Once upon a time, the majority of athletes believed that, if you wanted to bulk up your muscle, you just ate more calories. Bodybuilders in particular were notorious for eating several pounds of meat and dozens of raw eggs every day. In these more enlightened days we now know that high fat, high protein diets are unhealthy and don't actually help build muscle at all.
Although your calorie intake should increase, it's where you get the extra calories from that are important. Building muscle requires tremendous amount of energy. On average, 20 calories per pound of body weight is needed just to maintain your muscle mass, add an extra 5 to 10 calories per pound on top of that if you want to build muscle! So an 140 pound man would need 2,800 calories to maintain his muscle mass and at least 3,500 to build muscle (as long as he's exercising) with 60% of those calories coming from from carbohydrates, 20% from proteins and the remaining 20% from fats.
Carbohydrate
Carbohydrate,
stored in the body as glycogen, is the predominant energy source for
muscle-building exercise. The harder and longer you work out, the more
glycogen your muscles require. The bottom line is that you'll probably
need at least 500 grams of carbohydrate per day if you want you muscles
to have enough glycogen to do an efficient workout.
Fat
The remainder of your
calorie intake should come from fats but, in order to keep your heart
healthy, these fats should come from unsaturated sources.
Increase your intake of Omega-3 and Omega-6 (found in oily fish, flaxseed and evening-primrose oil).
Water
Good hydration is vitally important. Your body requires at least eight
250ml cups of caffeine-free fluids every day. Additionally, you need to
replace any fluids you have lost during your workout. Drink two cups of
fluid, two hours before your workout and drink 500ml when you finish.
Eat Five Times a Day
By spreading your meals throughout the day you are encouraging your body to repair itself.
The Top 5 Bodybuilding Diet Mistakes
Overeating:
Eating more calories than you use leads to a build-up of body fat, not
muscle. Once your body absorbs what it needs the excess will be quickly
deposited as fat.
Eliminating all Fat: Cutting fat does help you control your calorie intake but removing fat completely from you diet can lead to a decrease in fat metabolism and retarded growth.
Viewing Supplements as the answer: Supplements do enhance an already nutritional diet but they cannot make up for poor planning and nutritional mistakes. You should be getting all you need from your food, not from a pill.
Becoming a slave to one food: To be successful, you have to eat the right way all the time. But eating nothing but grilled chicken and canned tuna will lead to boredom and, eventually, failure and will starve you body of vital vitamins and minerals.
Dieting impatiently: Many bodybuilders jump from one diet to another without giving each diet enough time to work. It takes at least three weeks for your body to adapt to dietary changes, so be patient.
Steroids:
Among
bodybuilders the abuse of steroids is not uncommon. Steroids are
synthetic by-products of the male hormone testosterone. They reduce
body fat and increase muscle mass, thus the results of your workout are
seen more quickly, more intensely and larger muscles are easier to
obtain. But this short cut to muscle mass has a high price: heart
disease, cancer, infertility and even death. Steroids greatly affect
the hormonal system, causing the body to produce less of its own
testosterone and some of the side effects include:
