If you’re lifting heavy weights and pushing your body to adapt to severe stresses in the pursuit of greater athletic performance or aesthetic appeal, you should be eating a ton of meat to support your training. Your body needs protein and a host of other minerals and nutrients to build up your muscles – and nothing provides these muscle builders like real animal meat.
This article provides a good overview of what protein is.
The latest conventional “health news” cites meat as the prime suspect in cancer-related illnesses because of what they claim are the effects of meat on the body. However, more up-to-date studies show that it is not really meat that was the problem; it is really the lack of fruits and vegetables and the excessive intake of carbohydrates in the form of potato chips and french fries that was causing problems.
The truth is, the benefits of eating meat far outweighs its potential risks. You’ll gain muscle and strength like you’ve never seen before when you start eating a lot of meat. Coupled with a good spectrum of other foods and a strong supplementation program, you’ll see rapid changes in your body by chowing down on beef, chicken, fish, and pork. This will result in a protein surplus, giving your body the signal to start building muscles. Studies have also been conducted that show that eating a good amount of meat has positive effects on muscle development, even in the absence of a good training program. A good training program, however, will accelerate your gains.
Grilled chicken provides high-quality protein and tastes really good.
It is very important to note that you should be eating the fat along with the lean meat. Fat is necessary for optimal development of the muscles, and is vital to the production of testosterone in men. More testosterone means more strength, better recovery, and more muscle on your frame. Fat also provides extra calories that are not burned as fast as carbohydrates – meaning it doesn’t have the same effect on your chemistry as carbs do.
Now, preparing meat is very easy. You just take it out of the freezer, thaw it out, then fry it or grill it. No need to add to many other ingredients, salt and pepper is fine. You can add more pepper to give it more flavor. Chicken is especially good with lots of pepper. Beef needs just a tiny bit of salt to keep the juices in while still giving it flavor. Fish can use a lot of pepper as well.
Apart from protein, you’ll be getting good amounts of B-vitamins, minerals such as iron, and a host of other nutrients that you can’t get from processed food because they’ve been destroyed in the processing – so it is vital that you eat whole foods. If you can get it organic, so much the better.
To get the muscle-building benefits of meat, you should be eating a minimum of 120 grams of it or more each meal, which amounts to roughly 25-30 grams of protein each meal. This is not as much as taking two scoops of protein powder, but is enough to give you positive results.
Photo Credit: rakratchada torsap, freedigitalphotos.net
