darksidefitness
12-15-2011, 10:30 PM
Found this article in the latest Muscle Mag. Enjoy!!!
Quality muscle gains can be undercut by an off-coursemeal plan. Here are the five worst nutrition blunders you can make — and how tocorrect them.
By Steven Stiefel
When you’retrying to add quality muscle mass, you have to make sure your entiremuscle-building regimen is catered to achieve that goal. The main areas toconsider include your nutrition plan, training program, supplement plan andrecovery protocol. As you’ve already learned from the training element of thissuperfeature, “5 Biggest Offseason Mass-Building Training Mistakes,” you needto emphasize heavy, compound movements when you’re trying to maximize musclegains. [Melissa – We may need to tweak the wording here once we have the titlefor the complementary article. JH] Even if your training is impeccable,however, you may not be supporting your hard work in the gym with the smartestnutrition strategies for your body. In fact, many committed bodybuilders setthemselves up for failure by making nutritional blunders.
A common explanation is that some guys are sogym-focused that they forget to take care of business when they aren’t lifting.Keep in mind, however, that you can’t grow if you’re going off-track during theother 23-or-so hours of the day. To help you get back on track, we’veidentified the five biggest nutrition mistakes bodybuilders make when trying toadd quality mass — and we’ll show you what you can do to correct each error.
MISTAKE #1:Inadequate Workout MealsThe meals you consume in the window beginningapproximately an hour before your workouts and then within the range of 30minutes to two hours after your training sessions are the most critical mealseach day for maximizing growth. It’s crucial that you understand theappropriate food choices to make during these pre- and post-workout time framesto take full advantage of your hard work in the gym.
Negative Effects: When you don’t give your bodythe specific nutrients that are necessary before your workouts, you might haveless energy when you train, particularly near the end of your sessions. If youaren’t taking in appropriate foods after workouts, then you won’t be providingyour muscles with all the raw materials needed for maximal growth. In addition,you won’t recover as quickly or efficiently, and you won’t be able to train aseffectively in subsequent workouts because you haven’t reloaded your muscleglycogen stores.
Solution: About an hour before you workout, eat a whole-food meal that consists of equal parts protein and moderatelyfast-digesting carbs, such as white bread or bagels that contain little to nofat or fiber (as both slow digestion). Or, if you prefer, take in a proteinshake with fast-digesting carbs (sugar) shortly before you train. Either way,the glucose from the carbs will provide you with an energy boost during yourtraining session, and the protein will get aminos circulating in your system tohelp facilitate muscle building after you finish training.
No later than 30 minutes after you finish your workout,you should consume a similar meal — whey protein and dextrose are ideal. Atthis time, you can take in more sugar than protein. Strive for about ¼ gram perpound of bodyweight from protein and somewhere between ¼–½ gram of sugar perpound. For example, a 200-pound bodybuilder should get in about 50 grams ofprotein and 50–100 grams of sugar. The specific amount of sugar will depend onyour individual daily caloric needs. A whey shake with 50 grams of sugar willcontain about 400 calories, and one with 100 grams of sugar will contain about600 calories. Keep in mind that hardgainers typically need more total caloriesthan guys who tend to add bodyfat easily.
Shortly after you consume your post-workout shake (aboutan hour or so later), eat a whole-food meal that consists of protein,slow-digesting or starchy carbohydrates (brown rice/yams or pasta/rice,respectively) and fats (from meat or healthy forms such as oils and avocado).
MISTAKE #2:Inconsistency in Your Nutrition ProgramIf you do a great job of following your nutritionprogram some days but fall off the wagon on weekends or on days when you aren’ttraining, you’re significantly undercutting the benefits of all the hardnutrition (and gym) work you’re doing on your best days. We’re not saying youneed to consume the same foods every day, but you do need to have a nutritionstrategy for each day that falls in line to help you achieve your overallgoals.
Negative Effects: At best, you won’t make progresswith your physique as quickly or as effectively when your nutrition program iserratic. At worst, if your meal plan is very inconsistent, you may actuallytake a few steps back, as your body may not maintain what you already have. Inother words, you could be losing muscle mass, adding excess bodyfat or both.
Solution: Make sure you hit your targetzones for calories and macronutrients every day of the week. You won’t get anyresults if you undereat on some days and overeat on others, simply trying to“balance” out your program by going to the opposite extreme to make up for whatyou did the day before. To help keep your intake consistent, drink protein orweight-gainer shakes at other times of the day such as between meals to keepyour caloric intake in the appropriate zone. You can also take in somewhathigher caloric “junk” meals once a week or so — just make certain they don’tcatapult you way above the amount of calories you need for ideal growth per dayor per meal (keep in mind that no single meal of your 6–7 meals per day shouldcontain more than one-third of your daily caloric intake).
MISTAKE #3:OvereatingThink about it — what type of mass are you trying toadd? Obesity is one of the biggest health problems in America, andeven those in MuscleMag world aren’t immune to it. If you want to add qualitymuscle mass, you have to consume more calories than you need for bodyweightmaintenance, but at the same time, if you eat beyond a certain threshold,you’ll just be adding excess bodyfat. It also matters — tremendously — whattypes of calories you choose to consume. Another factor that’s crucial is howmany meals you take in each day, and how many calories you eat at each of thosemeals.
Negative Effects: Don’t just eat lots of food forthe sake of getting bigger. The logic behind mass-gaining nutrition isn’t thatsimple. If you eat too much food each day, or you stuff yourself with too muchat individual meals, ultimately you’re going to gain unwanted bodyfat. Yourbody can use only so many calories at a time, so any excess may end up gettingconverted and stored as fat.
Solution: Establish your caloric-intakebaseline for maintenance — generally this number is somewhere around3,000–4,000 calories a day for a 200-pound bodybuilder. Now, add about 25% morecalories to that when you’re in a mass-building phase, taking in 3,750–5,000calories a day in this example (or the amount that’s right for you, dependingon your weight and whether you consume fewer/more calories for maintenance). Inaddition, split these calories fairly evenly over 6–7 meals per day. Again, nosingle meal should have more than one-third of your daily intake because whenyou take in huge amounts of calories in one sitting, they’re much more likelyto find their way into bodyfat storage than they are to be used as energy or tofuel the muscle-building process.
MISTAKE #4:Not Eating EnoughWhile it may seem contradictory, this mistake andMistake #3 are indeed two separate problems for different bodybuilders. Someguys eat too much while others eat too little overall. Most people don’t commitboth (if you do, however, you’re also an offender of Mistake #2), and, ofcourse, human nature dictates that hardgainers tend toward undereating. If thissounds familiar, you’re actually making a nutritional mistake in the area ofyour greatest challenge.
Negative Effects: This dietary mistake compoundsthe genetic predisposition that you’re fighting against. Many hardgainers tryto make up for their nutritional shortcomings by training harder at the gym.But, guess what? Doing so only burns more calories, tearing down muscle tissuewithout the nutritional support necessary to recover and build muscle mass. Theend result is an increased difficulty to add and sustain quality mass.
Solution: Regardless of your body type,you should schedule enough recovery time and rest days in your weekly trainingsplit to encourage mass gaining. Then, you need to put a big emphasis on takingin the appropriate amount of calories and macronutrients your body needs togrow. If you tend to undereat, try concentrating on liquid calories when yourappetite isn’t large enough to comfortably consume all the whole-food caloriesyou need to add mass. Take advantage of pre-bedtime to get in a quality mealthat’s high in protein and dietary fats (avoid carbs at this time of day, asthey’re more likely to be stored as bodyfat — even if you’re a hardgainer).Also be conscious of the other mistakes noted in this article, such as takingin too many calories at one meal.
MISTAKE #5:Overemphasizing Protein at the Expense of Other Beneficial CaloriesWhat? Is MuscleMag seriously telling you to eat lessprotein? Of course not. What we’re saying is you need quality calories thatcome from a broad spectrum of different foods and macronutrients. By no meansdo you need to cut your protein; instead, what we’re saying is there’s a limitto how much protein your body can use to fuel your muscles for optimal growthduring a mass-building phase. While protein is the key macronutrient formuscular development, many bodybuilders focus too heavily on this fact and endup neglecting the other crucial macronutrients needed for growth.
Negative Effects: When you overemphasize proteinat the expense of other nutrients, you’re providing a skewed ratio of materialsthat your body can’t use maximally to carry out all the processes associatedwith mass gaining and growth. Your body needs not only protein, but also thedrivers of growth (carbs and dietary fats) that are necessary to put theseaminos to use. Essentially, when you prioritize protein too much over carbs andfats, what you’re doing is akin to buying twice as many materials as you needto build a house, and then forgetting to hire someone to construct it. Thereare different schools of thought on how much protein is too much, but thegeneral recommendation is to consume no more than 1.5 grams per pound ofbodyweight per day. Taking in more than that amount may undercut your appetitefor other necessary macros. The excess protein will eventually be converted tofuel, but that’s an inefficient and expensive way to provide your body with theenergy it needs.
Solution: Consume at least 1 gram ofprotein per pound of bodyweight daily during the offseason when you’re tryingto add serious muscle mass. Understand that consuming protein beyond 1.5 gramsof protein per pound of bodyweight becomes an inefficient way of supplying yourbody with fuel. When you’re in a mass-building phase, strive to get in only upto about 30% of your daily calories from protein. This means a 200-poundbodybuilder who consumes 4,000 calories a day for growth should consume up to300 grams of protein (300 grams x 4 calories per gram = 1,200 calories, and1,200/4,000 = 30%). Of course, that same bodybuilder who needs 5,000 calories aday for growth can still consume 300 calories per day from protein (1,200/5,000= 24%).
Quality muscle gains can be undercut by an off-coursemeal plan. Here are the five worst nutrition blunders you can make — and how tocorrect them.
By Steven Stiefel
When you’retrying to add quality muscle mass, you have to make sure your entiremuscle-building regimen is catered to achieve that goal. The main areas toconsider include your nutrition plan, training program, supplement plan andrecovery protocol. As you’ve already learned from the training element of thissuperfeature, “5 Biggest Offseason Mass-Building Training Mistakes,” you needto emphasize heavy, compound movements when you’re trying to maximize musclegains. [Melissa – We may need to tweak the wording here once we have the titlefor the complementary article. JH] Even if your training is impeccable,however, you may not be supporting your hard work in the gym with the smartestnutrition strategies for your body. In fact, many committed bodybuilders setthemselves up for failure by making nutritional blunders.
A common explanation is that some guys are sogym-focused that they forget to take care of business when they aren’t lifting.Keep in mind, however, that you can’t grow if you’re going off-track during theother 23-or-so hours of the day. To help you get back on track, we’veidentified the five biggest nutrition mistakes bodybuilders make when trying toadd quality mass — and we’ll show you what you can do to correct each error.
MISTAKE #1:Inadequate Workout MealsThe meals you consume in the window beginningapproximately an hour before your workouts and then within the range of 30minutes to two hours after your training sessions are the most critical mealseach day for maximizing growth. It’s crucial that you understand theappropriate food choices to make during these pre- and post-workout time framesto take full advantage of your hard work in the gym.
Negative Effects: When you don’t give your bodythe specific nutrients that are necessary before your workouts, you might haveless energy when you train, particularly near the end of your sessions. If youaren’t taking in appropriate foods after workouts, then you won’t be providingyour muscles with all the raw materials needed for maximal growth. In addition,you won’t recover as quickly or efficiently, and you won’t be able to train aseffectively in subsequent workouts because you haven’t reloaded your muscleglycogen stores.
Solution: About an hour before you workout, eat a whole-food meal that consists of equal parts protein and moderatelyfast-digesting carbs, such as white bread or bagels that contain little to nofat or fiber (as both slow digestion). Or, if you prefer, take in a proteinshake with fast-digesting carbs (sugar) shortly before you train. Either way,the glucose from the carbs will provide you with an energy boost during yourtraining session, and the protein will get aminos circulating in your system tohelp facilitate muscle building after you finish training.
No later than 30 minutes after you finish your workout,you should consume a similar meal — whey protein and dextrose are ideal. Atthis time, you can take in more sugar than protein. Strive for about ¼ gram perpound of bodyweight from protein and somewhere between ¼–½ gram of sugar perpound. For example, a 200-pound bodybuilder should get in about 50 grams ofprotein and 50–100 grams of sugar. The specific amount of sugar will depend onyour individual daily caloric needs. A whey shake with 50 grams of sugar willcontain about 400 calories, and one with 100 grams of sugar will contain about600 calories. Keep in mind that hardgainers typically need more total caloriesthan guys who tend to add bodyfat easily.
Shortly after you consume your post-workout shake (aboutan hour or so later), eat a whole-food meal that consists of protein,slow-digesting or starchy carbohydrates (brown rice/yams or pasta/rice,respectively) and fats (from meat or healthy forms such as oils and avocado).
MISTAKE #2:Inconsistency in Your Nutrition ProgramIf you do a great job of following your nutritionprogram some days but fall off the wagon on weekends or on days when you aren’ttraining, you’re significantly undercutting the benefits of all the hardnutrition (and gym) work you’re doing on your best days. We’re not saying youneed to consume the same foods every day, but you do need to have a nutritionstrategy for each day that falls in line to help you achieve your overallgoals.
Negative Effects: At best, you won’t make progresswith your physique as quickly or as effectively when your nutrition program iserratic. At worst, if your meal plan is very inconsistent, you may actuallytake a few steps back, as your body may not maintain what you already have. Inother words, you could be losing muscle mass, adding excess bodyfat or both.
Solution: Make sure you hit your targetzones for calories and macronutrients every day of the week. You won’t get anyresults if you undereat on some days and overeat on others, simply trying to“balance” out your program by going to the opposite extreme to make up for whatyou did the day before. To help keep your intake consistent, drink protein orweight-gainer shakes at other times of the day such as between meals to keepyour caloric intake in the appropriate zone. You can also take in somewhathigher caloric “junk” meals once a week or so — just make certain they don’tcatapult you way above the amount of calories you need for ideal growth per dayor per meal (keep in mind that no single meal of your 6–7 meals per day shouldcontain more than one-third of your daily caloric intake).
MISTAKE #3:OvereatingThink about it — what type of mass are you trying toadd? Obesity is one of the biggest health problems in America, andeven those in MuscleMag world aren’t immune to it. If you want to add qualitymuscle mass, you have to consume more calories than you need for bodyweightmaintenance, but at the same time, if you eat beyond a certain threshold,you’ll just be adding excess bodyfat. It also matters — tremendously — whattypes of calories you choose to consume. Another factor that’s crucial is howmany meals you take in each day, and how many calories you eat at each of thosemeals.
Negative Effects: Don’t just eat lots of food forthe sake of getting bigger. The logic behind mass-gaining nutrition isn’t thatsimple. If you eat too much food each day, or you stuff yourself with too muchat individual meals, ultimately you’re going to gain unwanted bodyfat. Yourbody can use only so many calories at a time, so any excess may end up gettingconverted and stored as fat.
Solution: Establish your caloric-intakebaseline for maintenance — generally this number is somewhere around3,000–4,000 calories a day for a 200-pound bodybuilder. Now, add about 25% morecalories to that when you’re in a mass-building phase, taking in 3,750–5,000calories a day in this example (or the amount that’s right for you, dependingon your weight and whether you consume fewer/more calories for maintenance). Inaddition, split these calories fairly evenly over 6–7 meals per day. Again, nosingle meal should have more than one-third of your daily intake because whenyou take in huge amounts of calories in one sitting, they’re much more likelyto find their way into bodyfat storage than they are to be used as energy or tofuel the muscle-building process.
MISTAKE #4:Not Eating EnoughWhile it may seem contradictory, this mistake andMistake #3 are indeed two separate problems for different bodybuilders. Someguys eat too much while others eat too little overall. Most people don’t commitboth (if you do, however, you’re also an offender of Mistake #2), and, ofcourse, human nature dictates that hardgainers tend toward undereating. If thissounds familiar, you’re actually making a nutritional mistake in the area ofyour greatest challenge.
Negative Effects: This dietary mistake compoundsthe genetic predisposition that you’re fighting against. Many hardgainers tryto make up for their nutritional shortcomings by training harder at the gym.But, guess what? Doing so only burns more calories, tearing down muscle tissuewithout the nutritional support necessary to recover and build muscle mass. Theend result is an increased difficulty to add and sustain quality mass.
Solution: Regardless of your body type,you should schedule enough recovery time and rest days in your weekly trainingsplit to encourage mass gaining. Then, you need to put a big emphasis on takingin the appropriate amount of calories and macronutrients your body needs togrow. If you tend to undereat, try concentrating on liquid calories when yourappetite isn’t large enough to comfortably consume all the whole-food caloriesyou need to add mass. Take advantage of pre-bedtime to get in a quality mealthat’s high in protein and dietary fats (avoid carbs at this time of day, asthey’re more likely to be stored as bodyfat — even if you’re a hardgainer).Also be conscious of the other mistakes noted in this article, such as takingin too many calories at one meal.
MISTAKE #5:Overemphasizing Protein at the Expense of Other Beneficial CaloriesWhat? Is MuscleMag seriously telling you to eat lessprotein? Of course not. What we’re saying is you need quality calories thatcome from a broad spectrum of different foods and macronutrients. By no meansdo you need to cut your protein; instead, what we’re saying is there’s a limitto how much protein your body can use to fuel your muscles for optimal growthduring a mass-building phase. While protein is the key macronutrient formuscular development, many bodybuilders focus too heavily on this fact and endup neglecting the other crucial macronutrients needed for growth.
Negative Effects: When you overemphasize proteinat the expense of other nutrients, you’re providing a skewed ratio of materialsthat your body can’t use maximally to carry out all the processes associatedwith mass gaining and growth. Your body needs not only protein, but also thedrivers of growth (carbs and dietary fats) that are necessary to put theseaminos to use. Essentially, when you prioritize protein too much over carbs andfats, what you’re doing is akin to buying twice as many materials as you needto build a house, and then forgetting to hire someone to construct it. Thereare different schools of thought on how much protein is too much, but thegeneral recommendation is to consume no more than 1.5 grams per pound ofbodyweight per day. Taking in more than that amount may undercut your appetitefor other necessary macros. The excess protein will eventually be converted tofuel, but that’s an inefficient and expensive way to provide your body with theenergy it needs.
Solution: Consume at least 1 gram ofprotein per pound of bodyweight daily during the offseason when you’re tryingto add serious muscle mass. Understand that consuming protein beyond 1.5 gramsof protein per pound of bodyweight becomes an inefficient way of supplying yourbody with fuel. When you’re in a mass-building phase, strive to get in only upto about 30% of your daily calories from protein. This means a 200-poundbodybuilder who consumes 4,000 calories a day for growth should consume up to300 grams of protein (300 grams x 4 calories per gram = 1,200 calories, and1,200/4,000 = 30%). Of course, that same bodybuilder who needs 5,000 calories aday for growth can still consume 300 calories per day from protein (1,200/5,000= 24%).