Meal plan app or nutritionist when building muscle?

Question

Is using a customised meal plan on a health app or a customised meal plan from a nutritionist better when trying to build muscle?

Using an app is usually cheaper and subscriptions usually give you a lot of other features as well. However, an app is unable to take into account any problems or concerns you may have and might create a meal plan that is unsuitable for you. A nutritionist would be able to customise a meal plan better, as they will be able to collect important details about you and ensure that your meal plan is suitable. However, a nutritionist is much more expensive than a health app.

Would a health app be able to accurately customise a meal plan for you or would it be worth the extra money to choose a nutritionist to ensure you get the right foods and maximise muscle gain?

Answer 1

You basically summed it up in your question. Like most things in fitness it's a cost/benefit or risk/reward balance. Yes, you'll almost certainly get better results if you hire a nutritionist to design a customized meal plan, and a personal trainer to design your workouts and physical therapist to aid your recovery. But are you an elite athlete or a regular person just trying to look good naked? Do the results justify the costs? Maybe we should also hire a personal accountant to figure that out ;)

Furthermore a meal plan is only as effective as it's adherence. Someone that strictly follows a less-than-optimal meal plan could see much better results than someone who poorly follows a perfect meal plan. For the majority of people just the act of being mindful of what you put in your body will produce results.

So the answer to this is very subject. If your goal is to compete in some strength sport then maybe it's worth it. If your goal is to change your body composition for beach season, maybe not.