Three Muscle Building Diet Tips

If your goal is to build muscle tissue and gain weight, your muscle building diet may be the most important component to your success. Without the right diet, it will be nearly impossible to increase your body weight and encourage muscle growth. This is because your body needs ample amounts of food in order to build lean tissue.

To keep things simple, let’s break down the nutritional component of gaining weight in to the following three steps:

1). Eat more calories - In order to increase body mass, you must increase the number of calories in your diet. Simply put, you must eat more calories than your body burns each day to maintain your current body weight.

For example, if your current BMR (basal metabolic rate) is 2000 calories per day, then in order to increase your body weight you would have to eat 2300 – 2500 calories per day. The actual number of excess calories you require will depend on your activity levels, genetics, and other factors.

These excess calories that you consume will be used by the body to repair muscle tissue that is broken down during resistance training (another important component of a weight gain plan).

2). Eat often throughout the day - In order to promote healthy weight gain, we must create an anabolic environment within our bodies by eating up to 7 meals per day. This will create an environment within the body that that promotes muscle growth.

In addition to creating an anabolic environment in our bodies, eeating more often also following purposes:

• Encourages rapid uptake of nutrients
• Decrease the chance that your body will store fat
• Promotes hormone levels that will aid in muscle growth

Try to eat five to six meals each day. Spread each meal two and a half to three hours apart. Each meal should be balanced, consisting of a serving of high quality protein, a complex carbohydrate, and an unsaturated fat. Be sure to consume plenty of water 15 – 20 minutes after each meal to help your body digest the meals.

3). Eat muscle building foods - We must eat muscle building foods to ensure our bodies receive the nutrients needed to build muscle weight. The goal is to eat foods that are high in calories, and rich in vitamins, minerals and fiber. These kinds of foods are “nutrient dense.”

Examples of some of the top choices include:

-Whole oats

-Starchy vegetables (yams and potatoes for example)

-Whole wheat Pasta

-Brown rice

-Whole grain breads and bagels

-Lean meats (chicken, steak, pork, fish)

-Eggs

-Peanut butter and other nuts (almonds, filberts, cashews)

-Cheese

By following the weight gain nutrition tips outlined in this article, you will ensure that your body receives the calories and nutrients it needs to help promote healthy muscle weight gain. Just be sure that in addition to your muscle building diet, you weight train consistently, and get plenty of rest and recovery.

The Importance of Adequate Water Consumption

Muscle tissue is comprised of over 70% water, and it serves an important role in all cellular activity. Consuming adequate amounts of water is of the utmost importance for bodybuilders, and athletes.

Here are a few reasons why it is so important to consume enough water:

• Increased protein intake requires more water to help clear your body of waste products such as ammonia and urea.

• Sweating from highly intense resistance workouts might cause you to dehydrate and lose more water more quickly.

• Mild dehydration can decrease strength and energy levels.

To stay well hydrated, multiply your bodyweight in pounds by 0.55. That number is the number of ounces of water you should consume in ounces each day.

So for example, here is what that calculation would look like for a 150 lb. individual:

150 X 0.55 = 82.5 Ounces

That equates to roughly 10 eight ounce glasses of water each day.

Remember that the actual amount of water your body needs will also depend on the volume of your workouts, ambient air temperature, and the types of food you eat.