February 18, 2009
It’s hard to argue with the idea that you need to eat enough of the right foods to grow muscle. But what are the right foods for muscle growth? With all the misleading information and fad eating plans out there, that’s a trickier question. Happily, if you start with the basics, a lot of things become clear. Keep reading for the straight information you need to choose foods that will help you build muscles.
You Need Calories to Grow Muscle
You know you have to work hard to stimulate your body to build muscle. Well the actual act of building muscle is hard work too. Your body burns a lot of energy when it builds new muscle. That means you’re probably going to have to eat more than you are now to give your body the calories it needs to build bigger muscles.
But that doesn’t mean you should go and pig out. Stuffing yourself with jelly donuts or other junk foods will give you more calories, but loads of sugar and fat and empty calories won’t help your body grow muscle fast. Even if you’re trying to get more calories, you have to choose healthy foods for muscle growth or you’ll just get fat. The rest of this article will help you select the right foods.
Protein Makes Up Your Muscles
When you work out hard enough to build new muscles, you are in reality damaging the muscles that you want to make bigger. Your body responds to the damage by repairing the damage and at the same time rebuilding the muscles a little bigger and stronger to handle the increased load you put on it. And since muscles are primarily made of protein, the protein you eat provides the raw material for this rebuilding job. That means you need to eat enough protein for your normal daily needs, plus enough to do the repairs. If you don’t get enough protein, your body won’t be able to make the muscle stronger or even repair the damage you do working out. You’ll fail to make your muscles bigger. In fact, over time, they’ll get weaker and you’ll probably end up getting injured.
So getting enough high-quality protein is first goal. The best sources of protein are chicken (particularly the breast), turkey, and fish. You need to make sure that your diet includes plenty of these three high-protein foods. Lean red meats, eggs, and nuts are also useful sources of protein, but your main sources of protein should be turkey, chicken, and fish.
Carbohydrates Give You Energy
Carbohydrates are the primary fuel for your body. If you don’t eat enough carbohydrates, you won’t be able to work out hard enough to build muscle. And even if you somehow manage to pull off the workouts, without enough carbohydrates, your body won’t have enough energy to repair the damaged tissue, much less make the muscles bigger and stronger.
Not all carbohydrates are the same though. Simple carbs, like bread or table sugar, give you a short burst of energy, and a large number of virtually nutrient free calories that your body is likely to store as fat. Complex carbs like whole grain breads, fruits, and vegetables give you more sustained energy, lots of nutrients with their calories, and are much less likely to end up as fat. Eat lots of complex carbs, eliminate simple carbs from your diet as best you can, you’ll have enough energy for building muscles.
Fat is Necessary Too
While everyone seems to be against eating any kind of fat, your body does need some fat to be healthy. Fat is another energy source and building block for your body. The biggest problem with fat is that our modern diets supply too much fat and way too much of the wrong kinds of fat. The kind of fat we get too much of is the kind of fat you see on a slab of steak, or the kind that’s in heavily processed foods like margarine. Fish and nuts can provide you with the Omega-3 healthy fats that your body needs. If you trim the excess fat from meats, don’t eat the skins of your chicken and turkey, and make sure you get more fish and some nuts in your diet, you’ll be better off than the vast majority of the population.
Are You Ready to Go for It?
Now you have the right information to select foods that will help you to build muscle. As you read this, you saw saw several things you could apply to your diet to make it more more effective for muscle building. Start applying this information and you should see more progress.
With that said, while all this information will surely help, its really only a small portion of what there is to know when it comes to foods for building muscle. And we haven’t even touched on ways to make your diet work with specific workouts. For that level of detail, you will want to get yourself a complete muscle building plan. The top plans provide complete guidance on what and when to eat in addition to giving you tried and true workouts to do.
To get more information on the best muscle foods and read reviews of the complete muscle building plans, visit http://GetFitAtLast.com
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