If you’ve been trying to gain muscle for a while, you’ve probably figured out that training is the easiest part of the equation. To gain lean muscle mass, you need to eat more calories than you burn, and a lot of those calories come from protein. This big meal can be a big drain on your money, especially if you already pay a lot for the gym and your team every month. Here are 10 cheap, nutrient-dense ingredients that will help you build muscle and get the protein and calories you need.
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1. Eggs
With five to six grams of protein and fat in each little egg and prices as low as a dollar per dozen in some grocery stores, this is an unbeatable meal for building muscle.
If you need to grow quickly and need a lot of calories, you should eat the whole egg. The yolk has healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats, half of the egg’s protein, and many vitamins and amino acids that aren’t in the white.
2. Beef chuck (and a tip to make it leaner)
Even though it doesn’t look as nice as a steak, ground beef is a great way to build muscle on a budget.
It has 6-7 grams of protein per raw ounce, a different amount of fat depending on how lean it is, and a price that is sometimes less than $2 per raw pound.
Here’s a way for people who are worried about the amount of saturated fat in pork loins to make themselves leaner. After browning the meat, put it in a colander in the sink. You won’t have to use as much grease in this first step if you pour it somewhere else. After this, turn on the faucet and run water over the red meat for a couple of minutes. To get the fat out, toss and flip the red meat in the colander as the water runs over it. Lastly, if you want to get rid of a little bit of extra fat, put some paper towels on your counter and pour the beef onto them. The towels will soak up what little grease is left after straining. This will make the red meat much leaner than it was before.
3. Full-fat milk
People who talk about building muscle often say bad things about dairy products, but bodybuilders have been eating whole milk to gain weight for a long time. It costs about $3 per gallon and has eight to nine grams of protein and fat per cup (sixteen cups). This is a great food for skinny men who are having trouble getting bigger.
4. Peanut Butter
Peanut butter is one of the cheapest, easiest, and most tasty ways to get more calories. A 2-tablespoon serving has 6 grams of protein and 16 grams of monounsaturated fat. You can eat it by itself, put it in a protein shake, or even put it in your oatmeal.
5. Potatoes
If you want to build muscle on a budget, you should stay away from the low-carb diet trend and instead eat a lot of carbs at breakfast and around meals.
Potatoes are one of the best and cheapest things you can use for this cause. One purple potato that is about the size of a fist has 25–30 grams of carbs.
6. Oats
Oatmeal is another high-quality source of carbohydrates.
About 50 grams of carbs and 6 grams of fiber are in one cup. In addition to being cheap, they may also be very useful and easy to use. You can take dry, ready-to-eat oats with you anywhere, but you can’t do that with potatoes, rice, or other top carbs for building muscle.
7. Protein from whey
Even though you shouldn’t spend money on supplements, whey protein is one of the best things you can do for your body. Most whey powders have about 25 grams of protein per serving, and they cost as little as $5 per pound (15 servings), which is the cheapest price per gram of protein you can find.
8. Bananas
Potatoes and oats are great sources of carbs, but bananas are a cheap and tasty alternative. A single banana has about 30 grams of carbs, and the price is almost always less than a dollar and the same as a pound. After a workout, you can also mix a banana with a whey protein shake for a fast-digesting mix of carbs and protein.
9. Oil from olives
Even though olive oil is more expensive than other oils, it is still a very cheap way to get very healthy monounsaturated and polyunsaturated fats. Olive oil can be used to cook eggs, meat, and potatoes. Thin men can add it to a shake to easily get more calories.
10. Tuna
Last, but almost certainly not least, on this list of foods that help build muscle is canned tuna. Even though the cost of food is going up, a can of tuna still costs less than a dollar and has 25 grams of very lean protein. You can also buy tuna packed in oil to get twice as many calories without any more nutrition, and you can use hcg injections and testosterone enanthate bodybuilding.
