Nutrition is key in gaining muscle, but not the only key.
Lifting weights may be the easiest part of working out, but you must not take it lightly. You need to constantly and
intensively lift weights. If you go to workout just once a week, for one hour and spend half of that one hour talking to a bud, you're not going to
gain anything.
Let's say you intensively work out 3 days a week, and you're still not seeing results after a few months. Well, remember that cookie you ate? Yeah. Remember the sugar you put into the coffee covered with cream on top of it? Do not expect results without solid, proper nutrition. 6 meals a day, every two to three hours. 3.3 litres of water (2.3 if you are a girl). And proper sleep (Atleast 8 hours). Solid sleep and rest is essential, no sleep - no gain.
Ofcourse, the meals have to be balanced too! (more on that in a later post)
Let's say you intensively work out 3 days a week, and you're still not seeing results after a few months. Well, remember that cookie you ate? Yeah. Remember the sugar you put into the coffee covered with cream on top of it? Do not expect results without solid, proper nutrition. 6 meals a day, every two to three hours. 3.3 litres of water (2.3 if you are a girl). And proper sleep (Atleast 8 hours). Solid sleep and rest is essential, no sleep - no gain.
Ofcourse, the meals have to be balanced too! (more on that in a later post)
You're
probably thinking to yourself "6 meals a day.. Damn, I need to eat like a horse to do this' Nope. Wrong. You do not need to eat more to gain muscles. You do not need fat to gain muscle.
This is a horrible myth, seen and heard everyday. 'I'm skinny so I
eat a lot to add fat in order to gain muscle' this is heard really
often, too often. To build muscle you need atleast 0.5/1g of protein per
pound of your total bodyweight weight. That is what you need to start building muscle, no fat. If you weigh 180 pounds, you need to consume
180 grams of protein each day. Ofcourse, somewhat evenly spaced out!(30g per meal, though you can have 15 g in one meal and then compensate with 45 in the other, just do not have your daily dose at once)
Do not abandon natural protein and turn to protein shakes. One
protein shake per day is good, but two or three is horrible. There
are many, BETTER proteins in natural foods like nuts, chicken
breasts, eggs, milk and other lean meats. You can also have a protein bar, but do not have it as a snack.
If you're getting poor results.. Ofcourse, you might just be simply overtraining. If you've suddenly stopped gaining strenght and started losing it - you're overtraining. If you lift weights, 3 days per week of 1-2 hours is enough. If you're having 'parts days' do not have two chest days, or two bicep days, one day per week is enough. Later on you CAN start lifting 4 days per week, but that's much more later on, do not worry about that.
And yes! Drink a lot of water, not underestimate sleeping properly, stop making common mistakes and you'll be much happier!
17 comments:
I am just doing PushUps and Cycling atm. I am not looking to become a bodybuilder anyways.
Yeah, I think the most important thins is to be healthy from the inside.
For me, the hardest part would be sleeping 8 hours a night.
and for me sleeping 8 hours a night is the easiest part :P
I'm on the same boat as DWei, the absolute hardest part for me is sleeping 8 hours. They only time i can do that is on weekends. I just can't do it during the week.
nice post :D
Great advice!
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very true, we often demand immediate satisfaction. it's all part of conditioning... we can't associate exercise with anything good if we don't see results.
i don't sleep 8 hours either, i just don't need that much sleep. I'm not trying build either just get more fit. It's working okay so far.
I guess patience is vital, I gotta keep working on it.
I can't agree enough. I see a lot of people drinking protein shakes and I can't believe the things they put into their body. Their kidney needs to process all of that stuff.
I'm not really trying to build muscles just want to stay in shape and be healthy and though I'm taking it easy, it's still pretty tiring.
Yeah... I know. I'm going to eat more proteins in the future! :D
Protein indeed is necessary to build muscles and exercise too which I need to do more often! ;)
I have a poor nutrition.
I take creative 30 minutes before working out, finish my workout with a 30g protein shake, then eat two eggs. Later in in the evening I'll eat chicken or beef. I used to work out and see no results for years, then I changed my diet to healthier and more protein centric and I started to see some results.
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