My name is Dave Ruel, but most people know me as the “Muscle Cook”.

I am a competitive bodybuilder, an author and more importantly a professional nutritionist.

As you may have noticed, I have 3 passions in life: Bodybuilding, Nutrition, and Cooking! 3 passions that complement each other really well don’t you think?

However, before I became a nutrition expert, I went through a lot of personal challenges, and I have to admit that I’ve made a lot of stupid mistakes over the years in my muscle building efforts, especially when I first started. I literally wasted years of progress by not paying attention to my nutrition and listening to other people on bodybuilding forums and websites. While they all meant well, they didn’t have a clue as to what really worked and what didn’t when it came to building muscle.

Growing up, I always was a physically active person, I was involved in competitive sports such as hockey, basketball and volleyball. I did try to pick up weights a few times, but at that time I couldn’t find the motivation to be dedicated to weightlifting for more than a few weeks at a time. I was never genetically gifted, I was your typical skinny-fat kid…

In 2001, after having gained a few pounds during the summer, I decided to join a local gym (the one I am still training at now…) in order to get in shape and gain some muscle. At that time, I didn’t know anything about weight training or nutrition.
However, I kept on reading and collecting info left and right and in a few weeks I was able to create my own training program and basic nutrition plan (and I mean BASIC!). The weeks passed and I gradually fell in love with the sport. I was getting good results and wanted more.

But, after a year, I wasn’t getting the results I was getting at the beginning… and I made the typical #1 bodybuilding mistake of “bulking”… I brought my weight up to 262 lbs, with a lot of body fat. At that point, I realized that I had gone way too extreme and that I would need to work very hard to get back in shape. This is when I hired the person who would become my mentor, a several time local Bodybuilding Champion, who also was a professional nutritionist. This was a guy who had already accomplished what I wanted to accomplish, and I knew that if I was going make a change, I needed to get help from someone who had “been there, done that”. It wasn’t an easy decision; I mean, I was a student at the time, without much extra cash and he wasn’t exactly cheap…but heck, I really wanted to make a change so I saved my pennies and got him to coach me… and that would happen to be the BEST decision I’ve made in my entire life!

He took me under his wing and put me on a 12 weeks nutrition plan that made me lose 50 lbs! I just couldn’t believe the transformation I had made in just 3 months, going from out of shape to an almost competitive physique.
But surprisingly, this nutrition plan wasn’t a conventional basic nutrition plan (i.e. chicken breasts, steamed broccoli and brown rice…), I had to cook for almost all the meals that composed my “diet”… he was giving me recipes and was using those recipes for almost all my meals…
It seemed a bit odd at first because I thought I would have to spend hours in the kitchen in order to prepare all my meals… I couldn’t have been more wrong…

His recipes were so easy to make, and as the time went by, I developed my own little cooking strategies… It was so easy to follow his plan, the meals were so tasty and the results were just incredible!!

This is when I realized the power of food and how good, clean eating habits can change your physique! At that point, I made myself a promise that I would eat clean for the rest of my life!

I also realized that bodybuilding nutrition doesn’t have to be plain and boring… without spending more time in the kitchen that you normally do, you can have meals that are full of flavours and that make it easier to reach your fitness goals…
Since then, cooking and nutrition really became my passion… and it is great that I now have the opportunity to share my passion with other people… and I take pride in it too…
Over the past years I have helped hundreds of people with incredible results, I have been helping bodybuilders get shredded for bodybuilding shows, fitness models get ready for photo shoots and regular weight lifters transform their physiques!
I have also competed in several bodybuilding competitions, the last one being the 2007 Heavyweights Classic where I won the heavyweights class…

Now I hope that all the info I provide on this website will be valuable to you. If I can save you from making the same mistakes I’ve made, well my mission is accomplished!

That’s it for my story See you around the site!

Dave Ruel aka The Muscle Cook

P.S. Oh! By the way, if you were hoping for a more conventional type “bio”, here goes: I have a brother and a sister, both younger, I have multiple degrees and certifications in both Training and Nutrition, I love Marvel comics, I hate tomatoes and I am a huge fan of the Montreal Canadiens hockey team! That’s me…

Now, if you want to stay on top of what I’m doing and for even more tips, you can connect with me on Twitter. And last but not least, shoot me a friend request on Facebook!