It’s not a secret that in order to reach your muscle building goals you must eat. And eat. And do that again and again. We need to eat proteins, a lot of them – the building blocks of muscle. But not only proteins are important. Carbohydrates, vitamins… Where to find them? How to cook a great meal? Read in this article.
Sources of protein
Great natural sources of protein (we won’t talk here about nutritional supplements, but they are a great source too) – chicken, fish, turkey, all types of red meat, eggs, nuts, peas, beans. As you can see there is something to choose from. But, there is this one small problem – a lot of those products contain not only proteins, but also are high in saturated fats (especially red meat). And fat is something we don’t want in our diet while building nice, lean muscle. So, select skimmed milk and cottage cheese instead of those high-fat dairy products.
Cooking
Choose boiled products. Why? You don’t need to use oil (no extra fat). Anyway, if you prefer cooked – don’t overcook those products in too high temperatures – this damages the level of proteins and makes products less usable.
Maintaining ballance in your diet
This is important. You have to eat balanced meals – proteins, carbohydrates, fat, vitamins, fiber and salts. So, eat everything from main food groups. Also important is to eat regularly, not three big meals, but 6 small frequent ones. This keeps the balance of nutrients in your body and really helps to build muscle faster.
Carbohydrates
To build muscle we have to workout. To workout we need energy – carbohydrates. Mostly we obtain carbohydrates in form of starch – potatoes, rice, spaghetti, cereals and bread.If you weigh more than 200 pounds, fix your carbs at 80-100 grams per meal. If you weigh 190 or less, set them at 60-80 per meal. Success will come with figuring out what works best for your body.
Vitamins
Include a lot of vegetables and fruits in your diet! You can read more about importance of vitamins in this article – Important Vitamins for Muscle Building .
Also eating fruits is important for antioxidants. Why? Read in this Antioxidant Article.
In conclusion:
- Eat small but frequent meals (6 balanced meals a day is perfect!)
- Every meal you should get about 35-40 grams of protein
- Don’t forget about fruits and vegetables
- Drink a lot of water (Read this article about Water)
