If you are looking for diet tips to gain muscle mass, it is crucial to follow a few strategies, such as consuming more calories than expended, increasing protein intake throughout the day, and consuming more healthy fats.
Moreover, if the goal is to simultaneously lose fat and gain muscle, it is necessary to avoid consuming sugar, white flour, and processed products, while prioritizing the consumption of fresh fruits, vegetables, and whole grains.
In addition to nutrition, regular aerobic exercise is also important to promote muscle growth, and it is advisable to have the guidance of a physical education professional to indicate an appropriate training routine according to the objective.
To increase muscle mass, some diet tips to gain muscle mass are as follows:
Consume a surplus of calories
Consuming a surplus of calories is crucial to expedite muscle growth, as the excess calories combined with workouts will facilitate muscle growth.
To determine the required calorie intake to achieve the desired weight, kindly fill out the calculator provided below:
Do not skip meals
Diet tips to gain muscle mass include the crucial advice of avoiding skipping meals to maintain the required caloric intake throughout the day. Skipping meals can lead to prolonged fasting and trigger muscle loss. To prevent this, it is recommended to have 5-6 meals per day, with emphasis on breakfast and pre and post-workout meals. This helps in maximizing muscle growth and recovery.
Increase Protein Consumption
Augmenting protein intake is imperative to facilitate muscle growth. It is crucial that protein-rich foods are evenly distributed throughout the day, rather than being concentrated in just two or three meals.
These foods are mainly of animal origins, such as meats, fish, chicken, cheese, eggs, and milk and their derivatives. However, proteins can also be found in considerable quantities in legumes such as beans, peas, lentils, peanuts, and chickpeas. Familiarize yourself with foods that are rich in protein.
The types of food to be consumed and the quantity of protein to be consumed per day to increase muscle mass varies depending on the intensity of the physical activity, weight, gender, and age of each person. It may be recommended to consume between 1.5 to 2g/kg of body weight protein.
Furthermore, sometimes it may be necessary to use protein supplements such as Whey Protein and casein, especially post-workout, or to increase the nutritional value of protein-deficient meals throughout the day. Discover the Weight And Muscle Gain Foods.
Consuming good fats
Contrary to popular belief, consuming good fats helps to reduce the accumulation of fat in the body and facilitates the increase of calories in the diet for gaining muscle mass. These fats are present in foods such as avocado, olive oil, olives, peanuts, peanut butter, flaxseed, chestnuts, walnuts, hazelnuts, macadamia nuts, and fish such as tuna, sardines, and salmon.
Throughout the day, these foods can be added to snacks such as crepe recipes, healthy muffins, yogurts, smoothies and main meals.
Hydrating oneself sufficiently
Hydrating oneself sufficiently is highly essential to stimulate hypertrophy, as more water is required to fill the increased size of muscle cells for them to grow. Insufficient water intake may impede muscle mass gain, making it slower and more challenging.
A healthy adult should consume at least 35 ml of water per kg of body weight. Therefore, a person weighing 70 kg should consume at least 2450 ml of water per day. It is important to note that artificially sweetened or sugary drinks such as sodas and alcoholic beverages are not included in this calculation.
Eating a minimum of 2 fruits a day
Eating at least two fruits a day is one of the essential diet tips to gain muscle mass. Consuming fruits provides the necessary vitamins and minerals that promote muscle recovery after workouts. It facilitates quicker muscle regeneration and hypertrophy, helping in building muscle mass.
Furthermore, the vitamins and minerals found in fruits and vegetables are essential for muscle contraction, reducing the sensation of fatigue during workouts, preventing cramps, and strengthening the immune system.
Avoiding sugar and processed foods
Avoiding sugary and highly processed foods is essential for those looking for diet tips to gain muscle mass. This is because consuming such foods can stimulate fat gain in the body, especially when the diet already contains an excess of calories.
To prevent weight gain from fat, it is necessary to remove foods such as sweets, cookies, cakes, toasts, fast food, sausages, bacon, cheddar cheese, and ham or processed meat from the diet.
Abstaining from alcohol consumption
Excessive and regular consumption of alcoholic beverages can reduce protein synthesis, decrease metabolism, and impair the body’s ability to burn fat, which can compromise muscle growth. Therefore, it is important to avoid excessive alcohol consumption.
Consuming complex carbohydrates
Complex carbohydrates are vital for muscle mass formation as they provide energy to the body for the hypertrophy process to take place. Additionally, muscle cells store glucose in the form of glycogen to be used during exercise as energy and for muscle recovery after training.
Therefore, it is crucial to choose the right complex carbohydrates to include in the diet, giving preference to those that are high in fiber, such as rolled oats, quinoa, lentils, chickpeas, beans, peas, sweet potato, potato with skin, brown rice, and whole wheat pasta.
