BodybuildingZoo - You Are What You Eat

The most important component to building muscle mass is nutrition. Believe it or not, nutrition is what gives us the raw materials for recuperation, energy, and growth. Without a good diet, your dreams of achieving your ideal body will never be reached!

What does a good nutritional diet consist of?

1) You should eat smaller and frequent meals throughout the day instead of large and infrequent meals! Why? Because when you feed your body several times a day, your metabolism increases. Therefore, you burn more fat. Frequent meals are of particular importance since after three to four hours of no food your body switches to a catabolic state (a state in which you lose muscle and gain fat!). The body believes that it is starving and it starts feeding itself on lean muscle tissue and it prepares to store calories as fat. That's a bodybuilders NIGHTMARE!! Therefore, in order for your program to work, you will need to eat between four to six meals (depending gender and goals) a day spaced out at 2-1/2 to 3 hour intervals. Remember, small portions!!

2) Every meal should have carbohydrates, protein and fat in the correct ratios! Having a meal that is not balanced (for example is all carbohydrates) won't yield the desired results. Every macronutrient has to be present in order for the body to absorb them and use them properly. Without boring you with the effect of food on the body's biochemistry, let's just say that if you only eat carbohydrates in one meal without anything else, your energy levels will crash in about 30 minutes and your body will be storing any carbohydrates that were not used into fat. That's why you feel so sleepy after a big pasta meal! Conversely, if you only eat protein, you will lack energy and your body will not be able to turn the protein into muscle because it is difficult for the body to absorb protein in the absence of carbohydrates. In addition, the ratios for each particular macronutrient have to be correct in order to get the results that you want.

The ratio of our diet will look like the following:

40% Carbohydrates
40% Protein
20% Fats

Note that for every serving of carbohydrates, you get a serving of protein. A handy way to make sure your getting the right amount of carbohydrates and protein; count the portion of carbohydrates as the amount of food the size of your clenched fist and a portion of protein as the amount of food the size of your open palms.

3) The calories should be cycled! Caloric cycling will not allow your metabolism to get used to a certain caloric level; something that leads to stagnant results!Therefore, bodybuilders or any athlete in search of just muscle mass should follow 5 days of high calories (lean body mass x 15) with two days of lower caloric intake (lean body mass x12). Bodybuilders in search of losing fat while building muscle at the same time should follow 5 days of lower caloric intake (lean body mass x12) with 2 days of higher calories (lean body mass x 15). (Note: If you build muscle and lose fat at the same time you will not gain muscle as fast as you would if you just concentrated in muscle mass. However, you get to get both goals accomplished at the same time).

You Are What You Eat...