Are you dedicated to your workouts and hoping to build muscles? As long as you put in the work, you should be fine. Or, so they say? But, is that really the truth? Is a two-hour long weight workout all you need to build muscles? Many experts would suggest that your diet is as important and if not done right will create some significant roadblocks.
You may see some improvements by simply working out, but eating right can really help you gain better results and help you reach your goals. To help you plan your meals better to see faster gains at the gym, avoid the following foods, so you can see healthy muscle gain and not unhealthy fat gain.
Fried Foods
Staying away from fried foods can be difficult, but it’s so important to avoid during a mass gaining training period. If you really want to see improvements at the gym, it’s best that you cut your favorite fried foods out of your diet—at least for the most part.
From fried wings to French fries and all the myriad of greasy food so prevalent in American diets, foods made with heavy amounts of saturated fat are not going to help you gain muscle. You don’t want to gain fat and especially not unhealthy fat when you’re working towards muscle gain.
Dried Fruit
Fruit? It’s healthy, right? It may be in its natural form, but dried fruit that you get in many breakfast cereals is going to contain a lot of sugar. Everyone knows that excess sugar turns to fat and eating too much dried fruit is going to increase your blood sugar levels with sudden spikes.
While the calories might help, to get that full toned body you want to burn away fat. And you can only do that when your body doesn’t have large amounts of glucose available.
Ice Cream
This may be a hard one for you to ignore, but you’re going to have to if you really want to see improvement at the gym. Ice cream just isn’t your friend if you’re hoping to see muscle gain.
It’s an unhealthy combination of sugar, calories, and fat and unless you’re a real slim, trim person who needs a bit more weight to transfer to muscle, this isn’t the treat that you want to binge on if you want to see better muscle gains.
Ham
Protein is great for muscle gain, but before you rush to the supermarket to buy your favorite ham, processed farm meats are not a good option. If you want to get healthy protein, you’re going to have to turn to foods like chicken, beef, and fish, and not to your favorite slices of sandwich meat. Sorry!
Beer
Beer is probably one of the most difficult things to avoid when you’re trying to bulk up at the gym, but it’s also one of the most important things to avoid. Beer bloats you, it stunts muscle growth, and it’s full of empty calories. While you may be able to enjoy one or two at the weekend, avoid beer as much as possible if you really want to see results at the gym.
White Bread
You may already have a tough time hitting the gym on a daily basis due to your energy level. Do you know what’s going to make it even tougher? White bread. It’s really bad for your blood glucose levels which means that you are going to get low energy after eating it and maybe even an increase in your appetite. Does that sound like something that you want to do to your muscle gaining goals?
Juices And Soda
If you’re someone who runs to the gas station or grocery store when thirsty, be careful what you’re buying. If it’s a soda, say no right away. If it’s a juice, is it actually a natural one that you’re reaching out for. A
s much as juice makers like to say “all-natural” on their labels, take a closer look at what is inside those juices. Most of the time, they have more sugar than you could imagine in them. Also avoid anything from concentrate, as it’s much too highly processed.
Conclusion
If you’re hoping to get bigger and work towards more muscle at the gym, you need to know how to eat right. The above foods may seem tempting, but they won’t do any good for your training needs.
As much as you want to eat these foods, think about the gains you’ll get from not eating them. If you must have an ice cream or ham sandwich every now and then, save it for your cheat day.
Eat good foods for optimal results from your workout. And if you need a little calorie boost, then some mass gaining supplements are a great options (click here for more info).
It’s all about the discipline.
