Work out plan not working? Chances are you’re not eating enough.
You can’t build any muscle – none – if you’re calorie negative. Unless you’re eating more calories than your body needs, you won’t bulk at all.
If you’re naturally skinny, this can be a real issue. Getting calorie positive can be just as much as a challenge as startign a work our routine.
So here’s some short cuts for you. They cut both ways – whether you’re trying to put on weight, or lose fat.
If you eat more protein than carbohydrates or fat, your body is less likely to store fat. So this is good if you’ve bulked already – but not great if you’re just starting off and need to stay calorie positive.
Naturally – if you’re trying to put on fat as well as muscle – don’t be afraid of carbohydrates. Eating them in the evening (and especially late evening) will definitely tell your body to store them as fat.
Likewise, if you’re trying to lose far, just cutting out carbohydrates after 3pm can have dramatic results.
Don’t forget, in all the muscle growth before and after pictures you see, there’s a middle step cut out – the ‘fat’ stage (not that they are fat, but you can see there’s a big comfy layer of padding on them, because the quickest way to grow is to be calorie positive every day).
Naturally, to build muscle, you need lots of protein.
With protein, you burn off about 25% of the calories it contains just digesting it.
Digesting carbohydrates only use up 15% of the calorie value.
Now here’s the best bit. Fat? Pretty much none of it will be burned off when the body digests it.
What’s more, protein doesn’t stimulate much of an insulin response (insulin is a storage hormone). But carbohydrates do.
Protein also simulates the production of glucagon – a hormone that opposes the effects of insulin. Glucagon tells your body to burn fat, not store it.
Now, if your head spinning at this point, it’s really easy:
It doesn’t matter how skinny you are, if you follow any muscle building diet, and add more carbohydrates, chances are you’ll be calorie positive in addition to having a enough protein.
And because you’re eating the right things, you’ll balloon in all the right places.
Remember, if you are calorie negative, the last thing your body will do with protein is build muscle with it. And it will be long gone before it gets to that.
