DWAYNE ‘THE ROCK’ JOHNSON’S MEAL PLAN
Can you smell what “The Rock” is cooking? Let me tell you, you’ve got a lot to smell!
Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is one big man, and he eats like one too! I’m going to break down the Rock’s daily meal plan to show you what he eats at every meal, including his supplementation plan.
There are some important takeaways here – things we can learn from his nutrition plan and other things we may want to avoid simply because they’re impractical and counterproductive for the regular every-day guy.
I’ve had the chance to meet “The Rock” in the corridors of Wrestlemania, and I can tell you he is as large in real life as he appears on screen.
He has to eat a lot of food to make sure that he maintains the size that he has.
He is eating multiple times a day – 8 TIMES to be exact!
Keep in mind, this example day of The Rock’s diet was published in Muscle & Fitness magazine a few years back. While this may not be exactly accurate for what The Rock eats every single day, it should give you a good idea of the principles that he eats by on a regular basis to maintain his lean muscle mass.
So let’s take a look at a day of Rock’s diet plan, meal by meal so we can discover what type of muscle building diet he follows, and more importantly, what you can learn from his nutrition plan and apply to your own.
5 “BIG” TAKE AWAYS FROM THE ROCK DIET PLAN
As you look at the Meal Plan above, notice that I colored-coded everything the same way as we do with the X-Factor Meal Plans that come with all of our ATHLEAN-X programs.
Brown foods are complex starchy carbohydrates. Green foods are fibrous carbohydrates. Reds are proteins, and oranges are healthy fats.
Now that you’ve had a chance to see what his daily meals look like, let’s talk about the key takeaways from what The Rock eats. There are definitely some pros and some cons to his diet, and we’ll go through every single one!
1) HE EATS A LOT OF FISH – AND TAKES OMEGA 3’S?!
As you can see, there are a LOT of servings of fish in this meal plan! In fact, there are 36 ounces of cod being eaten every day!
The Rock is starting his morning with 10 ounces of fish for breakfast, ending his day with 10 ounces of fish for dinner, and eating 2 additional meals with 8 ounces of cod in them as well!
That’s a shitload of cod!
Why is he choosing cod?
First, it’s a great protein source… there’s 180 grams of protein in that cod by itself.
Second, there’s an additional 2 ½ grams of high-grade Omega-3’s in the cod.
Omega-3s are really important for speeding up muscle recovery and help us to recover from hard workouts.
But looking a little further down on the plan, you’ll discover that The Rock takes ADDITIONAL supplemental Omega-3 fish oil. Two additional tablespoons of omega-3s daily!
Here’s the important takeaway from this…
As I’ve said before, you’ll never get enough supplemental amounts of important nutrients like Omega-3 or even creatine from food alone.
The Rock understands that because he is taking supplemental 2 tbsp omega-3 fish oil, even though he’s eating 36 ounces of cod.
You’re probably not going to eat anywhere near 36 ounces of cod, so I highly recommend taking 3 grams of a high-quality Omega-3 fish oil supplement per day.
My Dr. C’s Omega-3s give you this optimal dosage to help increase protein synthesis and decrease inflammatory and immune responses to intense exercise and stress.
While you can take any Omega-3 fish oil, not all are created equal. These are what I take myself because I can know they’ve been created with the highest quality ingredients in the most effective clinical dosage.
2) HE EATS A LOT OF CARBS
The next thing I’m hoping you noticed is that there are a hell of a lot of carbs on Dwayne Johnson’s meal plan!
Check out all the complex carbohydrates: 2 cups of white rice in the morning, 2 cups rice in the afternoon and 2 more cups of rice in the evening. You’ll also see 2 cups of oatmeal, 12 ounces of sweet potato and 12 ounces of baked potato throughout the day.
There’s also no shortage of fibrous carbs with 2 cups of veggies in the morning and afternoon, another cup of veggies in a spinach salad and one more cup veggies in a lettuce salad later in the day.
As I’ve pointed out many times, we should not fear our carbohydrates! They are the primary source of our brain’s fuel, and the preferred fuel source for our workouts.
3) HE EATS A LOT OF PROTEIN
As I’m sure you noticed, protein is another key component of every one of The Rock’s meals.
We’ve got all that cod we talked about before, plus eggs, chicken, steak, and even a massive 10 egg-white omelet!
And once again, notice that he does supplement for protein as well, adding both 30 grams of casein protein in his final meal of the day and another post-workout whey protein shake.
All in all, if you add it up there are 426 grams of protein in this one day of eating!
You definitely want to be sure you’re hitting your protein goals if you want to build lean muscle, and protein supplementation is a great tool to do that.
And there’s another reason why protein supplements can be really helpful…
4) THE ROCK’S MEAL PLAN IS EXPENSIVE
One of the most obvious cons of The Rock’s meal plan is the cost. Let’s take a look at the costs for all that protein alone!
The national average for cod is seven dollars per pound. This puts The Rock at over $15 of cod every day.
Then we’ve got 8 ounces of chicken and 8 ounces of steak. Those come out to be about $3.50 a pound on average and $5.50 a pound on average.
Protein alone comes out to be about $22 or $21 per day!
Obviously, cost is not a factor for The Rock, however this can become pretty cost prohibitive for the regular guy.
The good news is, often you can reach your protein goals a lot more easily and cheaply via supplementation, such as with our ATHLEAN RX2 X-LR8 post-workout supplement, which contains a whopping 30 grams of whey protein per serving.
This helps you ensure that you’re hitting your protein requirements in the most portable, convenient (and cost effective) way possible!
5) THIS PLAN IS TIME CONSUMING!
As you were probably thinking to yourself when you saw The Rock’s meals for the day, eating like this is a massive time commitment.
Most of us don’t have time in our daily routine to prepare 5-7 meals, cooking each and every meal from scratch.
Of course, The Rock probably has his own chef preparing his meals for him. But we can’t all afford to do that.
That’s why I recommend cooking your foods in bulk. If you do that, you will unlock the key to consistency in your nutrition. Because the minute your meal plans become a pain for you to follow them is the minute you give up on them. Instead, if you make your food for the week ahead, you’ll stay consistent and reach your goals much faster.
You might also be thinking… these meals sound boring!
And that’s another thing I stress… if your meal plan is boring, it will be impossible to stay consistent.
With our X-Factor Meal Plans, we promise, you definitely won’t be bored! The plan gives you so many tasty and easy to prepare meal options, the ability to pick and choose from the ones you like best, and even the ability to swap out protein, carbohydrate and healthy fat options from individual meals.
It’s even adaptable to any special dietary needs, including vegetarian and vegan!
There are some important things we can learn from The Rock’s meal plan, such as the importance of supplemental Omega-3s and protein, and that there’s no need to fear carbohydrates. At the same time, I wouldn’t recommend that you follow it exactly because it’s likely to get really expensive and really boring, really fast!
Making nutrition enjoyable and sustainable is a key part of what we do in our ATHLEAN X-Factor Meal Plan that comes with every one of our training programs.
The X-Factor Meal Plan will help you train and eat like an athlete and grow serious muscle! Check out our ATHLEAN-X programs to see which one is the best fit for your goals and fitness level.
- Dwayne “The Rock” Johnson is a BIG guy, and he has to eat a lot to maintain that size. There are some important pros to his diet plan and some positive takeaways from it, but there are also some cons that would make it less sustainable for the average guy.
- The Rock eats a LOT of fish, but he also takes Omega-3 Fish Oil supplements. This is because it’s just not possible to get the full benefits of a clinical dosage of Omega-3s from diet alone, no matter how much fish you eat!
- The Rock doesn’t fear carbs and neither should you. His nutrition plan is full of them, because they are our brain’s main source of fuel, and they fuel our hard workouts, too!
- The Rock also eats a ton of protein – 426g of it in this sample day of eating. Protein is key for muscle synthesis so it should be a key part of your nutrition plan as well.
- The Rock’s meal plan is pretty expensive, especially because of all that protein. He does use protein supplementation to hit some of his daily protein goals. Protein supplementation can be a cost effective and convenient way of ensuring you’re getting enough protein in your diet to build muscle mass.
- Eating the way The Rock does could be pretty time consuming – time the average guy doesn’t typically have. That’s why I recommend weekly meal prep to ensure you can stay consistent with your nutrition.
- Eating this way can also be boring. In our X-Factor Meal Plan that comes with all of our ATHLEAN-X programs, we ensure that you’ll never be bored. There are lots of options to pick and choose from, and ways to adapt them to your specific needs and tastes.
Jeff Cavaliere M.S.P.T, CSCS
Jeff Cavaliere is a Physical Therapist, Strength Coach and creator of the ATHLEAN-X Training Programs and ATHLEAN-Rx Supplements. He has a Masters in Physical Therapy (MSPT) and has worked as Head Physical Therapist for the New York Mets, as well as training many elite professional athletes in Major League Baseball, NFL, MMA and professional wrestling. His programs produce “next level” achievements in muscle size, strength and performance for professional athletes and anyone looking to build a muscular athletic physique.
