It is easy to get overwhelmed by all the body building nutrition propaganda. There are so many supplements on the market and just as much diet advice. Rightly so, you won’t build muscle fast if you just concentrate on lifting weight at the expense of nutrition. Fortunately knowing what muscle building foods are healthy and which aren’t really does just boil down to common sense.
A general recommendation that we intuitively know anyway is to eat plenty of lean meat (fish/chicken), eggs and salad. The salad is made up of good slow burning carbohydrate and red meat contains every form of muscle building amino acid known to man. Good carbohydrates (complex carbohydrates) have what is called a low glycemic index – slow release energy. They include fruits, salads and oatmeal. High glycemic index food include potatoes, white sugar and white bread – they often equate to highly processed foods. High glycemic foods contain fast release energy that is more readily converted into fat by our bodies.
Here is our list of top 9 muscle building foods
- Whey Powder – whey powder is a body builders dream food. It contains quick absorbing protein and is extremely low in fat. It’s perfect after a workout. Ideally you should drink it within 15 minutes of your workout. This will help prevent you losing muscle mass.
- Eggs – a single egg contains 6 grams of protein. The egg white contains the majority of the protein. Be sure to remove the egg yoke as it is high in cholesterol. Boiled eggs and omelets cooked in olive oil are are also a very quick and easy meal to prepare.
- Tuna – in addition to containing protein tuna is very high in a special fat called omega-3. It’s also relatively cheap to buy. Some research suggests that omega-3 helps raise our testosterone (natural growth hormone) levels. Human growth hormone is an essential component our muscles need to grow.
- Cherries – Some recent research showed that cherries help reduce inflammation after a workout. Inflammation results in a hormone called cortisol being released which actually causes us to loose muscle mass. Try adding cherries to your diet especially if you carry some recurring injury.
- Nuts – nuts such as macadamias, almonds and walnuts contain protein and a lot of essential minerals, vitamins and omega-3 fatty acids. They also make an ideal snack during the day. If you feel the need to eat a candy bar eat some nuts instead.
- Red meat – make sure you include lean red meat in your diet but limit to only once or twice a week since red meat contains a lot of cholesterol. Red meat is the most nutrient packed food we can possibly eat, it’s full of iron, protein and B group vitamins. It should be a part of your weekly diet.
- White meat – chicken and turkey breast are lower in fat than red meat. Make sure you remove the skin and try to go for steamed or baked rather than fried poultry.
- Olive oil - if you must fry food rather than steam it then use olive oil since it contains a lot of omega-3 fatty acids.
One final tip. Our bodies are built to store fat very easily – it does this for survival in times of famine. We evolved this mechanism over tens of thousands of years of evolution. We need to trick our bodies into thinking there is no need to store fat. To do this you should eat 5-6 meals a day not the 3 big meals we traditionally eat. As a general check you should never feel starving or overly full at anytime during the day. Eating every 2.5 hours or so will keep your metabolism burning fat and help maintain your muscle mass. We can trick our bodies.Good luck in building muscle fast using our tips on healthy muscle building foods.
