When to eat

It's pretty usual to find plenty of information on what to eat and how much to eat. These topics have been covered to death in magazines and website.  But the final piece of the diet puzzle is: When to eat.

While this isn't quite as important as learning to eat the right amount of good food, it can be the difference between a good physique and an outstanding one. There are a few times during the day that your body needs nutrients more than usual. The first is when you wake up and have breakfast.  It's called breakfast for a reason. You're breaking the fast you've been on for a little while.  Make sure you eat a decent meal as soon as possible when you wake up.  This kickstarts your metabolism and gives it
the nutrients it needs.

Something else you should know is that when you go without food for long enough, your body starts to eat itself in order to survive.
This is because the lack of nutrition causes their bodies to break down muscle and use it as energy, in order to keep the people alive.

The other two times you need to desperately ensure your body is fueled up is before and after your workout.

A workout is pretty stressful on the body. When you work out, you're putting microscopic tears in the muscles and so they need building blocks to put everything back together.  This is where food comes in. If you workout and your body is fueled with the correct amounts and types of food, then your body is able
to repair it stronger than ever, which means muscle growth.

If, on the other hand, there is no food there, then it's a bit like trying to build a house without any bricks.  So, about an hour before every workout, make sure you have a meal that contains plenty of protein and also some low GI carbs.  After a workout, your body is screaming out for more nutrients, so
you will want to make sure you give it to it. A large serving of protein and some high GI carbs here is what the doctor ordered.

The protein will help repair your muscles. They're like the bricks in a house. The high GI carbohydrate will give you an insulin spike, which acts like a transport system for the protein, making sure that the protein gets to where it's supposed to go.
Take your protein shake down after a workout.Within 15 minutes after you have finished is optimal. Any
longer and you risk not gaining the amount of muscle that you could.

 That's diet out the way. Seriously, diet is the most common area for people to mess up. So now you should understand the basics of how a muscle building diet should look, you should also be able to ask yourself "Am I doing everything I can in order to eat right, so that my body must build muscle?".

The supplements that do work!

         The truth is we dont need all those expensive supplements to gain muscle. The supplement business is a multi-billion dollar industry and of course these companies will say anything just to get your money.
        You just need a few choice produtctsthat will enhance your diet and training. And of course no supplement will work if you are not training and dieting correctly.
         So lets make a list of the supplements that can help you to increase your muscle growth:

Creatine
Creatine monohydrate is not a drug or a anabolic hormone. Actually it is manufactured by our bodies and you also can find it naturally in red meat. Most people who take creatine
experience the greatest size and strenght gains.

Myoplex
It is a meal replacement powder that gives the correct amount of protein and carbs in a simple way. There are many meal replacements supplements out there. Try to find one you like most.

Protein Powder
Best to take it as soon as you get up in the morning. You have just spend a long period without eating anything, so it is good to nourish your body fast. It needs it!!! And also take it just after your work out. Your training session
is suposed to be intense and the muscles that have been damaged need protein to recover and the build more muscle.

EFAs
These are essential fatty acids. They are really important to your body. A good choice is Udo´s Choice which is a mixture of all essential fats, combining flax oil, sunflower oil, medium-chain triglycerides and more.

Phosphagen HP
It is a creatine monohydrate coupled with the carbohydrate dextrose. Studies have shown camparing this product and regular creatine  found that both products
enhance lean muscle and strengh. But Phosphagen HP  produced 160%
 greater gains in lean mass while supporting a reduction in body fat.

L-Glutamine
This amino acid is used by your body to combat the stresses caused by the exercise, lack of calories or illness. Training hard makes your body needs higher
and it cant creat enough on it´s own. Taking glutamine will help prevent muscle protein breakdown while you are asleep or dieting. It also promotes increased
cell volumizing, strengthens your imune system decreases recovery time and increases growth hormone levels.

V2G
This helps to increase their insulin sensitivity and muscle pump by helping insuling to push more glucose into your muscles to aid in replenishment and protein sythesis. The extra glycogen in the muscles also makes them appear larger and more full.

Keep your body fat low!!!

      The decrease in muscle mass with increasing fat can largely be attributed to the insulin resistance in the muscle with increasing fat accumulation.

      Recent studies show that increase fat levels can directly blunt muscle protein synthesis via the insulin pathway. The more fat cells you have, the easier it is for your body to store fat. And when overeating for a significant period of time, your body increases its number of fat cells, which are impossible to remove without surgery. By adding new fat cells to your body, you’re actually making it better at gaining body fat, and worse at losing it. If you think about it, the constant bulk/cut cycle, when taken to extremes, is the same thing as a yo-yo diet, which we know is very damaging.

        15% of body fat is a pretty generous number to play with. If you are a hardcore or competitive bodybuilder than I would recommend you keep your body fat around 10% all year round, even while attempting to gain size. Anything else is too high. Some interval cardio on off days can decrease insulin resistance acutely and may help with muscle gain. Try to have a big cardio session (30-60 minutes
once every 72 hours to ensure  glycogen reserves are getting lower. This simple strategy helps prevent spillage from an excess of calories.

       To find out more about keeping your body fat level low and gaining a lot of muscle a good tip is 21 Day Fast Mass Building, as I mentioned in the last post. Give it a try! Follow the program step by step and stop wasting time, effort and money in useless stuff!!
        The secret is 21 Day Fast Mass Building Program!!!! Find out more HERE!!!
   

The end of Bulking

         It is simply over! The old school mentality that has been passed down is that the greater the weight gain, the greater the calories partitioned to muscle and hence greater the muscle gain. This is why you see many bodybuilders fat in the off season.But we now have research to support that it is unquestionably clear that higher fat levels can decrease muscle gain.  Your body can’t produce more muscle growth by simply overfeeding your muscles. This premise is fundamentally flawed.

        Super high calorie bulking up is a really poor approach to trying to achieve your physique or performance goals  The dumbest way to bulk up is eating everything in sight, which leads to minimal absorption, overtaxing the digestive system, poor nutrient uptake and not being able to maintain a regular

meal cadence to control hormones.

        Most bulk up diets always involve junk food…Just because you’re training hard in the gym with weights does not protect you from the harmful ingredients of trans fats, corn syrup, monosodium glutamate, unhealthy amounts of salt, sugars, fats… and vodka.

    Vince Delmonte and Lee Hayward have recently launched their new 21 Day Fast Mass Building Program in which they reinforce Bulking is OVER. They show how to achieve what they call The Anabolic Amplifier Effect which can be considered  a breakthrough in gaining lean muscle. Following the program you can gain even 20 pounds of pure muscle in just 21 days. As I said earlier, it is all about Knowledge. Stop listenning to

the muscle growth gurus out there and go to something that really worth seeing. In their website you can find testimonials of real people telling their achievements with the program.

Check out more of the program HERE!!!

The Muscle Maximizer

          This is something that really worths seeing........ The Somanabolic Muscle Maximizer or simply SMM. It can be considered a revolution in terms of bodybuilding as the nutritional software when combined with a proper weight training packs-on pure muscle in record time.....and the best thing?? Without any fat.

          Isn't that you have been looking for all this time??

           Probably you have always heard that building muscle and not gaining fat would be something impossible. And you probably have already followed some bulking advices to eat as much as you can and then starting a cutting fat phase. But it is old fashioned!!!
            The SMM uses 4 patented formulas that not just help muscle growth, but build lean muscle! The nutrition is customized for you considering  your age, weight,  height and metabolism. And the most important it considers your somatotype! Do not worry if you don't know it. They guide you  step by step so you can figure it out.
         You will know exactly what to eat according to your body needs and your weight train regimen thus you can put on muscle without fat! SMM also explains our 2 anabolic windows we have everyday
and how to take advantage of that and, for maximum muscle definition you will know what to eat on your rest days to accelerate muscle recovey.
         Take a look at these pictures below. They are real users of the program!!!

To find ou more about The Somanabolic Muscle Maximizer, GO HERE!

Feeding your body to gain muscle

                                                                           

        If you have been working out for some time and you think your efforts are much bigger than your gains, you might be nourishing your body the wrong way. Of course your weight training is important to build muscle, but it is your diet  that will determine your weight gains. If you want to put on some muscle just in time for summer, you need to EAT! And it does not matter if you are using the most expensive and revolutionary supplement that has just been launched. 

       A proper diet provides what your body needs to construct the muscle that has been damaged by your workout. And please pay attention here. Eating does not mean eating anything you want. Not all calories you ingest are the same. Eating wrongly will only make you gain lots of fat!!! You just can not eat nutritionless calories that will only bring you a really poor overall health in the long term.

      The ideal diet to build muscle must contain high quality protein, complex carbs while you decrease the sugar intake, reduce the intake of  saturated fat and replace it with good fat.

        The best proteins sources: whey protein isolate, eggs, cottage cheese, lean beef, chicken, fish and soy protein isolate. We have 8 essential amino acids and you can get them eating these foods. Remember that whey protein and lean beef have a large amount of amino acids.

        The best sources of Complex Carbs: breads and bagels, brown rice, beans and lentils, oats, pasta, popcorn, potatoes, legumes, rice, soybeans, tofu, squash,  broccoli, cauliflower, carrots, green leafy vegetables
       The best unsaturated fat sources: flaxseed oil, cod liver oil, sunflower oil, fish oil, fish, walnuts.

DO NOT forget to drink LOTS of WATER everyday, specially while you are working out!!!

                   

The 3 Factors

          Increasing the lean body mass which means gaining muscle while losing body fat may be your desirable goal as it is for  all professionals that are in the sports and bodybuilding scenario. But is that possible?

         The good thing is that it is possible. A lot of renowned authors (like Anthony Ellis, Vince Delmont, Tom Venuto) have been publishing a lot of cool stuff about this topic and this blog will cover this in detail further. For now what you need to know is although this goal is something hard to achieve cause there are many "x factors" that affect muscle gain and fat storage, it is not impossible if you have the right knowledge and do things right.

           It is not just about going to the gym 5 or even 6 times a week. And believe me this can actually ruin your plans!!! You dont build muscle while you are in the gym. Rest is one of the key elements to build muscle and also losing fat. The other two are correct nutrition and correct training  according to your main goal (if it is building muscle or losing fat).

         Try to think about it....the resaon for not achieving what you want could be one of these three factors. Think about your diet. Are you eating a proper and healthy diet? Think about your training. Are you doing the right thing inside the gym. If you want to build muscle, is your work out short and intense? Think about your  rest periods. Are you going to the gym from monday to monday? Your body need to rest to optmize your muscle recovery  and hormone production. Overtraining can also mean muscle loss!!!
 

Think about it and see you in the next post.