How To Get Ripped - Why You Need Carbohydrates

Carbohydrates are one nutrient you cannot go without when you're trying to build muscle and get ripped. But as important as carbohydrates are, they are very often overlooked when planning a muscle building diet.

Why?

Well, the thing is many people are clueless about the role that carbohydrates play in muscle development. If you're one of those people, then you've come to the right place.

There are actually many types of carbohydrates. So as not to make things hard to understand, we'll just focus on the two main groupings of carbohydrates--simple and complex carbohydrates.

Simple carbohydrates (otherwise known as "sugars") are called such because our body digests them quickly and easily. These usually have a sweet taste and are usually found in fruits and other foods from nature.

Complex carbohydrates, on the other hand, take longer to digest. Complex carbohydrates are also known as "starches" and are found in bread, noodles, rice, and many vegetables.

Why Do We Need Carbohydrates?

Carbohydrates are responsible for giving all the cells in our body the energy to function. So, even if you are not trying to build muscle, you still need a constant supply of carbohydrates. Otherwise, you'll always feel tired and you will have little to no energy to do anything.

Among the other things that can happen to you when you're getting very little carbohydrates include:

• Digestive difficulties - Lack of carbohydrates often lead to dehydration. This in turn leads to constipation, as well as headache, fatigue, and aching muscles.
• Kidney stones - improper fat burning (as caused by lack of carbohydrates) can lead to blockages that result in kidney stones.
• Heart disease - if your body has a very low supply of carbohydrates, other compounds are going to take their place, such as cholesterol and fats. And as you may already know, these compounds are bad for your body.

Additionally, lack of carbohydrates can also cause your body to feed on your own muscles for energy. That's not good even if you're not trying to build muscles.

However, consuming excessive amounts of carbohydrates is not good also. For one thing, excess carbohydrates get converted into fat and gets stored as fatty tissue. Yes, it can make you fat. Excess carbohydrates can also lead to low blood sugar and high blood pressure, just to name a few.

When building muscle, what you really need are complex carbohydrates. Complex carbohydrates form muscle glycogen which supplies the long-lasting fuel your body needs to train hard. As an added benefit, complex carbohydrates also helps in keeping your blood sugar levels stable, and this reduces your chance of developing fat.

Another thing that should be pointed out here is that you must eat carbohydrates immediately after training as this will put your body into an anabolic state (the state where muscle building takes place). If you don't do this, your body will start feeding on your muscles.

Lastly, you should consume carbohydrates in small amounts but in high frequency. As mentioned earlier, eating high amounts of carbohydrates (in one go) will make you store some of it as fats. That's definitely not how to get ripped. Taking in carbohydrates in small amounts will enable your body to utilize much, if not all of it. Just make it a point to give your body a constant supply.