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Eating to Build Muscle in an Overall Bodybuilding Program

by Harley Radowski

Ensuring that you give your body the fuel it needs to build muscle is an important part of bodybuilding. Eating to build muscle is just as important as your weight lifting program or other bodybuilding routines.

Lifting weights forces your muscles to work hard, and can also cause minor injury to muscles. Although those injuries can heal very quickly, eating the right foods that build muscle can really speed up the process. Food supplies fuel that the body needs, and the right food can do wonders.

Food that helps build muscle ? what it is? Well, to begin with, protein. Protein is probably the most important nutritional component in a muscle building program. You probably thought the most important component was cutting out fat, in order to reduce your body fat, didn’t you? Well, it is not. Protein is essential. Without protein, your body withers away to nothing. So make sure you include protein foods that build muscle such as chicken, lean beef, eggs, fish (don’t like fresh fish? Try canned tuna ?it’s perfect), and cheese.

Finding out how much protein to eat when you are interested in building muscle fast is actually not difficult. First, you will need to find out your lean body mass weight in kilos, and then you simply multiply that figure by 2.75 to determine your daily protein requirement. Calculating your lean body mass uses some complex formulae, so ask a professional at the gym if you do not already have this figure.

Foods that build muscle include carbohydrates. Many uninformed people believe that all carbs should be eliminated in order to obtain a fit, lean body. Nothing could be further from the truth. So long as the carbohydrates you ingest include plenty of fibre, carbs will contribute to building muscle mass ? not body fat. Great carbohydrate based foods include rice, oatmeal, bananas and other types of fruit such as apples and pears.

Reducing fat in your diet is of course necessary to build bigger muscle on a body that appears lean and has a low body fat ratio. If you are focussing on what foods build muscle mass, you also need to bear in mind that it pays to reduce fat as well. Although proteins are essential (as we talked about earlier), it is really important to select proteins that are low in fat, or that you can cut the fat off. So eat your chicken without the skin, and go for lean steaks rather than more fatty cuts of meat. Opting for cottage cheese or other reduced fat cheeses, and low fat milk also helps reduce your fat intake.

Drinking sufficient water with your meals, between meals, and while you are working out is also very important. Without sufficient water you will dehydrate, and you will be tired and lacking in energy, which gives no assistance at all to building your muscle with the right type of food.

Drinking 8 to 10 glasses of water a day (even 12 glasses) is absolutely essential to allow your body to properly digest all the good food you are eating. For those who just cannot stomach the taste (or lack of taste) of so much water, other types of liquid although not quite as good are still acceptable as water substitutes ? fruit juice and even soft drinks can suffice as long as you (preferably) drink some of your liquid intake in water form.

Foods that build muscle are one of the two essential components to having the body of your dreams. The other component is your weight training program or other type of bodybuilding workouts that you engage in regularly. Just because you have found foods that build muscle does not mean you can start to slack off with your weight training.

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