Modern Nutrition Plan for Building Muscle Mass

Many people think that all it takes is more exercise and workouts to build muscle mass but there is a scientific way to build muscles that provide more effective results and faster. What many people miss is to implement a proven nutrition plan for building muscle to help make every bodybuilding repetition they do become more effective.

Fitness experts agree that your diet is more important to muscle building than your dedication to lifting weights but you need both working on your side to get the most out of either one. You need to workout on a regular schedule and you need a plan for getting muscle building nutrients into your body at the right time.

Putting Together a Nutrition Plan for Building Muscle

You can make this hard or you can make it easy. You don’t want to start eating an abundance of food or rely on any one food group. You’ll hear many people tell you that you need more protein while building muscle mass but you also need a balance of nutrients for your body to function at its best.

You never want to overload your system with one specific food group.

There are many nutrients that your body needs and if you’re striving for good health, then you best be consuming all of those nutrients. I hope that makes sense because all too many people get tied up in the protein consumption part of the muscle building equation and forget about nutrients that are so very important for their best overall health.

When start adding in more protein to your meal eating and depending on your gender and body size, you want to give yourself a 6oz to 8oz portion of meat per meal at most. Add to this meal whole wheat grain pasta, potatoes, brown and long grain rice. Then fill yourself up on all of the fresh vegetables that you want to eat.

Yes indeed, fresh and preferably raw vegetables like broccoli and carrots are a great choice due to their high nutritional value so fill up on all you want. And if you are vegetarian who avoids meat, use tofu in place of meat and add more nuts into your nutrition planning. Vegetarians as a rule need to be concerned about getting enough protein and even more so with vegans.

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Snacks and Meals

Your nutrition plan for building muscles should include eating 3 good meals per day along with 2-3 snacks. It’s a good idea to try to plan your meals so that you eat about every three hours or so throughout your day. When it comes to snacking, eating a handful of raw Almonds is a really good choice because they are loaded with protein and other valuable nutrients good for your all around health.

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Other snack ideas for muscle building are to have a banana with a ten ounce glass of milk. Milk along with its many nutrients also supplies your body with needed protein and any fruits are a great pick for muscle builders to get a mid-day or morning or evening snack. Fruit always makes for a good option to add into your nutrition plan for building muscles.

A good way to keep your nutrition plan for building muscle working in your favor is to stock up on the foods you need to be eating a week, even two weeks in advance. Simply create a menu plan for a week or two in advance, stock the cupboards and you’ll have what you need on hand to through a few ingredients together when it’s time eat your meals and snacks.

Including Protein Supplements in Your Nutrition Plan for Building Muscle Mass

Protein supplements are a great way to add that much needed protein to your diet but you have to use some caution and common sense here. Many protein supplements do not contain the many other nutrients that your body requires for both muscle building and your health in general.

These are fine for “supplementing protein” as long as you are not using them as a complete meal replacement. If meal replacement is your intention then you would be smart to buy a product that is balanced and contains the wide variety of nutrients that your body needs.

Tip: Serious and competition bodybuilders require many more calories than the average person. Consuming 3,000 to 5,000 calories a day is common among this group and using high protein meal replacement shakes between meals are a good way to help pack in those extra calories along with getting nutrients that your body requires.

Building muscle correctly means that you need to take care of your entire body in all areas and get enough rest to regenerate and build up muscle. Be sure to get a good night sleep and be sure to take days off from muscle building like setting your schedule to one day on and one day off or limit your workouts to only three days a week.

Once set up, stick closely to your schedule because if you start missing your workouts on a regular basis, your previous muscle building activities will start reversing. This will make you work all that much harder for the same results you would have received by sticking to your plan. You want to be able to workout then recover, workout then recover and repeat it as close to clockwork as you can.

There’s a definite, purposeful and scientific method for gaining muscle mass effectively and by you having a good nutrition plan for building muscle is where you want to be. By fueling your body with the right nutrients you are providing your body with the energy you need to do your workout sessions and realize the muscle building goals that you are looking for.

The Top Benefits of a Sugar-Free Diet

Are you considering going sugar-free with your diet? If you are, then you are considering a possibly life-changing step – in a good way that is.

There are many advantages for your health if you go with sugar-free diet and we’ll highlight those for you in a moment.

But is a Sugar-Free Diet a Smart Thing to Do?

The answer is “yes” and “no” depending on how you go about it. The last thing you want to do is deprive yourself of something you love so much because that is not sustainable. But to cut sugar out of your diet by using a sugar substitute to satisfy your addiction would probably do your body and health more harm than good.

Do Not Eat Chemical Sweeteners in Order to Go Sugar-Free!

Diet this, diet that, sugar-free here, sugar-free there. Read the labels because this typically means that it’s got some sort of artificial sweetener in it or it’s going to taste like crap. There is a better way, and best of all you can still enjoy the foods you love without the worry of sugar destroying your life.

First, here are a few top benefits of a sugar-free diet:

You’ll Lose Weight by Reducing Your Sugar Calories

Many of the calories we consume in the modern world come from sugar and simple carbohydrates, and by the mere act of cutting out sugar and going sugar-free, you will be cutting out hundreds of calories from your daily consumption. This will result in weight loss as when you take in fewer calories than you expend, your body will burn fat for fuel. Sooner rather than later you’ll be seeing a slimmer and healthier looking you in the mirror!

No More Sugar Crashes

Most people suffer from sugar crashes several times in a day which makes them feel fatigued and irritable. Some people even have headaches and migraines when they face a sugar crash. By adopting a sugar-free diet you will reduce the amount of sugar crashes you face because you will be consuming foods that provide you with more stable blood sugar levels. This will leave you much more energized and cheerful throughout the day.

To most of us that all sounds reasonable and certainly we can all agree that crashing from a sugar rush multiple times a day is not a good thing. The problem most people have is the part about “consuming foods that provide a more stable blood sugar level”. After all – We eat the stuff we eat because we love it right?

Reduce the Bad Effects of Sugar and you’ll be Healthier

Heavy consumption of sugar is the leading cause of obesity, diabetes, and various other health problems that people face around the world. By undertaking a sugar-free diet, you will ease the strain on your metabolism and your body will thank you for it with better health and more vibrant natural energy.

Good health will make you feel and look better naturally. You will be, and appear happier when you feel confident and beautiful from the inside out. Eliminating the toxic effects of sugar is one of the best places to start.

As you can see, there are just too many benefits to be reaped by going sugar-free to not do so. At the very least don’t you think that you should give it a try and see how it helps you?

If you are a heavy sugar consumer, do not try to cut out all sugars and carbohydrates right away. In other words, don’t try the “cold turkey” approach. Ease into your new lifestyle by gradually cutting down on sugary foods and look to cut out the white carbohydrates such as white rice, white bread, pasta, and so on…

And you’re probably thinking that this is most of the food that we eat and enjoy everyday of our lives; but don’t freak out about that just yet.

At this point many people would tell you “good luck and best wishes on your journey to a healthier you!” and leave you to your own devices. The information above clearly explains the benefits of going sugar-free and you know that you need to make this gigantic lifestyle change. But how, when it all seems so hard?

Going Totally Sugar-Free is Hard to Do!

The truth is that you probably won’t make the changes you need to because you are totally in love with the foods you eat. To stop would be such a great sacrifice and statistics prove that people who do end up feeling deprived, fall right back into the routine of eating the foods they love in due time.

So, what’s the answer to a Sugar-Free Lifestyle then?

Every person has to look at where they are at right now and make a mental note of what items they eat most often that contains the most amount of sugars. Keep your mental notes in your mind and read this article titled “Eliminate Sugar Before Sugar Eliminates You”. You will likely find a way to start a successful sugar-free diet within minutes of reading it.

Sugar Substitutes Are No Answer for Sugar Addiction

People are more aware than ever that what you put into your body is something you need to give serious consideration to and more recently there’s been growing concern over the negative effects that sugar can have on your body.

But humans have been consuming sugar for centuries so why is there so much concern now?

Well folks the problem is that there are two types of sugar – those which occur naturally and the far more dangerous refined sugar which you’ll find pretty much everywhere.

Sugar addiction is running rampant and sugar substitutes are not the answer.

One of the main problems with eating anything which contains refined sugar is that you’re effectively eating nothing but empty calories when you consume it. Now that refined sugar has become part of our everyday society and is part of every holiday season from Halloween treats, to Holiday Season candy, cakes and cookies, Valentine’s Day chocolates and in the kid’s Easter goodies.

In reality you can find some form of sugar in most of the stuff we eat and drink every day.

In Fact – People are Addicted to Sugar!

So it’s not just for the holiday sugar, it’s hard to avoid using it in our daily lives. In fact sugar addiction is now one of the biggest problems facing both developed and developing countries all over the world. Sugar usage worldwide has been increasing rapidly over the past hundred years or so and following along at a rapid pace you’ll find obesity, heart disease and diabetes escalating right alongside sugars escalated usage.

Refined Sugar and Sugar Addiction Dangers

We’re sure you’re wondering right now just how dangerous sugar could be? After all how can something which tastes so good be so bad for you? What you’re about to learn might come as a shock for you as to how addictive sugar can be.

Sugar Addiction Needs to Get Under Control

In numerous studies refined sugar has been shown to have what are called opioid qualities, which basically means sugar has the same addictive qualities as heroin for example. In studies conducted on rats where they were given access to as much sugar as they wanted to eat, there were significant withdrawal symptoms including screeching, mood swings and changes in their actual brain chemistry when the sugar was taken away.

As you’re probably aware eating a diet rich in sugary foods can increase your chances of developing diabetes, which is itself a very serious medical condition. Diabetes can lead to a wide variety of associated medical problems like necrosis of body tissue, coma and even death in extreme cases.

Diabetes is not where the buck stops when it comes to problems arising from sugar addiction. The health risks from eating too much sugar can also result in suffering from a whole spectrum of cardiovascular problems including heart disease and congestive heart failure.

More recent studies have shown that there’s evidence of a link between low bone density (osteoporosis) in children and teenagers and the consumption of sugary sodas – with most children drinking far, far too many of these. While some scientists believe that it’s the carbonation that promotes low bone density is not important because regardless, the sugar, high fructose corn syrup and sugar substitutes are the biggest problems we are seeing.

Did you know for example that the average American processes over 100-pounds of refined sugar every single year and that you can roughly add in the same weight in high fructose corn syrup? That’s 100 pounds of refined sugar plus another 100 pounds of pure high fructose corn syrup which is becoming clearer by the day is even worse for you that just pure sugar.

That’s nearly 200 pounds of sweet empty calories a year folks! Does anyone else think that we have a problem here?

Sugar substitutes to the rescue!

Or… Not so fast?

Is Solving Sugar Addiction with Sugar Substitutes a Good Idea?

The problem with avoiding sugar is that it’s been added to almost everything you find on store shelves, so this has motivated people to ask for, get and now use the “Sugar-free” options instead.

Unfortunately even when products are listed as “sugar-free” (meaning free of refined sugar) there’s an even more insidious danger lurking inside that packet or can…

Sugar Substitutes or Artificial Sweeteners!

What has surprised many scientists and nutritionists is that artificial sweeteners are actually far more dangerous than refined sugar in a whole number of ways. Firstly, people use artificial sweeteners to cut down on the number of calories they’re eating and in turn attempting to control their weight.

The problem here is that artificial sweeteners can actually make you fatter because they disrupt your body’s hunger response – when your body doesn’t get calories from these low-cal sweeteners you wind up with food cravings. This then leads you to trying to fill yourself with other foods and normally leads to a “crab frenzy” because your body is also in a low glycemic state.

So even though you’ve been drinking diet soda you’ll wind up suddenly having a craving for cake, pizza, candy, donuts or something else which defeats the purpose of using that sugar substitute in the first place.

Artificial Sugar Substitutes are Slipped into Many Products

What’s really scary is that artificial sweeteners are present in places you’d never expect to find them like in baby food, vitamin pills and drinks, fruit juices, diet meals, low-calorie foods and in all kinds of foods you’d assume are otherwise nutritious and quite healthy for you. To better understand how to avoid these artificial sweeteners you need to know all the names they go by.

Identify and Avoid Artificial Sweeteners

The most common artificial sweeteners are saccharine, aspartame (NutraSweet) and sucralose but neotame (used in many baked goods) and acesulfame are two new ones which are even more toxic than the ones they’re designed to replace.

In an effort to give you some perspective on how much of a problem this is when aspartame was first tested for use as a sugar substitute the FDA (Food and Drug Administration) refused to give it the all clear. There were early indications of several health risks involved in its use and laboratory tests on rats backed this up.

In fact aspartame has been linked to an increased occurrence of cancer, diabetes, obesity, headaches, seizures and a wide variety of degenerative neurological disorders such as Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s, in people who are using this artificial sweetener on a daily basis.

There’s also the risk that aspartame can convert into glycol in your bloodstream when you consume too much of it, glycol being a common ingredient in antifreeze products – if you drink antifreeze it will kill you!

…Except in your case you’re getting that same glycol from drinking that diet soda you might have in your hand right now. In short artificial sweeteners and almost all synthetic sugar substitutes are nothing short of poison.

Why are Artificial Sugar Substitutes Bad for Your Sugar Addiction?

To date there have been well over 10,000 complaints lodged with the FDA in relation to the continued availability of aspartame but they will not discuss this issue with any form of media despite the fact that aspartame/NutraSweet is still in use in over 6,000 products available on the market today. The company behind this sugar substitute (G.D. Searle) have even tried distracting the public from avoiding their product by renaming it to AminoSweet in 2009.

You don’t need to take our word for it – you can Google the wealth of medical research out there on aspartame and the other artificial sweeteners on the market right now. There are hundreds of documents and studies available on the subject. Even Dr. Oz has gone public on the dangers of sugar substitutes, in the hope of keeping his viewers better informed and when talking sugar addiction, sugar is the number one food Dr. Oz wants out of your house.

Some people laugh at the idea of sugar addiction and just reach for a second round of cupcakes not knowing the damage going on inside their body until it festers into something serious. Breaking away from a sugar addiction is not easy but if you have patience and take it a step at a time, before long you’ll be looking back thinking it wasn’t really all that hard either.

To get a better handle on a sugar addiction without using questionable sugar substitutes read Eliminate Sugar Before Sugar Eliminates You also published by MyFitnessNut.com. In that article you’ll learn how you can cut your sugar intake as much as you want, with little to no sugar withdrawals.

Here is How to Naturally Eliminate Sugar from Your Life

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 If you want to eliminate sugar from your diet this probably means that you already have a bit of a sugar addiction and these tips might be able to help you avoid sugar withdrawals and naturally ease your way into a sugar-free lifestyle.

When you follow through with your sugar elimination plans, your body will reward you in many ways. This is why all sugary foods are off limits when a person follows a diet plan such as the Paleo Diet but that’s not what you’re going to do here.

What a pity that something that tastes and feels so darn good is so darn bad for you. But it is and if you want to avoid the many health problems associated with sugar over consumption you must eliminate it before it eliminates you.

If you want to speed up the process of removing sugar from your life for your health or weight loss goals, get started with a good whole food supplement that feeds your body nutrients it needs. Feeding your body quality nutrition from 100% whole food can help subdue or eliminate cravings for practically everything.

Why It’s Important to Eliminate Sugar from Your Diet

Eliminating sugar from you and your family’s diet is a good thing and the sooner you get started the safer you all will be. Sure, sugar does taste good indeed but it contains huge amounts of calories and many of these sweet sugary treats contain a boatload of fats as well.

This sugar and fat combination is not good at all for anyone trying to keep their weight down. Not only that, sugar is wildly addictive and you’ll quickly find out that the more of it you consume, the more you’ll crave. It’s a damaging spiral downwards and the best thing you can do is to decide early on, before serious addiction sets in, to eliminate sugar from you body as much as possible.

What Happens if I Don’t Eliminate Sugar from My Diet?

Research, science and statistics don’t lie and this short sugar bear video pretty much sums up why you will end up eliminating sugar from your diet sooner or later anyway. Sadly, for one bear it was too late, but not so for the other three yet.

Now you might be thinking that a small amount of sugar each day won’t hurt you and you’re probably right. But, when you start adding up the small amounts found in almost everything you consume you’ll quickly realize the need to eliminate some if not most sugar from your life.

What’s important to know is that all this sugar adds up and your body just can’t handle it. It wasn’t meant to handle it. For most people excess sugar shows up as excess stored body fat showing up in their mid section around the organs where it does the most harm. Then that sneaky fat shows up all over the body and for most people, their health begins to decline.

Eliminate Sugar from Your Life before Sugar Eliminates You

Sugar cravings are very real and can be viscous at times. A few times of indulging in that sweet stuff and experiencing a “feel good” sugar high is all it takes for a sugar addiction to get its grip on you. And what a powerful grip it can be.

What happens when you take in sugar is that the “sugar high” makes you feel good at first, then your body crashes leaving you feeling tired and hungry. To get rid of this crashing feeling people reach for more sugar and the cycle continues while doing lots of harm to your body in the meantime. In the end, sugar just makes you feel tired and worn out.

To break this cycle you must eliminate sugar from your diet, or as much of it as you can. This for too many people is easier said than done and unless your doctor tells you different, it doesn’t have to happen all over night. If you start depriving yourself entirely, you’re going to have a more difficult time.

Tips to Decrease – Then Finally Eliminate Sugar Entirely

If you really get a lot of sugar everyday you really need to go slow at first. For instance, my wife and I decided to cut soda out of our diets several years ago. We were big soda drinkers and we knew that artificial sweeteners are worse than the sugar itself so we ‘got it’ that we had to do something.

First off we we’re both filling up large glasses of soda from cheap 2-liter bottles and guzzling like there’s no tomorrow. Needless to say, we were addicted to sugar and sadly, unable to give it up completely at first.

But here’s how we did it…

Instead of buying 2-liter bottles of soda we started buying 12-packs of 12oz. cans. With a goal to just drink 1 can of soda at a meal, we’d sometimes grab an extra can and split it. This led us to the bright idea to split a can to start with and if we need to split another we’d do it.

It worked out well. This went on for many months as we gradually decreased our addiction to sugary drinks of all kinds including most juices, down to nothing worth even measuring.

Cutting back on sugary soft drinks was easy because we went slow enough to not feel deprived. A few years ago we were eating out and decided to order a soft drink and it actually tasted unbelievably disgusting. We honestly couldn’t believe that we used to drink and enjoy that stuff everyday.

The best way for you to eliminate sugar from your life is to do it in small steps. A few days without sugar is great and all but if your addiction is as bad as most people’s you might find yourself worse off than before you went cold turkey.

Small lifestyle changing steps that can last will be so much more valuable to you than a two or three day triumph then going right back to that poisonous sugar with vengeance.

When you’re craving a sweet drink try a quarter slice of fresh lemon in a quart of water sweetened with stevia leaf to taste. Stevia works great to satisfy the “sweet tooth” as a natural and safe alternative to refined sugar and can be used in a wide variety of foods and drinks.

Cookies, cakes, muffins and pretty much all of the processed foods you eat contains sugar and that leads to big problems when you start adding it all up. And the same process of eliminating sugar from your diet applies to these foods as well as the drinks mentioned above…

Don’t deprive yourself entirely and take small steps to making your addiction for sugar to diminish. Gradual sugar reduction gives your body the time it needs to adapt. Get good quality whole food nutrients into your body to reduce cravings and naturally increase your energy level. With these small steps you are creating a lifestyle change with the least amount of effort and the greatest degree of success.

There are hundreds upon hundreds of weight loss solutions being advertised today but life is far too short and valuable to waste it on trying them all. When you are going into a weight loss program or decide to invest in some kind of supplement, you need to make sure that what you are buying is actually effective and not some kind of cheap gimmick designed to rip people off.

While it automatically goes without saying that there are dozens upon dozens of effective systems out there, there are a few which have really stood the test of time and have proven themselves as being very effective. Here is a brief overview of three of them to help you get started on your search for a weight loss solution that will be right for you.

The Fat Burning Furnace Weight Loss Solution

Exercising like a madman is not the only way to burn fat and calories; as it turns out, the body already does that for us through the handy process we call metabolism. The Fat Burning Furnace is a program based entirely around the concept of increasing your metabolism by performing series of special exercises and eating foods which have been proven to help achieve that goal.

The Fat Burning Furnace doesn’t promise you any results that are out of this world, but what it does provide you with is a guarantee that if you follow their method, you are going to be losing weight at a natural pace, and you won’t even need to work as hard for it as you would with other weight loss systems.

The Diet Solution

This program takes a very special approach to losing weight, as the first step of it requires you to fill out a questionnaire with various types of information about yourself, all of it pertaining to your physical aptitudes, such as your height, weight, age, gender, desired goal, etc…etc… Once you are done filling out the form, you are going to be given a dieting plan that was specially customized for your needs and abilities. Regardless of what plan you will be given, rest assured that you won’t be starving or asked to overcome impossible challenges; there are three full meals per day as well as two snacks in between them.

The Raspberry Ketones Weight Loss Solution

Losing weight doesn’t necessarily have to be achieved through the medium of a workout system or a dieting plan, although those are generally not going to hurt you (apart from some extreme cases where they can hurt you) and can even be helpful. Raspberry Ketones makes use of a relatively new discovery: that raspberries are full of an enzyme that helps the body break down fat, called ketone.

Raspberry Ketones is one of the first and most recognized ketone-based natural weight loss solutions, with each capsule being filled with the equivalent of ketone obtained from four pounds of fresh raspberries. Simply taking the extract will increase your metabolism and help your body burn fat regardless of whether you are running around the track or lazily sitting in front of the TV.

Needless to say, the results are better if you do the former rather than the latter and it can start with as little as 15 minutes of walking a few days a week. Yes, there are weight loss solutions that won’t turn your life upside down to do them.

Bonus Weight Loss Solution Video – The Only Plan You’ll Ever Need

Look, if you’re like most people wanting to lose weight then you’ve probably tried a few, maybe even a dozen or more diets and you are still looking for “the one” that will work for you once and for all. If this is true for you, or if you’ve never done a weight loss plan and you’re wanting to choose one that will work the first time. Stop looking now and watch the weight loss solutions video to the right and it’ll help you put everything together without you even having to think about it.