How you eat will definitely have an effect on how you gain muscle naturally. That said, it’s not just about consuming enough calories to support new muscle growth. The types of food you eat and the nutrient density of these foods can go a long way to provide additional benefits to the process of muscle growth and protein synthesis.
As a natural lifter, one of the most valuable things you can do is support muscle recovery. This can come from prioritizing good sleep, limiting stress and also through smart nutrition choices. In this video, I cover how the consumption of canned pumpkin can help prevent or slow down protein degradation and preserve muscle protein to assist in overall muscle growth.
I have covered the value of canned pumpkin in previous videos including my Jeff Cavaliere Full Day of Eating video. There I showed you how I mix pumpkin in with my oatmeal every morning.
That is not the only way to consume pumpkin however.
It is just as easy to mix it in with yogurt, in a protein shake, as a pasta sauce, or even in a protein pancake or waffle recipe.
It is pretty much flavorless and can be easily incorporated into many food choices without even noticing.
The benefits of pumpkin are many.
It is a source rich in Antioxidant Vitamin A, has high amounts of zinc and potassium to support optimal muscle function and can even help regulate the bowels whether they are overactive or underactive.
When you are training naturally, you have to consider any way that you can assist your muscle recovery. In a recent study, it was shown that the inclusion of pumpkin to the diet on a daily basis had the ability to decrease a process called protein carbonylation by up to 60 percent versus controls. This is significant. Protein carbonylation activates enzymatic cascades that ultimately result in the degradation of proteins.
This can put you in a state of net protein catabolism at worst or at minimum in a state of lower protein anabolism. Both of these would be undesirable if you were trying to gain muscle as much as possible. In order to build muscle mass you have to stimulate your muscles to grow through your smart workouts but not forget to support their growth in the remainder of what you do.
Muscle protein synthesis is best stimulated through either high intensity low volume workouts or low intensity high volume workouts. It is especially important when training at a higher intensity to make sure you’re not overlooking the elements of your training and nutrition plan that help you to recover faster.
When it comes to what you eat however, never underestimate how important it is to keep high quality nutrition. Jesse himself was famous for having a poor diet and not taking in enough calories let alone good calories. When you do increase the quality of the food you eat, you will often find that you need to increase the amount as well. This is because as foods become more nutritious, like canned pumpkin, their caloric density is lower. In order to support the new muscle mass gains you seek and the ability to build muscle you have to eat more to keep the energy levels high enough to do this.
There is also one big mistake you do want to be aware of however when it comes to eating pumpkin. All canned pumpkin is not the same. Pumpkin pie mix is loaded with sugar and is not recommended. When looking for the right version of pumpkin to eat be sure to read the label. I know this can be challenging for some, particularly those that like to read the title of a video and not actually watch what the video is about (you know who you are!) but it’s as simple as that.
Don’t be fooled by the picture on the can. They are both likely to show you a picture of a delicious pumpkin pie on it. Read and be sure that the only ingredient in the can is 100 percent canned pumpkin. Eating it every day in some way or form is going to help as one of those small but cumulative ingredients you can start incorporating that can lead to more muscle growth and an easier time to gain muscle over time.
If you are looking for a complete meal plan that will help you to build ripped lean muscle without starving yourself or depriving yourself of your favorite foods, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link below. All of our workout plans include the X Factor meal plan to help you build muscle easier than ever.
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