Muscle Building Diet – Foods that Build Mass
3 Biggest Skinny Guy Mistakes You're Making. Click Here to Avoid Them!
If you are a hardgainer who is trying to add muscle to their skinny frame, it is very important that you follow the proper muscle building diet and nutrition plan in order to make sure that you are not packing on pounds of fat. You see, I can easily give you the formula that will help you determine how much you should eat in order to gain mass, but unless you are eating the right amounts of the right foods, chances are that you will pack on fat and achieve an unwanted bloated look.
Muscle Building Diet Formula for Hardgainers
20 x Total Body Weight = Total Calories per day
Example: 135lbs x 20= 2700 Calories per day.
50 Percent Clean Complex Carbohydrates.
45 Percent Clean Quality Protein.
15 Percent Natural Fats.
Muscle Building Foods
It is very important that all your carbohydrates come from complex carbohydrates such as wheat and whole grains. The protein you consume should be lean and high quality such as fish, chicken breast, and turkey. Lastly, all fats must come from natural sources like mixed nuts, peanut butter, fish, and flaxseed.
Muscle Building Diet Tricks for Continuous Growth
Another very important factor when eating to build size is knowing when to eat and what to eat at the right time. I will not argue that breakfast is the most important meal of the day, but I will say that the meals consumed following your training are most crucial when packing on pounds of muscle. There are three phases following your gym routine that could make or break your gains and must be taken full advantage of for maximum results.
Phase 1 comes 15 minutes following your intense workout session. This is easily the most important of the three because this determines how effective the next two phases are. During phase 1 it is very important that you consume about 0.25(your body weight) in grams of protein along with 0.15(your body weight) in grams of fast acting carbohydrates. Yes that is correct, in this case, fast acting/simple carbohydrates work best. This will allow your body to avoid going into a catabolic state directly following an intense workout by increasing your insulin levels and putting you into an anabolic state quickly. Being in an anabolic state will allow you to continue to recover and build new muscle as oppose to putting muscle to waste during a catabolic state.
Phase 2 comes 1-3 hours following phase 1. This is the phase where your body needs high quality protein, complex carbohydrates, and little to no fat whatsoever. This is the growth stage that will allow your body to take advantage of the anabolic phase (phase 1) and continue to rebuild the muscle that was broken down at the gym previously. During this 3 hour phase you should be able to consume 2 full meals consisting only of high grade protein and high quality carbohydrates from wheat, whole grains, or vegetables.
Phase 3 also known as the recovery stage takes place for 2 hours following phase 2. During this two hour recovery stage, your meals should be duplicates of what you consumed during phase 2. Only this time we will include fats from natural sources. This will slow down the digestive process and allow your body to work on recovering and rebuilding muscle for a longer period of time.
Eat big, be big
Following a proper muscle building diet like the one I have provided will allow you to notice gains on a weekly basis if accompanied by a regular gym routine. So long as you consume a clean healthy diet, you will allow your body to build muscle while keeping fat levels low for an incredible beach body.
November 10th, 2010 at 11:05 pm
[...] As someone who came from having a skinny ectomorph body type, I can honestly understand how discouraging it could be when bodybuilding routines and diets do not work. There were plenty of times where I just figured that gaining weight was impossible for my hardgainer genetics. It seemed like no matter how much I trained, no matter how much I ate, no matter how many supplements I tried, my genetics simply did not allow me to develop the body I desired. Fortunately enough, I never gave up and have developed a system that has helped hundreds of other skinny hardgainers all over the world make physical changes equivalent to mine and beyond. I was able to gain over 40 pounds of solid muscle and decrease my body fat percentage for visible six pack abs all in less than 6 months. With that being said, here are 3 ways to gain weight fast for skinny guys. Following a proper muscle building diet [...]
July 21st, 2011 at 3:18 am
Hey I really like this post on nutrition however I notice that like many of your posts you mention that you direct it primarily to hardgainers or ectomorphs however I am very sure that my somatotype lies between mesoporph and ectomorph so im no sure if your nutrition recommondations such as taking one fourth of my body’s weight in protien in phase 1 post workout would be correct.
July 21st, 2011 at 3:42 am
Hey Daniel, as someone who is in the middle between ecto and meso, the post workout protein intake wouldn’t change much if even at all. 0.25 of your bodyweight is a general rule of thumb in most cases. The only thing I believe may need to be tweaked is the carbohydrates intake.