Create The Perfect Muscle Building Meals
One of the most critical issues with seeing results on your muscle building program is being able to create optimal meals that are aimed to help you gain weight. If you aren't giving your body an extra amount of energy (or raw materials if you will) each day, you aren't going to be able to build muscle mass.
For those guys who hit the gym for hours a time, consider the fact that during this time you are only burning precious energy reserves - energy that could have been used building you muscles back up.
That's not to say of course that you should avoid your workouts, just that you really need to pay attention to the total volume if you are to have any success with gaining weight.
Frequency
Now, when it comes time to preparing a bodybuilding diet, first decide how often you want to eat.
The common notion that you must eat every three hours isn't accurate in that as long as you get the total calories in for the day, you will be fine. If you go three hours and five minutes without food, your body is not going to start eating itself.
So, don't get too caught up in the 'three hour rule'. The benefit of regular meals is that it will keep your blood sugar levels more stable, as well as make it easier to get in all of the calories you need to consume. If you are one of the people who has to eat 4000+ calories each day, trying to consume three 1000+ calorie meals will be extremely challenging.
Macronutrient Distribution
The next thing you must consider is your macronutrient distribution. This refers to how much protein, carbohydrates, and dietary fat to eat at each meal you consume.
This will largely depend on the type of diet you are doing (low-carb vs. moderate-high carb for example), but most importantly, you want to have protein at each meal you eat. This is one macronutrient that should never change.
Second to that, avoid eating fat both pre and post workout. This will only make you feel sluggish in the gym and make you recover more slowly, so try and keep fat outside of the workout window. The rest of the day you are free to choose between a mixture of carbohydrates and fat along with your protein.
Nutrient Status
Finally, the third thing to consider when creating your muscle building diet is total nutrient status. Far too many people, in their quest to consume more and more calories, will turn towards foods that offer a great deal of calories, but lack a whole lot of nutrition.
These would be considered 'empty calories' and generally should be avoided. Keep in mind that while yes, calories are what are needed to gain weight, you will be much healthier and feel much better if you can keep your selection relatively healthy.
This doesn't mean you have to eat perfect all the time, since you are trying to gain weight you do have some 'wiggle' room, so aim for a 80/20 approach. 80 percent of the time choose the healthiest foods you can and then allow the other 20 percent for 'fun' foods.
This will also help to keep you psychologically sane and make muscle building a little more fun. So, next time you're working out your diet, be sure to consider these three factors.
