How to Build a Muscle Diet
When embarking on a health regimen to increase your body muscle mass, it is important to examine both how you exercise and the diet you choose to follow. Your diet can determine many factors, among them how fast your body will heal and how much of an increase in muscle you will achieve between workouts. Both are important factors to an overall weight-training routine.
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Instructions
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How to Build a Muscle Diet
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Stay hydrated. The most important part of a muscle diet is staying hydrated. Your body needs water to function, especially when it comes to repairing and building muscle tissue. To determine how much water you should be drinking daily while in a weight-lifting routine, take your body weight in pounds and divide it by 12, and then multiply that number by eight. Your final number is how many ounces of water you should be drinking on a daily basis.
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Eat more frequently. The average person eats three meals a day. However, to build muscle you should be eating between five and six times per day. Dividing your calories between that many meals will ensure that your body remains in an anabolic state. An anabolic state is a state in which your body is creating muscle tissue.
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Increase your protein intake. Increasing your protein intake to at least 1 gram of protein for every pound that you weigh is an integral part of a muscle diet. Protein is your building block for muscle tissue. As you tear your muscles down during your workout, your body needs protein to build and replace stronger, larger muscle over the areas you worked. To put this into perspective, 3 ounces of chicken contains 21 grams of protein; 3 ounces of tuna provides 22 grams of protein. Weigh your foods before you cook them so that you can correctly keep track of how many ounces of food you are consuming. You can then use that number to calculate your protein intake.
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Pay attention to macronutrients. Not all proteins are created equal. Though it is important to ensure that you are getting your daily needs for fats, you must be careful that your protein increase does not also increase fat and calorie intake to an unhealthy level. This is why tuna and chicken are two of the most popular protein sources for those on muscle-building diets. These provide the needed protein with only a small amount of fat. Protein powders are another common way to obtain the necessary amount of protein for muscle growth without increasing calorie and fat intake.
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Add a supplement. Though not necessarily required, adding a muscle supplement as well as a multivitamin to your muscle diet may help increase your results. Supplements can supply some of the much needed nutrients that speed up your body's ability to heal your muscles as well as increase muscle gain. Multivitamins will ensure that your body is still getting all the vitamins and minerals it needs to function that can sometimes get lost while on a diet.
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Eat lots of vegetables. Protein is a key aspect of any muscle diet, but the body cannot function on protein alone. Eating a wide variety of vegetables will ensure that you are getting all the nutrients your body needs to function while taking in very few calories. Vegetables can also help regulate your blood sugar, keep your stomach feeling satiated,and improve your overall health.
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Tips & Warnings
Don't be afraid to change your routine. If you are not seeing adequate results, try changing your calorie intake, or eating more or less protein. You can even switch your protein sources. Everyone's body is different and will react differently to a muscle diet.
Do not take part in any diet without first contacting your physician to ensure that you are healthy enough for a muscle-building routine.
