If you’re having difficulty sticking to your workout diet because you’re eating the same food over and over again or they just taste plain boring, Dave Ruel may have an answer for you. Ruel is a competitive bodybuilder, trainer and nutritionist who knows the challenges of trying to eat clean to gain muscle. This is why he came up with the Anabolic Cooking Cookbook. He’s also the author of Metabolic Cooking which is more geared to those looking to lose weight.
Our review takes a closer look at this product made by a bodybuilder for those who are into bodybuilding.
What is Anabolic Cooking?
In simple terms, it is a cookbook, and a large and comprehensive one at that. Loaded with over 200 recipes that are designed specifically to help you gain muscle.
How so?
The recipes make use of healthier food ingredients to eliminate the unhealthy options. This results in the dishes being lower in fat, higher in fiber and high in protein. All the components you want when trying to bulk up.
The main goal of the recipes in the cookbook is to help you gain lean muscle. And it is meant to be used together with a training program.
What Makes this Different from Other Cooking Books?
- As mentioned the main goal is to provide you with recipes for an anabolic or muscle gaining diet. This is why you’ll notice that most of the dishes have sufficient protein and are low in fat.
- It also steps away from the often seen bland and boring food that fitness and bodybuilding diets are known for. Instead the meals are tasty and packed with flavor.
- Simple to prepare with very easy to follow instructions. Let’s face it, you don’t want to spend a ton of time in the kitchen cooking or figuring out recipes when you could be in the gym or working out.
- Teaches you how prepare your meals so you don’t spend a lot of time doing so.
- Tells you how and what to shop for in the grocery store to make the shopping process quicker and painless.
Kinds of Meals You Can Expect in the Cookbook
So what types of dishes are included in the book? Well, Dave Ruel actually goes through almost all the different food groups and includes a few other extras along. For each of the groups, makes around 25 to 30 different recipe choices.
A breakdown of the different types of recipes inlcude:
- Breakfast
- Chicken & Poultry
- Fish & Seafood
- Pork
- Red Meat
- Soups, Salads and Sides
- Snacks and Bars
- Desserts
For me, the most useful ones are breakfast, and the snacks and bars. These were the most interesting because these are where I often find myself having a tough time figuring out what to prepare. The different types of pancakes and muffins are not only very creative but also taste good. As you’d expect, they’re packed with protein, fiber and low in carbs and fat, making them appropriate for an anabolic diet.
The cookies and protein bars were also great because they let me take them with me. All I need to do is prepare them, put them in a bag and get going. Finally if you have problems thinking of new and creative ways to create protein shakes for your workouts, there are some recipes included to.
For a larger list of recipes, here’s a list.
A Look at What’s Included in the Entire Set
- Anabolic Cooking. This is the main cookbook. It lists over 200 recipes designed to promote muscle building and fat loss. The recipes are made so that they’re easy to prepare and take little time to do so.
- Nutrition & Cooking Starter Guide. This is one book I’d recommend reading if you’re still new to the kitchen or want to understand the basics of nutrition and cooking healthy. It goes through the steps of understanding what to look for when buying food and how to read a recipe. Aside from the basics, it also includes a few useful tips like how to save money when shopping for grocery, being able to quickly prepare a week’s worth of meals in a short time span and how to construct your post workout diet.
- Anabolic Cooking Meal Plans. The meal plans are another very valuable tool that I love. They are set meal plans that range from those for 1200 calories all the way up to 5000 calories. This lets you quickly use the one you need without having to construct one on you’re own. For those starting out, they’re a great tool to learn how to design your own meal plans for yourself.
- Advanced Calorie Calculator. I don’t like math and never did like it, so this calorie calculator does make life a lot easier when computing the number of calories for meals.
- Anabolic Cooking Logs for Training And Diet. Like all diets and training programs, these sheets let you log and monitor what activities and exercises you are doing on a daily basis. It’s the best way to see what works and what doesn’t for you.
- Ugly Truth About Supplements. You wouldn’t expect this from a bodybuilder since most bodybuilders go the other way and try to sell or promote supplements.
Things I’d Like to See Added
- More information on healthy ingredients and why the meals are constructed as such. This will help readers to learn what to include and what to leave out so they can create their own anabolic recipes themselves.
What I Like About Anabolic Cooking
- The large number of recipes. Not only are there tons of recipes but they cover all the different food types. They are more flavorful compared to the traditional muscle building diets too.
- Detailed nutritional information for each recipe. For each recipe the calories, number of proteins, fats and carbs are included. This lets you adjust accordingly if you need to eat more or less to get to your goal.
- Easy to prepare dishes and simple cooking instructions. There are very few steps and nothing complicated in putting the ingredients together or cooking the dishes.
- Useful Meal Plans. The ready-made meal plans are nice if you don’t like to set one up yourself.
