Unexpected Foods that Build Muscle

Although there are some unexpected foods that build muscle, the basics of building muscle remain the same: increase your quantity of quality protein taken on a daily basis and workout with weights or perform body weight exercises to strengthen and develop your musculature. Avoid bad foods (junk food) that offer no nutrition and spike your insulin and make sure your caloric intake is sufficient to meet your needs without being too high to cause fatty weight gain.

Unexpected Foods that Build Muscle

These fundamental rules override anything else (for natural muscle gain, at least…). That is not to say however that other foods don’t offer benefits at the micronutrient level and for variety and optimization of muscle gains you might want to look at these unexpected foods that build muscle.

1. Apples. Apples provide us with a whole range of health benefits. They can also help in muscle growth because they contain a higher level of ursolic acid than other foods. Ursolic acid can help to concentrate the level of IGF-1 in the blood. IGF-1, or Insulin-like Growth Factor-1, consists of 70 amino acids and is most prevalent during the years of puberty. It promotes protein synthesis and encourages the body to burn fat as a source of energy. Best of all from the point of view of muscle gain is that IGF-1 causes our cells to split (hyperplasia). With a nutritious diet and regular training those extra cells can then be developed in size and strength. Once we reach adulthood our muscle cell number is otherwise fixed.

2. Ginger. Again, like apples, ginger offers a diverse range of health benefits. With regard to building muscle, the first thing to note is that ginger helps to burn calories. Fair enough, this isn’t building your muscle as such, but in order to look ripped you need to lower your body fat percentage and ginger will help you achieve this. It can also help reduce muscle soreness by as much as 25%. This aids in recovery and allows you to hit the gym harder. Best of all, it is a strong anti-estrogen food and tests on lab rats have shown that it increases their testosterone production level by double. You may need to look at a supplement here to get the full benefits (unless you really like eating ginger…).

3. Holy Basil. This herb is great for improving the circulation of testosterone in our bodies. Testosterone is obviously vital in making significant strength gains but unfortunately it can become bound up in times of stress. Holy basil helps to unbind that testosterone and make sure it is circulating in our bodies at a higher rate. Holy basil is therefore also great if you are going through a stressful period.

4. Green Tea. Regular readers will already know that this comes up a lot. I have previously mentioned that green tea is just about the best thing you can put into your body for innumerable health benefits. It can help us in our quest for a better physique by increasing our testosterone level for one to two hours. Taken before a workout therefore a cup of green tea can grant us the ability to lift more for longer while also reducing muscle soreness and promoting a quick recovery (allowing you to lift more for longer…and so the cycle repeats itself).

Does caffeine make you gain weight?

Does caffeine make you gain weight？

A good question, and on the face of it the answer would seem to be obvious: no it doesn’t. How could it? Caffeine contains zero calories. Coffee itself, one of the most popular ways to consume caffeine, has minimal calories (that is, before any sugar, cream or anything else is added).

I have mentioned elsewhere how good green tea is for you and I stand by that assertion, but I want to take this opportunity to address the issue of the caffeine content of green tea and of potential weight gain problems related to caffeine in general. In an 8 ounce cup of green tea you are going to consume somewhere in the region of 24-40 mg of caffeine. A generic, instant coffee will give you 30-170 mg while a brewed mug will give you more. A 12 ounce coke is 30-35 mg with about the same for Coca Cola Zero. A 250 ml can of Red Bull is 75-80 mg of caffeine.

Obviously coffee is the big culprit for filling us with caffeine but it is also not the only popular drink that carries it. As you can see, green tea may have more caffeine in it than a coke. But if caffeine is calorie free, then what do we have to worry about?

Well, there are a couple of potential problems of caffeine consumption (in any form).

The first is that caffeine raises your level of cortisol. Cortisol is a stress hormone and when its level rises, two things happen. The first is that your heart rate and blood pressure will rise helping to stimulate your appetite. This can lead to emotional eating and sweet foods in particular are desirable at such times. In turn an excess of insulin will shut down the body from burning fat. The second is that your body will go into an energy saving mode with higher cortisol levels, thereby making it harder for you to burn fat.

Higher cortisol can leave you anxious, fearful and frustrated. From a dietary point of view it can also contribute to generating fat around the belly.

A second point is that caffeine may also interfere with your insulin resistance. In such cases your insulin and glucose build up in the blood and this can affect every cell in the body. There are innumerable problems with this but with regard to diet and fat loss, you should know that a high level of insulin can cause your body to store food as fat instead of using it for fuel. Such a condition will also see your protein intake converted into sugar and fat (which is then stored by the body) thereby robbing you of muscle gains if you are also working out.

Does caffeine make you gain weight?

So to answer the question does caffeine make you gain weight, we can see that yes, it does if it is not taken in moderation (and what is moderate is going to vary from person to person). Not because of its caloric figure but because caffeine adversely affects our levels of cortisol and insulin. Higher levels here can lead to weight gain and cause difficulties in losing weight once you have put it on.

For short term energy and alertness try herbal teas, ginseng or gingko. Otherwise monitor your level of caffeine consumption and pay attention to any changes in your mood or body.