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If you don’t nourish your organism in time with necessary minor and major elements, then it will start to destroy the muscle fibers after the power load to recover the energy, which was expended during the training.
The main question is what and when should I eat for muscles to grow?
This article’s theme – correct training nutrition for bulking.
You will find the recommended practices about nutrition here for it to provide the maximum anabolic effect, i.e. to stimulate the muscle growth.
We destroy our muscle fibers during the training. The process of growth and consequently bulking occurs during the rest and recovery. The extent of bulking depends on the correct postworkout meal. Musculature is the water and proteins, which contains the selection of amino acids. You need energy, proteins, fats and carbos to beef up. Minor and major elements are also necessary, they are the catalyzers (boosters) of various processes, which occur in the organism.
Metabolic window
One of the options of nutrition after the bulking is the postworkout meal in 15-30 minutes after the training. These 15-30 minutes are called the metabolic window. Many people think that organism needs the nutrition, which is being used to accumulate the glycogen in muscles, during this time. GLYCOGEN is the carbohydrate, which is preserved in muscles (it’s expended just like the energy during the training).
- Some people consider this time perfectly appropriate for feeding the organism with proteins, which will help the recovery of damaged muscle fibers.
- Others think that it’s necessary to eat carbs or, as I’ve said above, they will be used to accumulate the glycogen.
- There always is a third option. Coach Alexander Pasko, former bodybuilder, thinks that it doesn’t matter what you eat during this window, because both proteins and carbs will be used to restore the energy, which was expended during the training.
All these recommendations come to the conclusion that you need to eat digestible food in 15-30 minutes after the training. For example, it might be gainer, protein cocktail, or several bananas. You can boldly eat a roll with kefir or milk. Such method of nutrition after the bulking will be to the benefit during the bulking.
There is another opinion about this matter.
Correct nutrition after the weight training
As experience has shown, the postworkout window, when the nutritional substances are digested better, is open for 24 hours, give or take. I.e. you need to plentifully eat proteins, fats, carbs and vitamins with minerals 24 hours after the training. Minerals and vitamins themselves don’t directly influence on the muscle growth. They are the catalysts, their task is to stimulate processes of proteins and other nutrients’ transformation into the muscles.
I.e. you should drink water, desirably mineral one after the bulking to restore the loss of water and minerals at the training. And you should eat the carbs at home in 1-2 hours, for example, potato or rice with proteins (eggs, meat) and it would be nice to add vegetables.
Second meal after the weight training
As you see, you need to eat in 1-2 hours after the bulking. You ratio must contain proteins and carbs to restore the energy. You need to have the second meal in 1-1,5 hours after the bulking, which has to predominantly contain proteins, especially if it’s almost night. It should contain curd, eggs, possibly meat of chicken (however it’s better not to at night), milk, protein cocktail. Everything is based on your preference and pocket.
Attention! If there are 2-3 hours before sleeping after the second meal, then you will have to eat one more time.
Meal before the bedtime
Scientists advise to eat the spoon-food. It might be the protein cocktail. You can eat casein proteins for the night or you can take 150-200 g of skim cheese, it contain casein as well. Thus, you will help the proteins rally and synthesis. In addition, the organism needs energy to heat the body in the sleep, to support the breathing function etc.
What for to eat for the night after the training?
- Firstly, the organism needs the energy, which was already mentioned.
- Secondly, you need to constantly maintain the predominance of energy consumption over its expenditure. You need to gain more energy than you expend. As you understand, we expend our energy in the night as well.
There are two ways out:
- To eat every 2-3 hours, you need to wake up in the night, eat and go back to sleep. This option is for bodybuilding fans. It hardly fits the ordinary people.
- To eat enough food before the sleep, which will be digested for a long time. Carbs won’t do, because there is a risk that they will become a fat. And the slow-acting proteins, for example, casein that is in the curd is the excellent option. It will be gradually released and it will provide your organism with building material for the muscles. Besides, it’s important because the reconstructive and growth processes most intensively occur when we sleep.
Then you need to eat a lot in the next day. If the bulking is your task, then you should consume more calories, then you expend in the day, otherwise there will be no growth. To be more specific, it won’t be so effective.
Meal after the awakening
Breakfast is the most important meal. Some sports dieting experts recommend to eat 50% of the day ration in the morning. For example, Michael Aranson described this in the book «Nutrition for sportsmen». You should read it, it’s a very useful book. So the food, which you eat in the morning, nourishes your organism the whole day. American scientists have come to the conclusion that people who don’t have breakfast, suffer from heart diseases more often. Besides, your organism is starving for 6-10 hours before the breakfast. And the liver works better in the morning.
Drink minimum 250 ml of water right after the awakening for stomach to work better. It’s desirable to use bathroom to clean the intestinal canal of the products of the last day and to prepare it for the work. There will be less waste due to that.
You need to pay the additional attention to your body composition. If you’re slim, then boldly eat the carbs and if you have the surplus of fat streak, then it’s better to raise the calorific capacity by means of proteins. Don’t forget to eat vegetable-based polyunsaturated fat, for example olive oil and the better option – flax oil. Fish oil is also nice, it contains omega 3 fatty acids, which participate in the metabolic processes. You should limit the animal fats, but don’t fully give up on them.
Meal before the weight training
As you’ve already understood, the nutrition before bulking starts early in the morning after the awakening. It’s more
important meal than the one, which is right before the training. You’re asking why? Your organism was starving for 8-10 hours before the breakfast and the meal after the bulking is the nutrition after 2-3-hour starving.
Organism experiences way major deficit than after the bulking. In order to wake the organism, drink some water or liquid carbs and eat the hard carbs and proteins in 15-30 minutes. This might be potato or porridge with meat or porridge – the choice is yours.
Meal just before the weight training
It’s not recommended to eat right before the physical training. Because the blood will flow from the muscles to stomach during the training. Is it so? Yes and no. If you eat the solid food that consists mostly of protein an hour before the training, it will be difficult for organism, because it might need energy not only for lifting the weight, but also for the digestion.
On the other hand, every meal leads to insulin’s (transport hormone) emission to blood, it strengthens the blood flow to the muscles and the oxygen supply, supply of microelements and macroelements, amino acids and other nutrients. In other words, meal before the training strengthens the protein synthesis in the muscles.
Scientist Tipton and others have made an experiment in 2001, which was meant to determine how much the protein synthesis during the training after the liquid meal (protein-carbs cocktail) improves.
It turned out that liquid meal before the training strengthens the protein synthesis minimum twice. They have also carried out the similar experiment about the meal after the training and concluded that the protein synthesis is less than in case of liquid meal before the training.
Conclusion: you not only can, but also should eat a spoon-food, which is well digested to improve the proteins synthesis.
It might be gainer or protein cocktail. You can use the sugar rush, for example, the chocolate.
