Muscle Building Nutrition: Everything You Need to Know About Proper Nutrition for Muscle Building

With the right muscle building diet, everyone can make progress, even if it seems impossible. Because only the combination of the right diet and an individually adapted training plan creates the optimal conditions for gaining muscle mass effectively.

Muscle growth depends on many factors. For example, how much protein you consume has a significant impact. If you also have a few quick recipes on hand that provide you with energy in your everyday sporting life, almost nothing can go wrong. We will examine this and much more in this post to support you in your sporting goals in the best possible way.

How important is nutrition when building muscle?

Nutrition plays an extremely important role in building muscle. On the one hand, a healthy diet ensures a strong immune system and thus protects you from infectious diseases. On the other hand, only a sufficient level of carbohydrates, fats, and proteins ensures a state of your body in which it can effectively build muscle.

In addition to muscle-building training, proteins in particular are essential for actually gaining muscle mass. Ideally, you should know your protein requirements . There are numerous more or less complex calculation methods for this. The easiest and most accurate way to achieve this is with the following:

Daily protein requirement = body weight in kilograms * 1.6

However, the factor by which you ultimately multiply your body weight depends on a number of factors. While 0.8 grams per kilogram of body weight is already enough for people who only want to maintain their weight and do little sport , this is different for very active people.

Especially in strength sports , it is recommended to consume between 1.6 and 2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight . These values are associated with increased protein synthesis and can thus effectively support you in building muscle ^​1 .

Optimal nutrition for muscle building

As we have now established, it is important for muscle building to rely on a healthy diet. But what exactly does an optimal diet look like? Do you need dietary supplements, protein shakes, and more?

Since more calories are burned, especially on training days, these should ideally be compensated based on an optimal macronutrient distribution . This means consuming adequate amounts of energy-providing carbohydrates, fats, and proteins. What the optimal distribution looks like exactly, we will examine in the next two chapters.

But first, let's take a quick look at dietary supplements and their usefulness. When it comes to building muscle, post-workout shakes with protein powder are a contentious topic. Some studies show that it builds more muscle, while others have found no difference from other sources of protein.

The only dietary supplement for which the study situation indicates relatively clearly that it has a positive effect on strength and the hypertrophy effect is creatine ^​2,3​ . This provides your body with quickly available energy for high-intensity workouts and can thus lead to new stimuli to grow your muscle cells.

One last look before we go into detail: let's focus on the excess calories . Because in the practice of strength training, it is always recommended to consume more calories than are burned. Although the study situation in this area is cautious with recommendations, in general, an additional requirement of 300 to 500 grams can be assumed ^​4 .

Nutrition muscle building man

Let's go into a little more detail and start with the carbs . For male strength athletes, around 4 to 7 grams per kilogram of body weight are recommended ^​5 . For an athlete weighing 75 kilograms, this can be 500 grams of carbohydrates – not just a few.

You should therefore make sure to rely on plenty of carbs at breakfast ; preferably on complex carbohydrates that provide you with energy in the long term.

As far as protein requirements are concerned, as a man, you should make sure to consume around 1.6 to 1.7 g of protein per kilogram of body weight. However, the exact amount depends on many factors. Among other things, the quality of the proteins consumed is crucial. You should therefore always ensure that your protein sources have a beneficial amino acid profile. The essential amino acids are particularly important.

There are hardly any recommendations for an exact amount of fats. Instead, it is advisable to simply supplement the remaining calories, i.e., those that are not covered by the proteins and carbohydrates, with calories from fat sources. The following applies: rely primarily on unsaturated fatty acids . Omega-3 fatty acids are an important source of fat.

Nutrition muscle building woman

Unlike men, women usually need a lower amount of carbohydrates . This is because they are less likely to empty their carbohydrate stores during exercise. There is hardly any exact recommendation, but 3 to 5 grams per kilogram of body weight should probably be sufficient ^​6 .

On the other hand, you should pay much more attention to protein intake . The recommended amounts of 1.4 to 1.8 grams per kilogram of body weight are usually derived from male-dominated studies but are just as useful for women.

It is particularly important for strength athletes to distribute the proteins well throughout the day in order to best support the muscle-building effects. Adequate protein intake before and after training seems to be extremely useful.

As far as fats are concerned, there are many myths that like to mislead. Keeping fat intake to a minimum for fear of gaining weight is common practice. However, this does not really make sense – because fats play an essential role, especially in hormone balance . Instead, make sure you consume at least 15 percent of your calories in the form of healthy, polyunsaturated fatty acids ^​6 .

The right foods for building muscle

As we have now established, as an ambitious strength athlete, you need quite a large amount of calories. However, to maximize your success, you should not involuntarily rely on high-calorie foods. We are therefore looking at the best foods that can help you build muscle.

By the way, protein sources with a high biological value are mainly regarded as high-quality protein. The reason for this is that these proteins can be better converted into the body's own proteins, such as muscles.

Paying attention to the concept of biological value is particularly important if you eat a purely plant-based diet as a vegan. Since this usually involves small amounts of protein, you should make sure to rely on high-quality protein. For example, rice and pea proteins can be combined well to achieve a high biological value.

Muscle Building: Finding Energy Balance

As we noted at the beginning, a positive calorie balance is very important for muscle building. However, in order to do this, you first need to know your calorie needs.

The calculation is based on two factors. For one thing, you need to know your basal metabolic rate ; that is, the amount of calories burned at rest. On the other hand, your calorie requirements depend on how physically active you are in your everyday life. This is calculated using a PAL value, the so-called energy expenditure.

In order not to have to make a great calculation now, you can easily use our Verival calorie calculator . This allows you to calculate your calorie requirements in no time and create a positive energy balance.

Muscle Building Nutrition Recipes

To give you a little inspiration on how to meet your energy needs in a healthy and delicious way, we have prepared a few recipes for you. Although we cannot offer you a full muscle-building nutrition plan, we can offer you some extremely tasty recipes that are full of healthy protein suppliers.

Covered green protein waffles with tomatoes

You can top up your protein snack as you please. We want to show you two simple and quickly prepared variants.

Ingredients

• 1 Green Protein Waffle
• 4-5 cocktail tomatoes
• ¼ onion
• Basil
• Olive oil
• Sea salt

Preparation

• Cut the tomatoes and onion into small cubes and mix with a dash of olive oil and sea salt.
• Top the Green Protein Waffle with the mix and add a little basil.

High protein nicecream with crispy muesli

Preparation time 10 min.

Total time 10 min.

Servings: 1

Ingredients

• 2 frozen bananas
• 1 tbsp flaxseed
• 40 ml oat milk
• 1 tsp cocoa powder
• 1 tsp almond sauce
• 200 g Skyr or low-fat quark
• 3 tbsp Verival crispy muesli

Preparation

• First, place the frozen bananas with the oat milk in a blender.
• Mix the two ingredients on a low setting.
• Next, add the flaxseed, almond sauce, cocoa powder, and the skyr or skim curd.
• Then mix all the ingredients well until a creamy consistency is formed.
• Then fill the nice cream into a bowl and top your healthy ice cream with some banana and crispy muesli.

Nutty Porridge Brownies

Preparation time 10 min.

Cook Time 35 min.

Total time 45 min.

Servings: 12

Calories: 211.8 kcal

Ingredients

For the dough

• 30 g crushed flaxseed
• 120 ml hot water
• 100 g dark chocolate 70%
• 45 g coconut oil
• 125 g ground almonds
• 30 g Verival Sport porridge cocoa banana
• 70 g cocoa powder
• 2 tsp Reinweinstein baking powder
• 1 pinch of salt
• 100 g raw cane sugar
• 80 ml hot water

For topping

• 120 g coarsely chopped hazelnuts

Preparation

• Preheat the oven to 180°C circulating air and line a rectangular baking pan (approx. 32cm x 24cm) with baking paper so that it protrudes slightly on the sides.
• Prepare the egg substitute: Mix the flax seeds with 120 ml of hot water and leave to swell for 5 min.
• Place chocolate and coconut oil in a heat-resistant bowl and slowly melt over a water bath.
  
• Mix ground almonds, porridge, cocoa powder, baking powder, salt, and sugar in a bowl.
  
• Add swollen flaxseed, chocolate mixture, and 80ml of hot water and mix briefly with a dough scraper or wooden spoon until all ingredients have combined.
  
• Pour the dough into the prepared form and smooth.
  
• Coarsely chop the hazelnuts and then spread evenly on the dough.
• Bake the dough for about 35 minutes and then let it cool for at least 20 minutes.

• Then carefully remove from the mould and cut into 12 pieces.

Nutritional values

Calories: 211.8 kcal | Carbohydrates: 16.4 g | Protein: 4.4 g | Fat: 13.4 g

References