triglycerides.
5. Bodybuilding may make you calmer, happier, healthier, and smarter.
The benefits of bodybuilding are not limited to physical improvements either. A number of studies have shown that the benefits of bodybuilding-style training include reduced stress, anxiety and depression, and improvements in general well-being, body image and self-esteem, while women of menstruating age report reduced premenstrual symptoms.22-28
Another benefit of bodybuilding may be improved cognitive function. Adults with mild cognitive impairment who engaged in 6 months of bodybuilding-style resistance training significantly improved global cognitive function for at least 18 months (i.e. at least 12 months after the intervention)