Rapid Fat Loss Diets

Monday, April 6, 2009

Muscle building and the importance of the recordkeeping

By Jon Cardozo

If you've decided to build significant amounts of muscle, you should already know the most important components of your program. I'm talking, of course, about a resistance weightlifting program and a solid nutrition program.

But how do you know if your diet is indeed adequate for the task ahead? Likewise, how do you know if your training routines are effective or not? A critical but often overlooked component of muscle building is keeping records of what you eat and what you lift. A simple meal journal can get you started in the right direction.

This may seem difficult and even annoying at first, but it should become second nature pretty soon. Gradually you'll get to know how many calories a particular food contains or how many grams of protein or fat you're eating. When you think about it, most foods that you buy at the grocery store already have this kind of information available, so this should make your job that much easier.

Writing things down in this way is a great way to keep track of your progress, because if things don't seem to be going the way you intended you simply go back to your record. Chances are you did something wrong either with your diet or with your workouts.

How do you know if you're getting enough food to build muscle? A quick tip is that you should be gaining about a pound or two of muscle each week, but keep an eye on your body fat percentage to make sure you really are gaining muscle and not fat!

You should already know that lifting weights is actually what stimulates your muscles to grow. This is important because without this, an increase in calories will simply end up increasing your fat levels.

Recordkeeping is important here as well, since you can easily record your body fat percentage with the right kind of scale. Writing it all down is essential because you have to know your starting point if you're ever to reach your goal.

If you're trying to make it through a muscle building workout plan and you're not keeping track on paper, you really are wasting your time. - 17273

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