Building muscle is not just about lifting heavier weights. What you eat before, during and after your training can help provide the energy and nutrients your body needs to repair and build muscle.

The good news is that you do not need an expensive supplement cupboard or a diet made up of chicken breasts and protein shakes. A balanced diet built around adequate protein, carbohydrates, healthy fats and enough overall energy can support muscle growth.

Protein should be the priority

If muscle growth is the goal, protein deserves a place at every meal. Your body breaks dietary protein down into amino acids, which are used to repair and build muscle tissue after resistance training.

A 2018 systematic review and meta-analysis published in the British Journal of Sports Medicine looked at data from more than 1,800 participants and found that protein supplementation enhanced gains in muscle size and strength when combined with resistance training. The researchers found that benefits appeared to level off at around 1.6g of protein per kilogram of body weight per day for most people doing resistance training (Morton et al., 2018).

For someone weighing 70kg, that works out to roughly 112g of protein a day.

You can get there through ordinary foods. Chicken, lean beef, fish, eggs, milk, Greek yoghurt, cottage cheese, beans, lentils, chickpeas, tofu and other soy products can all contribute.

You also do not have to eat protein immediately after your workout. A 2013 meta-analysis found that total daily protein intake was a stronger predictor of muscle growth than precisely timing protein around a training session (Schoenfeld et al., 2013).

Spread protein across the day Rather than eating most of your protein at dinner, distribute it across your meals.

A simple day could look like eggs and wholegrain toast at breakfast, chicken with rice and vegetables at lunch, yoghurt and fruit as a snack, and fish, beef or beans with potatoes or another carbohydrate source at dinner.

The exact foods can change according to your preferences and budget. The important part is consistently reaching your daily protein target.

Do not fear carbohydrates

Carbohydrates often get pushed aside when people start trying to build muscle, particularly when they are also trying to lose body fat. But carbohydrates provide an important source of fuel for training.

Good choices include oats, rice, potatoes, sweet potatoes, wholegrain bread, maize meal, pasta, fruit and beans.

Research does not suggest that everyone doing resistance training needs extremely high carbohydrate intake. A 2022 systematic review found that carbohydrate intake alone was unlikely to significantly affect resistance-training performance when people were already eating enough and performing relatively moderate training volumes. However, higher-volume sessions may benefit from greater carbohydrate availability (Henselmans et al., 2022).

In practical terms, if you are training hard several times a week, cutting carbohydrates unnecessarily can make it harder to fuel those sessions.

Add healthy fats

Fat is also part of a muscle-building diet. Avocado, nuts, seeds, olive oil, peanut butter, eggs and oily fish provide fats as well as other nutrients.

Fat is calorie-dense, which can be useful for people struggling to eat enough food to support muscle growth. It is also important not to let a focus on protein and carbohydrates turn your diet into something unnecessarily restrictive.

Eat enough food

One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to build muscle is concentrating so heavily on protein that they forget about total food intake.

Muscle growth requires resistance training and adequate nutrition. If you consistently under-eat, your body has less energy available for recovery and growth.

That does not mean you need to dramatically increase your calories or deliberately gain a lot of body fat. It means eating enough to support your training, recovery and normal bodily functions.

What should your plate look like?

A simple approach is to build most meals around four components: a protein source, a carbohydrate source, vegetables or fruit, and a source of healthy fat.

For example, grilled chicken with rice, mixed vegetables and avocado. Or beef mince with potatoes and vegetables. Or eggs with wholegrain toast, fruit and yoghurt.

For a plant-based meal, try lentils or beans with rice and vegetables, or tofu with noodles and vegetables.

And you do not need to eat “clean” 100% of the time. Building muscle is about what you consistently do over weeks and months, not whether every meal looks like something from a fitness influencer’s Instagram page.

What about protein shakes?

They are convenient, but they are not essential.

The evidence suggests that getting enough total protein is more important than relying on a particular protein supplement or obsessing over the exact minute you consume it. A 2022 systematic review and meta-analysis also found that increasing daily protein intake can enhance gains in lean body mass among people participating in resistance exercise (Nunes et al., 2022).

If you can reach your protein needs through food, there is no requirement to use a shake.

The bigger picture

Food cannot replace progressive resistance training. Your muscles need a reason to adapt, which means consistently challenging them through strength training.

Think of your meals as providing the building materials and energy needed to support that process. Prioritise protein, eat enough overall, include carbohydrates to fuel your training, add healthy fats and choose a wide variety of minimally processed foods.

Most importantly, give it time. Muscle does not appear overnight, and eating more protein will not compensate for inconsistent training, poor recovery or inadequate overall nutrition.

The best muscle-building diet is ultimately one you can follow consistently, fits your lifestyle and gives your body enough of what it needs to train, recover and grow.

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