The period after your workout is the most important time span for you to take advantage of nutrition for muscle gain.

You’ve got a window of 3 hours after you complete an intense workout. Here’s why—this is the time period when your body most craves nutrients and your muscles will literally soak them up, making this a time prime to use nutrition for muscle gain.

If you get in there and use the best nutrition for muscle gain by supplying your body with whole food and supplements, you will maximize muscle gains and improve your recovery time.

Let’s go through the things that need to be done after an intense workout:.

1) It’s your job to minimize muscle breakdown, while putting your body back into an anabolic muscle-building state.

2) Your glycogen and blood sugar levels need to come back to normal.

3) Neutralize free radicals.

4) Feed your muscles with the right nutrition for muscle gain to ensure growth and recovery.

There are 2 special “post-workout meals” that I highly recommend.

Your first meal should be in a liquid form. Since your body is stressed out and desperate for nutrients, you need to replenish it quickly. By opting for a liquid meal, your body can get the nutrients it requires faster and start the rebuilding process immediately.

Since you require nutrition for muscle gain, include the following ingredients in your post-workout shake:.

1) Add 30 to 40 grams of protein (whey) to your shake.

2) Simple sugars such as dextrose: 70 to 80 grams. (Dextrose is a great sugar to use)

3) Creatine: 5 grams.

4) Consider adding 5 to 10 grams of glutamine. (Optional)

Within a half hour, mix up these ingredients with water and consume. I highly recommend taking a high-potency multivitamin as well. If you want to accelerate muscle growth and have a faster recovery, this simple shake will do the trick.

For your second post-workout meal, you should eat whole foods; this should be 45 minutes to an hour after you drink your shake. For the best nutrition for muscle gain you want a meal made of protein and high glycemic carbohydrates to maximize your recovery potential.

The great thing about high glycemic carbohydrates is that they are broken down quickly into your bloodstream. Some examples are white rice, rice cakes, or potatoes. Check out the following suggestions for your second post-workout meal:.

1) 1 glass of orange juice along with a 6 oz steak and a potato.

2) Eat a can of tuna, 100 g rice cakes, and wash it down with a glass of grapefruit juice.

The point is to supply your starved muscles with nutrients to develop muscle tissue and restore glycogen levels, and this meal does just that.

In the beginning of this article, we talked about a 3-hour window for nutrition; this means that you have 2 hours left to absorb some more top nutrition for muscle gain. Your body wants high quality protein and glycemic carbohydrates after a powerful workout, and your job is to deliver them during this 3-hour window.

Unfortunately, there are too many lifters that do not realize the importance of nutrition for muscle gain during this post-workout period, and as a result, they limit their gains. You will really limit your gains if you slack off on your protein and carb-intake during this timeframe.

Follow these tips to maximize post-workout nutrition, and you will experience noticeable strength and muscle gains.

About the author

Sean is a lifetime natural bodybuilder, has written articles for dozens of the top muscle-building and fat loss websites across the Internet and is recognized as an expert authority on the subjects of building muscle and burning fat fast.Click Here to go to his site.

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Do you struggle to lose belly fat? I bet you think you have bad genetics, don’t you? You probably believe that you’ve tried every possible program or technique out there to try to burn your stubborn belly fat, but it just never seems to work... does it?

I'm sure you’ve seen countless advertisements making “too good to be true” miracle claims, promising that you will lose belly fat EASILY with their “magic” cream, pill or hyped-up infomercial ab-gadget.

Come on now! Let’s get real. I want to make sure that those deceitful marketers have insulted your intelligence for the very last time. Let's get past the gimmicks and get right down to what really works. I want to help you win the battle of the bulge forever. Trust me, it’s easier than you think.

It is important to understand that both proper nutrition and targeted training must work synergistically if you want to lose belly fat at an accelerated pace. So let’s discuss both of these important aspects to ensure that you get on the right path towards achieving your very own set of six pack abs.

The first critical principle to help you get rid of your belly fat revolves around your nutrition plan. It’s important to realize that typical dieting actually PREVENTS your body from losing belly fat. You see, if you follow any diet that forces you to constantly restrict one of the macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat), something very unfortunate occurs: you will lose weight, but the majority of that weight will come from your lean muscle, NOT from body fat!

Losing lean muscle is the last thing you want to do. It makes you look terrible, and even worse, it lowers your metabolism, which will immediately stop your fat loss plan dead in its tracks! Once your metabolism starts to drop, you will find it almost impossible to lose any body fat at all. As you can see, the wrong diet can have drastic effects on your body.

You see, our bodies are meant to eat a diet full of a diverse array of foods from healthy, natural sources of carbohydrates, proteins, AND fats. This type of nutritional plan provides your body with all of the essential nutrients it needs to function optimally as a healthy and efficient fat-burning machine!

Now let’s talk about the second and equally important principle: how to properly structure your workouts. In order to burn your stomach fat, you need to stop wasting your time performing traditional abdominal exercises such as crunches, leg lifts, and side bends in the hopes of burning your belly fat and love handles.

The truth is you will not lose belly fat by doing exercises that target the stomach area. Unfortunately, most trainees don’t know this. Thus, they spend WAY too much of their training time trying to target their stomach with countless repetitions of various ab exercises.

Now don't get me wrong, performing the correct number of abdominal exercises is important, and when done properly, they can carve the abdominal musculature, strengthen your midsection and help you maintain a healthy back. But the fact is that direct ab exercises should only be a small portion of your workout routines. The majority of your time should be spent focusing on multi-joint exercises that primarily work the major muscle groups of the body like the legs, chest and back, while working the abs secondarily as a stabilizer.

By focusing your attention on the major muscle groups, you will stimulate your metabolic rate both during and after your workouts. In addition, you will also increase the level of fat-burning hormones within your body. You simply can’t get this type of metabolic and hormonal response by cranking out endless sets of various types of crunches.

So if you want to lose belly fat fast, try doing some squats, lunges, step-ups, rows, pulls, and a variety of presses and dead lifting movements.

You must also remember to perform each workout at a high intensity. That means no 5-minute rest periods between sets while you try to make new friends at the water fountain! Keep in mind that losing your belly fat for good requires some intensity in your workouts, so you need to be completely focused and “all business” when you are training!

And in case you were wondering, please know this: Anybody who tells you that you can lose belly fat quickly by popping some pill or by sitting on your recliner while watching TV with some "ab-belt" strapped to your belly is lying straight to your face!

I could go on and on about more strategies for losing your belly fat fast, the natural way, but that would be beyond the scope of this article. Start to put even these basic principles into practice, and you will start to lose belly fat faster than you thought you ever could! For more on losing belly fat click here.
The Ultimate Strategy To Lose Belly Fat Rapidly

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My mom always told me to sit down and eat your food slowly. So just like any other defiant teenager, I stood tall and inhaled my entire meal as fast as possible. Although I hate to admit this after all these years, what my mother was teaching me was actually very sound fat loss advice.

New research has recently proven that overweight people tend to eat more quickly and also eat more food per bite.

This research confirms earlier studies, which found that eating slowly leads to decreases in food intake. This has become so accepted among scientists that they have given this phenomenon a scientific name of its own:

"Time Energy Displacement"

Time Energy Displacement means that the more time you take to eat, the less energy (calories) you are likely to consume. And on the other hand, the faster you eat, the more energy (calories) you are likely to consume.

But that’s not all! The research also showed that in order to maximize the positive effects of Time Energy Displacement, you should choose foods that literally force you to ingest calories more slowly.

Foods that force you to ingest calories more slowly include:

• Foods that have a high fiber content (so you feel fuller more quickly). Examples are vegetables such as green beans, cauliflower, asparagus, spinach, etc.
• Foods that have a high water content (these foods also make you feel fuller more quickly). Fresh fruits such as berries, melons, apples, pears, etc. naturally have a high fluid content. Additionally, cooked whole grains such as barley, brown rice and oatmeal have a similar effect. During the cooking process, these grains absorb a lot of water, which causes them swell up. This increased volume helps you feel full without adding any calories to your diet.
• Foods with a high “chew factor”. Even if you try to eat these foods fast, you simply can’t because it takes so long to chew them thoroughly. Examples of foods with a high “chew factor” are fibrous vegetables such as cabbage and broccoli.
• Foods with low binge potential such as high fiber vegetables and lean protein are also good to eat, since generally, you will get tired of eating them before you take in too many calories.

Based on these studies’ findings (along with years of my own empirical evidence), I have come to the conclusion that we should avoid drinking ANY of our calories. You heard me right – liquid calories are to be avoided! Two of the most popular liquid sources of calories are soft drinks and sugar and cream-laden coffees. Believe it or not, these drinks are two of the biggest sources of excess and hidden calories in the typical American diet.

The main problem with liquid calories is that they can have a very high caloric density AND can be consumed extremely quickly. This is always a bad combination! Liquid calories also do not trigger the satiety mechanism in your brain and G.I. tract the way solid food typically does.

"Eat your food slowly" was once uttered by moms around the world, in a vain attempt to teach us kids about proper etiquette at the dinner table. But now, eating slowly has actually been proven to be scientifically sound fat loss advice. So go slow at the table so you can go fast towards your fat loss goals!

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Post workout nutrition has been a particularly well researched topic in the fitness industry. Most of the studies have shown that ingesting simple carbohydrates with whey protein (in the form of a shake) assist in muscle building, recovery and in body transformation in general.
In fact, these studies have been so convincing that you’ll be hard pressed to find a fitness expert who doesn’t strongly advocate that all trainees drink this type of post workout shake instantaneously after every workout. Let’s step away from the trend for a second and investigate whether or not this is the best protocol for everyone to follow.
I agree that post workout nutrition is very important for the purposes mentioned above. If your goal is primarily muscle building or weight gain, these shakes are a great way to easily consume an abundant amount of calories at a time when your body is least likely to store those calories as body fat.
You see, following an intense workout, your muscles are depleted and are thirsty for replenishment. Therefore most of the calories ingested at this time will be soaked up by the muscles, making less calories available to be stored as fat.
But let’s revisit exactly what our primary goal is: Fat loss! Do you really think that it is a good idea to chug a sugary shake every time you train if your goal is to lose body fat? How can a high-sugar shake really help to enhance your fat burning efforts? The truth is that it doesn’t. In fact, I believe that this practice is counter productive for trainees with a fat loss goal.
I’ve read all of the research and unfortunately, the research has not been performed on subjects whose primary goal is fat loss. Initially, I experimented with these post workout shakes on myself and my fat loss clients. Undoubtedly, fat loss results slowed significantly when we used these shakes. I’ve got tons of real world results to prove my assertion that in order to maximize fat burning; you need to lose those high-carb post workout shakes!
So you’re probably asking, “What should my post workout meal consist of?” The answer is simple. Just eat a solid meal! This meal will be structured just like any of your 5-6 daily meals. Be sure to consume this meal within one hour following your workout.
Remember, you will always get leaner with natural, solid food. So if losing body fat is your goal, save your money on those expensive commercial post workout shakes. Eat a good meal and watch that unwanted fat melt right off your body.
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