Good Body Building Foods

Best Bodybuilding foods to eat

Our bodies are complex machines, which demand to be looked after in the best way possible. This means that you have to put the right kind of food, in the right quantities, into it and at the same time show some kind of respect to limits – there is no point hammering away in the gym when you have a pulled muscle because it won’t build as well as it could, and your body will not thank you for the extra pain. Bear in mind that bodybuilding exercise has at least three stages – preparation, activity and recovery. For each of those stages you will need to follow the rules in order to benefit.

To begin with you will need good “energy food” which allows you to maintain the workout. This includes – indeed, is dominated by – carbohydrates, or “carbs” as they are often referred to. This food is like the gasoline that makes a car run, and is there in such foods as rice, pasta, bread and potatoes. It is exactly the kind of food that, without an exercise regime, can make you put on weight. This makes it extra important that you are thorough with the exercise element of your body-building plan.

You will also need proteins. Mostly these come in the form of meat (it must be lean meat) and dairy products. This is the muscle-building part of the diet – think of it as the tune-up that gets extra performance out of your car and gives it that extra grunt. Lean beef or pork – not sausages, and if you want a burger it should be 100% beef – as well as eggs and milk are great sources of protein.

What Not To Eat

Bodybuilding and foods to avoid

An exercise regime will only bear the kind of results you are looking for if you accompany it with the right diet. This is known as a “holistic” approach, where you view every part of your routine in a critical fashion and look to see what you can do to make it the best it can be in every way. If you are studying for an exam, on which questions will be asked on a range of topics, it is all well and good studying heavily on one of those topics to the point where you could answer every question that could be thrown at you on that topic – but if you ignore all the others in doing so, you’ll end up failing.

So it is with bodybuilding. You can be the most committed trainer that there ever has been, and you will effect positive results in some respects. But if you are just eating fries and burgers all of the time, you will not be giving your body some of its most vital nutrients. You will get tired more quickly, train less effectively, and sustain injuries. For this reason it is worth taking a realistic view on diet – cut out the ice cream sundaes for a time, drop the greasy burgers and lay off the beer, too. Alcohol does horrible things to muscle recovery.

Of course, you can work scheduled breaks into your regime – in fact it is probably advisable at the beginning – during which you can treat yourself. Just remember the end goal when you have to get back to training.

What Should You Eat?

Top Foods for Bodybuilding

If you ever watch strongman competitions on the television, you will often see the contestants in a typical clichéd pose next to a kitchen table with their typical daily diet spread over it. Frequently this will include several chickens, enough pasta to feed a family for a week, lots of energy drinks and plenty of veg. Often it will also include some burgers and similar fast food. This is often taken as a sign that these guys can eat as much as they want, and an invitation to the potential bodybuilder to just keep pigging out. The good news is that these guys do generally eat the stuff they say they do. But wait for the bad news.

The fact is that these guys are generally pulling trucks over distances that the average human being would find it hard to carry a couple of liters of milk. To get to the level where you are doing that, you need to be in such prime physical condition that to maintain it requires a routine of physical training that would make the Navy Seals shudder. And to keep up that level of training requires a whole lot of energy.

For the beginning body builder, the opportunity for burgers, fries and sugar-filled drinks will be limited. Meat must be grilled, and come with the fat cut off, at least to begin with. Essentially, when looking at the kitchen table next to that strongman, you can subtract all of the “fun food” and bear in mind that until you have taken your training up a level, you will need to favor the less “exciting” stuff.

Eating The Right Things

Bodybuilding with the right diet

If you are looking to begin bodybuilding, it is important to take into account the role that diet plays in the whole process. Your body is a more complicated machine than any car, without question. Now, would you put fuel that was made cheaply and carelessly into your car at any time? It’s likely that you would not. Would you put that same cheap, poorly made fuel into your car if you were about to take it on a long, demanding tour which would involve punishing driving? Of course not.

Your body requires the same consideration when it comes to refueling. Body building is demanding by its very nature. You are not going to get the toned, sculpted shape that you are after without putting in a lot of work in the gym. Eating badly is not going to make that process any easier, and it will certainly make it less effective. Food is turned into energy by your body, and just as with fuel for a car, different foods will have different energy levels allowing you to go for longer and in more punishing conditions.

So if you are out of shape because you are eating poorly and not exercising enough, just deciding to take up body building without first looking at your diet will be of limited effectiveness. It is as important to change your diet as it is to get down to the gym – perhaps even more so. Getting a good diet and exercise plan locked down will be the absolute minimum effort you require before trying to get that shape you are after.