Muscles are often considered home to our body’s strength. The strength of your muscles decides the amount of power your body holds. It thus becomes important to maintain and look after the wear and tear of these muscles.
Besides supplements available in markets, people rely on basic lifestyle changes to preserve muscle strength. Slight changes in dietary and eating habits might give better strength and muscles.
Among various other nutrients, carbohydrates are an important source of muscle strength. With insufficient credit to their account carbs are crucial in muscle building.
Their primary task is to replace glycogen which aids the secretion of insulin in the body. This in turn helps in better transportation of nutrients through the body. In our discussion today let us find out How to Use Carb Wisely for Muscle Gain and how it helps in getting the desired fit.
How Does Carb Affect Muscles?
Bodybuilders, athletes, or even common men looking for muscle strength often rely on carbohydrate consumption for better results. The glucose cells used for energy production come from glycogen present in the body.
This energy not only helps in physical activities but is also much needed during workouts. With the presence of carbohydrates, glycogen stores are replenished giving you more workout energy.
Carbs come in handy for bodybuilders giving muscles adequate energy, strength, and power. One tool that muscle gainers often pick is “carb cycling”.
It is not only a source of regulating carbohydrate consumption but is also a nice way to check your calorie intake. Practicing carb cycling gives you more gym hours and increased reps for power lifts. For a better understanding of How to Use Carb Wisely for Muscle Gain let us move to further sections.
Carb Timing for Muscle Gain
Often referred to as carb timing or loading, carb cycling is a preferred choice for gym enthusiasts. To get the most benefits from carb cycling, one must consider its basics thoroughly.
It requires carb consumption in 3 stages, alternated to maintain a healthy flow of carbohydrates in the body. By simple alterations in crab consumption, you can achieve the body of your desire. These alterations are discussed below-
#1. No Carb Days
This part of the diet requires you to minimize your carbohydrate intake to the least. Often known as zero carb or zero starch days, you should eat carbs lower than 5% of your total calorie intake of the day. Consuming carbs through daily essentials like fruits and vegetables is enough.
#2. Low-Carb Days
On these days you consume more starch than in the previous section yet in a controlled manner. The permissible limit of carbohydrates is 1g of carbs per pound of weight. This way your body gets just enough carbohydrates to maintain its regular energy supply.
#3. High Carb Days
Seemingly the best days of the diet, here you can consume more carbs than usual. They are the “refeed” part of your diet, giving you enough carb content to survive through low and zero-carb days. Around 2g of carbohydrates per 1 pound of weight is a good quantity to consume.
The above-mentioned carb cycling arrangement regulates your carbohydrate consumption throughout the week. Alternating these 3 provides your body with enough energy without excessive fat deposits.
The carbohydrate stored during the high-carb period is used as energy on days with low or zero carbs. This maintains the natural balance of nutrition and muscle strength and gain.
The best way to regulate this carb timing to gain muscles is to practice 3 days of low followed by 1 day of high intake. Exact consumption may depend on factors like body weight and strength.
Yet following the pattern mentioned here is the best. By cutting down to 1 g of carbs per 1 pound of lean muscles you can double this quantity on days of high carb.
This way on your low carb days the previous carbohydrate consumption gives strength to the muscles. Let us further discuss How to Use Carb Wisely for Muscle Gain and some more considerations to remember while following this diet.
When to Eat Carbs on this Diet?
Having understood the basics and importance of carb cycling the next query is when is the best time to eat carbs? In the present section, we will discuss this in detail.
To optimize the benefits of carb timing, the right time of carb consumption is very important. Being anabolic, carbs tend to increase the sugar level in your body influencing the insulin stores.
Carb timing is important to regulate the function of increased insulin levels. While most of us believe that high insulin is a direct cause of increased weight, yet high amount of insulin in the body also enhances protein absorption by the muscles.
- This anabolic function is increased after heavy exercises. This makes the best time for carb consumption after a workout.
- Consuming simple carbs like yogurt before a heavy workout can prove effective for muscle gain. Causing a rapid rise in energy, simple carb snacks before a workout are great for muscle building.
- Consuming sports drinks or gels after about 90-120 minutes of vigorous workouts is also a good way to build muscles. Being simple sugars, they provide instant energy and do not contribute to weight gain.
The above points indicate the best time to consume different types of carbs. While these may be effective in muscle building, we should also consider when not to consume carbs.
Later evenings or right before bed is often the worst time to eat carbs. Giving the body no time to digest the carbohydrate consumed, it gets collected as the body. Not only does it hamper weight maintenance but also takes away from muscle nutrition.
How to Balance Carbs and Muscle Mass?
Usually, carb intake is directly linked to fat gain and weight gain as well. While being on an active routine to get started physique with lean muscle mass, It’s indeed important to monitor your carbon intake as well as the fat accumulation and different parts of the body.
It would be better if you combine supplements that can help eliminate the effectiveness of carbs by digesting them naturally. CrazyBulk D-Bal is a muscle-building supplement that is known or preferred by several fitness freaks for gains.
The supplement combines natural ingredients that can help in cutting down carbs accumulation from the body and using the stored fat as the source of energy to bulk up.
Even though, if you are concerned about dbal side effects technically there are none. that’s why it would be better if you combine supplements like this to your fitness resume to balance out your daily carb and take and its usage as well.
Now, let’s conclude the discussion of “How to Use Carb Wisely for Muscle Gain” with a final note.
Summing Up Your Carb Intake
While carbohydrate intake can be fruitful in building the required muscle mass, its regulation and carb timing are important considerations in the process.
The amount of consumption is another important factor to be kept in mind. This amount may vary as per your body weight and need. Consumption of around 6-8 handfuls of carbs daily can be sufficient for an active meal.
Having understood the vital role carb cycling and carb timing play in muscle building, we should incorporate the same. Carb sources like fruits vegetables, legumes, oats, etc. can be a good way to enrich its sources in our body. Carbohydrate thus has a lot more advantages to offer than what it is credited for.
Adding the mentioned supplement can also be worth it, as it helps again muscle mass without turning carbs into fat.
If you’re concerned about the supplement ingredients and it seems not suitable for you go with the other alternative for this supplement i.e., D-Bal Max. To compare the effectiveness of both you should consider dbal max vs dbal reviews on the web.
So why wait, simply shift your focus to carb regulation and enjoy the desired muscle gains!
