The Muscle Building Zone. How to Build Muscle Quickly and Lose Fat!

The Zone Diet is one of the more popular diet plans around today.  Unlike other faddy diets such as the Atkins or Blood Group diets, the Zone diet is one that can stick with you for life, as it is a sensible eating plan.  Body builders can find it particularly beneficial for muscle mass gains, with one or two modifications.

The most basic tenet of the Zone Diet is the 30-40-30 plan.  Thirty percent of your daily calorie intake should come from carbohydrates, forty percent from protein and 30 percent from good fats.  For body builders, however, the protein intake should be higher at times.  At other times, the carbs should be upped.  The Zone Diet isn’t engraved in stone.  The whole idea is that you personalize the diet to suit your needs, goals and body type.

The Zone Diet aims to regulate your body’s hormones and blood sugar.  The chief hormone most average people will be most concerned with is insulin, which is needed to get the sugars in the bloodstream into the cells.  However, producing too much insulin can play havoc with the hormones needed to build lean muscle and burn fat: HGH (human growth hormone) and testosterone.

The biggest way to mess up your insulin levels is to eat too much sugars and simple carbs.  Because these are fast-release carbs, the body will pump out the insulin to deal with it.  And if you continually have a high background level of insulin, your body will start to ignore the insulin – hello, Type 2 diabetes (Type 1 diabetes is different: these people have lost the ability to produce insulin and need to inject it).  You can buy certain nutritional supplements and “weight loss pills” that increase your sensitivity to insulin so you produce less.

Eating the Zone way allows the body to produce the right amount of insulin at the right times.  By ensuring a slow and steady release of nutrients into the bloodstream.  The last thing you want is low blood sugar (hypoglycaemia), as this saps your stamina and ruins your sleep (sleep is where the body naturally produces HGH). For maximum benefit to bodybuilders, Zone Snacks should be timed properly with your workouts and lifestyle. 

Your body will release HGH after a workout.  This is why it’s important to eat a light Zone snack about 40 minutes before exercising as well as straight afterwards.  A protein shake is great, a sports drink isn’t so hot.  While a small amount of fast-acting carbs can be beneficial for replacing the blood sugars burned in a really intense workout and getting the glycogen to the muscles, don’t over do it.  A glucose tablet or maltodextrin powder added to your regular protein shake is about right.  Some protein shakes and supplements have maltodextrin ready added – see SupplementsToGo.com product list for some great products at super-low prices.

You should also have a Zone Snack before bed.  Sleep is when the body releases most of its HGH, so you should not let your blood sugar levels drop too low, as this will disturb your sleep.  You can, of course, buy nutritional supplements that boost the body’s ability to produce HGH.  But even these won’t work without good sleep.