“You gotta drink a gallon of  milk a day, if you want to get big!”

“Just eat 6 eggs a day! That’s how I gained 10 kilos of pure muscle in 4 weeks!”

Those are both recommendations I’ve heard projected by individuals in the fitness industry. Seriously. Check out the GOMAD (Gallon of Milk a Day) diet if you don’t believe me.

I’m going to cut straight to the point.

There are no muscle-building secrets.

There’s no one food that holds the key to unlocking your “true potential”. No legal supplement that allows you to “add slabs of muscle in 8 weeks!”.

So stop searching. Just stop. I’m not trying to bring you down, I’ve been there. I get it.

I’ve spent more time and energy then any sane young male should researching muscle growth. On how to get better results in less time. What started as reading muscle magazines, moved onto a degree in exercise science and then diving into the rabbit hole of individual studies.

Want to know what the true secrets to building muscle are?

PATIENCE, CONSISTENCY and an ADEQUATE TRAINING STIMULUS. Building an appreciative amount of muscle takes time. During that time, we need to consistently apply an appropriate amount of stimulus, via training, to cause the body to adapt.

What about nutrition?

Nutrition is permissive, not causative of muscle gain.

Or in simple terms, diet supports the goal of muscle growth but it does not, in itself, cause muscle growth. You can follow all the steps below for creating a diet to build maximal muscle, but if you’re not presenting the body with an adequate stimulus then all you’ll be building is some not-so-rock-solid love handles.

Now that we’ve cleared that up, let’s address the nutritional factors within our control that provide the best muscle growth bang-for-buck.

  1. Creating a calorie surplus.

Similar to how the body requires a consistent deficit over time to lose body fat, to build muscle we need a consistent surplus of energy/calories to optimally build muscle.

Think of building muscle as analogous to a construction site. You do a hard, progressive training session in the gym and the message is sent to the muscle (construction site), “alright lads, time to get to work”. Calories are like the workers in this analogy. However, unlike real tradespeople who seem to spend a lot of time sitting on eskies (ohhhh no he didn’t! Just kidding guys), the workers (calories) within the body are constantly being sent all over the body to carry out more important jobs. Like making sure our brain, heart, liver, immune system etc.  are all working as they should be.

Unfortunately, in this scenario, building and repairing muscle is way down the list of jobs the body needs to do. So, to ensure the job is adequately done, we must provide enough workers (calories) to start construction (build muscle).

It’s worth noting, more does not necessarily equal better. While it appears that there may be a relation between total energy consumption and muscle built, there is most certainly a ceiling effect, meaning adding more than necessary does not mean faster growth. In fact, it’s more likely to lead to unnecessary fat gain which will negatively affect your long-term muscle building goals by reducing muscle insulin sensitivity.

Practical Application: Consume enough calories to support growth. Aim for slow weight gain of ~ 0.5-1.5 kg per month.

  1. Eat sufficient Protein.

 Protein, or more accurately, its disassembled form, amino acids, are like the building materials in the analogy above. You can have the blueprints laid out (training), the workers ready to go (be in a calorie surplus), but unless you have the building materials then the body is going to have to source them from somewhere else. Often this is amino acids from other lean body mass!

So how much protein are we talking? While resistance training increases our requirements, being in a calorie surplus also slightly decreases them. Aiming for 1.4-2.0 g /kg of bodyweight per day will be fine. In fact, if you’re someone who struggles with a lack of appetite when trying to build muscle, then keeping protein at the lower end of the range may allow you to hit your calorie goals by reducing its suppressive effect on appetite.

It’s important to note that protein distribution should be taken into consideration too. Typical western diets tend to backload protein intake. That is, we’re notoriously poor at getting enough protein at breakfast, not so bad at lunch and then usually eat a decent serve at dinner. While not conclusive, evidence suggests that spreading our protein intake evenly across the day is likely more beneficial for what the bro’s call “gains”.

Practical Application: Aim to get a decent serve of protein at each meal. Around 25-45 grams 3-6 times per day is a good starting point.

  1. Get enough carbs to fuel effective performance and promote recovery.

 To be honest, once the above two criteria are met, you’re probably already reaping around 60% of the benefits of nutrition for building muscle. However, the amount of carbohydrates you consume can have both a primary and secondary effect on muscle growth via there increase in insulin and there beneficial impact on performance.

Carbohydrates are the major fuel source when it comes to higher intensity exercise, such as resistance training. Keeping your carb reserves, located in your muscle and liver, stocked, may benefit performance as we know that inadequate intake of carbohydrates can impair strength training.

How much should you be consuming? Check out this article to read more on individual amounts.

Practical Application: Consume some form of carbohydrates to ensure optimal performance and recovery. If you’re concerned, start by sandwiching (pun intended) your workouts with carb containing meals.

  1. Meet your minimum fat needs.

While fats are all the rage at the moment for health, they are often de-emphasized for performance and body composition when compared to protein intake and carbs.

Fats are a little bit like the support cast backstage. While they have less of an acute performance effect than carbs they’re important for health and proper hormonal function, as well as multiple essential body functions. In fact, evidence suggests that dietary fat intake can influence anabolic hormone concentrations. In plain English, not eating enough healthy fats can reduce our bodies sex hormone production, which may negatively impact our muscle building potential.

On top of this, if you’re someone who really struggles to eat enough to gain weight, then fats are an easy, tasty and energy dense option.

Practical Application: Consume between 20-40% of your caloric intake from a range of healthy, minimally processed fats such as nuts, avocados, fatty fish, olives, eggs, dairy and olive oil.

  1. Nutrient dense options for optimal health.

It’s hard to make the argument that you’re going to be progressing if you’re constantly sick or injured. As I mentioned at the beginning, consistency, patience and an adequate training stimulus are the true muscle building secrets. If you’re health is compromised and constantly keeping you from the gym then all three of those are going to suffer.

You should already be eating enough calories which in itself will help the bodies immune system. But to ensure everything’s running at full capacity we need to ensure that those calories are coming from a range of nutrient dense, whole food sources.

Often vegetable intake can take a backseat in the diets of individuals who struggle to gain weight. Mainly due to the satiating effect of vegetables, which take up a lot of real estate in the stomach, that could be occupied by more energy dense options. If this sounds like you, then smoothies may be a good option to jam those nutrients in. This doesn’t mean no veggies at meals guys.

Practical Application: Ensure that the majority of your diet is from whole, minimally processed foods. If your struggling to get enough calories in, nutrient packed smoothies smoothies including fruit and vegetables can be a great option.

There you have it.

The 5 dietary foundations for setting yourself up for maximal muscle growth. If you can consistently tick these boxes while also providing an adequate training stimulus, managing stress and getting plenty of sleep, then you’re well on your way to growth!

Struggling to build muscle mass or make measurable progress on your body composition goal? Come see one of our qualified dietitians and get a clear plan for improving body composition and still enjoying life. 

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