5. Muscle Building – Understand the Process of Muscle Building

Many people are interested in muscle building (and so you are!). Muscles make a man, at least from a woman’s perspective (as understood from men’s perspective!) 

You start working towards the goal of building muscles. You go to a gym or buy some equipment and begin to practice weight training.

After undergoing a strenuous process of weight training for a fairly long period, you find that your muscles have not developed at all. If anything, you have become a little fatter because of eating a little more, with your exercises having made you fatigued and crave for more food!

In many tasks, failures often occur in the beginning. When you begin a process, you need to understand how the process operates. 

So, begin by understanding what makes your muscles grow strong. As they say in philosophy, knowledge will liberate you. It will liberate you from ignorance, false ideas, misconceptions and myths.

Muscle building is very much like becoming rich! How do you become rich? If you earn more than what you spend (or spend less than what you earn!), you save money. Your savings build your wealth and make you rich.

You build muscles when your body makes more proteins than it uses up and has some surplus that it can store. 

Your body makes protein by a process called protein synthesis. Protein is also used up by your body for various activities like making hormones, repairing and building new cells etc. In short, protein is needed for growth. That is why children, pregnant women and teenagers need more protein. If the protein synthesized by the body is more than what is consumed, the excess is stored by the body. 

The quantity of proteins  stored  in the body determines how strong your muscles would be built.

Since you may not be able to control the quantum of proteins needed by the body, you will have more protein stored in your body by increasing the intake of your protein. 

The important sources of protein are pulses, whole grains, dairy products and meat.

So if you are interested in muscle building, take care to consume enough protein by following an appropriate diet. Needless to say, the protein intake should be balanced with the intake of other ingredients like carbohydrates etc to ensure that your diet is balanced. Consuming excess protein can harm your body in several ways. 

What you should remember is that focusing on only exercises without paying attention to what you eat will not help you build muscles.