Body Building and Nutrition: What You Need to Know Before Starting

Like egg and toast body building and nutrition go hand in hand. Luckily it is not too complicated a subject with two of the most important facets of body building nutrition being the frequency of meals and the meal portions themselves.

Frequency Of Meals

The ongoing purpose or goal of body building nutrition is to keep the metabolism going to promote the growth of fat free muscle and the depletion of excess fats and reduction of water retention. What do you do to achieve this goal? Well one way to do this is to increase your meal intake. This should be done with smaller but more frequent meals. To apply this you would be eating smaller meals every two and a half to three hours throughout the day.

The advantage of eating more frequently is that it keeps your body’s motor running and your metabolism rate elevated. Your actual diet and the composition of the meals is also important as you will find discussed later in this article. Just eating more frequently alone is not enough but in addition, meals need to be placed strategically throughout each and every day.

Nutrition and body building go hand in hand also more specifically, when the nutrients should be taken in. For help in achieving your body building goal calories should be focused around times of activity and decreased during times of inactivity. Simply put, if your workouts are focused toward the beginning of the day, so then should be the meals you ingest.

Composition Of Meals

It has been found that body building and nutrition are related not only in the frequency of meals, but also in what type of food products goes into those meals. What is important here is ratios, more specifically the correct ratios. This relates mostly to the input of carbohydrates and proteins. It has been found ideally the ratios should be 40% carbohydrates, 40% proteins, and 20% fats. Not all fats are good fats but here the fats should be lean fats found in lean meats or plant oils only.

Proteins are essential in the absorptions of amino acids needed to build muscles within the body. Eating carbohydrates will provide your body with the energy needed to get through the workouts. Fats, though they have been given a bad rap recently, are also essential in body building. They are important in many ways, in insulating and coating nerves, as well as providing cushioning for your vital organs during strenuous workouts. For this reason, it is essential to obtain fats into your diet, as a body builder, to help you the most.

Water The Elixer of Life

Sometimes overlooked but still one of the most essential aspects of body building and any nutritional routine is water. Not only a natural thirst quencher but water is vital to your body building success. Water serves many purposes to the body builder. It cools you down after a hard workout. Water helps flush out the toxins that build up in the body. Drinking plenty of water can help control the appetite, and it is suggested that cold water also helps increase metabolism. And of course it is great for removing the build up of external sweat in a refreshing shower after a good workout.