You Want To Build Muscle? Then Nutrition Is Numero UNO.

You can lift all the weight in the gym. But, if you don't eat right, not much is going to happen.

Building the requisite muscle for an impressive physique boils down to one thing, and really, one thing only – how bad you want it. Building muscle, bodybuilding, physique art.... whatever you wan to call it, is nasty business. Unlike most pursuits, building muscle requires a total commitment that literally sets the course of your entire life. It encompasses everything. From what time you wake up, to how long and how hard you train, to where you go, what you do, who you do it with, to what you eat and what time you go to bed must be 110% concerned with your ultimate physique goal. So, no social life outside the gym, intense grueling training sessions at least every day, boring food you have to shop for and cook yourself and dealing with injuries, soreness and stiffness that's probably going to hurt every single day for the rest of your life. 

If living such a life doesn't make you literally salivate, then toss your belt in the trash on your way out the gym door and stop at Target on the way home. Pick up a deck of cards, or a pair of knitting needles or something else that doesn't require commitment, sacrifice and a quantum degree of suffering. Unless you grew up tossing hay bales in Iowa, a powerfully built physique is not in your future. 

If you're still reading this, I'm going to let you in on what I believe is the number one priority included in this list of extreme lifestyle attributes. FOOD.

Eating like a bodybuilder goes hand in hand with being a bodybuilder. There's an old saying that goes, “the battle is not with the weights, the battle is with the knife and fork.” That's a cute way of saying that feeding your body quality food five to seven times a day isn’t easy. It takes planning, preparation, and often times sacrifice. Most people aren’t willing to put that kind of effort into their eating. They miss meals, they let too much time elapse between meals, and they don’t eat the right foods. 


In order to always have the foods your muscles need to recover and grow, you have to plan ahead and you have to bring your food with you; to work, or school, or wherever you spend your day, so you don’t get caught without food when it's time to eat.  If you don’t eat right (that means the right foods and on time) you will short-circuit your training program.

What’s the difference between this type of attention to diet and what the average Jack or Jill in the gym does? Do you really have to ask? You can always spot the ones that push harder with both their training and their nutrition, because they look amazing. Anyone that tries to downplay the importance of proper nutrition in the big picture of fitness is only fooling themselves.

It’s not easy to make sure you’re always stocked up on all the meats, starches, vegetables, and supplements you need. It sure isn’t easy to keep meals cooked and packed ahead of time for the whole day when you eat every two to three hours. It’s not convenient to always make sure you have the right amounts of the right foods at the right times, every single day. But if it were easy, everybody would have fantastic physiques – and if you look around, you'll see almost no one does.

Attaining such a physique is going to take a ton of hard work and it won’t happen overnight. You have to be in this for the long haul and never quit. You must challenge yourself to train with greater intensity, be totally precise with your nutrition and supplementation, and always be sure your body gets adequate rest between each and every ferocious workout. You don’t need someone yelling in your ear to motivate you, that voice should already be inside your head.

Is this you I’m talking about now? There's no two ways about it. It either is or it isn't. If it isn't, there's always bowling.