A proper diet is very important if you are trying to build heavy muscle mass or gain lean muscle mass the healthy way. You need to fill your body with the appropriate foods that your body will need to recover from your workouts. Three important ingredients we need in our diet to successfully gain muscle.
Vitamins - perform highly specific metabolic functions, importantly in energy metabolism and are vital to all our biological functions including the synthesis of muscle tissue. Important vitamins include vitamin A is responsible for Protein synthesis, which is a process where the body converts amino acids to new muscle cells. Vitamins also keep our joints healthy. When we Weight lift, we place a lot of strain on out the joints. To help strengthen them, take vitamin C. Vitamin C helps with the production of collagen, which keeps the connective tissue among the joints strong. To Increase your energy Vitamin B serves many purposes when it comes to building muscle. Vitamin B assists with the breakdown of protein, increases oxygen transport to muscles and provide large amounts of energy during workouts. It is very important to improve you vitamin absorption. Vitamins that help with the absorption of other vitamins is good for building muscle. Vitamin E is an example of a vitamin that helps the body absorb phosphorus and calcium. Phosphorus increases our ATP production, which is the energy used during weightlifting, and calcium helps keep our bones and joints strong. Vitamins also boost your testosterone which is a hormone that is essential to muscle growth. A supplement called ZMA (zinc, B6, magnesium) can help increase testosterone and accelerate gains in muscle size and strength.
Carbs (Carbohydrates) - Carbs are the main fuel used by the muscles during a weight-training workout Complex Carbohydrates are found in whole foods for example rice, potatoes, whole grain cereal and oatmeal. Complex carbohydrates form muscle glycogen, which is the long lasting energy that your body needs in order to train to the maximum level. Complex carbohydrates are slow burning which gives you longer lasting energy and they also with the consistency of your blood sugar levels reducing fat storage and fatigue, and triggers our bodies release of insulin. Insulin is the body’s natural anabolic hormone and is important for muscle growth. In intense training, you reduce your blood sugar levels. Eating carbohydrates immediately after a training session gives your body an insulin spike. This insulin spike causes your body to enter an anabolic (muscle building) state. If you do not get the right nutrients after working out it’s possible that your body could enter a catabolic (muscle breakdown) state which is not good obviously. Eating small servings of carbohydrates more often keeps a steady flow of insulin into your body. Eating high fiber carbohydrates helps to build muscle by making muscle tissue absorb amino acids faster and more efficiently. When mixing protein and carbs (Carbohydrates) together in the same meal you lower the possibility of the carbohydrates being stored as fat. Since Protein is harder for the body to process, carbohydrates help transport the nutrients from protein to the muscle cells which help in the process of muscle growth.
Protein - Protein is made up of Amino acids which are the building blocks for your muscles and . Without the amino acids in protein, it would be impossible to build, repair or even maintain muscle tissue. Protein is essential to building muscle. We can receive protein from foods such as meat, eggs, etc. Instead of consuming a whole bunch of foods to obtain protein we can take protein supplements. There are a lot of protein supplements out there each with different ingredients that are supposed to do all that stuff it says its supposed to do. If you have already been taking some of these protein supplements, then an idea of what I'm talking about when I say " they didn't do anything of what it was supposed to do" and wasting hundreds of dollars of our hard earned money due to there so called "advanced formulas" they have. A very good protein supplement that works really well and is inexpensive is the $18 Whey Protein by Muscle-tech which Wal-Mart sells. You can going to GNC stores and spend about $80-$100 each visit trying all these different protein products that do not work. This Protein from Wal-Mart helps you recover faster, build muscle and gain weight better than any protein I have experienced. I have friends, and fellow teammates from my university that have been using the same brand and they all say it works. I strongly suggest that you use this protein, its healthier on your body then other protein products due to the simplicity of formula, unlike other proteins that really are not healthy for your body because of all the extra stuff they put in it.
Most of the time you should take you protein as instructed on the label. If you are not taking a pre-workout protein, only take your protein 30 mins after your workout, and only take it once a day. DO NOT take a full dosage (usually 2 scoops) before your workout and then another full dosage after your workout. Our bodies only consume what it needs from what we eat/drink and any excess is removed from our system. For the average person, our bodies will not consume 60g of protein ( 2 scoops in the protein within a 30 minute time during are muscle-building stage, which is a common amount among other protein products as well) in one day. So there is definitely no reason to take a full dosage before and after a workout. ITS A WASTE OF PROTEIN! I suggest just taking a full dosage after the workout but if you want to do a pre/post dosage just take 1 scoop pre-workout and 1 scoop post-workout. If for some reason you are not able to take your protein right after your workout it is OK, take it later on in the day preferably after a good meal. Below are suggestions for foods you should eat during your meals for a heavy muscle mass diet and a lean muscle diet.
Breakfast
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Lunch Lunch food can be skeptical because people eat all kinds of things for lunch, your can eat anything you want for this meal as long as you eat enough to be full and stay away from junk foods like chips unhealthy crackers like cheezets sodas cookies candy anything you else you know is not healthy, this should be common sense. |
Dinner meats - high protein pasta - carbs and good for energy fish - high protein vegetables - vitamins rice - carbs beans - carbs juice/water salad potatoes - carbs ice cream Any other foods that are high in protein, carbs, and vitamins |
Snacks - eat between each meal
nuts - high in protein
sunflower seeds - high in protein
peanut butter - high in protein
glass of chocolate milk
fruits
vegetables
Any foods that are high in protein, vitamins or carbs. NO JUNK FOOD
nuts - high in protein
sunflower seeds - high in protein
peanut butter - high in protein
glass of chocolate milk
fruits
vegetables
Any foods that are high in protein, vitamins or carbs. NO JUNK FOOD
Diet for lean muscle.
Use the same diet listed above BUT stay away from foods with a lot of carbs. pasta is the only exception.
Use the same diet listed above BUT stay away from foods with a lot of carbs. pasta is the only exception.