What is the Recommended Daily Carbohydrate Intake to Gain Muscle Mass Quickly?

The energy source for the muscles in your body is called glycogen. It is also stored in the liver. And the glycogen comes from carbohydrates under the form of glucose. When you can stack your muscles with glycogen, they look and feel full.

Glucose has many more vital functions. It also provides the brain with energy. Protein can also be a source of protein. But then there’s actually something wrong because it means that body protein from the muscles is being broken down. So it’s smart to eat enough carbs to gain muscle mass quickly, because otherwise your body will get the glucose from muscle tissue. So, what is the recommended daily carbohydrate intake?

For every human being and also a body builder, carbs have to be the majority of your caloric intake. Unprocessed complex carbs are the best. You can find them in brown rice, potatoes, whole grain breads and oatmeal. The body digests them slowly because complex carbs are made of long chains of sugar. Now comes an important sentence for the body builder. Your body should have consistent blood sugar levels to fight fatigue. The slow burning, complex carbs take care of this process and they also help releasing insulin which is the main anabolic hormone in the human body and very important in the muscle building process.

How much carbohydrates does your body need? There’s a slight difference between men and women. Men should take their body weight and multiply that number by 3, women on the contrary multiply by 2. That’s the amount of grams that should be eaten daily. In other words a man who weighs 150 pound has to eat 450 grams of carbohydrates. A woman of the same weight would consume 300 grams.

An excellent combination is to eat fiber (oatmeal, beans) together with carbs. Doing so will make it easier for the muscles to uptake sugar and amino acids which will bring them in an anabolic state. Also there will be more glycogen in the muscles and finally they will grow easier.

The total carb intake should be divided into 6 servings daily. Eating too many carbs at once will lead to more fat and that’s definitely not what you want. The best time to eat simple carbs like sugar, white bread and white rice is after a workout. These carbs are digested fast and the insulin spike that follows will prevent muscle breakdown and at the same time stimulate anabolism. So you can easily eat more carbs after exercising because they will have a positive effect and there will be less chance that they will turn into fat. A general rule is to consume 25{629041bc9a6ff041fc0b7c543548a1c0f13f59ea1b47b2bc21e5d68d30575962} of the daily carb intake at the post workout meal.

The second best time to eat carbs is with breakfast. After a night sleep muscle glycogen and blood sugar levels are usually low. The body must fill up this gap and therefore fat storage is unlikely. In any case avoid eating carbs in the evening. If you don’t have any physical activity planned then these carbs will turn into fat.

A trick to lose fat and at the same time still increase muscle mass is to rotate carb intake. For example if you need 800 grams of carbs daily then eat 600 grams on day 1, 800 grams on day 2 and 1000 grams on day 3. Then you’ve had the total amount of carbs but the rotation process results in decreased fat and no loss of muscle.