Okay, I’m not sure how many times I have said this before but here it is again anyway; diet is one of the three main pillars to stacking on huge amounts of muscle.

You will not grow if you don’t eat like your life depends on it. It accounts for approximately 50% of the muscle building formula.

Because it is so important and yet so neglected, it makes it the part of muscle building where the biggest and most frequent mistakes are made. It is also where most people give up too.

When we say you have to eat to grow we mean it. We promise that if you want to put on muscle as efficiently as possible you are going to have to eat when you don’t feel like eating, eat when you’re not hungry enough to eat and eat when you don’t have time to eat.

You wanna put on muscle right? Then EAT, EAT, EAT!

We’ll give you some simple formulas for figuring out the perfect muscle building diet for you. We’ll divide it up for you into 5 basic points. We’re going to be brief, we’re just trying to get you pointed in the right direction.

The points will be:

1. finding your perfect daily caloric intake
2. factoring in the carbs
3. factoring in the protein
4. the importance of essential fats
5. the muscle building diet schedule.

First, finding your perfect caloric intake for the day is easy. Times your body weight by 16 and start with this number (eg. 200 lbs x 16 = 3200 calories).

Genetically, unless you are a freak of nature, you will not be able to put on any more than two pounds of muscle per week. So, if you gain more than that then cut your calories back by 250 per day until you are gaining 1 – 2 lbs per week.

If you are on the other end of the spectrum and you are not even gaining 1 lb per week then try adding 250 calories per day to your diet. Calories are energy and they are what your body needs to recover from training and grow.

Second, carbohydrates are an essential part of a muscle building diet. Too many diets exclude the importance of carbohydrates today and thereby fail to provide the body with an essential part of its muscle building necessities.

Carbohydrates will allow your body to better utilize the protein in your diet to do it’s muscle repairing, muscle building work. You should start with 3-4 grams of carbs a day per pound of body weight. If your body fat percentage is higher and you are looking to get leaner too then stick to the lower end.

If you find you are not reducing body fat percentage after the first couple of weeks then try dropping by another 1/2 – 1 gram of carbs per pound of body weight per day.

Thirdly, unlike the bull crap supplement companies will tell you about eating 3 – 5 grams of protein per day per pound of body weight try 1 gram per pound of body weight per day. 3 – 5 grams… that’s ridiculous.

For a 200 lb guy that would be 20 – 30 cans of tuna a day….BARF! First, you’re body is simply not capable of processing that amount of protein per day.

Second, if you are utilizing carbs in your muscle building diet like you should be you will need no more than 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. Protein it what your body will use to repair what you’ve done to your muscle during training and cause them to grow.

Fourth is essential fats.

They are not called essential for no reason. Contrary to what you might think, your body cannot build muscle without essential fats.

This is also a good way to help you hit your calories for the day. Try taking a spoon full of flax oil, or extra virgin cold pressed olive oil with every meal. Not only will this help you hit your calories it will provide your body with what it needs to grow and develop muscle.

Lastly, the schedule. First, start your day with a good size breakfast. It really is the most important meal of the day. You should never go more than 3 hours without a meal right up until bed time.

Be sure to include a part of your daily protein with every meal. On training days you should take a carb and protein shake 20 minutes or so before training and always eat immediately after a workout.

If you can’t eat because you feel nauseous after a workout try another meal shake.

Finally let us recommend some foods that we consider to be some of the best muscle building foods from each category.

For carbohydrates we recommend that you definitely include oatmeal in your diet. Yams / sweet potatoes are also tremendously beneficial.

Get away from white bread and switch to whole grain.

For protein, no doubt egg whites are the standard. Their protein is very easily absorbed by the body. In fact, the quality of almost all other sources of protein are explained in their comparison to egg white protein.

Another great source of protein is cottage cheese. This is great to include in your bed time meal because the protein in cottage cheese is a slower digesting protein which makes its benefit to the body last throughout the night. The oils mentioned above are a great source of essential non-saturated fats.

Finally, be always sure to provide your body with the essential nutrients contained in fresh fruit and vegetables. They should be included in every meal you have throughout the day.

Okay, so there’s the basic run down. Obviously there is much more detail that is important too but these are the basics of the muscle building diet.

We promise that if you are having difficulty building muscle and are not eating like this it is the primary reason you are not meeting your goals. Train hard, eat like a horse and get plenty of rest. These are the three pillars of muscle building.

Now, its time to turn this into action. Get at it, you’ll grow, we promise.

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