Elevating the ultimate Gym Bro meal
One common question everyone asks a personal trainer is:
What do I eat to lose weight?
My standard answer is chicken and broccoli out of tupperware. Why? Because at every gym, right now, there is some Gym Broseph or Brosephene that has a meal prep container with grilled chicken and broccoli in it. It is the generic bodybuilding meal and anyone in contest prep eats it frequently.
The problem is that despite the nutritional excellence of the meal (3.5 ounces chicken and 150 g broccoli has 200 calories, 30 grams protein, 4 g fat and 0 carbs), it is boring. Unless you hit the cooking on the chicken perfect, chicken breast becomes struggle chicken after a day and broccoli is not very exciting.
This recipe will elevate that broccoli to a delicious level you won’t be dreading to eat. Chef Lau is an old restaurateur that brings back of the house techniques to our at home Chinese cooking. In a few minutes, basic broccoli can be turned into a delicious side dish with just a few ingredients.
The simple stir fry sauce adds a few calories with the oyster sauce, corn starch and cooking wine but the whole recipe worth only adds about 80 calories. The oil adds another 50 calories per serving, so you might push the total calories up to 300 if you are enthusiastic with the extra sauce.
Who gets to use this recipe instead of the usual blanched broccoli on their meal prep?
Anyone not on a bodybuilding prep cycle. One of my goals is to compete in bodybuilding next year (November 16 at the NPC New Mexico Open) to make the statement that I was in better shape at 50 than I was at 25. The final weeks leading into the contest, the rule is: Nothing tastes as good as lean and mean feels. Macros get counted to the gram and any calorie that isn’t fuel for workouts or building blocks for growth is not to be eaten.
For everyone else though, the choice between enjoying your food and having the perfect macros is a little less black and white. If you’re trying to eat better, adding broccoli is probably a good thing. Cruciferous vegetables are excellent nutrition. Stir frying is an excellent method for cooking food if you are trying to be healthy and is economic for those on a budget. Food cost for a weeks meal prep is less than 8 bucks for everything.
I know you might be thinking from a weight loss perspective, you don’t want the extra calories. Relax, there’s a different math for you. One what would you eat instead? A fast food meal, even a healthy one, will have two to three times the calories and cost five or six times as much. The goal for weight loss is to cut calories a little everyday, consistently over time, and finding joy in what you do so it becomes a lifestyle not a sacrifice.
