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Nutrition For Building Muscle | 6 Nutritionist-Approved Tips | Myprotein
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Jan 30, 2025
Want to nail your nutrition for building muscle? We got you. Nutrition coach and performance specialist, Ed Whittaker, is here to bust through the myths and simplify all the information that’s out there into 6 key principles for you to follow to maximise your results. Our expert is here to deliver the science-approved, evidence-based facts so that you can put all your effort into training hard and fuelling your body right. Got any questions or other topics you'd like to see Ed cover next? Let us know in the comments below! Ed Whittaker has a BSc with Hons in Sports and Exercise Science and is a BTN certified nutritionist. See more from him here: https://bit.ly/3kKR0x6 ** Subscribe to our channel: https://www.youtube.com/user/MyproteinUK At Myprotein it’s our mission to #FuelYourAmbition and push you forwards on your #ForeverFit journey. We’re here for active men and women who want to invest in themselves mentally and physically — for the long run. Only expert-backed advice. No quick fixes — just the facts.
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hi my name is ed whittaker and i'm a
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performance nutritionist
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today i'm going to be sharing all my top
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nutrition tips for you
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to help you build more muscle
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[Music]
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so it's pretty well researched and
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pretty well known that protein is really
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important when it comes to
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building muscle but it's not just
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protein in general we've got to look at
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a few different bits and the biggest for
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me is the total protein intake for the
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day
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so can you have too much can you have
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too little if you have too little
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protein
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then you are not giving your muscles the
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building blocks they need to repair and
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to recover and if you have too much
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you could just be wasting your money
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wasting food
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and all that sort of stuff people say
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too much protein can be bad for your
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kidneys
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there is no real known research that
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shows that
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a high protein diet can cause bad side
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effects and stuff like that to your
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kidneys
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so the research really varies for how
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much protein you should have but it's
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pretty conclusive
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that you should be having somewhere
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between 1.5 and 2
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grams per kilo of body weight so some
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researchers look at the lower ends 1.7
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to 2 grams and some studies have even
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looked up to
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3 grams per kilo of body weight but the
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truth really lies somewhere in the
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middle so with all my clients i tend to
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put them on around
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2 grams per kilo of body weight and that
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is for the debt if you're 100kg male or
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female and you are on 2 grams per kilo
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of body weight
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you'd be on 200 grams of protein for the
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day so my second
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nutritional tip is protein timing there
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is a thing called muscle protein
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synthesis and this is basically the
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rebuilding of your muscles
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when we digest protein the amino acids
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from that protein
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spike this process called muscle protein
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synthesis all the rebuilding of the
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muscles kind of happens but then once
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this spike starts to come back down
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again
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these processes kind of slow down so we
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need to keep this spike
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topping up soon as that process comes
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back down to baseline we want to try and
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trigger it again so this is where the
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timing of protein can be quite
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important there's a really good study
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and they had three different groups one
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group had
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eight servings of 10 grams of protein
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one group had
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four servings of 20 grams of protein and
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the final group
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had two servings of 40 grams of protein
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the first
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one had 10 grams of protein every hour
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and a half and
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that didn't even spike muscle protein
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synthesis the protein amount was too
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small the window was too short
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second group these saw the biggest
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results they had
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four servings of 20 grams of protein and
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those servings were
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three hours apart and it is thought that
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the amino acid
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profile within 20 grams of protein is
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the perfect amount so that is enough
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time for the spike to happen
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and then to come back down again the
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final route with the
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two servings of 40 grams of protein was
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too much of a gap because they had their
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feeling every six hours
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they didn't really keep that spike
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topped up so from this research and
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plenty of others that have conducted
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similar research it's pretty well known
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that we need at least 20 grams of
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protein per serving and we also
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need to look at the timing and that
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would be every sort of two to four hours
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look to plan your protein feedings as
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many as you can if you can get five or
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six protein feedings in a day
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that is brilliant my third top tip is
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being in a calorie surplus
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so if you are eating more than your body
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burns you are then in a calorie surplus
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and this is the ideal setting for your
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body to build muscle there's some very
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good studies out there that show when
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you are in a
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calorie deficit that muscle protein
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synthesis just
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it doesn't work quite as well as it does
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as when you're in a surplus there was
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one study that showed the participants
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gaining
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eight percent more fat free mass over 12
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weeks so that's muscle tissue
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when in a calorie surplus it's putting
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our body in a
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perfect kind of growing position so you
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have to take this with a slight pinch of
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salt that has to be
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some common sense used as well because
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not everybody wants to keep
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putting on more body weight so my fourth
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top tip
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is the macronutrient split we have three
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main macronutrients we have fats protein
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and carbs and we need to now split these
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up per meal
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roughly so we can get the most benefit
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from them so let's look at protein first
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so if we go off the early recommendation
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of around two grams per kilo of body
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weight you're a hundred kg person
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and so that's 200 grams of protein
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perfect we can now split that into
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however many meals we want for the day
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we look at fats one gram per kilo of
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body weight is pretty good it is then
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enough fat for you to get all the health
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benefits
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fats being nine calories per gram of fat
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that comes at a calorie consequence as
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well and so around a gram
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per kilo of body weight is brilliant
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then we look at carbohydrates and
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basically if you've got a calorie
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allowance if you've got
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2 000 calories say it tends to be
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whatever's left but if you're looking at
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it from purely a performance point of
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view
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you would look for anything more than
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three grams per kilo of
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body weight for carbohydrates that will
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top up your energy supply it will give
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you enough energy then for the day
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and for your training sessions and that
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sort of stuff but also to bear in mind
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with carbohydrates some people think
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that more is better not necessarily
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there were some studies that looked at
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carbohydrate intake and they compared
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65 to 40 of the diet being carbohydrates
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and there was no difference in
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performance so don't think that
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necessarily you need to have more and
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more and more to make your training
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better
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it's not necessarily the case so my
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fifth nutritional tip
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for gaining more muscle is to fuel your
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sessions
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if you are training in the morning
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that's kind of one story but if we're
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training later in the day then we can
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look to have a meal
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uh before that training session so
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anywhere up to two hours before the
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training session is perfect
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that gives everything time then to
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digest and then be where it needs to be
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and that is then going to allow us to
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train to the best of our abilities
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there's no point in having all your
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training right if you're going to go
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into the gym with no energy
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and just flop after the first set two
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hours before the training session
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what do we need to be eating well fats
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take a long time to digest they take a
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long time to exit the digestion system
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and the stomach and to kind of process
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so we need to keep the fats down in this
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pre-training meal
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same with protein protein takes a longer
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time to digest so we need to keep the
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protein moderate but still
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around that 20 gram mark to get the
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benefits of muscle protein synthesis
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so carbohydrates are going to form the
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bulk of this meal now this doesn't have
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to be for every meal this is just the
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pre-training meal so look at
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carbohydrates being the main fork
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of this meal so my sixth and final top
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nutritional tip for gaining more muscle
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is your post gym routine your body
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is in a muscle building and muscle
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recovery
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state for around about 24 hours after
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you've trained
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um and then it has also shown that
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anywhere sort of between 45
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minutes and 150 minutes and that your
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body is in a very anabolic state
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so you should take advantage of this it
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can stay in this state for about four
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hours or so
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if you are fasted if you're not eating
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after your training session but we want
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to take advantage of muscle protein
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synthesis here
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so having at least 20 grams of protein
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post training is going to be
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really really beneficial we want to
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not necessarily have this as soon as
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we've finished filming we've finished
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that last set
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but within an hour or so we would be
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wanting to have a
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protein serving because this is gonna
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just benefit muscle protein synthesis
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it's going to kick-start that rebuilding
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process
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and if we wait too long then we are
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potentially missing out on a protein
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serving for that day as well
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if though you have a huge protein
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serving
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50 60 grams of protein after you've
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trained
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this could actually be detrimental to
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the whole recovery process because it's
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going to take that long
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for your protein to digest into the
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system and to absorb
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that you could have had two siblings in
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that amount of time and that is going to
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be more beneficial than the one big
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serving if you are somebody that trains
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very regularly so
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every day of the week or you have
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multiple sessions where you have a gym
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session and then a
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cardio session later on in the day you
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might want to look at
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combining carbohydrates and protein
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together
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this doesn't necessarily help with
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muscle protein synthesis to improve it's
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not going to make you
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bigger and stronger after the gym it's
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not going to make you particularly
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recover any quicker but it is going to
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allow you to quickly
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refuel your body to then go on to the
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next training session
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so those were my top six nutritional
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tips for building more muscle
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we had protein amount protein timing
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being in a calorie surplus
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macro split and we also had fueling your
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session and then your post
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gym routine my name's edward whittaker
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thank you for watching
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#Nutrition