It is essential to have enough nutrients inside your body to be able to move according to your wants and needs. Nutrients are obtained through eating food. If you do not have appetite every single day, how would your body be able to obtain the essential nutrients needed for daily grind? Be minded that it is important to eat before working out to have enough energy for your bodybuilding routine.
Know what causes loss of appetite and it impacts on bodybuilders like you. How to increase appetite? Here are tips you can try from morning ‘till bedtime!
More...
What causes loss of appetite?
There are many reasons behind your loss of appetite. If you are taking medications like pain relievers, antibiotics, and chemotherapy drugs, it may possibly affect your relationship with food. Basically, your taste buds can identify these strange flavors coming from medicines, making you unwanted to eat more.
Aside from that, having poor nutrition and illnesses can also contribute to your loss of appetite. Therefore, you have to avoid being ill to have properly working appetite. As bodybuilders, it is important to have the healthy appetite to be able to give your body the nutrients necessary for your workout and other daily activities. You definitely cannot afford to be sick if you are superbly determined to gain real health.
What happens if we have loss of appetite? It impacts bodybuilders’ lives
You skipped your breakfast; then you skipped your lunch and dinner as well. People thought you are starving yourself to lose some fats, but the truth is you have problems with your appetite, and you are not doing anything to counter it. Do you know what the effects of loss of appetite are?
Food is important in bodybuilding. You need more food because you are doubling your utilization of nutrients each time you do your daily workout schedule. If you skipped meals, a lot of calories and nutrients failed to enter your body system. You now have a lesser energy to workout.
Aside from the loss of energy, you may also get sick because you do not have enough nutrients for your normal processes of your body systems. It lessens your body’s ability to do its normal operations, making you less productive than ever. How would you be able to continue your activities if you are starving? Loss of appetite must be eradicated from us, bodybuilders, system.
Why do we need to improve and increase our appetite?
As bodybuilders, we need to have enough energy for us to be able to conduct our daily workout grind. We cannot afford to be sick, and even having loss of appetite. We need to increase appetite to have better health. Watch this video understand why increasing appetite is important in bodybuilding:
Indeed, having a regularly working appetite will increase our productivity both in the gym and in our workplaces. We can do more routines if we have eaten enough. We have more energy to work out since we had enough sources of protein and carbohydrates.
Other than that, good appetite can also bring us a step towards the achievement of real health, thus making us fitter. In addition to going to the gym and working out, increasing our appetite can indeed help us in our bodybuilding!
Tips to increase your appetite!
To help you continue with your daily gym schedules with enough nutrients and energy, here are tips to increase your appetite. These tips are ordered according to the time you may try incorporating it into your usual schedule from morning to bedtime. Be overwhelmed because you have the whole 24 hours to improve your appetite!
1. Grab your most important meal of the day: BREAKFAST!
Start your day with seating on your breakfast table with the meals you can eat before your morning workout! A healthy breakfast for bodybuilders would be meals enriched with essential nutrients like proteins, healthy fats, and carbohydrates. You may experiment with your food to add more flavor to it, and to put more nutrients needed by your body. Ginger, vegetables, carminative spices, and fruits can be added to your regular meals to make it more taste buds-friendly!
To check on the meals you can eat in the morning, check this article: What to Eat Before a Morning Workout!
2. Try to eat smaller meals more frequently
Breakfast, lunch, and dinner are not just the meals you have to take every single day. You need to eat smaller meals (also known as snacks or merienda) to give your body enough nutrients for your daily activities. Eating five to six times a day may expand your appetite. Just make sure that you are going to moderate your eating habits to avoid excessive intake of sugar, calories, and unhealthy fats.
Here are some tips that you can give a try at:
Drink your calories. Get enough calories by drinking juices, mocha drink, regular cola, fruit juice, sweet tea and beer. Just regulate your intake of beverages with alcohol, sugar, and caffeine content to avoid possible side effects.
Here are other options on how you can drink your calories: click here
Try supplements, multivitamins and zinc to have the stash of macro and micronutrients. Some dietary and herbal supplements have shown a possible effect of increasing the appetite of some people. However, you should still be mindful of the possible side effects of this supplements.
Amazon offers a variety of herbal supplements to help you have enough nutrients! Check out this Testosterone Booster that is very helpful for bodybuilders as it helps increase stamina and energy for your daily activities!
3. When you feel hungry, don’t hesitate to eat.
How to maximize your appetite?
- First is to limit the amount of beverage you take before you eat your meal.
- Second is to try to eat with your friends and colleagues. Trying to socialize your meal time may encourage your body to eat more. This is indeed one of the positive peer pressure: eating equally or more than what your friends can.
- Third is to check on your favorite food.
What is your comfort food?
Eating food that is loved by your taste buds can also increase your appetite so try to experiment with meals and conduct culinary tricks!
4. Mix and match your bodybuilding routines
Get back on track through ‘mix-and-match-ing’ your bodybuilding routines! If you’re going to pull off the same routine every day, your body may fully adapt to it and so it would not need any additional nutrients anymore. With that, you won’t feel hungry because you have enough nutrient supply in your body and you are slowly losing your appetite.
Now, changing your routines won’t make you great, but it can help you increase your appetite. So, as you change your exercise routines, eat healthy meals and take some supplements to have overwhelming nutrients.
5. Eat before you sleep
Make sure that you have something inside your stomach before you sleep to avoid any stomach-related sickness. As we sleep, our body continues to function as how they operate in a normal active day. We cannot shut down our system, so before we close our eyes, let’s give our body something to work with. In this case, it’s food.
With your pajamas on, you probably are ready to check on what will be your dream for tonight. Try to sleep in a cold environment to have better metabolic processes. You may have eaten a lot, and now that it’s time to hibernate, let your body use the nutrients you have acquired the whole day.
You have tried a lot of meals for the whole day, perhaps for a week. Now, before you finally shut your eyes, try to ponder on which meal frequency works best for your body. Learn from each and every experience you encountered as you try to increase your appetite and surprise yourself with a good meal plan you can use every day!
Bodybuilders need to be increased appetite
Bodybuilding is not about weight loss, so it is wrong to starve yourself just to get fit. We cannot afford to have loss of appetite because we need more food to have more energy. To have more energy for our daily bodybuilding grind, we need to eat a lot.
We can increase our appetite in many ways. You just need to find a way on how you will love the food so you can hugely enjoy every bite you make. Never skip meals, and try to eat for around five or six times a day if possible.
You can also make eating more exciting if you will try to eat with some friends or colleagues. Do culinary tricks together-it is another bonding moment for all of you! Just don’t forget to avoid a lot of whole wheat and other caloric foods to maintain weight. Protein and carbs-dense meals are the most efficient meals for bodybuilders who are trying to increase their appetite. Lastly, you need to exercise to avoid having accumulated unhealthy fats.
Suggested Diet Plans for Bodybuilders
Breakfast | A. Oatmeal + Fortified Milk + Dried berries B. Whole Grain Waffles + Fresh Strawberries C. Vegetable omelet + non-fat milk |
Mid-morning snack | A. Protein Bars or Peanut Packs + Milk + Cheese Stick B. Whole Wheat Bread + Banana + Honey C. Tuna Fish in can + Brown Rice |
Lunch | A. Egg salad on Pitas + Banana B. Vegetable Pasta C. Turkey and Cheese Sandwich + Grapes or Berries |
Mid-afternoon snack | A. Yoghurt Parfait + Additional Fruit Toppings B. Fruit smoothie C. Skim Milk and Frozen Fruit |
Evening meal | A. Grilled Salmon + Sweet Potato + Milk B. Turkey Breast + Sweet Potato + Swiss Chard C. Grilled Pork Chop with Broccoli + Brown Rice |
Meal before bed time | A. Peanut Butter Smoothie B. High protein Pudding C. Large piece of Fruit |
Not because you are a bodybuilder, you have lesser food choices than the rest of the world. Here is the list of snacks that could help you achieve your dream bod! Start playing with and experimenting your diet plans!
- Oatmeal
- Protein Bars
- Egg Whites
- Dried Fruits
- Yoghurt Parfait or Greek Yoghurt
- Fruit Smoothies
- Brown Rice
- Peanut Packets
- Nuts
- Boiled Eggs
- Whole Wheat Tortillas
- and Pitas
- Beef Jerks
- Cheese
- Chocolates
- Apple
- Avocado
- Banana
- Cranberries, Blueberries, Raspberries
- Guava
- Kiwi
- Mango
- Orange
- Pomegranate
- Watermelon
- Tofu
- Pumpkin Seeds
- Black Beans
- Green Peas
- Milk
- Yellowfin Tuna
- Sardines
- Octopus
- Corned beef
- Pepperoni
- Dates and Prunes
Knowing that you have a lot of choices to choose from, you can say that there is no any discrimination when it comes to dining versus a bodybuilder. While you have tons of food to eat, it is essential that you know when you stop, and when you regulate your intake of a particular snack. For example, you cannot take a lot of chocolate because it still has sugar content, and sugar makes you fat or out of shape.
So, be mindful of what you eat: eating excessively is bad, therefore eating a lot will not help you be healthy. It will not increase your appetite, rather lose your appetite to the point we all cannot imagine. Eating in a strange manner will have a ripple effect in a bodybuilder's system: loss of appetite, loss of weight, lesser agility, lower strength, and poor workout performance. So, make sure you are eating good food more frequently to avoid these things to happen!
Ready to increase your appetite?
I bet you are now equipped with enough knowledge on how you can increase your appetite. In case you have lost your mind out of amazement, here are key tips to keep you going!
- Eat protein and carbohydrate-dense food
- Make handy snacks.
- Never starve yourself. If hungry, then eat.
- Liquids can be a source of calories too so drink a lot!
- Exercise to shake off your unhealthy fats.
If you have other suggestions in mind, you may use the comments section below. Don’t also forget to share this blog so other people would understand how bodybuilding works!
Reference
Hi there,
I’m Gregory Brown, chief editor at ConstructMuscles.com
I spend half of my time in this blog while the other half on being physical fitness trainer. Believing in the great benefits of bodybuilding and fitness to the body, I’ve been motivated to become a fitness enthusiast. It also was what gave me the self-confidence and assurance within myself both physically and psychologically.