September 1, 2010
The Bodybuilding Diet Plan and Gaining Muscle
Contrary to what the fitness experts would have you believe a bodybuilding diet does not need to contain crazy amounts of protein. The average currently suggested is one gram of protein per pound of body weight. That works out to roughly 200 grams per day if you are a 200 pound man. If you compare this to the recommendation shown in the body building magazines, it’s a really low number.
The recommendation by the RDA for Protein for Adults is .8 gram per kilogram of body weight.
That would translate to about 64 grams if you’re weighing 175 pounds. So why is it these numbers are so widely varied? Well first of all the RDA’s sugestion is based on research studying college aged men. Their recommended amounts of protein are based on keeping the nitrogen balances of these young men at a stable level. Unfortunately, nitrogen balance is not a 100% proven way to predict muscle gain or muscle loss. So this probably wouldn’t be a good protein intake estimation for the body building diet.
The AMDR recommends that 10%-35% of daily calories should be protein.
This makes the amount of protein you eat dependent upon how many calories you consume in a day. The AMDR stands for Acceptable Macronutrient Distribution Range and it was established by the Institute of Medicine in 2005. The issue with this recommendation is that it is a rather large range. Neither this recommendation or the RDA takes into account . A person who is exercising actively needs to incorporate this factor into their body building diet plans.
So is doesn’t seem like the AMDR or the RDA are much help when it comes to creating a body building diet for someone.
You’ll find some of the various body building magazines will suggest going as high as 2 grams of protein for every pound of body weight. That means a 175 pound man would have to consume 350 grams of protein per day! Let’s face it, body building magazines aren’t the most neutral parties. Selling ads to various advertisers is their main source of income. In turn, protein is the top supplement that the advertisers are selling. There is no doubt that recommending 2 grams of protein per pound of body weight is a lot more than is required.
Did you know that the more protein you eat, the better you are able to digest it?
Here’s a weird body fact; if you eat large amounts of protein at every meal, your body becomes used to it and has an easier time absorbing it. However, if you are NOT use to eating a lot, you’ll find ingesting a high protein meal will result in upsetting your stomach due to your body not being able to digest it. Most people assume that the more protein you digest the more muscle you will build, but it’s not that easy.
Just because you consume ten times more protein than you normally would doesn’t mean you will build ten times more muscle.
Research has shown that the more protein you eat, the more your body switches to using amino acids as fuel. Your body uses protein, fat, and carbs for fuel. It will simply adjust what it burns for energy depending upon what you eat. So there is a certain level beyond which more protein just won’t make a difference - so how do you determine how much is right for your body building diet?
There are studies which show that consuming 70-120 grams of protein per day is optimal for muscle gain.
Brad Pilon wrote a whole book on this topic called “How Much Protein”. He compared several studies and found that between 0.55 to 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight would be enough for exceptional muscle gains. In fact he quotes several studies that show that anything over 120 grams of protein per day didn’t contribute to any additional muscle gain. So you can believe the supplement companies or scientific research. It’s up to you. My own suggestion would be to just average about 100 grams of protein over your day, which will be easy without having to add the protein shakes to whatever bodybuilding diet you’re on.
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