When you workout, you’ll want to incorporate a good diet for building muscles. But what exactly constitutes a “good diet for building muscle” anyway?

For some people the only adjustments they’ll need to make is to add in additional calories. Those calories need to come from food sources that are proven to build muscles. Common names are high protein diets and weight gain diets. So, it’s not as simple as just adding in additional calories; you need the right kind of calories that also provide much needed nutrients that aid in cell rejuvenation and muscle development.

The Purpose of a Diet for Building Muscles

The entire reason to adopt a diet for building muscles is to make sure that your are providing your muscles with the proper nutrients they need when they are being worked, torn down and in recovery. The nutrients that you feed your muscles will have a direct impact on how quickly and how effectively repair and build up.

Your purpose is to gain weight in the muscle department but at the same time you want to be careful that the calories you are adding are not going to pack the fat on. Nothing can hide muscle definition, and your hard workouts, more than excess body fat.

How Do You Know What a Good Diet for Building Muscle is?

A rigorous weight training workout schedule is taxing on your entire body. By making sure that you fuel your body with the right nutrients you will be helping ensure that you have the energy to start and finish your workout as well as the ability to repair your muscle afterwards.

Since your body uses the protein that you consume to build muscles, you need to eat enough lean protein such as salmon, trout, halibut, cod, eggs, chicken and lean servings of beef, pork or buffalo. These lower fat foods will help you get the protein calories you need while helping you to avoid packing on body fat.

Most people that want to put on weight should eat 500 calories more each day, some a little more, some a little less by 500 calories extra a day equates to about a pound a week in body weight gain. We’re talking about muscle weight gain here so you need those extra calories to be primarily protein.

If you find it hard to eat more protein foods, you can always reach for protein supplements or meal replacement shakes. A couple of shakes a day mixed with milk can easily get you to those 500 calories in extra protein a day mark.

What is The Single Best Diet for Building Muscle Mass?

Due to the fact that people’s body’s and food choices are so entirely different, it’s hard to recommend any one single diet for building muscles. You must have the additional protein but you must also have the many nutrients your body needs everyday. For example, you can’t use protein powders for meal replacement because mostly all that they provide is the protein. You would need a meal replacement shake in this case that provides the many different nutrients your body needs.

A good way to find what works best for you is to experiment a little and try different ones every two weeks or so and see how your body is responding. You can learn more about your choices and what to look for in the article “Why Protein Intake for Building Muscles” and look at http://MyFitnessNut.com for more information on protein, supplements, muscle building and fitness in general.

It’s commonly known by people in the bodybuilding world that protein is required to build muscle mass. What’s really important to know is that your protein intake amount is adequate enough to feed your hard working muscles. If it’s not, your muscles will not develop well in contrast to the amount of work you’re putting in.

One way to know how much more protein to eat is to first figure out the overall calories you need to be eating for optimal muscle growth.

Building your muscles is much like gaining weight it takes between 300 – 500 calories to put on extra muscle mass or weight. Eating 500 calories extra every day will have you putting on about one extra pound every week. Keep in mind that you must be working your muscles to burn these extra calories so that they don’t end up as stored fat opposed to built muscle mass.

Now, if your plan is to use these extra consumed calories to build your muscles then you’ll want to convert the 300 – 500 calories into mostly protein. You don’t want to be increasing the amount of fat that your ingesting, although some fat is important. Lean cuts of meat will contain some fat, nuts will contain some fat and well designed protein shakes will contain some fat.

So, at any rate, don’t go overboard thinking you have to avoid fat completely. You do want your protein calories to be the bulk of these additional calories that you are consuming in order to accelerate your muscle building venture.

Work Your Muscles Hard but Ensure Proper Protein Intake When You Do.

Learning the concept of consuming the correct protein intake for building muscle is to understand that protein is the foundational building block for gaining muscle mass. With these protein building blocks in your system, when you train your muscles, you are stimulating your muscle growth cycle to develop your muscles at a much faster pace.

So it makes sense to work your muscles really hard but only if you have good amounts of protein in your body to feed those hungry worked muscles.

Why Building Muscle Mass without Proper Protein Intake is a Bad Idea

You may have heard the saying “Turn fat into muscle” and while it is true that when you workout, you’ll be losing fat and as long as you are maintaining a good protein level in your body, you’ll be gaining muscle. But you’re not actually turning muscle into fat.

The bottom line is that if you don’t consume the right amount of protein based on how rigorously you work your muscles, your muscles will not grow no matter how hard you work them. And on the flip side, you never want to over eat if you’re not burning the calories you consume because you will pack on fat pounds and that’s the exact opposite of what you want to achieve.

Many of the weight training professionals will recommend not eating extra on your rest and recover days even if your body and brain are screaming to be fed more food. Instead, they advocate physically resting up more on your rest days. What this habit will do is create an energy surplus in your body without feeding it more.

The benefit is that when you re-engage in performing an intense workout, your body will draw upon this surplus reducing your body fat stores. And as we all know, the less body fat you have surrounding you, the more your magnificent muscle tone shows itself off. Many times, the muscle tone is there… it’s just hiding.

How to Add More Protein to Your Diet

There are no one-size-fits-all answers to how much protein you should add because it can differ greatly from person to person. While one person might want to simply shape up, the next person may be looking at competition bodybuilding. One might want to get their increased protein intake from food, others may want to supplement; others will want to do both.

Increasing Your Protein Intake with Food

Everyone wanting to build up their muscles will have protein requirements unique to them so it’s a good idea to start slower rather than too fast. Keeping in tune with what was said earlier, you’ll want to start out by adding in an extra 300 calories of protein each day that you workout for three months.

Take a step back and see where you are at. If you’re not seeing the muscle growth you were expecting, increase your protein intake to 500 calories and compare notes in three more months. A local bodybuilding coach can help get you on the road to reaching your goals much faster because they can personalize this task for you and your goals.

Increasing Your Protein Intake with Supplements

Most protein choices contain higher amounts of fat and research has shown that low fat protein choices work just as effectively in building muscle. While you can easily add in low fat dairy items, lean meats like chicken, fish and turkey; a good quality protein supplement is a convenient way to “beef up” your protein intake.

There are many protein supplements to choose from; some good, some great and some that are not so good – even downright bad for you sorry to say. The most important thing to glean from this article is to find a way to increase your protein intake when your goal is to build muscles.

Secondly, your goal is most likely to simultaneously lose fat while building up your muscle tone. So, as logic plays out in our search for a good quality protein supplement you will want to look for low fat, low sugar, no artificial ingredients whatsoever; basically you want as pure of protein you can get in the supplement you choose and avoid all the garbage so many manufacturers throw in their products merely for the sake of marketing buzzwords.

Read the labels and like anything you’re thinking about putting in your body, it there’s a word you don’t understand… find out what the heck it is before you consume it!

You can learn more about whole food protein and protein supplements at http://MyFitnessNut.com but the big takeaway for this article is that you must increase your protein intake if you want to increase your muscle mass. You can lift weights from morning until the sun goes down and still not build muscle mass. That would be sad.

Reason; if you don’t feed your muscles protein when they’re being worked, your muscles will tear down and feed upon their very own protein leaving your muscle building goals stuck in the mud. Increase your protein intake to the amount that works for you and you’ll be smiling at the results of your efforts instead of wondering why your workouts aren’t working as well as you like.

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.

Supplements for Building Muscle

The best supplements for building muscle will vary depending on what you want to accomplish and at what point you are starting from. One thing is for certain though and a starting point for anyone that works out and wants to build muscle needs to include a source of protein in their muscle building plans.

For the hard core fitness nuts, you’ll want lots of quality and digestible protein. You probably knew that already but the key phrase for you here is “quality and digestible protein”.

Protein Tops the List of Best Supplements for Building Muscle

So, the best supplement for building muscle has to start with a well made protein shake. The right protein shakes are a great way to load up on easy to digest protein without having to consume large amounts of unwanted and unhealthy fats. Many weight lifters and fitness trainers recommend the use of protein shakes with other supplements to assist in building muscle.

When you are searching for the very best supplements for building your muscles you’ll want to pay close attention to the ingredients and reputation of the manufacturer. Many supplements for building muscles feature different ingredient combinations and all manufacturers will give you all of the right reasons as to why theirs is the best.

Names Associated With the “Best Supplements for Building Muscle”:

• Protein
• Glutamine
• Nitric Oxide

If you’ve been involved with muscle building for any length of time you’ve probably heard of most if not all of those names above. A few are even questionable when considering safety and ethics. Whatever type of supplement you are considering, you’ll need to look at the different types of ingredients, delivery systems and effectiveness for what you want to accomplish.

For example and at the top of our list for good reason is protein. Protein comes in so many forms and it’s important to understand that each will digest differently and you’ll need to time its consumption as a part of your muscle building routine. Egg, Whey, Casein, Soy, Pea, Chia, Hemp, Rice and the list goes on and they all digest differently.

For most people when choosing the best supplement for building muscle will gravitate towards using whey with vegans being the exception. Whey can be digested by your body in about thirty minutes and that’s important for the muscle builder after a workout.

However, the best protein supplement for building muscle is a combination of different types of protein that all digest at different rates creating a time-released protein feed delivered to your muscles. When you look at egg protein, digestion runs into 1 – 3 hours and with Casein it’s 2 – 7 hours. See what I mean? 

Putting it all together in the right amounts of what’s best, how much to take and when to take it can be a challenge for many people. For most of us, our best option is to pick up a quality protein supplement that is already scientifically formulated to provide what we need to achieve our goals.

The Next Best Supplements for Building Muscle

After settling in with the best protein supplement for what you want to do (e.g. spending half an hour working out vs. climbing Mount Kilimanjaro) Glutamine and Nitric Oxide are next at the top of our list.

There are many of these types of products on the market and both Glutamine and Nitric Oxide are used in special formulations to assist us with increased energy, stamina and recovery. When choosing these type products, stick with a company that has a good reputation and adheres to quality manufacturing processes. Then pay attention to the directions for best results.

You can find more articles like this on a variety of fitness topics at http://MyFitnessNut.com and if you would like to know what we think are the best supplements for building muscle simply send us and email at http://myfitnessnut.com/contact-us/ and ask Frank or Anna.

Create a Muscle Building Schedule that Works for You

Your goal is building muscle but your time is limited. You need to create a do-able workout schedule but not sure how to pull it all together. With the truth be told…

Building muscle is not a “One Size Fits All” Plan of Action

When creating your muscle building workout schedule the one thing that you need to remember is that no two people are going to build muscle mass at the same rate when working out the same amount of time. Just as men and women, the young and old all lose and gain weight differently, building muscles is no different.

When couples decide to lose weight together, who is it that ends up losing weight the fastest?

Do an online search for workout schedules and you’ll come up with pages and pages of free and paid membership schedules and complete programs to help you create and follow a set workout schedule but let me try to help simplify this for you here.

Building Muscle with One Scheduled Workout at a Time

When you are working your muscles out you need to let them recover from the workouts that you put them through. One good way to do this and allow you to get exercise daily is to target different muscle groups and rotate your workout routines giving one group recovery time while you’re working another group.

Putting Together Your Muscle Building Schedule:

You need to put together the times that you will dedicate to your muscle building routine. Keep in mind 15 minutes every other day is better than no minutes spent exercising at all, so do what you need to do to get started right away. It would be great if you could eventually get it up to 30 minutes 5 days a week.

When deciding what muscle groups to work with and when to work them, a routine working the following groups on each one of your scheduled muscle building days is:

Workout Day 1 – Back and Arm Muscles

Workout Day 2 – Chest and Triceps

Workout Day 3 – Shoulders and Abs

Workout Day 4 – Legs and Buttocks

Rotate back to “Workout Day 1 – Back and Arm Muscles” and start all over again.

Using an approach like this for your workout schedule for building muscle is effective for beginners because each separate routine does not take that long to do, it allows your muscles enough time to rebuild and recover and the best thing is that you can see and feel the results pretty quickly.

When Building Muscle it’s Important to Rest and Recover

It is very important to rest your muscles so they can rebuild because during your workout you will have stretched your muscles hard and when you relax to recover, they start to build and develop strength. Both men and women build strength but men have a tendency to build muscle mass larger and faster than women.

Planning Your Workout Schedule for Building Muscle Quickly

The discussion continues over the best time of day to plan your workout schedule for building muscle fast. Many fitness experts recommend doing your training first thing in the morning if possible. This is especially good if you have job that requires little movement because your morning workout will give your metabolism a boost throughout the whole day and allow your muscles to grow as your body rests and recovers.

Building Muscle Consistently Works Best

Going back to what we discussed earlier, if building muscle is your goal then you must create a schedule that is do-able for you so you can stick with it. Consistency is of the utmost importance because if you do not use and workout your muscles on a regular basis you’ll regress and the work that you put in already will have been mostly lost.

If you don’t use your muscles, you’re going to lose your muscles.

With that said, if you don’t have enough time to work out in the morning hours then pick a time that best suits your schedule. The main thing is that you train on a regular and consistent basis, rest to recover then keep after it.

So whether you choose 15 or 30 minutes a day, 15 to 30 minutes every other day or making the decision to workout only three days a week set your schedule and stick to it as close as you possibly can. Being consistent is the key.

If weight training is brand new to you then start with a beginner’s workout schedule for building muscle by lifting smaller light weights at first until they become so easy to do that you need to increase the weight in order to progress.

You’ll feel when the time is right to add additional weight to your routine. Gradual increases in your weight lifting are a great way to benefit from each workout session while reducing the possibility of injury – this is very, very important for beginners.

Setting up your muscle building schedule is half of the battle. The other half is learning the different exercises, how to do them correctly and sticking with your plan. Day by day you’ll notice small results that will develop into bigger results. As your routine gets easier, it’s time to step it up to adding in heavier weights and longer workout times as you can fit them in.

When you’re ready to get started building muscles, visit us at http://MyFitnessNut.com where we can help you learn exercises that cover all of your major muscle groups. If you will dedicate the time to begin building muscles by setting a schedule and agreeing to stick to it then we’ll provide you with three great muscle building training programs to help get you started.

It seems like there is real craze with building muscles right now. Everyone including men, women, young and old are starting to shape up and sculpt their bodies like never before.

We’re all aware that obesity has taken over lately but now there seems to be a tide-shift with a reversal going on in a positive direction. For the first time in many years the obesity rate of school children in the USA is dropping instead of growing.

With more and more people looking to build their muscles and strength this trend can certainly accelerate.

So what is makes building muscle suddenly so popular?

In this article we’ll discuss building muscles for:

Bodybuilding Competition
Looks and Confidence
Strength and Stamina
Gain or Lose Weight
Building Muscles for Women
Doing More and Being More

In general people have different reasons for getting into body and muscle building. One person might do it for competitive reasons, others for confidence issues, others to build strength and stamina, gain weight, lose weight and then some people just want to be able to do more and live a healthier life.

Building Muscles for Competition

Bodybuilding competition is one reason why people are interested in building large muscle mass. Building muscles for competition is a huge sport. You can find big rewards in competitive bodybuilding but competing on this level takes much dedication and effort. You’ll need to dedicate time, lots of time working out every day to build and maintain large muscle mass and shape.

Building Muscles to Compete is not Meant to be a Hobby

You will not naturally obtain a perfectly chiseled body with pumped up muscles overnight and if you are looking to make it to the top of the muscle building food chain, you’re going to have to invest tens of thousands of hours in workout time and the younger you get started as an adult body builder the better chance you’ll have at making it to the top.

Building Muscles for Confidence

If you are getting into bodybuilding because you’re overweight, too scrawny and thin or just not happy with the way your body looks, body and muscle building can help and the results can bee seen in a matter of weeks. When done properly, you’ll be muscle building in a matter of days and many people see noticeable improvements in just 4 to 6 weeks time.

Getting stronger, building muscle tone and depending on your situation, gaining or losing weight is a great confidence and self image booster. You just need to be sure that you don’t get carried away doing too much too fast. Set a rational schedule based on where you are starting from and you’ll begin to see improvements in quick order.

Building Muscles for Women

Body and muscle building for women isn’t as popular as it is for men but it is really a great way for women to build strength without being concerned about bulking up like a man would. There are many petite women who body build and can lift an extreme amount of weight. So don’t confuse building big muscles with raw strength and size.

Many women are coming to realize this and finding that even though they build muscle mass at a slower pace than a man would, they still get the luxury of building strength, stamina and their metabolism without the worry of looking like the Hulk’s masculine twin sister.

Speaking of building muscles to look masculine, younger males get into body and muscle building many times to impress the girls. They want to look fantastic and they want ripped muscles and they want them now! Their desire to look ripped, strong and desirable for a potential mate can become problematic.

This is the same problem competitive bodybuilders can get caught up in when they try to build muscles too fast and take shortcuts that they think or have been told will give them an edge.

Avoid Using Steroids and Growth Hormones when Building Muscle Mass

When the pressure is on to bulk up quickly, some body builders turn to using growth hormones and steroids to hasten muscle building. There are a couple of big problems with this. In the case of teenagers trying to bulk up quickly, they have to remember that their bodies are still in a growing mode and the use of hormones or steroids can have some bad side effects that can seriously mess up the rest of their life.

As far as competition body builders go, there’s really nothing to say to you here. You know what’s going on because you see it nearly every day in the world of sports and fitness; elimination from competition, health problems and stripped titles after years and years of hard work and full dedication of a big piece of your life.

It’s not worth it and cheating at building muscles for competition won’t make you feel very proud if you do happen win an event.

In the case of the young “want to impress” bodybuilder or the super Hulk competitive version, doing steroids and growth hormones is rarely a good idea.

Bodybuilding in its beginning was created to be a sport and when given it respect and patience it deserves it can be a rewarding way to stay fit and healthy for a lifetime.

If you’re into the competitive body and muscle building realm it can be a great way to travel and socialize with people all around the world from local events all the way up to the Olympics if you are so inclined.

If you’re looking at the field for a career there are huge opportunities for working in the health and fitness industry and if you’re into it to impress others and gain confidence then building muscle mass may be a great way for you to achieve it.

Whatever your reason for building muscle and getting into bodybuilding is, the benefits to your health, fitness level, confidence and ability to do more and be more is undisputed.

Grab a hold of these two muscle-building video programs and get started. The first one shows you how to build muscles using Dumbbells at http://myfitnessnut.com/dumbbell-exercises, and the second one is training on building muscles using Kettlebells at http://myfitnessnut.com/kettlebell-exercises . Both follow along video programs are free for the time being and both work well for the beginner and the fitness nuts alike.