Saturday, May 9, 2009

You can't build muscle with an empty stomach

By Jon Cardozo

It never ceases to amaze me what you can learn by having a short conversation with someone in the gym. Once I talked to a guy nearby for several minutes when I discovered that he was about to work out on an empty stomach.

Despite starting the day off with a good breakfast, he continued throughout most of the day without eating anything more than a cookie and some juice. He tried to explain how busy he was and why he didn't have enough time to eat properly. Still, he said he thought he was just fine and was about to begin the evening with some pretty heavy weight lifting exercises.

He kept insisting that he wasn't hungry, but I was still suspicious about his workout routine.

My suspicions were that his metabolism had slowed down. That's probably why he didn't feel hungry and thought he could lift a huge amount without any problems. Was this really such a big deal?

In order to build muscle, your body needs to have the basic ingredients in your diet. The basic formula is to eat more calories than your body is burning. In addition, you must eat large amounts of protein to build muscle, as well as adequate carbohydrates and healthy fats.

I think most of us understand that your body needs ingredients from food in order to build muscle. Where else is it going to get the materials? However, you also need to be adequately fueled just so you can have the energy for an intense muscle building session.

If you consider why muscle grows in the first place, it's pretty easy to understand. You have to push your muscle to new heights, and this will stimulate your muscle to grow.

If you try to continue your workouts without getting the proper nutrition, you might be able to continue like this for a little while. However, if you're serious about muscle growth, take a long-term approach and start feeding your body properly.

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