Ultimate Nutrition

Muscle building and the food factor, in spite of the fact that one or two top atheles have made it to the top of their profession by eating more than their fair share of junk food, the serious athlete, or bodybuilder ready for competition must be disciplined about the foods they eat. Today this is so more than ever before, because it's the low body fat, thin skin, and manifest definition that win todays contests. You will not achieve this condition and couple it with a generous degree of muscle mass without adhering strictly to a proper diet.
Together with progressive resistance exercise and adequate rest, nutrition is a vital requirement for bodybuilder’s success. There is the accepted notion now that "we are what we eat," so trillions of words have been written about food and diet. The ideas they propound run the entire gamut from the acceptance of junk food to the necessity of almost eternal fasting. Needless to say, neither extreme is recommended.
Your muscles are made up of about 70 percent water and 20 percent protein. However, the practice of greatly increasing your intake of either water or protein, or both, will not increase your muscle size. It will simply cause the body to excrete more water or protein, or both. In other words; enough is enough! Traditionally bodybuilders have gone in for eating huge amounts of protein, steaks, cheese, poultry, fish, eggs, nuts, and of course protein supplements. Protein is the least efficient source of energy, and ironically, too much of it may result in a slower rate of recovery and give you superfluous calories that turn into fat. It is far better to concern yourself with a high carbohydrate diet.
Yes, carbohydrates, the old school method, as it is the main fuel for muscles. It becomes glucose in the blood and is stored by your muscles and organs in the form of glycogen. During and after concentrated workouts, your glycogen becomes depleted. Since your recovery is largely dependent on the restoration of glycogen in the muscles, a diet high in carbohydrate speeds the restoration process.
So, how much protein is needed to grow? Actually, muscle building is a relatively slow process, so we don’t need all that much. For a 154 pound person, the National Research Council sets a recommended daily allowance of protein at 70 grams (1 gram per 2.2 pounds of body weight). That is very generous allowance, since some studies have shown that people can keep very healthy on a considerably smaller intake of protein. In other words, it is unlikely that a bodybuilder will need more that 1 gram of protein for each 2.2 pounds of bodyweight. But if you take more, then do it sparingly. This will not only help to keep the fat off, but it will also save you a bundle of money.
You don't need a great deal of any extra food, protein, fat, or carbohydrate when you are trying to gain muscle. What is important is that you eat frequently. Five or six small meals are infinitely superior to three large gut busting gourmet extravaganzas. Small meals maintain your blood sugar levels on an even keel, keep you from getting hungry, and prevent the discomfort of digesting large, ungainly meals. It is an anti-digesting large, ungainly meal. It is antiquated concept to stuff oneself with food to gain weight. The result will invariably be added fat, not muscle.
Of course, there are people who must eat a lot. For example, if a budding weight trainer has a high metabolism, the food intake must be tailored accordingly. If you burn up 3000 calories in a day, then something more than those 3000 will be needed for you to gain weight. There are individuals who require 5000 calories a day. If they eat less than that, they will gain weight. The art is to find out by trial and error how many calories you need to gain or lose weight slowly. Doing either too quickly will give less satisfactory results.
It is generally accepted that a person who leads a moderately active life has a daily need of about 15 calories per pound of bodyweight. Your food intake should maximize your chances of bodybuilding success. Misuse your nutritional regimen, and you will either fail to gain muscle mass, or else you will cover what muscle mass you do develop with an unattractive layer of fat. A balanced diet is the best way to gain lean muscle mass, muscle without the encumbrance of fat. It is true that a balanced diet can mean different things to different people, but in essence it should include nutrition from each of the following food groups;
1. Milk (milk, Yogurt, Cottage Cheese, Cheese, etc.)
2. Meat (beef, Veal, lamb, Pork, Fish, Poultry, eggs etc.)
3. Vegetables (Fruits, Vegetables, Legumes, Nuts)
4. Grains (Bread, Cereals)
5. Fats (Butter, Margarine, oils)
About 65 percent of your diet should be made up of grains, fruits, and vegetables, the remaining 35 percent should come from the milk and meat groups. So far we have two things to consider a). We must balance our diets by eating foods from all five groups every day. b) We must consume the right number of calories to affect either a weight gain or a weight loss. Calories are important, of course, but do not simply choose a program of low-calorie foods when you want to lose weight, or high calories foods when you want to gain weight. Foods should never be evaluated solely by their calories.
You must aim for the best possible return for every calorie consumed, and that is why you must avoid calories dense foods for the greater part of your life. Calorie dense foods are those unforgivable concoctions prepared or manufactured to appease whims of taste, with little or no regard for balanced nutrition or sensible nourishment. Calorie dense foods richly deserve the title junk food, and are characterized by their obscene preponderance of chemical additives, colouring, and preservatives, not to mention their lunatic levels of those two demons, salt and sugar.