The foods that help build muscles are: Nuts, eggs, cottage cheese (if your body can tolerate dairy products), Proteïn shake, chickpeas, lentils, salmon or omega 3 oil, chicken, kefir or any fermented dairy products (the great muscle-building bullet), and lean beef.
Nuts are a must for any hard gainer struggling to put on weight.
Eggs have returned to the spotlight as a health food; but they are also a serious muscle building food: gasoline on your muscle-building fire!
Proteïn shake rapidly refills muscle energy stores, increases blood flow to your muscles and up regulates creatine transport. If you’re dairy tolerant: cottage cheese!
Cottage cheese’s muscle building powers comes from two different components. Cottage cheese contains a high proportion of casein, the slow digesting dairy protein. When you eat casein you blood amino acid levels rise slowly and stay elevated for longer than if you would have eaten whey (the other dairy protein). Cottage cheese also contains live cultures which are good bacteria what will help you breakdown and absorb all the nutrients you need to get bigger and stronger.
Chickpeas should be your anytime carb source of choice. Lentils are very inexpensive and have a long shelf-life. They cook up in just 10 minutes and can be added mixed in with brown rice, sprinkled over a salad or eaten as a standalone side dish.
Salmon contains both high quality protein and the long chain omega-3 fats EPA and DHA. These omega-3 fats are most well known for their ability to improve heart health but they also inhibit muscle breakdown while increasing the anabolic capacity of amino acids. If you don’t like eating fish then make sure to take a fish oil supplement to reap these benefits.
For decades beef has remained at the top of the list of best muscles building foods for good reason! Beef contains a muscles building cocktail of protein packed with essential amino acids, B-vitamins, and creatine. Beef also contains a mixture of saturated fat, which can support healthy testosterone levels, and monounsaturated fat, for heart heath. As an added benefits research (very interesting!) from University of Melbourne, shows that people how eat more red meat report feeling lower levels of anxiety and stress.
