The Truth About Calories
What’s up! This truly has been a nasty winter, the roads are a mess outside. At least its warming up though, we got a few feet out this way and its starting to melt off. Anyway I wanted to share this article I wrote a while back, I know that I said the next post was going to be about choosing a routine, but I lied! Sorry, had to get this out because it truly is the cornerstone of achieving your goals and is overlooked most often.
When it comes to adding pure muscle, the primary factor that most people fail to incorporate is proper nutrition. This typically occurs for a number of reasons, from lack of desire or understanding to discouragement at the myriad of choice available. Whatever the rationale, the fact remains that without proper nutrition you are destined to fail, regardless of how much time you spend in the gym.
The good news however is that straightening out your nutritional plan is much easier than you think. In fact if you are trying to build mass, correct intake is deceptively simple. The area that has proven to be the most troublesome is that correct proper diet for building muscle runs squarely against everything you have ever heard on the radio or seen on television.
What Are Calories?
The foundation of any muscle-building diet is calorie intake. Calories should simply be seen as energy that your body uses to maintain its daily functions. If you consume an excess of calories, this energy is stored in the form of fat. Depending on the regularity and size of the meals you eat, your body will store more or less energy. The key to building muscle, and an area that many overlook, is that you must consume more calories than your body needs.
How Many Do I Need?
However weight lifters are always in need of excess calories. This is because if your body spends the majority of energy it receives maintaining basic life processes, it will not have enough additional energy to facilitate creating larger muscles. Though the recommended FDA caloric intake is normalized at 2000 per 24 hour period, in order to build muscle you should eat at least twice this amount, and try to eat at least 4000 calories every day.
What is the Best Way to Get Them?
Doubling your caloric intake is best achieved by eating six meals per day. This has the added benefit of increasing your metabolic rate. In response to thousands of years of adaptation, the human body is continually operating in survival mode. Because it does not know when it will receive its next meal, the body tends to store energy in case it needs it in the future. The best way to counteract this tendency is to “trick” the body by feeding it continuously, reducing its desire to store fat and facilitating muscle growth instead.
While this may seem crazy to many who are already having difficulty loosing fat, it is the truth and has worked for millions of people around the globe regardless of body type or ethnicity. If you are truly serious about changing your image and becoming the person you have always wanted to be, there is no better time than right now to get started.
Well that’s about it. Don’t forget to join the list, and stay warm out there!
~ms