Posts Tagged ‘How to build lean muscle’
What You Should Know about Building Lean Muscle
Building lean muscle is based on one simple fact: how much protein and calories you take in everyday. When you weight train and eat properly, with enough protein, you will burn fat and build muscle.
You have to eat smart to cut your body fat and increase your protein consumption. But here’s something else to consider, if you’re not eating right, then you have no reason to be in the gym; you’re actually harming your body if you do.
Here is what you need to do to build lean muscle – keep a daily food journal that counts the fat, protein and carbohydrate calories you are consuming each day.
Once you’ve done this, it is now time to make up a strategy that will allow you to increase your muscles mass while eliminating the addition of fat. The second thing you need to do when learning how to build lean muscle is to determine what your daily protein intake needs to be.
If you weigh 165 lbs, and you want to weigh 185 lbs, then you need to eat like someone who weighs 185 lbs, and the key to that is consuming 1.5 your body weight (or goal body weight) in grams of protein.
So the guy who weighs 165 lbs, but who wants to weigh 185 lbs needs to consume 225 g A DAY to reach that weight and build that lean muscle mass.
225 g of protein is a lot, but not if you’re used to eating that much food. If you increase your dietary intake to say, 5 meals a day, where you get 45 g of protein per meal, you’ll hit your goal. Your consumption must be maintained at that level to retain your body mass. Once you’re eating right, you‘ll need to establish a weight-training routine that gradually builds as you graduate up the scales.
Of course, eating right also means eating smart and by this, we mean selecting menu items that are high in protein, vitamins & minerals, especially Omega-3s (good fat) and low in bad fat. To get the required dosage every day, you might want to try taking a quality protein shake although chicken, tuna and other fishes are also good options.
Carbs, you can take in all the carbs you want just as long as you’re getting the protein that you need, because you’ll be burning lots of carb calories during the workouts which requires an intense cardio routine.
There are lots of healthy carbs on the grocery store shelves, like fruit, vegetables, nuts, and grains, so don’t think that carbs are solely from fastfood. Carbs from junk foods are basically useless, meaning, you will have to get yours from other sources such as fruits and vegetables.
Your goal will be to stay off the junk food, eat the necessary amount of protein everyday and consume quality carbs and fat later.
Now you know the key factors involved in how to build lean muscle mass, don’t forget to take a multi-vitamin every day while you’re working out. This will help you replace the used nutrients while training your body to go as far as it can.