What is a Great Gaining Muscle Diet?

To have an effective mass building diet you need to have a few bits of information to form a meal plan around.

Resting Metabolism Rate - Your resting metabolism rate is the minimum amount of calories you burn throughout the day that controls all your internal functions and energy requirements. This can be a complex formula but it can be calculated to a reasonable degree.

Exercise Calories - This is the amount of calories you will burn doing your everyday work and workouts. It is usually a lot less than your resting metabolism rate which may seem unusual but working out is not what burns calories and fat, increased muscle mass will do that though. Basic Calorie Expenditure Chart.

Calorie Goals - Using the total of the calories listed above you get your base load calorie needs. This needs to be greatly increased to build muscle! The amount you have calculated is simply a maintainence level of energy you see and if you go below that amount you will be in caloric deficit and if you add more you will have enough energy left to grow muscles.

Caloric deficit is also doubly bad because it will send your body into catabolism mode which means it will cannibalize your body for more energy. This is good if you want to burn fat but it can often eat away at muscle mass too. If you are a skinny guy and have not much fat this is a killer for gaining muscle.

Having more calories than your body needs gives it the energy to build mass via anabolism which can be done in two ways: fat or muscle. If you have been working out with a high intensity this will translate into muscle growth but without good exercise technique this can just go to fat.

Gaining Muscle Meal Plans

Now you have a basic grounding in how much you need to eat you will need to put it into action by having meal plans that give you enough calories per day to feed your body with the right foods at the right times.

Some meal planning tips to maximum muscle growth are:

• Divide your meals into more than the usual breakfast, lunch, dinner. have between five and six meals per day and make sue the calories consumed during each meal are close to the same. No snacks all meals! This is because you want your body to be fueled at all times when you are in workout mode and if you burn through calories and end up in deficit you will stifle growth especially if your metabolism is high like most hardgainers are.
  
• Eat high protein foods. Protein is a prime amino acid that builds your body and most people do not get enough. Protein supplements can be added to meals if you are not getting enough from food but mostly you can get it from naturally occurring sources. High Protein Foods List
  
• Watch what fats you eat. Omega 3 fatty acids are good for you while saturated fats have little benefits. Read labels and watch out for good and bad fats
  
• Turf the junk. All junk food like crisps, pastries, cookies, soda and everything is called junk food for a reason. They have little nutritional value and they can stifle muscle growth through raising blood sugar levels which can add fat and as well. Guys that eat junk to get calories are riding a double edges sword.

This should give you a good overview of a gaining muscle diet and how to plan and enact it for the best effect on your bodybuilding goals.

For more information on how to calculate your calories and more on what to eat and what not to eat as well as a complete muscle building plan that has turned thousands of skinny guys into bigger, more confident and better looking men click below for the ultimate resource.