The short answer is yes. The longer answer explains why most people asking this question are thinking about food and fitness in a way that makes both worse.
I am a first-place competitive bodybuilder. I also bake cookies, sell the recipes online, and make a portion of my competition income doing it shirtless on camera. The question I get more than any other — more than questions about training, supplementation, or competition prep — is some version of: can you actually eat that?
So let me give you the real answer.
The Bodybuilder’s Relationship with Food
Competitive bodybuilding requires precise control over energy intake and expenditure over extended periods of time. During prep (the phase leading to competition), this control becomes extremely tight. During the off-season, it opens up considerably. The goal of off-season eating is to build muscle — which requires eating enough to support growth, which frequently means eating more than you think you should.
Cookies are not the enemy of either phase. Blanket avoidance of specific foods is not a nutrition strategy — it is a fear response disguised as discipline.
“The goal is not to never eat a cookie. The goal is to understand what the cookie does within the context of your total daily nutrition — and then decide from a position of knowledge, not anxiety.”
What the Macros Actually Look Like
A standard chocolate chip cookie from a commercial recipe runs approximately 140–180 calories, 20–24g carbohydrates, 7–9g fat, and 2–3g protein. That is not a threatening profile. Two cookies is 280–360 calories. In an off-season eating window of 3,200–4,000+ daily calories for a competitive bodybuilder, two cookies is a rounding error.
The recipes in Vol. 1 of the Shirtless Cookies Recipe Book are designed with macros in mind. The Stage Day Snickerdoodle — included in the free recipe pack — is specifically built for tighter calorie phases without sacrificing the thing that makes a cookie worth eating.
The Off-Season Case for Cookies
During a caloric surplus phase, getting enough calories is frequently harder than people expect. High-volume, low-calorie foods that fill you up become the enemy of muscle growth. Calorie-dense, rewarding foods that you actually want to eat become an asset.
A batch of cookies that you bake yourself, from ingredients you control, with a macro profile you have calculated, is a more intelligent choice than the same calories in processed snack food where you have less control and less information. It is also a choice you will actually follow through on, which matters more than the theoretically perfect option you abandon by Thursday.
The Prep Phase Case
During competition prep, every calorie counts and the margin for variance narrows. This does not eliminate cookies — it changes the specs. A recipe designed for prep has different ingredient ratios. Lower fat content. More precise portion sizing. The same baking process, a different formula.
This is exactly what the Stage Day Snickerdoodle was developed for. You can get that recipe free here.
The Real Answer
Can bodybuilders eat cookies? Yes. The more useful question is: do the cookies you are eating fit your nutrition targets for the day, and are they worth the calories they cost you? If yes to both, eat the cookies. If the macros do not fit, adjust the recipe or the timing. If you do not know the macros, learn them. That is what the nutritional breakdown in every Shirtless Cookies recipe is for.
The brand exists because the premise is funny. The recipes exist because the premise is also correct. You can take your training seriously and still bake excellent cookies. The two things are not in conflict.
Get 3 Free Recipes — Including the Stage Day Snickerdoodle
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