All About Diets For Muscle Building
Okay. You have decided that you are going to shred those muscles and look nice and ripped, which is great for beach season. But do you know what goes into body building? Sure, you need to lift weights, but you also need to make sure that you are following a particular diet, one that is higher in calories than most and one that will provide you with all of the nutrition you will need, and then some.
Most diets for muscle building involved eating a lot of foods that are high in protein, which we all need anyway, whether we are lifting weights or sitting around and watching television (not always the most healthy choice in the world, by the way). Bodybuilders need to have even more protein than the rest of us, for a number of reasons.
What Goes Into Body Building Diets
Most people do not need to have the same things in their diets as bodybuilders do. As a rule, a healthy diet should consist of 55% carbohydrates, 15% fats, and 30% proteins, as recommended by the American Diabetes Association, the American Heart Association and many other well-known health organizations. But if you are interested in body building, then you will need to learn more about body building diets. For example, an average diet would consist of 30% protein, but body builders need more, and most body building diets include at least 40% protein, as well as 40% carbohydrates and 20% fats.
The whole idea of body building is to bulk up (without getting fat of course), so you will need to have extra nutrients, and more calories than the average person. These numbers can always be adjusted, depending on your particular dietary needs. For example, you will need more protein and fewer calories if you want to both lose weight and gain muscle. But if you are just trying to gain muscle, you can have more calories and fatty foods (just make sure that the fats are polyunsaturated or monounsaturated, and not saturated fats).
The Macronutrients Needed in Healthy Body Building Diets
As noted above, we all need to have carbohydrates, fats, and proteins in our diets, and these are all macronutrients that are extremely vital for our good health and even our survival. So, let’s talk about the macronutrients that you will need to have in body building diets.
– Carbohydrates – You’re probably thinking that this is a misprint, because of all of the terrible things we hear about carbohydrates these days. But there are good carbohydrates and there are bad carbohydrates, so you need to have an understanding of which foods you should be eating, and which you should avoid, especially if you are trying to gain muscle and lose weight. Some of the foods with good (complex) carbohydrates include brown rice, oats, and certain vegetables, such as broccoli and green beans.
– Fats – In addition to carbohydrates, we also hear a lot of negative things about fats. The bad fats that should not be in your diet are saturated fats, those that you will find in greasy foods and many prepared foods. But you do need to have certain fats in your diet, especially if you are trying out different body building diets. Find foods that are rich in polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats, such as poultry, fish, and lean red meat.
– Protein – Our soft tissues rely on protein for growth, maintenance, and recovery, and without it, there is no way that we can build strong, healthy muscles. Body builders often use protein supplements to make sure that they are getting the required amount, especially if they are unable to get enough from their diets. Some excellent dietary sources of protein include eggs (the original protein supplement), lean red meat, fish, soy, poultry, and dairy products. And if you are not trying to lose weight too, you can enjoy the delicious full-fat dairy products.
If you are just getting into body building, you should start out with a diet that is fairly easy to follow. The stricter your diet is, the greater the chances are that you are not going to stick with it, which is essential, especially in the beginning stages. And if you are overweight, it is a good idea to lose the excess weight before getting into any type of body building, or following any body building diets. Your first goal should always be good health, and then you can start building your muscles.
Body Building Diets Often Include Protein Supplements
Have you ever seen body builders at the gym drinking odd-looking drinks? These are protein supplements, and they are very common in body building diets. Body builders use protein supplements both before and after working out. Using protein supplements before workouts can help to provide the energy needed for the workout. And using protein supplements after working out will help your muscles recover from the strain you are putting them through.
Liquid protein shots are excellent for this purpose, and Protica has a couple of products that are ideal for body building diets. Profect contains 25 grams of protein, but is only a three ounce drink, so it is not too filling to have before working out. And in addition to protein, you will also get many other important nutrients, including vitamin C, and B complex vitamins.
Body Building with Muscle Building Diets
When you find out the significance of muscle building diets you will then know all those things that you ought to do in order to develop your muscles. It may seem hard at first but it’s not that tough. All you have to do is revise your information on the topic and apply a bit of common sense. In no time at all you will be the master of your domain and have a self-sufficient muscle developing diet.
Protein Is Going To Be Your Keyword
It is protein that helps your body to generate new muscle tissue and also to redevelop damaged muscle tissue. In short you are required to have a high protein rich diet if you want to build your muscles.
The very best items for protein can be found in the lean meat, fish, poultry and low-fat dairy at your local grocery store. You can supplement these foods with vegetables, whole grains, fruits and nuts which are also protein rich and chock full of vitamins.
You must stay away from fatty, low-vitamin foods that offer you very little or no nutritional value such as chips, soda, chocolate and hard candy. If you’re eating enough protein you shouldn’t feel hungry all of the time which makes binge eating a thing of the past.
It’s also a really good idea to grab some whey protein from your local health food store. It carries multiple advantages of being reasonably priced, mixes real easy in water or juice and turns out to be a delectable protein shake. Being easily absorbed by your body, whey protein proves to be an excellent product for muscle building.
Water May Be Boring but it’s Vital
You may not believe it but the fact is that water is very much needed for ones muscle building routine. Drinking plain water regularly gives short term relief from hunger pains and also flushes out waste matter and chemicals from your body. Many people think that they’re hungry when really its dehydration. For the healthy function of your body you ought to drink at least 8 to 10 glasses of plain water every day. In fact, you should make it a habit to keep a glass or bottle of water along with you throughout your day. Never let your body get to thirsty for water.
Eat Less At More Frequent Intervals
Just because you’re working out doesn’t mean you need to devour your food like a hog. Devise and maintain a proper meal plan based on the amount of food consumed and the number of times that you eat each day. Preferably, you want your body’s metabolism to be as high as possible. This will assist to burn off your excess body fat, yet still allow your body to make new muscle tissue.
The best practice is to follow a daily routine of 5 to 6 meals per day. You should strive to never miss a meal and each meal ought to be about the size of your hand. It doesn’t hurt to have a meal a tad bigger than your hand since that’s just a rough estimate. However, you ought to only eat until you feel content and not until you feel like you are about to burst open at the seams.
Healthy dose of calories in fact fluctuates from one person to another. Every person is unique. It is estimated that every person should eat at least 2500 calories per day. Although this is not the norm some people have to have a massive intake of 5000 calories per day in order to notice considerable muscle gain.
It is often advisable to start by finding out how your body reacts to lower amounts of calories consumed. If there is no obvious change, only then increase your calorie intake.
Since you are your own boss you can create your own muscle building diet plan. It’s simpler than you might imagine and the rewards will be enormous.
6 Foods to Include in Your Muscle Building Diet Plan
I will in this article talk about some foods that will add great benefits to your muscle building diet plan. These foods in your muscle building diet plan will consist of a good amount of protein, carbs and healthy fat.
They are all important, not only for building muscle, but also for a common healthy diet. The muscle building diet plan
Chicken
The first food on the list is chicken. Chicken has not only a great amount of proteins, but it is also light on calories. A lot of people prefer chicken over meat when cutting as it provide all the important nutrition for building muscle and it taste delicious.
Fish
Fish is a nutrition you need at least once or twice a week if not every day. Fish contains good proteins and a lot of healthy fat. You need healthy fat to avoid fat on your body. When you have fat in your diet, you body no longer feel the need to store it anymore as it is constantly being provided through your diet.
Red Meat
If you are a meat lover you will love the 3rd food in your muscle building diet plan. Red meat is a good source of proteins and holds more iron than most foods. And it is a bonus that it happens to taste excellent if you know how to make it.
Mixed nuts
Mixed nuts can either be used as a snack or you can use it as a mix with your food. It contains a lot of healthy fat, good amount of proteins and it taste good. I prefer to have a dish of rice, chicken and cashew nut with cashew nut sauce when I want to spice up my diet a bit. Delicious to say the least!
Eggs
Eggs contain a lot of proteins and they are easy to process. Eggs are in most people’s muscle building diet plan as you can make a great breakfast or you can mix them with various sources of food to make a great tasting dish.
Protein Shakes
A lot of people will not consider protein shakes to be a food, but nevertheless, it is a great source of proteins. Shakes are great after you have been working out as your muscles need repair tools to recover from the work out. If you want to spice up your protein shake, you can blend it with various fruits and have something you look forward to for the sake of the taste.
The above 6 foods are in most people’s muscle building diet plan and there is a good reason why. They all have some great benefits for building muscle. Now it is time for you to be creative and decide which one you are going to eat from your muscle building diet plan today.
A Balanced Body Building Diet
Many factors will go into your choice of a body building diet, but by far the most important of them is the amount of nutrition your diet will provide. Your body building diet will provide the fuel for your workouts, your recovery, and your new muscle growth. If you are not getting the proper nutrients in the proper amounts, your bodybuilding efforts will never achieve the body you want.
There is no “one-diet-fits-all” for bodybuilders. But there are some body building diet rules which apply to almost everyone. The first of these is that you will get much better results is you eat small servings of nutritious food several time daily instead of limiting yourself to two or three major showdowns. Why?
By eating frequently throughout the day, you will stoke your metabolic rate and burn more fat, even when you are not working out. If you take more than three or four hours between meals, you body switches to a muscle-depleting, fat-storing condition called a catabolic state.
What should you be eating? Carbs, proteins and fats, in a 40/40/20 proportion, will give your body building diet all the essential nutrients working together so that your body can maximize the amount of nutrition it absorbs from each meal.
You should consume complex carbohydrates like whole grains, vegetables, and beans, except for those times you eat immediately after a workout, when your body needs the simple carbohydrates found in fruit to replace the glycogen that you burned. Simple carbs post-workout will speed your recuperation time. Complex carbs are also great sources of fibre, another important component in a good body building diet.
Consume enough protein each day, spread out over your meals, to amount to between one and one-and-a-half grams for each pound of your lean body mass. Have your lean body mass calculated for you before you begin your body building program, and have it re-checked periodically as you add new muscle. White meat chicken and turkey without skin, red meats rated 90% or more lean, fish, and eggs or egg substitutes are all good sources of protein.
Avoid both animal fats and hydrogenated vegetable fats, as they are saturated and will clog your arteries. Un-hydrogenated vegetable, nut, and fish oils are good choices for your body building diet; fish oil, flaxseed oil, and virgin olive oil may also provide you with antioxidant benefits.
The final essential for your body building diet is water; you should drink it throughout the day even if you don’t feel thirsty, and try to consume one-half to two-thirds of an ounce for every pound you weigh.
A Muscle Building Diet for Vegetarians
Read the entire article and you will receive a description for an easy to follow muscle building diet.
Breakfast – Always begin with a shake. A good example would be rice, pea or hemp protein, or some combination of the three. Blend 30-40 grams of protein in 8 oz. of organic coconut milk and 8-12 oz. water. Blend in a banana, mixed frozen berries, a tablespoon of cacao nibs, and 2 tablespoons maca powder, which is great for increased testosterone production and virility. You will really enjoy the taste.
Snack – After waiting a few hours, you could have a few tangerines and some pistachios/cashews or a couple apples with almond butter. Fresh ground almond butter is best. Also, at night you might want to mix it with organic honey, washing it down with a cup of hemp or almond milk.
As part of your muscle building diet you should learn to have high sodium intake for strength and energy production, so always have a few pickles daily and add sea salt to some of your food.
Lunch – Legumes or beans, with organic brown rice or quinoa. Sauté black beans with peppers, tomatoes, onions and garlic and mix that with rice. Add with salsa and some fresh avocado.
You could also have a salad or eat some raw veggies or mix some steamed kale or spinach together.
If you like, you could have an almond butter and jelly sandwich for lunch.
Snack – When away from the house carry Raw Organic Food Bars and a variety of nuts. At home fruit is good.
Drink another shake some time during the day which should be right after training. Similar to the shake above except eliminate the coconut milk or the cacao but do use the maca powder. Blend a banana, almond milk, water, frozen spinach with Vega and some extra protein.
During workouts drink coconut water or regular water. Try to drink at least a half gallon of water throughout the day. Drinking two cups of green tea each day is good.
Dinner – Cook some kind of stew consisting of a large variety of vegetables and some kind of legumes – Squash, onions, spinach and garlic. Do include vegetable broth, salt, pepper and yellow peas, which have 10 grams of protein per ¼ cup. Let cook for 2 hours and then mix in some quinoa. If attempting to get lean skip the brown rice. Adding potatoes (even just one) to the stew makes them creamier and even more delicious.
Limit soy consumption because of its estrogenic effects but for the occasional cheat meal have some tofu with brown rice or some kind of meat substitute with brown rice pasta.
Eat soy and wheat free veggie burgers one or two nights per week and always have a large spinach salad mixed with tomatoes, broccoli, olives, peppers, onions, carrots, apples, berries, nuts, seeds, and avocado. Finish with olive oil, Vega oil and balsamic vinegar.
Dessert – To end your muscle building diet if you need to cheat have some organic coconut milk ice cream. It is tasty and healthy. Coconut milk contains healthy MCT’s and has none of the dangers of cow’s milk. It is sweetened with organic agave syrup. Another cheat dessert is organic, dark chocolate. This has been shown to have a variety of health benefits.
Beginner Bodybuilding Diet Guidelines & Tips
Beginner’s Advice:
1) The first thing an absolute beginner should do is visit his/her doctor and get the all clear to begin a workout program that will include cardiovascular and weight training.
2) Decide on what are your goals. Do you want to lose body fat and tone up or do you want to gain weight? Doing both at the same time can be achieved too but is very difficult and can lead to zigzag diets.
3) A general guideline is that if your body fat is below 14% you should be OK to bulk up and gain some weight and body fat. If you are above 14% then you should try to first lose some fat and then try to gain the weight. Generally anyone who has a body fat percentage of over 30% is considered to be obese.
4) Have a set nutrition plan before you begin training. 5-6 meals a day are an absolute MUST whether you want to lose bf or gain weight.
5) Have a set training regimen. If you have to, hire a personal trainer for a couple of sessions to show you how to perform the basic exercises. Ask for advice on your routines, either from knowledgeable people in the gym or in our forum.
6) Choose a gym that will have all the basic equipment (benches, squat racks, smiths etc). If you go during peak hours (5pm-8pm) you should try and join the gym with the most equipment around. This will help you finish your workout faster and not wait for someone to get off your machine. Make sure your gym has personal trainers and helpful staff. Cleanliness is also a MUST!
7) Don’t just go to the gym to train chest and arms! If you want your progress to be fast you MUST train all muscles at least once per week.
8) Do not tax your body with unnecessary time in the gym. Go in, train hard and get out of there as fast as you can! Growth takes place OUTSIDE the gym while you are eating healthy meals and while sleeping and resting.
9) Cardio training is a good tool for all beginners in order to help them gain some cardiovascular strength for strenuous weight workouts.
10) Always remember that you will progress faster if you constantly apply the following equation to your lifestyle:
TRAINING + MEALS + REST = GROWTH!
Benefits of High Protein Diet and Building Muscle Supplement
The high protein diet plan is one of the most popular forms of diet plans around the world. Everyone can meet their health goals by eating foods that are high in proteins. From increasing muscle to gaining weight and losing fat, this type of diet can help to achieve all type of fitness goals. This diet can be highly beneficial for people having different types of bodies. However, it needs certain changes depending on one’s health objectives and goals. You can also use a building muscle supplement to get the desired health results in minimum time.
Proteins are the building blocks of muscles and consuming high protein foods is important for a healthy body. Our muscle mass will not increase without sufficient amount of protein. Protein is also essential in building and repairing the muscles that get broken down during rigorous workouts. Apart from muscle building, a high protein diet plan is also effective in losing fat and weight. They have extremely low calorie and saturated fat content. Therefore high protein foods are healthy and since they have low calories, they help in losing weight.
Chicken, turkey, beef, fish, egg whites and nuts are some of the foods that are rich in protein. Consumption of 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight is usually the most recommended amount of protein for healthy adults. People involved in body building can benefit from a slightly higher intake than this. Well, for some people it is impossible to consume this amount of protein every day. This is where building muscle supplement can help. They can carry along with them protein shakes and bars that are easily available in the market. Supplements are quick to prepare, beneficial and convenient to carry.
A high protein diet plan is beneficial when protein is taken during certain times of the day. You must have them during breakfast, before going to bed and after workouts. Eating the right amount of protein everyday is the key to a healthy body and healthy life. If you can’t carry your tuna fish or chicken breasts around, you can trust building muscle supplement to add extra pounds quickly to your body.
Bodybuilding Diet vs. Regular Diet
When looking at building lean muscle, and focusing on a bodybuilding diet, it is important to make sure you eat. Don’t assume that by drinking protein shakes, and hitting the gym for hours on end, you’re doing a good job. Drinking “weight gainer” and other products alone will only leave you in a world of bad health. You need to make sure you’re eating, and not just eating junk, you need good healthy foods that will stimulate your muscles to grow and keep fat away.
When considering a bodybuilding diet, you might be stunned to see that the calories are higher than what most diets require. This doesn’t mean that you’re eating chocolate cake all day; it means that you’ll be utilizing all those calories down the last bite. This is of course, if you’re serious about building lean muscle, not just losing weight.
Consider any bodybuilding diet that lets you eat real food. A highly processed diet consisting of shakes and bars may not suit your overall needs, and could leave a bad taste in your mouth. Make sure the plan you’re looking at consists of red meat, eggs, whey, fish, green leafy vegetables, lean poultry, and plenty of water.
Remember, eating well doesn’t mean large quantities of comfort food, and eating lettuce doesn’t cut it either. You want balance, and frequency, with as much as 6 to 8 small meals throughout your day. Stay hydrated with lots of water, and make sure you stay away from fast food options, and you’ll see maximum results fast.
Burn Fat Build Muscle Diet Program
Burn fat build muscle is a three steps process is very easy to put into action. You can lose fat and build muscle at the same time. With the proper diet and workout program you can shed pounds of fat and increase your muscle mass.
Learning to burn fat and build muscle is a three step process. Regular cardio exercises, lifting weights and maintaining a proper diet will help you burn fat build muscle.
Burn Fat Build Muscle Diet Program:
1) Cardio– It is important to do cardiovascular exercises at least three times a week. Cardio exercises include running, biking, and swimming, jumping rope and walking. You don’t have to do extreme cardio exercises to see results; walking for an hour three times a week will help you lose fat.
2) Weight Lifting – Increasing your muscle mass will help your body burn fat. A fat burning muscle building workout program should target all the large muscle groups of the body including the chest, back, arms and legs. Exercising the large muscle of the body will help your body burn extra calories even when you’re at rest.
3) Diet – A diet designed to build up muscle mass and burn fat needs to raise your metabolism and keep it at an even level. It is important to eat 5 or 6 smaller meals throughout the day instead of 1 or 2 large meals. Eating smaller meals will keep your body from storing extra calories as fat.
Drink 8 to 10 glasses of water every day, water is a natural appetite suppressant, your body is made up over seventy percent water and it is important to make sure you are getting plenty of water when on any exercise or diet program.
When you are on any special diet or workout programs you’re going to have time when you skip a workout or eat something that is not part of your fat burning diet plan, don’t get discouraged everybody has set backs, get back to your fat burning and muscle building programs and before you know it you will back on track.
Designing The Optimal Diet For Muscle Building
If you want to see optimum results, you’ll have to focus on both what you’re doing in the gym, as well as what you’re doing in the kitchen. Trainees who neglect their diets are only factoring in half the equation that goes into building muscle mass, thus their gains will be very poor, to say the least.
For maximum muscle growth, you’ll need to have both elements in place – Diet and Training. In this article, we’ll go over the nutrition elements that you must know in order to construct a solid muscle building diet that will promote muscle size and strength gain.
Caloric Intake
An effective muscle building diet consists of eating enough total daily calories. Quite simply, without enough calories, building muscle mass will be next to impossible. It’s extremely important to consume plenty of high quality calories every single day.
For the average person looking to gain weight and put on muscle mass, caloric intake needs to be around 17-20 calories per pound of bodyweight per day. If you’re someone who’s naturally skinny or if you’re a “hard gainer”, then you’ll want to consume at least 19 calories per pound of bodyweight per day, where as in if you’re someone who tends to gain body fat easily, use the lower range (17-18) It’s important to eat the required amount of calories each and every single day in order to support muscle growth and to recover from hard and heavy weight training sessions. Remember, consistency in training and diet are both key when you’re trying to put on muscle mass.
Food Timing
The second aspect to take into account in your muscle building diet is food timing. For best results, you’ll want to overemphasize post-workout nutrition, as this is when your muscles are literally starving for nutrients and are able absorb them like a sponge.
Aim to consume a large amount fast-digesting carbohydrates and fast digesting protein immediately to 1 hour post-workout, as this is when carbs restore muscle glycogen (muscle tissues primary energy source) which support high energy levels during workouts and promote new muscle growth.
Throughout the rest of the day, focus on eating plenty of lean protein, moderate amounts of complex carbohydrates and healthy fats in each meal.
Food Sources
Once you have your calorie intake figured out, you’ll need to know about where you’ll be getting your calories from. It’s important to focus on healthy food sources (whole foods, unprocessed and natural foods) as you’ll want to stay healthy while you’re gaining muscle mass.
While it may be tempting to fill your muscle building diet with junk food in order to increase your calories, it’s not going to be helpful in the long run as you’ll end up gaining excessive amounts of body fat and your health will start to decline. Instead, focus on getting most of your calories form wholesome complex carbohydrates, lean protein sources, and healthy omega-3 fats.
Tweak Your Diet Every Once In A While
Finally, the last step to constructing your optimum muscle building diet is to make sure that you’re periodically tweaking your calories.