Protein for Muscle Building should be an essential part of your Muscle Building Diet for a number of reasons (primarily as it is one of the foods that build muscle!).


Firstly, Protein is full of amino acids. Eating protein increases the level of amino acids in your blood stream. These amino acids-which are the building blocks of protein- travel through your system to the muscles of the body.

Once they arrive at your muscles the amino acids synthesize to create new proteins needed to build and gain muscle mass.

[NOTE: A vital point to remember is that every time you work out you are tearing down muscles and then rebuilding them. Muscle building protein is necessary to repair and re-build big muscle!]

Secondly, protein is a substance that can help us boost our metabolic rate which means more calories are consumed by our bodies. This is due to the thermic effect which protein induces.

The thermic effect simply means that the body must do more work digesting a certain food (in this case protein) than other foods such as Carbohydrates and Fats.  This is benefical as;




Studies have shown that this thermic effect when eating a high protein diet as oppose to a low protein diet can be increase by as much as 20% .

The thermic effect can also be elevated by increasing the number of meals we eat day to day. So instead of consuming 3-4 large meals per day why not consume 6-7 medium sized meals?!

On top of that, the 19 Amino Acids that make up Protein are what build muscle and muscle is an excellent calorie burner. Muscle also gives our bodies great shape.

Muscle Building Protein Supplements

Frequently, it can often be difficult to consume enough muscle building protein in the whole meals alone. This holds particularly true for strength and power based athletes who necessitate large amounts of protein per day for their bodies to develop optimally.

It would be wise at this point to advise taking protein supplements such as a Whey Protein a couple of times every day to bump up the protein intake 50-100 grams more.

Whey protein is the best protein for muscle building due to the high Biological value of it.
 

Protein Information

Protein is the basic structure of all living cells and is utilized for the growth are repair of cells.

The basic building blocks of protein are called amino acids. Amino acids are categorized as essential amino acids (EAA) and nonessential amino acids(NAA).

Nine of the twenty amino acids are considered Essential Amino Acids which must come from our diets. These nine EAAs are available in complete protein foods such as Meat, fish, milk, cheese and eggs.

Our bodies can produce the non-essential amino acids from the by-products of carbohydrates otherwise known as incomplete proteins. For example vegetables, nuts seeds, dairy products and grains.

However, in fitness regimes these non-essential amino acids despite the name are very essential.

Essential Amino Acids (9)

Non-Essential Amino Acids (11)

The measurement of the synthesising ability of protein is known as the Biological Value (BV) of the protein. The higher the BV value the more readily the protein is absorbed by the body.

Example of the BV