DIET: THE FOUNDATION FOR DEVELOPMENT

Where diet is concerned, proteins are the fundamental nutrient for the bodybuilder. Some bodybuilders highlight the importance of carbohydrates –which they are so- and there are even ones who champion high-fat diets, which have been proven to offer certain advantages.

However, it’s been made patently clear that proteins are the instrumental macronutrient in the formation of muscle tissue and the repair of those demolished on a daily basis. Without proteins the body is unable to carry out the repairs, and the bodybuilder cannot achieve their prime objective: to build extra muscle.

Weight training wears away muscle fibres, which the body must mend afterwards, and in the wake of the over-compensation process these fibres are not just repaired, but also built thicker and stronger to reinforce them in anticipation of a further onslaught in the future. That’s how the development process works, but protein is the
material required for this repair and redevelopment, so you either have plenty of it in your diet or you miss out. In other words muscles aren’t put together with thin air but with proteins.

The food we eat each day fuels the “human machine,” for thanks to the food we acquire the necessary calories for the body to go about its vital functions and us to carry out our daily tasks.

Calories, as you’ll be aware, come from the three macronutrients: proteins, carbohydrates and fats.
Proteins and carbohydrates contain four calories per gram, whereas the same measure of fats will give you nine.

The job of the carbohydrates and fats is to provide us with energy. Carbohydrates are the main source of energy and all of the body’s cells will opt for these over fats. However, when the body has no need for carbohydrates it stores them as fat and saves them for a future occasion on which it might need energy. It could be said
that the body is slower to use the fat up as energy, but that this energy does last longer.
Calories surplus to requirements join the existing adipose tissue (fat under the surface).
Proteins can also be employed for energy Today, both professionals and standard
bodybuilders are aware that if they fail to observe an appropriate diet, tailored to their objectives, then no matter how much they pound the weights it will be to little or no avail.
Theory doesn’t come into it: these are facts confirmed by millions of bodybuilders.
Furthermore, it has been illustrated time and time again that serious training is required to urge the development, but that without the right nutrients in the right quantities, this exercise will stray into the realms of overtraining. Exhaustion
will overcome you and the body will begin to part with muscle tissue, even allowing illness to creep in if you persist with all this graft and don’t have a diet to match the exertion.

Besides, if your diet is inappropriate you’ll have a tough job keeping up the intensity of your training, since our food provides us with the energy to make this possible. So if your body doesn’t have nutrients of the finest quality and in the correct quantities, not only will it refuse to build a single scrap of muscle, but also forbid you from training at a certain intensity regularly. when the body has no carbohydrates. Then they become glucose as a result of the process known as “glycogenesis.” However, they’re a poor source as such compared to carbohydrates, and even to fats. The true function of proteins is plastic, for they mend and form all bodily structures, from the skin, hair and internal organs to the muscles and enzymes themselves.
A sound diet must be perfectly balanced,comprising all three macronutrients in the
correct proportions. Yes we’ve said that proteins are the primary one for bodybuilders, but that’s not a licence to be slack with the other two, or to
disregard them all together even. Carbohydrates and fats are in fact crucial to a bodybuilder as well as for day-to-day survival. It’s their proportion within the diet, one which varies according to our personal features and goals, that stands at the core of it all. This proportion won’t be the same for a 20-year old student
weighing 60kg (132lbs) at a height of 5’9”, who has all the comforts of home and is looking to put as much muscle together as possible, as it
will for a 40-year old father of three, weighing 90kg (198lbs) and standing 5’4”, in full-time employment and aiming to slim down. That’s why I’m totally against those stereotypical diets which publications passing themselves off as health and fitness magazines tend to present us.

Some food tips in this muscle video
by Greg Kaufman