How many times have you gone into a new diet, or any change, with high hopes only to crash and burn within weeks? This happens far more frequently than you realise.

Many people approach a new diet with an all-or-nothing mentality. This not only sets you up for disappointment but also makes the transition more difficult and uncomfortable from the start.

You don't have to give up everything or completely overhaul your life to see results. Small, manageable changes are usually the best approach. They also help you succeed because they are easier.

Starting a diet is the easy part; sticking to it and seeing results is the difficult part.

Here are some pointers to help you make the most of your new diet plan by understanding what to expect and how to set yourself up for success.

Tip #1: Start Small.

Begin with one or two small goals that you believe you need to work on and commit to them for two to three weeks in order to make them a habit. Once you've mastered your small goals, set some new ones. If you're still having trouble, try a different goal and different habits until something clicks.

Tip #2: Create Your Own System.

Building systems is one of the most beneficial things you can do for your long-term health and fitness goals. Systems are routines that are built into your daily life to assist you in removing obstacles and developing habits.

And the more seamless your goals are, the easier it is to stick to them and the faster you will see results.

Do you want to improve your ability to go to the gym every morning? Choose your gym clothes the night before and place them next to your bed.

Want to stop eating out every day for lunch? Set aside time each week to meal prep healthy options, or use a meal delivery service to do the work for you.

Tip #3: Stay Accurate.

You can't manage something if you don't measure it. Stop guessing how much you're eating and start tracking it with a macronutrient-friendly nutrition app.

Tracking your daily food intake, including cheat meals and alcohol, is the most effective way to hold yourself accountable and ensure you are meeting your goals. Otherwise, when it comes to nutrition, you're flying blind.

Tip #4: Manage Your Cravings.

When you start restricting something, it's human nature to crave that same thing. And the more you restrict, the more you crave — particularly sugar cravings!

Aside from sheer willpower, good nutrition is an excellent way to reduce cravings. Increase your protein intake, focus on more nutrient-dense fruits and vegetables, and avoid calorie restriction.

Organizing your cheat meals and learning true diet maintenance can also help. No food should ever be forbidden, especially if you want your hard work to last after you've finished dieting.

Allowing yourself small amounts of your favourite cheat foods will help you improve your relationship with them.

Schedule cheat meals ahead of time to eliminate any guilt associated with them. You don't have to overdo it to enjoy it; challenge yourself to include some favourite foods and gradually reduce your intake.

Tip #5: Sleep is Important.

You can kiss your willpower and good intentions goodbye if you aren't sleeping well or enough. Dieting already requires some self-discipline, and it is much more difficult to stick to a diet, get a good workout in, and support your health when you are tired. Muscle recovery and growth require rest as well.

Make sleep a priority by setting a bedtime and getting up at the same time every day. Remove all distractions from your bedroom, such as your cell phone, television, and light. And gradually increase your sleep time to at least 7 hours per night. It will make a huge difference.

Tip #6: Don't Rely on the Scale.

Weight fluctuations are completely normal and are not always under your control. Water retention can cause drastic swings in your body weight depending on your macronutrient intake, workouts, stress, sleep, hormones, and so on.

Not to mention that if you're gaining muscle while losing fat, the scale won't budge even if your pants are getting looser. So, rather than living and dying by the scale, track your progress in other ways.

A body fat analysis is the best way to see if your efforts are paying off. This will show you how much fat you've lost and how well your workouts are supporting lean muscle mass, resulting in a more toned appearance.

Tip #7: Be Consistent.

True change comes from consistency and patience, not perfection. Remember that your health is the result of all the decisions you've made throughout your life, not just the last meal you ate.

You are what you repeatedly do, so the more you do something, the more powerful it becomes. This is what consistency entails.

Bottomline

Strive to get it right most of the time rather than all of the time, and everything will fall into place.

A well-timed pre-workout meal can help fuel you during your workouts and provide you with enough sustained energy to push your body to its limits in the gym. Consuming the wrong foods during your pre-workout meal, on the other hand, can cause you to quit early and regret your decision to go to the gym.

In this article, we'll look at some foods to avoid in your pre-workout meal and why they're bad for you if you're planning on crushing a workout.

1. Alcohol

If I really have to explain this one to you, it might be time to find an AA meeting in your area. If you believe that consuming alcohol as part of your pre-workout meal is a good idea, you should reconsider. The combination of alcohol and heavy lifts is a recipe for disaster. Not only could you injure yourself or others in the gym, but alcohol dehydrates the body, which isn't ideal when pushing your body and needing to be properly hydrated to perform optimally. Even a slight decrease in hydration levels can have a significant impact on your workout performance and results.

2. Soda

While soda is probably the most commonly consumed beverage (both regular and diet), avoid anything carbonated with your pre-workout meal. There will be no soda, beer (which also ties into #1), sparkling water, or anything else. While these beverages may be your preferred beverage with a meal, consuming them with your pre-workout meal can cause indigestion, stomach discomfort, and even gas during your workout.

3. Spicy Food

You might enjoy spicy foods — the hotter, the better. That's fantastic… just not during your training sessions. As your pre-workout meal, avoid spicy foods and instead opt for something that is easy on the stomach and easy to digest. If you've ever had indigestion or heartburn after a spicy meal, you can only imagine how bad it would be during a workout. Spicy foods, in fact, can be harmful to the digestive system and should be avoided for at least 12 hours before a workout. When deep into a squat, the last thing you need is the “squirts.” When eating extremely spicy foods that upset the digestive system, you should never trust your stomach.

4. Fried Food

Chicken wings are a food that is related to what was mentioned in #3. Who doesn't enjoy a good wing? Wings or any other fried food, on the other hand, should not be part of your pre-workout meal. Fried foods can cause severe bloating and diarrhea, which are both undesirable when training. You already know that the fat content is high because the food is fried. As a result, it will take your digestive system longer to break down the food and convert it into usable energy. As a result, your pre-workout meal containing fried food will not be absorbed by the body and used as fuel during your workout. Not to mention that fried food isn't part of a healthy diet to begin with.

5. Dairy Products

Dairy and the fats mentioned in #4 are inextricably linked. Because dairy products (milk, cheese, yogurt, etc.) digest slowly, whatever you consume in your pre-workout meal may not be digested and absorbed by the body before your workout. This will deplete your energy reserves and may impair your overall workout performance. Furthermore, consuming dairy products prior to a workout can make you feel sluggish, cause stomach/intestinal cramping and discomfort, and increase your risk of flatulence and nausea during your workout.

6. Cruciferous Vegetables

While cruciferous vegetables like broccoli, brussels sprouts, and cauliflower are high in beneficial micronutrients that we all require in our diet, including them in your pre-workout meal is not a good idea. Cruciferous vegetables are high in raffinose, which can cause digestive issues that are not conducive to training. This can cause stomach and digestive discomfort, making it difficult to perform well in the gym. Add in the fact that cruciferous vegetables are high in sulfur compounds, and you may not only feel terrible, but you may also make everyone else sick from the nasty gas you'll expel, causing everyone around you to start dry heaving.

7. Beans

Beans are the last item on our list of foods and beverages to avoid in your pre-workout meal. I'm going to take you back to your childhood, where I'm sure you remember the good old, “Beans, beans, the musical fruit, the more you eat, the more you toot.” Whatever type of bean you're thinking about, put it down and take a step back. Beans may be a healthy addition to a meal and provide a good source of fiber, but they also have the potential to cause stomach discomfort due to their high raffinose content. Add in the fact that beans can cause flatulence, and you might find yourself tooting your way around the gym — not a good situation.

Tip: In order to absorb all the nutrients it can get, try using BiOptimizers products.

There is a lot of bad advice out there when it comes to health and fitness. Two common misconceptions about body composition and diet exist:

• Reduce your carbohydrate intake to lose weight.
• Increase protein only for muscle growth.

These two rules of thumb, however, are not absolute truths. Carbohydrates and protein are nutrients that both play important roles in body composition, but they both have inaccurate stereotypes.

Yes, if you want to gain muscle mass, you will need a lot of protein. However, you will require a fair amount of carbohydrates, which should not be shocking or frightening.

Protein is naturally credited with helping to build strong muscles, but don't overlook your carbohydrate intake.

You'll need to adjust the amount and type of carbohydrates you consume based on your body composition goals.

When someone wants to lose weight, the first thing they do — or are told to do by a friend who acts as their personal trainer — is adopt a low-carb diet. This will undoubtedly result in fat loss, but cutting carbs should not be a hard and fast rule in body composition, especially when it comes to gaining muscle.

Carbohydrates are usually not restricted if muscle growth is the goal. Weightlifters and athletes appear to understand something about carbohydrates that the general public does not: carbs are not the enemy of achieving your body composition goals.

There are carbs that will help you reach your goals and carbs that will keep you from reaching your goals, just like there are carbs that will keep you from reaching your goals. Complex carbohydrates, among the various types of carbs, play a significant role in muscle mass development.

Carbohydrates and Building Muscle Mass

Researchers discovered that carbohydrates are the primary source of energy in the human diet, out of all the energy sources for the human body. Carbohydrates aren't just for athletes, after all. Carbohydrates are an excellent source of energy for all daily activities, including exercise.

Complex carbohydrates, due to their slow-release properties, should constitute the majority of daily energy intake.

Complex carbohydrates can help you build muscle in a variety of ways, including:

1. Carbohydrates aid in the regulation of muscle glycogen repletion.

You've probably heard of glycogen stores. Glycogen is a type of glucose that is stored in the body for later use. When the body requires energy, glycogen kicks in and serves as a ready fuel source.

Carbohydrates and glycogen are inextricably linked because carbs are stored as glycogen. When carbohydrate stores are depleted, glycogen stores are depleted. When carbohydrates are consumed, glycogen stores are depleted.

Because glycogen is used for energy, it is critical to replenish those stores. This is why researchers recommend eating carbohydrates right after exercise; it replenishes glycogen stores for future use.

2. Carbohydrates keep muscles from deteriorating.

One issue with low-carb diets is muscle loss.

A Dutch study compared a low-carb diet to other diets and discovered that restricting carbs causes protein loss. This is due to the fact that restricting carbs causes an increase in the amount of nitrogen excreted by the body. Because nitrogen is a component of amino acids (the building blocks of muscle proteins), nitrogen loss indicates that the muscles are breaking down.

3. Carbohydrates aid in the recovery of muscles after exercise.

Carbohydrates' role in recovery is linked to glycogen stores. Athletes must replenish their glycogen stores immediately following exercise to avoid glycogen depletion.

Gluconeogenesis is caused by glycogen depletion, which occurs when glycogen stores are depleted. This is the process by which the body creates glucose from non-carbohydrate sources to compensate for the lack of glucose from carbohydrates. When this occurs, the body seeks to meet this need by utilizing sources such as fat and protein. When energy is required, protein acts as the last line of defense, implying that energy accessibility is extremely low.

When the body breaks down protein to produce more glucose, it depletes muscle, causing it to waste away.

Gluconeogenesis is more common in carbohydrate-free diets, so eat healthy carbs to avoid it.

It is critical to replenish glycogen stores with complex carbohydrates in order to avoid protein breakdown and muscle wasting.

When to Eat Complex Carbs for Muscle Building

The amount of complex carbohydrates you consume is determined by your body composition goals. In general, very low carb consumption (5% of total calories) is used for weight loss, while adequate carb consumption (55-60% of total calories) is used for muscle gain.

The timing of carbohydrate consumption has an effect on athletic performance and muscle building.

It is critical to consume complex carbs prior to an intense workout so that glycogen stores are sufficiently replenished to fuel the training. Consuming complex carbs right before a workout may cause digestive distress, so try to limit complex carb consumption to a few hours before an intense workout. If you're running low on energy before a big event, go for simple carbs.

It's critical to consume complex carbs after exercise to replenish glycogen stores for later use.

Slow and gradual weight loss. A weekly loss of weight is safer and easier to maintain.

However, there are occasions where you need to lose weight faster to fit into an outfit. It could be that you want to fit in your favorite attire. You want to go on a vacation, and excess body fat is your hindrance.

You do not need to eat less. A change in both your diet and exercise routine will bring in the desired results. Be consistent and eat a balanced diet, and have a fitness goal

11 Ways To Get Skinny Fast

There are so many ways to cut out fat and make you skinny. Here are 11 ways to get skinny naturally:

1. Eat a lot of protein

Reduce your carbs and take in more protein.

Focus on eating more protein if you want to lose weight quickly.

Proteins help with your metabolism and leave you full for the rest of the day.

Always make sure to add 1 or 2 servings of proteins in every meal 

The proteins you should add to your diets include eggs, beef, seafood, legumes, and chicken.

You should also include a digestion supplement in your diet to make sure that you absorb all the nutrients in the food that you eat.

2. Eat a lot of fruits and vegetables 

Vegetables and fruits are low on calories and fat but high on fiber and vitamins.

They add bulk to your meals with zero calories- there is no limitation on the quantity. You will feel full for the better part of your day.

Incorporate them into every meal you take. It will help you lose weight quickly.

Below are some of the vegetables and fruits you can eat.

Fruits

• Grapes
• Oranges
• Mangoes
• Banana.

Vegetables

• Lettuce
• Broccoli
• Spinach
• Celery

3. Eat small portions

Eating in small portions will help you maintain balance and prevent excess fat storage in your body. Eat meals within 4-5 hours. 

4. Get enough sleep.

It's always important to get 7-8 hours of sleep without interruption. Sleep allows your body to burn fat. You will hardly feel hungry; hence you will tend to eat less.

5. Say no to processed foods.

This includes excess sugar and salt, and preservatives that can be of harm to your body.

They are higher in calories and have no valuable nutrients.

These foods include: canned foods, sweets, candy, chips, and frozen meals

Do not depend so much on processed foods. Instead, cook your meals for you to have control over what goes into your food.

6. Do some cardio

Cardio helps you burn calories and lose weight quickly.

Per week you should be able to do 150 minutes of moderate-intensity cardio workouts. Performing more of this weekly can give you better results.

You can also try running, cycling, swimming and boxing.

Add weight lifting to help in toning your body. You can try two days on your weekly routine specifically for weight training to work on your muscles.

7. Increase your water intake.

Generally, adequate water intake is essential for your health. It can also help in your weight loss.

Drinking water before each meal reduces your appetite, making it easier for you since you will eat less food and be satisfied.

Make sure you are drinking at least 8glasses a day or even more, depending on your body size.

8. Consult an expert

Always seek advice from dieticians or lifestyle coaches about your health and the kind of lifestyle you have chosen before choosing your diet.

They will advise you on what to eat depending on your health and body type.

9. Track your changes

Track down your improvements and anybody changes.

This will help you stick to your routine and adapt to a better and healthier lifestyle.

10. Keep stress away

Try out activities like Yoga and meditation to keep you calm and relaxed.

At times you find yourself stress eating without knowing.

Involve yourself with things filled with positivity, something that will occupy your mind a little bit.

Go for evening walks, visit natural places like rivers, hills or morning runs.

11. Find a weight loss buddy.

Having a support system plays a more prominent role in your weight loss journey because when things get tougher, you will have someone to push you and encourage you to keep going.

If they have the same goal as you, the better because you will be there for each other in all phases. 

12. Use a natural appetite suppressant.

Food can be so addictive. With the sugar, preservatives, and other chemicals, food today is made for consumers to want to keep eating. A natural appetite suppressant can help curb those cravings

How Do You Get Skinny Legs?

Do you want skinny legs? Here are some ways to lose fat and attain skinny legs.

• Exercise with treadmill

Walking or running on a treadmill is helpful to get skinny legs. It depends on how fast or slow you go on it.

A walk on it can help you lose about 400 – 500 calories.

• Stretching legs

After every workout, you always have to stretch a bit to lower the pain or tenderness of your leg muscles.

A minute of it will help you activate.

• Swimming

Swimming is an excellent body workout, especially for the legs. You can burn 500 calories depending on how long you will be in the water.

• Cycling

You can burn about 500-600 calories while cycling. This is the most effective way to burn down leg fat and tone the leg muscles.

How do you get skinny arms?

You do not need to do intense exercises to get skinny arms. Do a workout that burns calories and tones your arm muscles, and maintains a healthy diet.

Here are some of the ways to tone your arm muscles

•  Watch calories or portions

If weight loss helps tone your arms and get them to be skinny, you will need to watch your calories intake and the portion of your food.

Eat lots of fruits and vegetables and watch the intake of fatty animal products, especially dairy products.

Do light muscle toning because they will. Make your arms look toned and pleasant without too many build-up muscles.

• Exercise

Here are some of the ways to help you get skinny and attractive arms

If you cannot go to the gym, you can use improvised water bottles for weights. This is to help you tone the muscles of the arms and gain muscle mass. Use resistance bands as well.

• Drink adequate water.

It is essential for exercise, a healthy diet, and weight loss.

Take at least 8-13 glasses of water, depending on your body weight.

Do Not Ignore Your Health To Become Skinny.

Always eat right and choose foods that will help you burn calories. Exercise also plays a significant role in weight loss.

However, improving your health and maintaining a healthy weight should be your priority.

Do not focus so much on getting skinny and forgetting your health. It could cause harm to your body and even shut down your system.

 Have a clear mindset; if it doesn't work well with you, eat healthily and exercise well.

The Ectomorph Body Type: Why gain muscle can be hard for this body type.

We are all born with different body shapes, types, and sizes. Each is categorized using their physical build and appearance.  There are several types of body types. Today we will be covering the ectomorph body type. 

This article will cover how people with this body type can gain muscle using workouts, diet, and training.

                             Photo by CATHY PHAM on Unsplash

What is an Ectomorph?

Ectomorphs are a type of body that is skinny and slim. Their body builds consist of minor joints, tall, long limbs and thin bones. They have small muscles due to their tendency to have higher body metabolism due to many fats; they tend to burn out quickly.

Most of the people in this category struggle to gain weight.

Most of these ectomorphs are artists, basketball players, and models who hire trainers to help them gain muscles through workouts.

Ectomorph Body Type Diet

Since ectomorphs have a high metabolism, this fast metabolism makes one eat anything making him lean and not easier to gain weight. As people become older, the metabolism rate lowers, making muscles become less hence increasing in fats.

 They should eat a lot of carbohydrates like sweet potatoes, rice, oats and calories. Calories should be like 400-500 to gain muscle for skinny guys. Most of their calories should come from curbs and around 23% from the proteins they eat.

They should eat a lot of proteins due to their macronutrients. Those nutrients are components for building muscles and the body. For ectomorph muscle gain, they should practice eating every 2-4 hrs, and the food should be warm for easier digestion.

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The best diet for ectomorphs

Gaining weight for skinny guys is all about consistency. Eating the required diet eventually leads to better results. Here are some of the other diets they should practice on:

• They should eat plenty of best vegetables like cauliflower, broccoli, squash, Brussels, asparagus, carrots,
•  Eat many fruits, e.g. mango, oranges, apples, pears, bananas, pineapple, avocado, peaches.
• Dairy products that are free from fat will help the ectomorph gain weight.
•  Meat and fish from turkey, chicken, seafood
• Snacks full of nutrients
• Nuts and seeds like almonds, peanut, pumpkin seeds
• Grains like rice, faro, quinoa
• Supplements such as Natural Steriods

                                                 

• 

Marius- Brutal Force Ambassador

Example of a five-day meal diet.

Day One

• Breakfast-oat, almonds oil
• Lunch-tomato, lettuce, onions
• Dinner-sweet potatoes, Brussels
• Snack-avocado

Day Two

• Breakfast-apples, walnuts
• Lunch-proteins
• Dinner-Shrimp, quinoa
• Snack-guacamole.

Day Three

• Breakfast-roasted sweet potatoes
• Lunch salad and avocado.
• Dinner-chicken, tomatoes
• Snack-almond butter.

Day Four

• Breakfast-sweet potatoes, nut butter
• Lunch-beans,broccoli.
• Dinner-chicken, kale
• Snack-apple juice.

Day Five

• Breakfast-oat, strawberry, walnuts
• Lunch beans, broccoli.
• Dinner-turkey, mangoes, beans.
• Snack-soy milk.

The Ectomorph Body type workout

Now we have known a proper diet for the Ectomorph body type to gain muscles and weight. Famous bodybuilders like Frank Zane, an Ectomorph, worked hard and built their physique. Let’s now look at the workout that can accompany the diet.

Photo by Victor Freitas on Unsplash

Compound lifting

Compound lifting is a type of training that involves movements that strains several muscles. Lifting helps in training more muscles simultaneously; it saves time and increases loading stress.

Its ability to train muscles at once aids in strength improvement and improved workout hence easier gaining of muscles. These exercises include the following:

Squats

Squats involve movement for building the strength of the legs and the back. There are many types of squats not limited to overhead, front, back and box squats.

Deadlift

This exercise involves movement of the back and hamstring for Ectomorph. Deadlifting involves the use of sumo, deficit, bubbles, kettlebells, among others.

Bench Press

Bench press involves the gaining of muscles between the chest and the triceps. Examples are the use of dumbells, bench presses, kettlebells and barbells.

Push-Up

Push-ups are very excellent and convenient. They help Ectomorphs gain muscle at home without any equipment. It aids in developing chest and triceps muscles: includes wides, hand pushups, triangle pushups, handstand pushups and floor pushups.

Isolation Exercises

They are generally essentially used for developing one type of muscle. It is one way an ectomorph can work out without equipment. Isolation exercises include walking lunges, standing shoulder press, dipsy, preacher curls, walking lunges and so on.

Cardio Exercises For Ectomorphs

Cardio programs should be part of the exercises by the ectomorph body type. They don’t need to do a lot of them but little of them. They help in improving cardiovascular health and facilitate the oxygen and nutrients delivery to the blood. It also improves the functioning of the lungs and heart. A good pre-workout can always help if cardio is not the most loved part of your workout. BlackWolf is a good prework as it is loaded with scientifically backed ingredients, at clinically effective dosages. This means it’s got just the right amount of everything to guarantee you a pack-leading performance every time, you can find them here.

The number of cardio exercises is supposed to be few due to the lower percentage of twitch fibers. Practice is supposed to be 2-3 times per week.

Cardio exercises also increase appetite by helping to burn calories. This practice also improves the mental health of the ectomorphs by recovering the body to a normal state.

Weight Lifting

They have been recommending that ectomorphs lift weights 2-3 times per week. Each workout should consist of four to five joint movements. Each muscle group should get around 12 reps per workout.

Weight lifting helps in increasing the mass of the muscles and the strength of the body. It is one of the essential workout routines for ectomorphs.

Behaviours To avoid when carrying out Workouts.

Some behaviors are discouraged when you are performing workouts. Some of them may lead to poor muscle development or no change at all. Here are some of the things to avoid:

• Avoid doing too many cardio sessions as it will affect the development of your muscle.
• Minimize weight lifting sessions. Too many sessions for skinny guys prevents the muscles from regaining, which may lead to weight loss.
• Ectomorph is not having enough sleep.

Ectomorph Workout is all about planning.

If you have been wondering how ectomorphs workout, you are aware now. Throughout the article, we have seen how ectomorphs can gain muscle at home with or without equipment.

To achieve your body plan, you have to choose a better diet, roll out a workout plan and be disciplined and attentive. All the rest will fall in place. The goal of transformation begins, and when done right, everything else falls in place.

Let me know in the comments below how you go with your workouts?

Natural bodybuilding has controversies and myths. Probably you have fallen for one or another. Some bodybuilders think that using natural bodybuilding supplements keeps you off being a natural weight lifter, while others believe that takes supplements like clean carbs, creatine and protein isolate is still natural bodybuilding.

Read on to differentiate between genuine and not, and clear all the myths about natural bodybuilding supplements.

Photo by Sharon McCutcheon on Unsplash

If you are an aspiring bodybuilder, a competitive one that wants to start natural bodybuilding, or a bodybuilding sport fan, you are in the right place. Below, you will learn what natural bodybuilding is, which supplements are ideal for a natural bodybuilder, which supplements are banned, and much more. Stay tuned.

What is Natural Bodybuilding?

Early in the day, natural bodybuilding meant workout and gaining muscles without using any supplements. However, science has outdated this definition of natural bodybuilding. According to science, supplements like glutamine, and creatine cannot be unnatural because they are naturally found in our diets.

It is vague to argue that taking something found in natural foods or those produced by your body is unnatural. If that would be case, you would say that taking food that has glutamine and creatine, such as red meat, places you out of the natural bodybuilding category.

Some bodybuilders also believe that taking pre-workout protein shakes or creatine is not natural- which is wrong.

The appropriate definition of natural bodybuilding is taking foods and supplements allowed by a bodybuilding sanctioning organisation.

Natural bodybuilding is a complex topic. However, most bodybuilders agree that natural bodybuilding entails not taking performance-enhancing drugs-PEDs, growth hormones, peptides, anabolic steroids, or any other substance that enhances muscle growth or fat loss.

World Anti-Doping Agency (WADA) is an internationally recognised agency that regulate which substances an athlete can or cannot take. These agencies test athletes for any banned substances. Natural bodybuilders should consult with the agencies they want to compete for, as the list might differ from WADA-banned supplements. So, avoid taking banned bodybuilding supplements if you’re going to remain in the game for a longer time.

Photo by CHU Gummies on Unsplash

The 5 Best Supplements for Natural Bodybuilding

The following list consists of recommended natural bodybuilding supplements, which is also available in a natural bodybuilder’s diet plan but in a small percentage.

1. Branched Chain Amino Acids (BCAA)

To improve your muscle growth, you need to remain in an anabolic state- It is essential. BCAA is a group of three primary amino acids, which include valine, isoleucine, and leucine.

Branched Chain Amino Acids stimulate muscle mass building by arousing muscle protein synthesis and breaking down muscle protein- the process known as proteolysis. Taking these amino acids all day and during bodybuilding workouts will give you the desired results.

2. Clean Carbs

Any natural bodybuilder needs two main things to remain in the game: Eating right and working out right. Reaching your daily carbs target can be an arduous task, especially when adding weight and gaining muscles.

Many carbs supplements for bodybuilding are dextrose and maltodextrin, which make your body produce an insulin response for swift recovery or short burst energy.

On the other hand, clean carbs are made up of pure complex carbs foods, the same you get from yams, sweet potatoes, blueberries, and oats. Clean carbs help you achieve your daily carbs target, help post-workout recovery, and improve general bodybuilding workout exercises. Normalise talking about 24g of clean carbs daily.

3. Whey Protein Shake

Protein is an essential component of muscle growth. A collection of amino acids makes up protein, which stimulates muscle gain by a process known as muscle protein synthesis. Whey protein is easily absorbable compared to other forms of proteins. As a natural bodybuilder, never lack whey protein shakes in your diet plan.

4. Citrulline Malate

Citrulline is a natural bodybuilding supplement that is derived from plants such as apples and watermelons. Citrulline is a non-essential amino acid, while malate comes from malic acid. The combination of these two compounds has enormous ergogenic benefits.

Citrulline malate is well known to be the best nitric oxide booster which helps in oxygen circulation, optimum blood flow, and nutrients essential to muscle growth and muscle strength.

5. Beta-Alanine

To build muscle mass, you need the right workout volume. To achieve the best out of your bodybuilding career, you need to take natural amino acids supplements like beta-alanine. If you combine beta-alanine and l-histidine, you get a dipeptide known as carnosine. Carnosine inhibits the accumulation of lactic, which essentially increases your workout volume.

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Banned Supplements in Natural Bodybuilding in Contests.

The list of banned bodybuilding supplements depends on the contest you want to compete in. Each agency has its own set of rules and regulations.

In this section, let us focus on the list available at WNBF. It has the strictest regulations. So, you abide by their rules, and the high chances are that you will go through other agencies without a hassle.

There are more than 200 substances banned from WNBF contents. But will highlight just a few. Here’s is the list:

• Hallucinogens, cannabinoids, and opioids– Even the legal CBD is banned here. You will not qualify if you have taken CBD oil.
• Anabolic Steroids– Examples include drostanolone, androstenediol, nandrolone (Deca-Durabolin), mesterolone, boldenone, trenbolone, and stanozolol
• Muscle implant– Don’t think of adding any muscles surgically.
• Prohomes and precursor– These kinds of hormones converts to testosterone, and they are prohibited, e.g., DHEA
• Testosterone– all forms of testosterones are banned, including but not limited to injections, gels, creams, and patches.
• Peptides, growth hormones, and growth factors– Examples include human chorionic gonadotropin (HCG), growth hormone (HGH), erythropoietin (EPO), and insulin-like growth factor-1 (IGF-1)

Bottom line: Supplements are Allowed in Natural Bodybuilding

As seen, natural bodybuilding is a contradicting topic- it has confused personal trainers, fitness professionals, athletes, and bodybuilders.

Whichever side of the coin you are in, you need to take supplements and substances from plants like BCAAs, Whey protein, and creatine if you want to become a natural bodybuilder. These supplements occur naturally in daily foods that you take. They are as natural as you.

Your safety and health come first- ensure any bodybuilding supplement you take is safe and effective. Go for natural bodybuilding supplements, indulge in extensive bodybuilding workouts, and be the next big thing.