What foods do I eat and when do I eat them if I want to build lean muscle?
Posted in Lean Muscle on 10. Mar, 2010
Ok, so I want to build lean muscle.
I work out twice a week full body high intensity weights, 1 intense interval cardio session and 1 very light cardio session.
I have worked out I need 3000 calories a day to increase my lean body mass. 5 x 600 calorie meals a day.
What kind of food do I eat on a weights day, intense cardio and light cardio days?
Looking for high-quality protein supplements to pump up your body-building routine?
No related posts.
Related posts brought to you by Yet Another Related Posts Plugin.
Steak
eat a lot of protein like beans, chicken, beef, fish, etc.
I wouldn’t over complicate things. If you’re going for a body building physique, I suggest reading about the CKD (Cyclical Ketogenic Diet). I don’t recommend this for anyone other than heavy lifters, though, so if this isn’t you (sounds like it is) then just stick with a high protein/high fiber/low carb diet.
After you lift, you have a half-hour windows where your body can absorb extra protein. A shake or smoothie within this window is perfect, otherwise, I wouldn’t vary your meals from day to day too much.
Good luck!
Drop the cardio for now if you’re serious about building muscle, cardio is catabolic and will only stand in the way of your goal, use cardio for cutting not bulking!, unless there is a reason for you to be doing cardio ofcourse- like a sport for example.
Eat high amounts of protein, (Albacore Tuna, Turkey, Chicken), with some carbs pre-workout. Post workout follow up with about 40g of protein.
on days when you workout, you should take in about 1.5g of protein for every lb. you weigh. I’d suggest either a protein shake (mixxed with some light cereal, such as rice krispies, for carbs to get your insulin going) or a high protein balanced meal about an hour before a workout. and Immediately after your work out, hit up a huge dose of protein, maybe 2 scoops (40-50g) of protein.
on days where you dont workout at all, its probably not necessary to take in 3000 calories though. You don’t want to take in too many more calories than your body uses or else it will reach a point where you’ll build mass, but it will be fat and not muscle.
Also how much and what kind of cardio are you doing? Some cardio programs will burn a lot of muscle if you’re keeping your heart rate up too high. To figure out how fast your heart rate should be to do cardio where youre just burning fat and not muscle, the equation is Body Weight in LBS + Age x .60 . When you figure out what that is, you want to keep your heartrate there for at least a half hour. that way you’ll burn fat and keep your muscle.
Also before you go to sleep you should take some sort of protein, either a light snack, like tuna or sliced turkey with no mayo or bread or anything, or a casein protein supplement. Casein protein takes longer for your body to process, so it will keep your muscles from catabolizing (Where your muscles stop feeding off of protein, and start feeding off of themselves) longer.