Proteins & Amino Acids: food and supplements

If you practice sport, are a very active person or are on diet be sure to eat at least 1 gram of proteins per kg of bodyweight, daily. If your protein intake is too low on a restricted-calorie diet, you will lose a lot of muscle!

Lean muscle mass is a form of tissue that is more metabolically active than fat and helps you burn more calories throughout the day. A good protein intake will definitely help you to preserve muscular mass during your dieting phase.

Further increase your proteins only if you are very hungry and need to add some extra food during the day. In this case protein supplements such as good quality protein bars or shakes are very handy.

Pre-workout food

It can be tough to find the perfect pre-exercise food. You want something that will fuel your workout, but it also needs to be light enough that it will not weigh you down. The ideal workout food is something that is low in calories, contains quality carbs, and is high in protein.

Plus, it should taste delicious. One perfect pre-workout food comes straight from Mother Nature: the banana. A medium-sized banana has just about 100 calories, 27g carbs, and almost no fat. That is just enough calories to quiet your hungry stomach for the duration of a workout, and just enough carbs to keep you energized.

Plus, it comes in its own container! For some healthy fats that will boost your workout, add a few almonds! Smoothies definitely have potential to be a nutritious light snack, but you should be extra careful with them because can be packed with way too many sugary calories. Best do it yourself!

Use unsweetened vanilla almond milk (or your favourite light milk), frozen fruit, fat-free Greek yogurt. This way, the smoothie will energize you for your workout without leading to a sugar crash.

Post-workout food

After an intense workout your muscles need proteins. Protein helps in the repair of workout-induced damage to muscle fibres, supports training-prompted adaptations in muscle fibres, and refuels energy stores.

To alleviate the pain and time spent recovering, get the right pro-recovery foods. You don't want to delay any training when you are trying to hit your fitness goals. You could easily get a protein shake, but protein powder alone does not always provide the right nutrition prescription, especially for aching muscles.

Add some blueberries (or other berries) which contain a lot of antioxidants that help prevent free radical damage to your muscles from a workout.

Best protein food

By now, most athletes understand the importance of protein in building muscle. When working out muscle fibres are damaged. This damage activates a special repair process that forces individual muscle cells to grow. All of this growth requires loads of amino acids, the basic building blocks of life.

Here are some good foods for muscle growth:

Quinoa
Not everyone eats meat. But without meat, how can you get that precious protein? Look no further than quinoa, a protein-packed grain. Not only is quinoa high in protein, but the protein it supplies is also complete, meaning that it contains all nine of the essential amino acids. This gluten-free food is also easy to digest and is high in fiber, magnesium and iron.

Almonds
Almonds are another plant-based food full of protein. Just 1/4 cup of almonds contains nearly 8 grams of protein. That is nearly 2 grams of protein more than your typical egg!
Almonds are also an excellent source of heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fats and magnesium.

Magnesium is an abundant mineral which is used in more than 300 biochemical reactions in the body and is specifically known to be involved in energy metabolism and protein synthesis.

Cottage cheese
It may sound surprising, but most serious athletes include cottage cheese among their top muscle-building foods. To understand why, simply read the label of your typical low-fat or fat-free cottage cheese. Just 1/2 cup of low-fat cottage cheese contains 14 grams of protein in only 80 calories with less than 2 grams of fat.

Lean ground beef
Red meats, like lean ground beef, are an excellent source of protein, so completely avoiding them because of the "red" stigma might be a mistake. Just 100 grams of lean ground beef contains upward of 27 grams of protein!

Although such a serving is also high-fat (it contains 11 grams of fat and around 200-plus calories) what separates beef from its other meat competitors are all the additional vitamins and minerals it contains. Beef is teeming with vitamin B12, zinc and iron, all of which are important for muscle growth.

Soy
The muscle-building benefits of the soybean simply cannot be paralleled by any other plant source. As one of the few plant sources that provide complete protein, soy contains high quality protein. Just one cup of cooked soybeans contains over 20 grams of amino acids.

Soy is also stacked with other important vitamins and minerals, making this meat alternative one of the healthiest muscle-building foods around.

Eggs
Quick and easy to prepare, delicious and fun to eat, eggs are a key dietary component of any athlete. Each egg comes loaded with around five to six grams of protein at the very low caloric cost of only 60 calories.

But it’s not just the amount of protein that makes eggs so special, it’s also the type: Egg protein is considered to be the most readily utilizable protein with the highest biological value of any whole food. This means that the protein in eggs is used most efficiently for muscular growth.

Chicken
Chicken is the staple muscle-building food. A nice, lean 100-gram slab of this white meat will fill you with a hearty serving of 31 grams of protein with only 4 grams of fat. Combine chicken’s great taste and its meal versatility and there’s really no arguing that chicken belongs among the top muscle-building foods.

Fish
When it comes to building muscle, fish really crushes the competition. Take salmon, for example. It contains 25 grams of protein per 100-gram serving and other healthy nutrients. Salmon is rich in heart-healthy mono-unsaturated fats and omega-3 fatty acids which are involved in several anti-inflammatory processes. It is also an excellent source of vitamin D.

Legumes
They are as rich in protein as they are in heart-healthy fiber. Plus, they are good sources of B vitamins. Opt for beans, lentils, soybeans and peas. Even peas contain 8 grams of protein per cup.

Leafy Greens
Kale, collard greens and other leafy greens are surprisingly rich in protein. For instance, a 70-calorie serving of spinach contains about 10 grams of protein. While greens don’t contain all of the amino acids you need, pairing them with beans and legumes can help make them “complete” with the nine essential amino acids.

-Protein Bars

-Protein Powder

-Amino acids

If you want to know how to obtain a better life, have a look at the ebook "The best diet is not a diet" 

You can get a free preview here!

Enjoy the reading!