What Is The Best Muscle Building Diet?
If you want to build muscle effectively it takes more than just working out with weights. You need to eat right too. But just what is the best muscle building diet? In this hub I’ll answer that question.
Before I start however it’s important to point out that if you are
over 15% body fat (22% for women) you really need a fat loss program first. If you attempt to gain muscle when you are carrying too much fat you will only put on far more fat than muscle due to the fact that your insulin sensitivity will be very poor. So shed the excess body fat first, and then you can start a muscle building program.
But if you are ready to get started, the very best diet to build muscle as quickly as possible (whilst staying lean) is as follows…
Eat A Calorie Surplus
The first thing you need to do is to get your calorie intake right as you can't build muscle unless you are consuming more calories than you are expending. For optimum lean muscle gain a figure of 16 times your bodyweight in pounds will be about right for most people. So if you weigh 170lbs you will need to consume around 2700 calories per day.
Use this as a starting point and monitor your progress for two or three weeks. Then, if you find you are gaining too much fat reduce your intake by about 300 calories per day. On the other hand, if you aren’t gaining as well as you’d like, increase it by 300 calories per day. And if you still don’t gain, increase it some more. Extremely skinny hardgainers may need to go up to 20 times their bodyweight or even higher in order to make good gains.
However if you don’t want to calculate your daily calorie intake, that’s fine. Just eat more and then increase or decrease as required until you are getting the results you want.
You should however vary your calorie consumption on a day to day basis, eating more on your training days than on your off days. So these figures are averages spread out over the course of the week. If you eat exactly the same number of calories each day your body will soon adapt, and your gains will come to a halt.
How much protein do you eat per day?
See results without votingEat Plenty Of Protein
Protein is required to build the muscle fibers, so make sure you have a good amount of it at each meal. However, you don’t need to eat the excessive amounts that some people recommend. One gram per pound of bodyweight per day is plenty to stimulate maximum growth. If you eat more than this you will not build any more muscle. In fact some studies have shown that excessive protein intake can actually inhibit protein synthesis.
The best sources of protein are meat, fish and eggs, but milk and cheese are also good. And whey protein is excellent too - especially for use as a post-workout shake.
When you eat eggs, eat the whole egg. Never throw the yolk away as this is by far the most nutritious part. You don’t need to worry about the cholesterol in eggs, as eggs also contain a phospholipid called lecithin which reduces the absorption of cholesterol. Besides which, your body can usually self regulate cholesterol levels well enough anyway. So when you eat more of it, you simply produce less of it yourself.
Load Up On Carbs
If you are overweight you do need to keep your carb intake fairly low in order to lose the excess fat. Or you can cycle your carbs, so you only eat them on your training days, and not on off days. But if you are skinny and lean you will need to eat a lot more carbs in order to grow.
Carbs are muscle sparing, and they help to plump out the muscles, making them full and hard. They also supply the fuel required to ensure optimum performance in your workouts.
As a rough guide, if you are looking for moderate muscle growth whilst losing a little fat at the same time, eat about 0.5g of carbs per pound of bodyweight on off days and one gram per pound of bodyweight on training days.
For faster muscle growth eat one gram of carbs per pound of bodyweight on off days and 2 grams per pound on training days.
And if you are an extreme hardgainer who finds it really hard to gain any weight at all, eat 2 grams of carbs per pound of bodyweight on off days and 3 – 4 grams per pound on training days.
Carbs should mostly come from healthy foods such as rice, oats, potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, squash, buckwheat, millet and quinoa. Try to avoid white flour products and sugary foods as much as possible.
Learn more about eating to build muscle
And Don’t Neglect Healthy Fats
When you have worked out your protein and carbohydrate requirements, make up the extra calories you need with healthy fats. Don’t worry about eating fats as low fat diets are not healthy. Your body needs fats for all sorts of functions, including the production of steroid hormones (which are required for muscle growth). And apart from this, if you are trying to gain muscle whilst limiting your carb consumption (especially on off days) you will need extra fat to ensure you get sufficient calories.
Good sources of fat include oily fish, fatty meats (preferably grass fed), nuts, seeds, avocados, butter, extra virgin olive oil and coconut oil. But avoid refined vegetable and seed oils, trans fats and margarine.
Apart from the above you also need to eat plenty of vegetables (especially green vegetables) for optimum health. Although if you are having trouble meeting your calorie requirements, you may find you’ll have to eat less vegetables so that you can eat more carbs, protein and fat.
A little fruit is recommended too, but limit this to no more than two servings per day as fruit contains fructose which can easily get stored as body fat.
How many meals do you eat per day?
See results without votingMeal Frequency
Despite what you may have heard, it doesn’t really matter whether you eat three meals per day or six, as long as you get your calories and nutrients in. But if you have a small appetite and a fast metabolism (so you get hungry quickly) you may find it better to eat more often. Conversely if you can eat a lot and you stay full for some time, eat less frequently.
For health reasons it’s better to eat less frequently however, as this gives your digestive system a rest, so it will work better when you do eat.
And although the timing of your meals is not too critical on your off days, on training days you should be looking to consume most of your calories after your workout.
So ideally you should have a post workout protein shake, with some carbs (e.g. a ripe banana), within 30 minutes of finishing your workout. And then have a large meal containing plenty of protein and carbohydrate about an hour or two later. Your body is able to absorb and utilize nutrients far more effectively than normal for about 4 – 6 hours after training, so make the most of this.
If you follow all the advice given here you will have the very best muscle building diet you can get. Combine this with an effective training routine and sufficient rest and sleep and you’ll be able to gain muscle rapidly, whilst staying lean and defined at the same time. Give it a try and let me know how you get on.
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