Mistakes You’re Making To Bulk Up & Build Muscle Mass:
It seems like you’re going to the gym constantly, working out three, four, or even five times a week with little or no results to offer in return for your efforts and investment. Then you start going to the gym every day and still nothing seems to be in line with your expected results.
Then you continue to struggle with your daily workout routine, and while you might be losing weight overall and getting more muscle tone, you wonder where’s that massive mass and increase in overall bulk you’ve been seeking? Your trainer is puzzled and you’re pissed off, so what are you missing inside this important workout equation and daily exercise regime?
The problem might be within your perspective itself, instead of working from the outside inward, you may need to look at what’s going on in the opposite direction – from the inside out. This especially rings true when it comes to your diet and other lifestyle choices. What you put inside your body could be what’s preventing you from achieving the desired results you’re hoping to achieve on the outside.
Take a look at this list of four foods you could be consuming that may be sabotaging your workout routine and why they’re failing you. According to Muscle and Fitness, you should avoid eating these commonly seen items that appear to be healthier choices on the outside:
- Dried and Dehydrated Fruits: When liquid is removed from these healthy alternatives to fresh fruit, often they include added sugar and sulfates to increase their shelf life. But it also decreases the hydration health benefits they offer and adds calories and fat to these processed snacks that sabotage your results.
- To-Go Salads: For those of us on the go, these pre-packed greens seem like a healthy alternative to greasy, fried foods, but they’re full of hidden calories and additives. They’re usually found in fatty toppings like bacon bits, and again with the dried fruits and nuts. The dressings are also usually packed with unnecessary calories.
- Diet Sodas: It almost goes without saying you should avoid sugar-packed sodas, but their calorie-cutting alternatives can be just as unhealthy. Sources at M&F also state that some artificial sweeteners included in these products can pack up to 100 times the sweetening agents found in natural sources like fructose and sucrose. Not only does this interfere with your exercise regime, it can really mess with your body’s natural production of insulin.
- Processed Meats: These refined foods are often referred to by professional trainers as “empty calories” and all the added sodium and fillers provide no real, nutritional value.
You should really steer clear from food items that are “processed” in general, since they contain so many unnecessary additives, tons of salt and preservatives that are overall unhealthy.
Muscle & Fitness also points to somewhat obvious unhealthy choices in your diet regime, common selections like ice cream, pizza and fried foods, which exemplify all of the points mentioned above. While you may think you’re doing yourself better on the outside with increased levels of exercise, eating fatty, fried foods will kill you internally.
More Fitness & Health Recommendations
One of the most popular male-fitness orientated publications on the market today, Men’s Health offers their own advice on this particular topic. While they point to obvious threats like smoking and drinking, which threaten many aspects of our overall health, these unhealthy habits can also sabotage our workout routines and stab our strength routines in the back.
Men’s Health experts share that drinking alcohol coats and covers important muscles, like our abs, with a layer of fat that interferes with hormone production and can stunt the increase of our girth when it comes to muscle development. They counter with the fact that regular exercise can reduce the urge to smoke and drink and along with abstinence, this can increase testosterone levels which can heighten the effect of our workout routines.
When it comes to working out and staying healthy, a few beers and a couple of cigarettes may seem harmless, but they can really mess with your total workout regime. Working out requires more of a commitment when it comes to physical regimes. It’s a mindset centered around healthier life choices when it comes to our diet and other important lifestyle choices.
