Nutrition for building muscles

Proper nutrition is important for building muscle. If this is your goal, it helps to pay attention to the foods and nutrients that you’re eating to fuel your workouts and recovery.

You also need to challenge yourself in your strength training workouts to stimulate muscles. It’s this small amount of muscle damage that you cause by lifting heavy weights, and subsequent repair, that results in muscle growth and strength gains.  To help fuel this process, here are some of the key nutrients for building muscles.

Protein

Protein is the building block of muscle tissue. You need to consume high-quality protein to promote muscle repair and growth.

High-protein foods include chicken, turkey, beef, fish, tofu, tempeh, and dairy.

Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates provide your body with glucose to fuel your strength training workouts. They also help replenish lost glycogen stores after exercise and regulate blood sugar.

Choose complex carbs, like pasta, rice, bread, oats, buckwheat, quinoa, bread, and potatoes. Avoid foods that are high in simple sugars, like pre-packed and processed foods.

Unsaturated fats

Although fats are sometimes demonized in the media, they are essential for your body’s overall function and muscle growth. Unsaturated fatty acids support heart and brain health and also aid the production of hormones that are required for muscle growth (like testosterone and estrogen).

Unsaturated fatty acids are abundant in oily fish, avocados, nuts, nut butter, seeds and plant oils.