Eating for the serious lifter doesn't have to be overly expensive or consume all your free time. I see far too many people fuck up their meals by eating out too much (low quality food for the most part) or just not eating enough. Even if you are on a budget and don't have a lot of time, you should look for solutions instead of excuses.
I am not a nutritionist but I have followed near every damn diet under the sun. Yet I keep coming back to a basic bodybuilder type diet high in carbs and protein with only the essential fats. I can prepare all my meals for the week on Sunday and I can do it rather cheaply which is important since I live in Manhattan and my wife and I have a baby. I don't shop at Whole Foods but I do well at the Spanish grocery store on my block.
Here is what I purchased at the store (for me) and it cost $80.
2 packs chicken breast. Each pack had 4 breasts. I had to split them myself and I peeled the skin off before I cooked them. This will be the protein base for 8 meals.
3 packs lean ground turkey. These will be the base for about 6 meals.
1 grass fed steak. Good for about 2 meals.
1 bag jasmine rice.
5 sweet potatoes.
1 jar natural peanut butter.
1 large container of oats.
6 cans tuna.
1 loaf pumpernickel.
3 dozen cage free eggs.
1 bunch fresh kale
1 container spinach leaves
2 packs frozen broccoli crowns
That's right. That's not that expensive if you break it down to a six day work week and see that I spend less than $15 a day.
I cook everything on Sunday and fill up about 15 containers for the week. I hardboil the eggs and put them back in their cartons. When I leave in the morning I scoop my oats into another Tupperware, sprinkle some stevia and cinnamon inside and hit the road. So, Monday might look like this:
wake up: 1 liter water, 2 scoops protein, fiber, greens
Breakfast: 3 egg whites, 2 whole eggs, 1 cup oats
Meal 3: 1 chicken breast, rice with kale
Meal 4 and 5: same
Meal 6: protein, peanut butter
This diet has been my base in helping me go from 210 to 240. I bust my ass in the gym and do cardio 2-4 times a week depending on how close I am to a strongman competition and what my big lifts look like for the week. I bring a gallon of water to work with me and drink it before I go home.
I will have the beef meals after my workouts on Wednesday and Friday. I will eat the tuna sandwiches on Tuesday and Thursday when I come home early. I drink fish oil from the bottle when I wake up and when I get home. There are lot of other little things I can mention but those are minutiae and can be expounded on later. The big picture point is that someone with a busy schedule and a child can manage their food expenses, whether bulking or cutting, and prepare all their meals in a relatively short amount of time and for relatively little money.
Since I brought up the bulk/cut dichotomy, this same diet can be applied for losing weight. I would just cut carbs in half for meal 4 and drop them from meal 5 and make sure I eat an extra serving of broccoli or spinach. After my weight loss plateaus I would cut back my protein portions a bit and ditch the peanut butter at night.
Let me reiterate my main point, it's all very simple and doesn't need to be a pricey or extremely time consuming endeavor. If you want to get big, eat a lot. Eat a lot of protein, carbs and fat. If you tend to get fatter like me, limit yourself to carbs or fat. When you want to trim, start cutting the energy sources slightly or just decrease all of your portions proportionately. The bottom line is to just make it work.
