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(as of Mar 21, 2025 11:20:30 UTC – Details)
Men’s Health presents over 150 simple recipes for delicious meals the whole family will love, from workout-boosting protein shakes to healthy dinners and more
Achieving your best body ever requires that two elements merge as one: solid training and good nutrition. Men’s Health Muscle Chow provides the nutritional component of that muscle-building equation. Inside, you’ll find:
• Eight easy-to-remember dietary strategies to keep your eating habits in line
• Filling breakfasts like Banana Protein Pancakes; energizing entrées including Muscle-Bound Chili and Mahi Fish Wraps; hunger-killing snacks such as Malted Almond Bombs; and even desserts like Key Lime Pie—all designed to help burn fat and build muscle
• A shopping list that makes it easy to stock up on essential ingredients and kitchen tools
• A troubleshooting guide for guys with more experience at the gym than in the kitchen
• Insider strategies, tips, tricks of the trade
Men’s Health Muscle Chow is much more than just a cookbook. It offers a solid foundation for understanding meal timing and the effects nutrients have on your body to help you set and reach your fitness goals.
Publisher : Rodale Books; Illustrated edition (December 10, 2007)
Language : English
Paperback : 288 pages
ISBN-10 : 1594865485
ISBN-13 : 978-1594865480
Item Weight : 2.31 pounds
Dimensions : 7.5 x 0.75 x 9.15 inches
Customers say
Customers find the recipes in this book easy to prepare and delicious. They appreciate the nutrition information and advice for muscle-building foods. The writing style is concise and easy to read. Many readers consider the book suitable for both men and women. However, some feel there are not enough pictures of the recipes.
AI-generated from the text of customer reviews
Ken Flemming –
The most interesting and insightful nutrition book to date
Just look at Gregg Avedon’s (the author of the book) body and you’ll know that he knows a thing or two about good nutrition. Muscle Chow is a book that constantly wows you with a wealth of information and has good tasting recipes, to boot! You can tell that nutrition is something that Gregg is really passionate about and it is not a boring scientific jargon of how nutrition should work in theory. Although he does get pretty technical–which is nice because it gives you a deeper understanding of why certain foods are so valuable–he makes sure to give a nice human element and tell you why certain foods taste good and why others don’t.
Gregg could practically be a chef with how much knowledge he knows about food. For example, when selecting fish you want to get one that does not smell like fish at all–this is how you can tell that it is fresh. Also, when you are cooking chicken you want to make sure that the juices are running clear, and this is how you know it is done without having to use a meat thermometer. As a novice cook myself I am usually uninterested with cooking and not motivated to care about making food myself and would rather pay someone else to do it.
The problem with eating out in public is that you don’t know exactly what is going in your food. You better believe that restaurants will cater more to taste buds than to nutrition, so an mercilessness amount of butter and other unnecessary fats and empty calories will be added to your food without your consent. I bought this book not only to save money, because body building creates an expensive food bill, but to also control exactly what I eat and pack my food with more nutrients instead of more fat and sugar.
Each chapter starts with a lesson about the type of food you are cooking, be it meat or poultry or fish, then it will give you recipes on individual pages, which is nice for quick reference. It also had modifications to recipes, such as if you are trying to be in a shredding phase or in a rest phase, where you can take more liberties and not be so strict as to ever ingredient. It even has recommendations on the recipes that are the most likely to get you ripped. The book ends by having a nutrition plan that should supplement your workout routines, although I have not got involved with this section and choose to focus on the recipes instead.
My vocabulary of food has been taken to the next level thanks to this book and every time I open it there is something new to be learned. It will inspire any cooking-illiterate person to try out being their own home chef.
-Ken Flemming
Author, How to Get a Job in Video Games
NMBowser –
Get some things straight…
Ok. I’ll start with this: I am a firefighter, not a bodybuilder or extreme athlete. So, I do NOT make a lot of money. Your average parking meter makes more than I do, as a matter of fact. I also never cooked once before joining the fire service. Plus I come from a Mexican upbringing, so you can imagine the food I am used to eating.
I bought this book mainly because I wanted a good cookbook so I could learn some cooking skills along with some healthy dishes. I am a pretty avid reader of Men’s Health, and after reading Greg’s columns I finally caved in and bought the book. This book is very greatly organized and gives some great tips for anyone who IS looking to increase muscle mass, or things like that. (such as tips on creatine intake) Now, it is also organized so it can also be a great resource for someone who just wants to get leaner or just wants to eat cleaner. The book starts by telling you that this book is also a diet program, which works in three phases. This program basically works by starting your diet nice and easy and then restricting it more and more throughout the workout program. By the most restricted phase of the program, you can only eat foods labeled “Ripped” in the book. And as I thumbed through the book, I thought to myself, “The ripped phase is gonna suck. There doesn’t seem to be many recipes that you can eat in this phase.”
Well it turned it around on me when I really focused on the chapters. There are a great amount of options you can choose from for this phase and they all ROCK! Not too mention, the Ripped phase is only for 2 weeks! Now, let me clear this up even more: there are three phases to this program. They are:
Relaxed: 1 Week
Lean: 5 Weeks
Ripped: 2 Weeks.
In the fire station, we usually never eat earlier than 11 PM. And even for me, the program was VERY easy to handle! I never got bored, or aggravated with repetitive recipes. My personal favorite recipe was the avocado toast. It is fantastic! My commitment was there, and I was sick of making excuses. If you have the same, this plan is EASY! Granted, you have enough money of course, which brings me to my next point.
Greg gives you two shopping lists in the book: one for ingredients and another for tools and utensils. ANYBODY who has ever been in a grocery store will tell you: Eating healthy is EXPENSIVE! Some of these ingredients are actually not very expensive at places like a Wal-mart or Costco. But finding things like organic ingredients can be a pretty big chore. I am lucky enough to have a store that provides these close-by but it can get quite expensive. But honestly, the shopping lists save you quite a bit of money if you go into a grocery store blindly looking for healthy foods. I didn’t see this until further down the road.
Now, for my last point. You’re not a huge fitness enthusiast? Neither am I! I hate counting calories like bodybuilders do. Greg made it VERY easy to balance out your meals for max effectiveness. The beginning of the book gives some priceless tips on general health, supplements, meal timing, what to eat more of and what to eat less of, etc. So even if you do not plan on following the diet like I did, the tips and recipes are worth it alone. I passed the book on to a fellow fireman because of his high cholesterol. Withing something like two months, he was a cardio machine. He did not follow the diet like I did, so the results were not as dramatic, but they were still awesome. Now I have the entire firehouse stealing recipes for our dinner from the Muscle Chow book. Trust me, that says a lot!
In closing, what do you have to lose? The book is inexpensive and if you have trouble with affording the ingredients, just save for a while and you will see it was worth it in the long run with all the stuff you learn. Especially if you don’t know the 1st thing about cooking. Try it and stick with it. You’ll see what I saw.
Apex_Pulse –
This book is an excellent collection of recipes and practical information for those serious about their training and making sure they are getting the right nutrition.
Gregg has some sound advice and if you’re like me not knowing how to approach the diet in a way that will complement your training and just taking protein shakes, this book is invaluable as it gives some simple and clear advice and the recipes are very easy and taste great!!
The starting point was keeping a food log/diary and seeing how much usless calories I was consuiming and then replacing these meals with ones from Muscle Chow. Also with the food diary method I tried out carb cycling… The result? I have noticed that I am training harder and for longer and the protein shakes supplement my diet as opposed to being meals in themselves.
Great book
Alex –
Good recipes but it’s kind of difficult to choose just looking at plain black/white text. We are in 2013 no ? 😉
Mrs. A. Lester –
I have cooked several things from this book and they have all turned out fine.Some things are used in America but I have found most things in health shops, or I have used alternative.
monkeyman –
I wouldn’t listen to those people who say a lot of it is Americanised- yes some of it is, but if you can’t work out that Zucchini is just a big Courgette (thanks Google), then you’re a bit of a pleb.
This book keeps you on the dietary straight and narrow and I can’t recommend it enough.
I use a handful of the recipes on a daily basis and I’m content in the knowledge that my meals are as clean as a whistle.
Thanks Greg- you’re a legend!
gunn –
arnie hear l come only joking this books full of every thing you need or want if you what to stay healthy.