Friday, January 16, 2009

Bodybuilding Diet for Ways to Build Muscle Fast

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.

Working your muscles utilizes considerable energy. And the only way to replace that energy is with food! So what happens if you fail to eat the right type of food to build muscle mass? It will take longer to build muscle, and it may even prevent effect muscle building altogether once you reach a certain point.

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.

Carbohydrates are also important foods that build muscle ? or rather carbs are important components of foods that build muscle. Choose foods that are high in carbohydrates that are also high in fibre ? oatmeal, rice, and potato are all good.

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.

You may argue that drinking has no effect on what to eat to build muscle. But you would be wrong. Hydration is critical to general health and wellbeing. Even more so when you are working to build muscle mass.

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 great, and an essential component of your bodybuilding program. But do not be lulled into a false sense of security and think you can slow down on your workouts. Both bodybuilding exercises and bodybuilding diets are required to get a body to die for as quickly as you possibly can. Even if you are working on improving your physique slowly, you should combine a bodybuilding diet with bodybuilding workouts for best results. - 16004

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