Hey guys, Dr. Axe here.
Welcome to my nutrition tips for building muscle as part of our 30 day program.
And when you're trying to pack on muscle, my key tip, and by the way, I get this question
all the time from people.
I get emails in or Facebook messages, and people say, "Okay, Dr. Axe, I'm a hard gainer.
I cannot seem to put on muscle.
What do I have to do?"
The secret is getting a lot of calories in and doing it in liquid calories because it's
really hard to sit down and eat six big meals a day.
And so if you can do, let's say, five meals a day and a few of them are what I call the
super human shake, really loading up on those liquid calories, it is absolutely going to
help you in packing on the muscle.
And so along with doing that super human shake, which you can see here on this page, the other
thing you want to be doing is you want to be getting a certain amount of fat, carbs,
and protein.
And I want to tell you your best sources.
Number one, when it comes to protein, you need to be taking your body weight and doing
that in total grams of protein a day.
So if you weigh 180 pounds, then you want to be getting about 180 grams of protein a
day.
And you want to do it from quality food sources, like grass-fed beef, wild-caught salmon, organic
chicken and turkey.
Also even doing high quality protein powders, like a grass-fed whey, is also fantastic.
So, again, good quality protein, a gram per body weight is what you need to do if you
really want to pack on the muscle.
The next thing is good quality fat.
When you're consuming fat, I recommend fat in several categories.
One would be getting omega-9 fatty acids.
You're going to get omega-9 fats in avocados and olive oil and almonds.
So those are three of the absolute best fats you can be getting.
Also some shorter chain fatty acids, you're going to be getting that in grass-fed butter
as well as coconut oil.
Those are two of the top oils you can use to help pack on that lean muscle, and those
fats won't store on your body as fat as typical as other fats.
Also some good quality omega-3 fatty acids.
That's why consuming wild-caught salmon one to two times a week is great if you're really
wanting to build some muscle.
And then, last but not least, if you want to pack on muscle, you've also got to get
some good quality carbohydrates.
One of my favorites are sweet potatoes.
Sweet potatoes and yams are a great source of beta carotene, a great source of carbohydrate.
They're easy to digest for most people.
So again, doing some good sweet potatoes and really also going gluten-free when you're
building muscle.
So doing a good quality rice, like a brown rice or a wild jasmine rice can also be good.
And then, in general, fruit.
Getting bananas are amazing or mangoes or apples.
Get fruit in your diet as well.
So those are some of my favorite sources of carbohydrates, and actually quinoa is another
one, another great gluten-free source of carbohydrates that are going to help you pack on your muscle.
And for pre and post workout nutrition, before you go and work out, you actually want to
be doing a little bit of fruit or, let's say, some sort of fruit juice.
In fact, one of my favorites is coconut water.
Coconut water is easy to digest, and so doing some coconut water before you work out along
with a little bit of protein powder, and your body can actually be utilizing that while
you're working out.
And then right when you're done working out, you absolutely want to be doing that super
human shake and adding in all of those calories, especially getting more of that protein in
and carbohydrates right after your workout.
If you can do that and follow these tips, I know that over the next 30 days you're going
to put on muscle faster than you ever thought possible.
Hey guys, this has been Dr. Axe.
I can't wait to see your results.