Are you trying to follow a muscle-building diet and avoid the wrong food? If you’re on a mission to keep your body in great shape for your physical and mental well-being, you need to fuel it with the right foods.
Snacking on junk food may be incredibly tempting, but it’s a no-brainer that it won’t do you any favors. However, many seemingly healthy options are nothing short of significant waistline destroyers in disguise.
If you’re surprised, the article below may help you navigate the foods you should avoid when building muscle.
In addition, you will learn more about the foods that won’t get you the best bodybuilding results. These include white bread, dried fruit, diet soda, ice cream, etc. Remember that this doesn’t mean you need to cut these foods entirely, but you may want to limit how much and how often you eat them.
White Bread –
Commercially-produced white bread is high on the Glycemic Index (GI), meaning that, as with all other foods with a high GI, it has a more significant impact on the glucose levels in your blood.
While it’s true that carb-loading before a challenging workout is essential if you don’t want your body to burn the nutrients needed to build muscle, high-GI carbs such as white bread won’t give you a consistent and reliable supply of energy needed for an intense training session.
Instead of eating white bread, personal trainer Lucas James recommends 100% whole-grain wheat bread.
However, be careful when choosing the right brown bread, as even these days, many companies take cheap, high-GI white bread and stain it with caramel colors.
So always check the labels to avoid buying brown-dyed bread that lists white flour or caramel coloring as the main ingredients.
Bagels –
Store-bought bagels might taste delicious, but there’s something that you should know about them.
One plain bagel can have anywhere from around 270 even up to 400 calories, most of which are refined carbohydrates known as ‘simple’ carbs.
These refer to sugars (e.g., glucose, fructose) or anything made from grains stripped of all bran, fiber, and nutrients.
Once you add some cream cheese to your bagel, you’re eating nothing short of refined carbohydrates mixed with some saturated fats.
Neither of those will help you build muscles. So instead of bagels with cream cheese, opt for whole-grain bread with hummus (source of protein, fiber, good fats, and vitamins).
Dried Fruit –
Fresh fruit contains an abundance of essential vitamins and minerals and has a high content of soluble and insoluble fiber.
However, when the fruits get dehydrated to be sold commercially, it’s often done using added sugar or sulfur, as they help extend their shelf life.
In addition, the drying process removes water from the fruit, so if, aside from building muscles, you also aim to stay hydrated during your workouts (as you should), it might be better to avoid this delicacy altogether.
It’s always a better idea to eat fresh fruit – apricots, blueberries, oranges, peaches, pineapples, plums, and raspberries contain over eighty percent water to munch on them.
Likewise, bananas, guavas, blackberries, pears, watermelons, and grapes make for an excellent pre-workout snack and are recommended for muscle building as they’re high in protein.
Diet Sodas –
Food labeled with phrases and words such as “gluten-free,” “rich in antioxidants,” or “diet” often confuses customers by leading them to believe that they’re consuming something much healthier than it is.
However, you need to remember that just because the label on your favorite soda says that it’s diet, there’s still an artificial sweetener in it–after all, sodas are supposed to taste sweet.
Artificial sweeteners can be sweeter than naturally occurring sugars, such as fructose and sucrose. The latter has been demonized in the past years and deemed completely “bad” for the sake of the former.
Fake sugars can cause your body to overproduce insulin, and that’s not something you should look for when trying to build muscles. If you’re a soda drinker, consider replacing it with a good old glass of water or milk.
Ice Cream –
Ice cream is not the best food for bodybuilding because most people eat too much of it, it’s hard to control your portion size when eating it, and it has little nutritional value.
Average ice cream contains mostly sugar, saturated fat, and little protein. It might be a delicious snack but won’t help you build muscles.
Instead of ice cream, you can choose frozen yogurt or natural low-fat Greek yogurt. Also, try dark chocolate-dipped frozen bananas, a smoothie, or a healthy milkshake for protein.
Deep Fried Foods –
Deep-fried foods are incredibly high in fat, cholesterol, and salt. When you fill your diet with them, you risk obesity, inflammation, and cardiovascular disease, even if you’re an avid sports fan.
When you deep fry something, it might taste good at first, but you also need to know that it’s detrimental to your muscle-building goals in the long run.
It’s best to avoid eating fast food products like French fries, fried fish, onion rings, and deep-fried chicken. However, if you don’t think you can ditch them, you can always try to bake or air-fry the foods that you would usually deep-fry.
The Last Word on Muscle Building Diet
As you can see, even if you hit the gym regularly and stick to your workout routine, eating the wrong foods can significantly slow down your progress and keep you from building muscles.
If you want a better chance of succeeding, try to avoid the foods mentioned above for the most time.
Of course, you can consume them occasionally, but they shouldn’t appear on your plate too often. If you’re a fan of a particular food but tend to overeat it, try to look for healthier and more bodybuilding-friendly alternatives. Good luck!
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