How To Eat For Muscle

If you have been working out harder than usual lately, but your muscles don’t seem to be getting any more impressive, this doesn’t necessarily mean there is something wrong with your routine. Sweating away at the gym is only 1 of 2 main prerequisites to growing muscle. The other, equally important, is a good muscle-building diet plan.

Today, we are sharing with you a couple of simple bodybuilding diet tips that are easy to follow and can help you get visible results much faster.

Calculate Your Needs

Not every man needs the same amount of calories to stay fit or bulk up. Instead of following some general recommendations that may not work for you, you should calculate your personal optimal daily calorie intake. The easiest way to figure out how much energy your body needs is to step on the scale every other day.

If you are neither gaining nor losing pounds, you are eating exactly as many calories as you need to maintain your weight. This is good, but it is not enough to grow muscle. Bodybuilders usually eat about 3,500 extra calories per week. If you are not training that hard, you can start by increasing your daily intake by about 200 calories per day.

Next, you should increase your protein intake in accordance with your lifestyle and workout habits. Bodybuilders usually eat more than 30 grams of proteins per meal. This amount of proteins can work for you if you exercise daily and generally lead an active lifestyle. You should decrease it a bit if you sit at the office all day and only work out a couple of time a week.

Stock Your Fridge

Pros take their bodybuilding meal prep very seriously. They always have their food for the week ready in advance. This is simply because it is hard to get a meal with 30+ grams of protein and just enough calories, carbs, and fats at a food truck, a drive-through or even a fancy restaurant.

Of course, this does not mean that all bodybuilders spend hours in the kitchen every day. Many of them prefer ordering premade bodybuilding meals and focusing on their workout instead of cooking and grocery shopping.

At the moment, there are more than a few services that offer high-quality premade bodybuilding meals at surprisingly good prices. Even some of the best bodybuilding meal delivery services charge just about $7 or $8 per meal. Therefore, if you do not have the time to take care of your bodybuilding meal prep on your own, you can still fill your fridge with all the right food without breaking the bank.

Eat On Time

A bodybuilding diet is based on frequent meals. Some bodybuilders eat 5 times a day, others have 7 to 8 daily meals and snacks. You can pick a number that works for you, preferably around 6, but what matters most is that you do not skip or delay your pre-workout and post-workout meals.

The safest solution is having your pre-workout meal 1-2 hours before you hit the gym and enjoy a good, protein-packed, carb-rich meal within 2 hours after your workout session. If you follow this easy tip, you are sure to have more energy to work out and build muscle more efficiently.

Eat To Stay Fit

Eating more calories during the day can help you bulk up, but only if you choose your calories wisely. This means that deep-fried and processed foods, sweets, and empty calories of any kind are off the table. Focus on lean proteins, like chicken breasts, fish, egg whites, and 85% lean ground beef. Be careful about your carbs and fats – you can still eat them, but you should avoid refined carbs and saturated and trans fats.

Once you clean up your diet and build a meal plan you can stick to, you can get ripped more quickly than you hoped.  Just stay consistent and you are sure to be happy with the results.