8 years of training hard and barely seeing any results. 

Yeap! Some pumped up chest, a little bigger arms, legs looking bigger, but nowhere near the physique that i had envisioned in my head. 

The question that I would give myself year after year was what can I possibly do different. All my nutrition books would say balanced diet is the key and to follow the food pyramid. 

So, ill give you a breakdown of my journey and see if you can relate to any of the stages I went trough

Stage 1

You eat whatever you like but you train hard.

Results: you don't have anywhere near the body that you want but you look like you work out. You have bigger arms than average, a bit swollen chest, maybe a genetically gifted body part shows more prominent than the rest etc.

Stage 2

You eat clean and you train hard.

What is eating clean? You eat salads, not much bread, lean meats, some dairy, nuts, fruits, you avoid much potatoes and rice. You have fish once in a while. You look for natural ingredients and favor organic labels.

Results: You look like you are in good shape when you wear clothes, but when you take your shirt off you are not very happy with the results. You always complain about the lower abs and maybe your body balance and aesthetics are lacking

Stage 3

You eat very calculated and you train hard

This stage is one that many will argue is not a healthy way of eating. It is not balanced. You can't get all your nutrients from it. Its is boring. You pretty much eat the same crap over and over. Yes it is boring and extremely annoying to adopt to it! But ...

But the results: Crazy abs, very low body fat, all year round you look lean, you look good with and without clothes and your overall aesthetics and balance looks very nice. And one more bonus: once you achieve your preferred goal and you keep it for 9 months minimum then you can jump back to stage 2 for 30% of the time and stage 1 for 10% of the time without seeing significant fluctuation in body weight and body image.

So what are some sample muscle meals you can focus on for stage 3

For someone like myself I'm 225lb 6'2 

50% of my year I eat 4 to 6 meals 

4oz of meat(fish, chicken,steak, turkey) with 12-15oz carbs typically (rice, beans, quinoa)

Results: 8-12% body fat

30% of my year i eat 4 meals nothing else

4oz chicken only with 15-18 oz sweet potatoes

Results: 4-6% body fat rounder muscle bellies. very vascular very defined abs

10% of my year i eat 4 meals very low carbs

6oz meat (chicken, turkey, fish, red meat) with 18oz of good fats (avocado, almonds, walnuts, coconut butter)

Results: In this diet you can go down to up to 2% body fat naturally, maybe more but I've only been down to 2% yet the muscles do not look as full but the skin looks very tight and you can see crazy striations on your muscles. the hunger signals are also very limiting since the body taps into fat storage for energy constantly. 

10% of my year I eat everything just everything I want, 0 regrets 0 guilt some body fat, but who cares!!! 

Hope this helped, Feel free to comment below