Bodybuilding Nutrition – Feeding Your Muscles To Grow

A specialized diet that includes all the essential nutrients is a must for any person who is trying to gain weight. For everyone who is interested in putting on weight, you should consume more calories than an ordinary person with the same physique to support the energy requirements a human body needs. What types of foods or diet program a person has to follow is totally dependent on the goals you wish to achieve.

Carbohydrates are an important component of bodybuilding nutrition as they supply enough energy to deal with the rigors of intense weight training and muscle recovery in the regular diet of a bodybuilder. Bodybuilders normally prefer low-glycemic polysaccharides and other slowly digestible carbohydrate varieties that release energy slowly in a stable fashion. A sharp insulin response of high-glycemic carbohydrates may cause a situation where the body tends to store additional food energy in the form of fat rather than as muscle.

A bodybuilder can avoid this situation by including the right choice of low-glycemic carbohydrate foods in his regular diet. But they may require some quick digestible carbohydrates in the form of dextrose or maltodextrin after his tiresome workout to help the body to replenish glycogen stores within the muscle.

In bodybuilding nutrition, protein also plays an important role in helping a person to increase lean muscle mass. As part of a weight gain diet, bodybuilders have to include twenty five to thirty percent of protein per the total calorie intake to get best out of the physical activity that he undertakes. It will help him to improve his body composition in a better way.

What should be the ideal amount of protein to be included in the diet of a bodybuilder is still a debatable topic. While some argue that 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight is ideal, others are recommending 1.5 to 2 grams of protein in bodybuilding nutrition. A bodybuilder always require regular intake of protein during and after working out. It should also be taken before he goes to bed. It can be any thing that includes chicken, beef, pork, nuts, fish, eggs or diary products.

When on a mass gaining program, you normally are required to split your main meals in to 5-7 meals a day with almost equal quantity of nutritional value at regular intervals. Such a lifestyle will help you to increase your caloric intake while making it possible to eat a higher quantity of food due to the increase in the basal metabolic of the body when compared to the three meals a day diet program that others follow.

At first this sounds like a lot of food, and it is if you are not used to eating this amount of food, but you don’t have to jump straight into eating up to 7 meals per day. You can gradually increase your meals and caloric intake and you will find that your body will get used to eating more food. In addition, supplements such as weight gainers and meal replacements can be a good way to consume more calories if you are struggling with a weak appetite.

by DAVID on