With the right muscle-building nutrition, everyone makes progress, no matter how impossible it seems. Only the combination of the right nutrition and an individually tailored training plan creates the optimal conditions for effectively gaining muscle mass.
Muscle growth depends on many factors. For example, how much protein you consume has a major influence. If you also have a few quick recipes on hand to keep you energized during your daily exercise routine, you're good to go. We'll look at this and much more in this article to help you achieve your fitness goals.
How important is nutrition when building muscle?
Nutrition plays an extremely important role in muscle building. On the one hand, a healthy diet helps to strengthen the immune system and thus protects you from infectious diseases. On the other hand, only a sufficient amount of carbohydrates, fats and proteins ensures that your body is in a state in which it can effectively build muscle.
In addition to muscle-building training, proteins are essential to actually gain muscle mass. Ideally, you should know your protein requirement. There are numerous more or less complex calculation methods for this. The easiest and quite accurate way is as follows:
daily protein requirement = body weight in kilograms * 1.6
However, the factor by which you ultimately multiply your body weight depends on a number of factors. While 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is enough for people who just want to maintain their weight and do little exercise, the situation is different for very active people.
Particularly for strength training, it is recommended to consume between 1.6 and 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight. These values are associated with increased protein synthesis and can thus effectively support you in building muscle 1 .
Optimal nutrition for muscle building
As we have now established, it is important to eat a healthy diet to build muscle. But what exactly does an optimal diet look like? Do you need dietary supplements, protein shakes and the like?
Since more calories are burned on training days in particular, these should ideally be compensated for on the basis of an optimal macronutrient distribution. This means consuming sufficient amounts of energy-supplying carbohydrates, fats and proteins. In the next two chapters, we will look at exactly what the optimal distribution looks like.
The ideal diet for athletes – find out more
But first, let's take a quick look at dietary supplements and their usefulness. When it comes to muscle building, post-workout shakes with protein powder are a controversial topic. Some studies show that they increase muscle building, while others could not find any difference to other protein sources.
The only dietary supplement for which the studies are relatively clear that it has a positive effect on strength and hypertrophy is creatine 2,3. This provides your body with quickly available energy for high-intensity workouts and can thus lead to new stimuli to make your muscle cells grow.
Before we go into detail, we should take a final look at the calorie surplus. This is because in strength training, it is always recommended to consume more calories than you burn. Although the study situation in this area is cautious with recommendations, in general, an additional requirement of 300 to 500 grams can be assumed 4 .
Nutrition Muscle building Man
Let's now go into a little more detail and start with the carbs. For male strength athletes, around 4 to 7 grams per kilogram of body weight is recommended 5. For an athlete weighing 75 kilograms, that could easily be 500 grams of carbohydrates – not exactly a small amount.
You should therefore make sure that you eat a lot of carbohydrates at breakfast; ideally complex carbohydrates that will keep you energized for longer.
Sport breakfast from Verival – discover more
As for your protein needs, as a man you should aim to consume around 1.6 to 1.7 g of protein per kilogram of body weight. However, the exact amount depends on many factors. Among other things, the quality of the proteins consumed is crucial. You should therefore always make sure that your protein sources have a favorable amino acid profile. The essential amino acids, in particular, are important here.
There are hardly any recommendations for an exact amount of fat. Instead, it is recommended to simply fill up the remaining calories, i.e. those not covered by proteins and carbohydrates, with calories from fat sources. The rule here is to primarily rely on unsaturated fatty acids. Omega-3 fatty acids, for example, are an important source of fat.
Nutrition Muscle building Woman
Unlike men, women usually do not need quite as much carbohydrate. This is because they deplete their carbohydrate stores less during training. There is no hard and fast rule for women, but 3 to 5 grams per kilogram of body weight should be sufficient 6.
On the other hand, you should pay much more attention to your protein intake. The recommended amounts of 1.4 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight are mostly derived from male-dominated studies, but are just as useful for women.
It is particularly important for female strength athletes to spread their proteins well throughout the day in order to best support the muscle-building effects. A sufficient protein intake before and after training seems to make a lot of sense.
Proteins for women - what you need to know
As far as fats are concerned, there are many myths that can be misleading. It is common practice to keep fat intake to a minimum for fear of weight gain. However, this is not really sensible – because fats play an essential role in hormone balance. Instead, you should make sure that you consume at least 15 percent of your calories in the form of healthy, polyunsaturated fatty acids 6.
The right foods for muscle building
As we have now established, as an ambitious strength athlete, you need a fairly large amount of calories. However, to maximize your success, you shouldn't just rely on high-calorie foods. So, we'll look at the best foods that can help you build muscle.
| Plenty of complex carbohydrates | Plenty of healthy fatty acids | Plenty of high-quality proteins |
| Whole grain cereals (whole grain bread, pasta, oats) | Nuts (especially walnuts) | Nuts and seeds (chia and flax seeds) |
| Pseudocereals (quinoa, buckwheat) | Fruit (avocado) | Dairy products (cottage cheese, low-fat quark), fish & poultry meat (chicken, turkey) |
| Vegetables (potato, sweet potato) | Vegetable oils (olive oil, rapeseed oil) | Legumes (peanuts, lentils, beans, soy, chickpeas) |
| Fruit (berries) | Fish (salmon) | Vegetables (e.g., broccoli or spinach) |
Incidentally, sources of protein with a high biological value are considered to be high-quality proteins. The reason for this is that these proteins can be better converted into the body's own protein, such as muscles.
It is particularly important to consider the concept of biological value if you are a vegan and eat a purely plant-based diet. Since vegans usually consume small amounts of protein, you should make sure to eat high-quality protein. For example, rice and pea proteins go well together to achieve a high biological value.
Muscle building: finding out your energy balance
As we stated at the beginning, a positive calorie balance is very important for muscle building. However, to implement this, you first need to know your calorie requirements.
The calculation is based on two factors. Firstly, you need to know your basal metabolic rate, i.e. the number of calories burned at rest. On the other hand, your calorie requirement depends on how physically active you are in your everyday life. This is calculated using the so-called active metabolic rate as a PAL value.
To avoid having to do a lot of calculations, you can simply use our Verival calorie calculator. This way, you can calculate your calorie requirement in no time and create a positive energy balance in a targeted way.
Muscle-building nutrition recipes
To give you a little inspiration on how you can meet your energy needs in a healthy and tasty way, we have prepared a few recipes for you. We can't offer you a complete muscle-building nutrition plan, but we can offer you some extremely tasty recipes that are full of healthy protein.
Green Protein Waffles with Tomatoes
You can top your protein snack however you like. We'll show you two easy and quick options.
Ingredients
- 1 Green Protein Waffle
- 4-5 cherry tomatoes
- ¼ onion
- Basil
- Olive oil
- Sea salt
Preparation
- Finely dice the tomatoes and onion and mix with a dash of olive oil and sea salt.
- Top the Green Protein Waffle with the mixture and add a little basil.
High Protein Nicecream with Crunchy Muesli
Preparation time 10 mins.
Total time 10 mins.
Servings: 1
Ingredients
- 2 frozen bananas
- 1 tbsp flaxseed
- 40 ml oat milk
- 1 tsp cocoa powder
- 1 tsp almond butter
- 200 g skyr or low-fat quark
- 3 tbsp Verival Crunchy Muesli
Preparation
- First put the frozen bananas and the oat milk in a blender.
- Blend the two ingredients on a low setting.
- Next, add the flaxseed, almond butter, cocoa powder and skyr or low-fat quark.
- Then blend all the ingredients well until you get a creamy consistency.
- Pour the nicecream into a bowl and top your healthy ice cream with a little banana and crunchy muesli.
Sources
- 1.Stokes T, Hector A, Morton R, McGlory C, Phillips S. Recent Perspectives Regarding the Role of Dietary Protein for the Promotion of Muscle Hypertrophy with Resistance Exercise Training. Nutrients . Published online February 7, 2018:180. doi: 10.3390/nu10020180
- 2.Farshidfar F, Pinder MA, Myrie SB. Creatine Supplementation and Skeletal Muscle Metabolism for Building Muscle Mass- Review of the Potential Mechanisms of Action. CPPS. Published online October 9, 2017. doi: 10.2174/1389203718666170606105108
- 3.Nunes JP, Ribeiro AS, Schoenfeld BJ, et al. Creatine supplementation elicits greater muscle hypertrophy in upper than lower limbs and trunk in resistance-trained men. Nutr Health. Published online December 2017:223-229. doi: 10.1177/0260106017737013
- 4.Slater GJ, Dieter BP, Marsh DJ, Helms ER, Shaw G, Iraki J. Is an Energy Surplus Required to Maximize Skeletal Muscle Hypertrophy Associated With Resistance Training. Front Nutr. Published online August 20, 2019. doi: 10.3389/fnut.2019.00131
- 5.Slater G, Phillips SM. Nutrition guidelines for strength sports: sprinting, weightlifting, throwing events, and bodybuilding. Journal of Sports Sciences. Published online January 2011: S67-S77. doi: 10.1080/02640414.2011.574722
- 6.Volek JS. Nutritional aspects of women strength athletes. British Journal of Sports Medicine. Published online July 6, 2006:742-748. doi: 10.1136/bjsm.2004.016709
Frequently asked questions
How much do I have to eat to build muscle?
In general, a calorie surplus is recommended to effectively gain muscle mass. You should add around 300 to 500 calories to your calorie requirement. It's best to weigh yourself regularly to track the effects on your body and adjust the calorie surplus to your body.
Which fruit is good for muscles?
After strength training, you should opt for fruits that provide you with plenty of quickly available energy. These can be bananas or berries, for example. The only important thing is that the fruit is easy to digest so as not to put too much strain on your stomach after exercise. Incidentally, the same also applies to your pre-workout.
Which vegetables are good for your muscles?
Vegetables that are high in protein are particularly good for building muscle. These include whole grains, but green vegetables such as spinach and broccoli are also excellent. In addition, most vegetables contain important vitamins and minerals that keep you healthy and help you perform well.
What should you eat to build muscle and lose fat?
It is extremely difficult to build muscle and lose fat at the same time. To build muscle, you need high-calorie foods with plenty of healthy fatty acids, complex carbohydrates and high-quality proteins. If, on the other hand, you want to lose fat, you should eat fewer calories and choose foods that are high in protein to maintain your muscle mass. This could be, for example, lean meat or low-fat quark.
