How To Use A Diet Plan To Gain Muscle

Achieve muscle gain by stimulating growth through resistance training. To maximize the benefits from weightlifting, you have to alter your diet to reflect the higher caloric needs of your body to fuel the muscle growth. According to Anita Bean, author of "Sports Nutrition," your body needs a diet that supplies you with 20 percent more calories than your maintenance requirements each day. Your maintenance need is the amount of calories you need to neither lose nor gain weight.

Step 1

Eat 60 percent of your total daily calories from carbohydrates. Your muscles use glycogen for energy, which comes from carbohydrates. If your muscles do not get enough glycogen from food, your body uses protein for energy, which is counterproductive to muscle-building efforts.

Step 2

Eat 1/2 to 1g of protein per pound of body weight. Eating more protein has not been shown to yield additional benefits. Fat from healthy sources should not represent more than 20 percent of your daily calories.

Step 3

Keep your body energized and your metabolism fired up throughout the day by eating six meals each day. On your exercise days, have one of the snacks within two hours of your workout to help with muscle recovery and growth. A 1992 study by Zawadzki and others showed that eating a snack with 1/2g of carbohydrates and protein in it right after exercising leads to the highest muscle-building gains.

Step 4

Build muscles by working out with weights on three days a week. Set the weights so heavy that you can lift them for two sets of eight repetitions at proper form. At the end of the second set, you should have to strain to keep lifting at a moderate pace, even fail to finish the set. In muscle building, failure means that your muscles will grow stronger from the exertion. Increase the weights you lift gradually by the smallest increment that is possible at one time.

Tips and Warnings

Leave two or three days of recovery between each workout session. Get at least seven hours of sleep each night.
Consult a physician before starting an exercise program.