Body Building Diet - Health Care Department California

Body Building Diet

All is about balance and nutrition

In body building, your diet is one of the most effective weapons you can have if you want to achieve maximum potential. Diet is so important to the body builder as it not only supplies the body with the energy needed to perform your exercises as well as giving you the nutrients you need to maintain a healthy lifestyle.

A good body building diet will include a lot of protein. It is critical for building muscle, losing fat, and contributing to the overall health of our tissues and organs. You should be consuming 1 gram of protein for each pound of your body weight. Body builders should increase that amount to a gram and a half per day. Good sources of protein include meat, fish, and milk.

Carbohydrates should also be a big part of the body building diet. Carbs are a major source of the fuel our body uses for activity. You should include complex carbohydrates in your diet through starches and fiber. That means eating pasta, whole grain rice, and whole grain breads as well as potatoes.

Believe it or not, fats are also an important part of a body building diet. Our bodies need fats to function correctly and efficiently. They are an energy source for the body and regulate most of our bodily processes.

The key for including fat in your diet is to consume the good fats as opposed to the bad one. Good fats are unsaturated ones found in olive oil or flaxseed oil. Unsaturated fats are ones that are liquid at room temperature. Saturated fats can clog your arteries and lead to health problems, so they should be avoided as much as possible. Animal lard and butter are saturated fats and are solid at room temperature.

You should also have adequate fiber in your body building diet. Fiber helps your body flush out impurities on a regular basis and helps contribute to weight loss. Some good sources of fiber are whole grain as well as nuts and seeds.

Finally, you will want to include a lot of vegetables in your diet as well as a moderate amount fruit. Fruit can cause you to retain water and contribute to a larger amount of sugar that you would otherwise need. However, vegetables contain essential vitamins and nutrients that you body needs to operate efficiently.

A good body building diet is one that is balanced and nutritious. You should consume the majority of your protein and carbohydrates in the morning and eat five or six small meals daily instead of three large ones. A good diet is important to effective body building, so know what your body needs and then go for it.