Free Muscle Building & Health

There are a lot of different reasons why someone might want to increase their muscle size. Bodybuilders want to get larger muscles to win bodybuilding contests, other athletes need stronger muscles to improve performance and some people who are too thin want it for more weight. On top of doing weightlifting there are some foods that are important for adding muscle to your body. The key is that the foods you eat contribute to lean muscle and some of those great foods are discussed below.

First thing you should understand is that your muscles are about 70% water and then 20% protein. So this means that if you want to build muscle you are going to have to make sure that you include a lot of water along with the right carbohydrates and more protein. Those who work out will require more calories and protein than those who live more sedentary lives. In fact if you are working out and trying to build muscle you should eat at least 2 grams of protein for each kilogram of weight that you carry on your body. You also will need to increase your calories by eating high protein food, the complex carbs, good fats, veggies and fruits.

As much as some say to stay away from meat, if you want to add muscle you are going to need it because meat contains the essential amino acids that are need to build your muscle mass. The protein in meat contains a high quality of protein and it's going to give your body the muscle tissue it needs and won't burn it as energy.

If you are wanting to stay away from fats then picking a good meat will be a challenge. The reason is that although you need beef and pork for your muscle building diet they are high in fat that you don't want. So you need to look for the leaner choices in these two meats and then make sure to eat a lot of chicken and turkey. Make your beef intake once or twice per week and then fill in the rest with chicken, turkey and fish.

Milk is another great food that will help build muscle. One 8 ounce glass of milk has 20 grams of protein in it. But if you are lactose intolerant this could be a problem. But you can go to the alternatives of soy or rice milk. But the protein is much lower in both of these and you would have to drink a lot more of it to get the same benefit as milk. You can always try goats milk if you are lactose intolerant since it seems to be easier to digest and it has more calcium than cow's milk.

Eggs are yet another great source of very high quality protein. One large boiled egg will give you 2.3 grams of protein and almost 60% of that comes in the white and not the yoke. In fact a lot of bodybuilders will eat a lot of egg whites in order to help them gain muscle because the yolk has a lot of cholesterol, a lot of them just don't touch the yolk.

When it comes to carbs, you need to make sure that you only eat the complex variety, these are the best for building lean muscle and they are the healthiest for your entire body. Food that contain complex carbs would be:

• Whole grain breads
• Rice
• Oatmeal
• Corn
• Peas
• Pasta
• Beans
• Yams
• Potatoes

Eating a lot of these foods are not only going to help build muscle but they will also make you full and will help you to stay away from junk food or other snacks you might be tempted to eat otherwise.

In order to be able to add any muscle weight to your body you will need some weight gain in order to work with. The kind of weight you will be putting on will be lean muscle weight and not fat. You need to understand that to put on this kind of lean muscle is actually a double process. You need to gain the weight but also eliminate the fat. For instance, if you gain muscle but also gain fat then you may be stronger but you are carrying around some useless weight as well. You will look larger but you won't have muscles that are leaner. So in order to do this you will need to eat the right food and lift weights.

It is important that you don't do something like this alone. If you can you should talk with a personal trainer about what is called regular resistance training programs. These involve multi joint movements and are very efficient for the growth of muscle because they actually stimulate multiple muscles all at once. It also accelerates your body's metabolism after, which means you are burning more calories when you are at rest.

You should consider sitting down and keeping track of everything you eat for several days. Once you have done this you should look at the calories that you have taken in. If you have not gained any weight with the food you have eaten during this time while doing your weight lifting then you may have to adjust your average daily calorie intake. This way you can figure out what your daily maintenance level will be in order to add that lean muscle to your body.

When you figure out what you are taking in, it's probably a good idea then to increase your intake to about 300 to about 500 calories more per day in order to make sure that you are getting enough calories to be able to add muscle. You need to make sure that the calories that you take in are from proteins that are lean like chicken breast and some tuna in water, never eat the tuna packed in oil.

You should also replace those simple carbohydrates like white bread or white rice with the more complex carbohydrates like whole wheat or whole grains like whole grain bread and brown rice. You should make sure that you include a lot of vegetables as well for they are also complex carbohydrates and so their consumption needs to be increased as well.

It is easier on your body if you eat small amounts of food at each sitting and this should be done every 3 hours or so instead of eating three huge meals a day. This is a good way to have fuel continually supplied to your muscles and doesn't really give the body that much time to store the foods as fat when you eat in this manner.

Make sure that you are performing a regular routine of high intensity training to keep fat burned off and to continue to boost your metabolism. This is why it's important to also include with your weight lifting some cardiovascular workout as well. This can be on a machine or it can be running, swimming, rowing, whatever gets the heart pumping is going to work.

Note: It is important to make sure that you divide your workout into different intervals where you alternate between a hard workout and a resting period then back to the workout. This should be done in 20 minute intervals. In other words work out for 20 minutes then rest for 20 minutes before moving onto something else.