MUSCLEBLAZE

Hello Ziddis! Have you also been struggling with finding yourself on the right foot to start your fitness journey? If you are someone who aims to bulk up and get into bodybuilding, you might find yourself confused between debates of what is natural and what is not, what is healthy and what is too indulgent, which supplements to trust and what food to cut. The confusion goes on and on. But worry not. We are all trying to steer clear of steroids, so let us see how we can have a naturally built body without steroids.

Natural Bodybuilding

Natural bodybuilding is a disciplined approach to building muscle without the use of performance-enhancing drugs or PEDs like anabolic steroids or SARMS. Most people refuse to take the help of steroids for their bodybuilding process. This goes against their ideas of long-term health, self-respect and the satisfaction of earning muscular strength through sheer determination.

Going through the hard work is always a better option than relying on shortcuts like steroids; hence, natural bodybuilding, though tiring, can be very rewarding.

Challenges and Advantages of Natural Bodybuilding

The biggest challenge for natural lifters is time and patience. Unlike with steroids, in natural bodybuilding, the progress is slower. There could be a mental strain of comparing your progress with others, too. But there are benefits to this as well. By staying natural, you are at lower and fewer health risks, better hormonal balance and sustainable muscle building and growth. You will also be well appreciated and respected for your gains.

Importance of Nutrition, Sleep, and Consistency

Staying natural does not only mean avoiding steroids and hitting those weights. The behind-the-scenes of bodybuilding are just as important, like:

• Protein intake
• Calorie control
• Micronutrients
• Hydration
• Meal timing
• 7 to 9 hours of quality sleep
• Consistency
• Clean nutrition

These can build the foundation for your healthy lifestyle and help your fitness journey.

Natural Bodybuilding Supplements

You do not really need steroids to make gains if you are ready to be patient and put in the effort. But to help you in your natural bodybuilding journey, some natural bodybuilding supplements can boost your performance, recovery, and nutrition intake. Those are:

• Creatine Monohydrate: Most researched, safe and useful supplement for bodybuilding. It boosts ATP production and helps build muscle strength and muscle fullness.
• Whey Protein: You may be highly overestimating your daily protein intake, and whey protein can help you in that. You need to take the help of protein supplements to hit your daily protein intake goals for better muscle building.
• Ashwagandha: It supports testosterone levels, reduces stress and balances cortisol.
• Zinc and Magnesium: This golden combo can support your hormones, mental health and recovery process.
• Multivitamins: Your daily food may not be providing you with all the vitamins you need, hence, multivitamins can help.
• Electrolytes: Working out can make you lose minerals as you sweat. Electrolytes take your hydration game up a notch.
• Weight Gainers: Sometimes, due to dietary restrictions or inadequate nourishment, you are unable to bulk up. This is when weight gainers help.

All these supplements are to enhance your natural bodybuilding journey, and they are available on MuscleBlaze, your one-stop fitness shop.

Natural Bodybuilding Competitors

Natural bodybuilding has a strong community of athletes who proudly compete drug-free. This community supports and challenges natural bodybuilding competitors to proudly showcase their results of patience, effort and training. Organizations like INBF, WNBF and NANBF have rigorous testing for banned substances. These competitions highlight aesthetics, muscle symmetry, conditioning and most importantly, discipline.

Psychological Discipline vs. Shortcut Culture

In the times of being obsessed with overnight results, staying natural is an act of sheer discipline. If you train hard, eat clean and rest as needed, in a while you will see progress. There are shortcuts, but they will not lead you to sustainable growth. The transformation is way more than just physical. It is a mental rejuvenation.

Read Also: Top 4 Ingredients in a Natural Fat Burner

Takeaway

Natural bodybuilding might not be easy. It is a marathon, not a sprint. By mastering the fundamentals like nutrition, sleep, training and supplementation, there is no stopping what you can achieve in the fitness world. Stay natural, stay healthy and stay consistent. Your future self will thank you.

Hello Ziddis! If you are working on yourself, gaining and building muscles while in a cutting phase, chances are you are wondering how you can shed fat without sacrificing your hard-earned muscle. You totally can! But it takes more strategy, discipline, and a deeper understanding of how your body works under a calorie deficit. Let us see how you can do it, too.

Why Muscle Loss Happens During a Cut

When you are in a calorie deficit, your body starts looking for energy sources. If your deficit is too aggressive or your diet lacks enough protein, your body ends up breaking down muscle tissue to meet energy demands. This would be your mechanism if your workouts change drastically during the cutting phase, like reducing resistance training or increasing cardio intensity. This causes catabolism, which is muscle breakdown, and it is more likely to happen if:

• You are not strength training consistently
• Protein intake is low
• Your deficit exceeds 25% of your maintenance calories
• Recovery is compromised
• You experience a lack of sleep, high stress or overtraining.

Bodybuilding Cutting Phase

The cutting phase is designed to make you lose fat while keeping your muscle mass intact. It follows a bulking phase and can last anywhere from 6 to 16 weeks, depending on your goal.

Key goals for bodybuilding during the cutting phase are:

• Preserve lean mass
• Maintain strength
• Avoid habits that slow down your metabolism
• Stay mentally and physically consistent.

Cutting Diet Bodybuilding

A bodybuilding cutting diet is not just about eating less, but also eating smart. Here is how you can follow a cutting diet for bodybuilding:

• Prioritise high protein and nutrient-dense meals.
• Keep fats moderate, about 0.8 to 1 gram per kg of your body weight
• Cycle carbs based on training load
• Use meal prep and macro tracking to stay in check with your intake
• Avoid fad diets and stick to a sustainable, whole food and no processed foods diet with room to personalise and flexibility

Cutting Diet Plan

If you are overwhelmed and unsure what food you should eat and what you should avoid because you are in your cutting phase, here is a diet plan for you to get started. The aim is to have 2000 to 2100 calories every day.

Breakfast ideas:

• 4 egg whites or 2 whole eggs
• 1 slice of whole wheat toast
• Black coffee or green tea

Pre-workout Snack:

• 1 Scoop of Protein supplement
• 5-10 almonds
• Green tea or coffee
• 1 banana
• 1 scoop of BCAAs
• A scoop of peanut butter

Lunch idea:

• 250 grams of grilled chicken
• 100 grams of brown rice
• Mixed greens with olive oil dressing

Dinner

• 200 grams of fish or paneer
• Stir-fried vegetables
• A small serving of quinoa or dal

Supplements

• Creatine
• Caffeine
• BCAAs
• Multivitamin
• Omega-3
• Protein powder

Takeaway

Cutting does not have to mean shrinking yourself. It means with the right training and right nutrition, along with the right supplementation, you can retain muscle and strength while reducing your fat.

Read Also: Top 10 Indian Bodybuilders: Diet and Workout Plan

Know that train like you are still building, keep your protein intake high and do not fear carbs. Supplements can support your journey well. You must always monitor your progress weekly and adjust your diet accordingly.

Stay wise and consistent to see the results.

Hello Ziddis! When it comes to fat loss, most of us instinctively hop onto the treadmill or HIIT up. But are you sure you need that? The reality is that the most effective path to a sustainable fat loss may not be just doing cardio, but also trying to reshape your body by a strategic combination of strength training and cardio. Let us understand how it can help you.

Cardio for Fat Loss

Cardio is often the first thing that comes to people’s minds when talking about burning calories. Running, cycling, swimming, zumba- all these activities get your heart racing and burn good enough calories. Here is what cardio makes it one of the great ways for fat loss:

• Burns calories like magic. It helps you stay in a calorie deficit which is an important part of fat loss.
• Cardio, as it is in the name, is good for your cardiovascular health and endurance.
• If you have insulin sensitivity, cardio like a brisk walk can help you body use glucose efficiently. This boosts your fat metabolism.

But, relying on cardio alone is not the wisest way. Too much of it without a proper strength work can lead to muscle breakdown which results in a lower metabolic rate over time.

Strength Training for Fat Loss

Strength training does not always burn as many calories as cardio does, but it is just as good a workout for your fat loss journey. It is the best way for a sustainable, long-term fat loss. Here is how strength training helps you:

• It boosts your Basal Metabolic Rate aka BMR which means that more muscle you build, your body will burn that much more calories while you are at rest.
• It helps you preserve your lean muscle even when you are on calorie calorie-deficient diet. It makes you lose fat, not muscle, unlike cardio.
• Strength training triggers excess post-exercise oxygen consumption, which means that your body continues to burn calories even after your workout is over.

In short, the more you build and maintain muscle, the more efficient your fat loss becomes.

Strength vs Cardio for Fat Loss

So, which one is better? Strength training or cardio?

If fat loss is your aim, strength training should be the foundation of your fat loss routine. Cardio could be your powerful sidekick. Many times, people on their fat loss journey make the mistake of overdoing cardio while underestimating the value of muscle preservation, which can backfire by slowing down their metabolism. Your ideal mix would depend on a lot of things, like:

• Your current fitness level.
• Your body type
• Your goals
• Your training experience

A good rule of thumb for fat loss is :

• 3 to 4 days of strength training
• 2 to 3 days of moderate to high-intensity cardio

And do not forget to rest and prioritise recovery. Your muscles can only grow if your body is well-rested.

Fat Loss Workout Routine

Your fat loss workout routine is really important. You can not be doing vague workouts and expecting results. Here is a sample workout for a week to kick-start your fat loss routine:

• Day 1: Full body strength training
• Day 2: 20 mins of cardio, like a brisk walk or cycling
• Day 3: Lower body and core strength training
• Day 4: Rest or active recovery like yoga or walking
• Day 5: Upper body strength training with HIIT to finish it
• Day 6: Cardio like swimming, dancing and incline treadmill.
• Day 7: Rest

This is a good point for you to start, but make sure you are also prioritising nutrition. You need to be on a calorie deficit diet, eat enough protein to maintain muscle and keep yourself hydrated. Fat burning tablets and weight loss tablets can accelerate the fat loss process.

Read Also: The Overlooked Role of Connective Tissue in Strength Training

Takeaway

Fat loss is not just about sweating it out with endless cardio, but more about training the smart way. You need to build your strength to power your metabolism, while cardio can support the fat-burning process. Prioritize strength and let cardio take the side seat. Most importantly, stay consistent. A healthier, happier and leaner version of you is waiting for you.

Have you heard of magnesium in places other than your chemistry books? Magnesium is extremely important for our body, but it is not getting the spotlight like protein or vitamins do. This humble mineral still powers over 300 biochemical reactions in our body. Be it helping muscles relax post-workout session or easing stress after a long day, magnesium is your silent hero. Let us know more about benefits of magnesium supplementation and especially the role of magnesium in muscle recovery and stress management.

Benefits of Magnesium for Your Body

Magnesium is an important biochemical in our body. It pulls the strings for some of the most important body functions, like:

• Nervous system regulation helps nerve transmission, reflexes and keeps communication between muscles and nerves smooth.
• Protein synthesis helps the body use amino acids effectively to build and repair muscles.
• Energy production via the creation of ATP, the energy currency of our cells. Without this, you would feel drained and sluggish all the time.
• Muscle function and recovery support proper muscle contractions and relaxations. This reduces the chances of cramping and twitching.
• Sleep regulation is an underrated offering of magnesium.

In short, magnesium keeps you moving, recovering and functioning at your best!

Magnesium for Anxiety and Sleep

One of the underrated or often ignored yet very appreciated roles that magnesium plays is in providing a calming effect to our nervous system. This is because magnesium regulates cortisol, which is our body’s main stress hormone. High levels of cortisol not only affect our mood but also have a bad impact on our muscle recovery, metabolism, mental health and sleep cycle. By reducing cortisol, magnesium helps us calm our minds and bodies.

Magnesium also activates the parasympathetic nervous system, which is responsible for the rest and digest mode. It supports the production of GABA, which is a neurotransmitter that helps us relax and sleep well. If you have been facing trouble sleeping or feeling anxiety, magnesium is your best bet.

Magnesium for Muscle Recovery

Magnesium is important for muscle health post your workout session. When you work out, your muscles contract repeatedly. Magnesium helps them release and relax. If there isn’t enough magnesium produced, you may experience tightness, soreness or spasms in your muscles, leading to painful cramps.

Magnesium plays a role in flushing out lactic acid to reduce post-workout discomfort. Whether you are lifting weights, running or engaging in HIIT, magnesium supports your body’s process of repairing and prevents the kind of fatigue that could derail your routine.

Signs of Low Magnesium

You need to be watchful of your body’s calls for help. Here are some signs of low magnesium:

• Muscle cramps
• Slow recovery
• Feeling tired all the time
• Sleeplessness
• Stress
• Low stamina
• Feeling lethargic

Benefits of Magnesium Supplementation

When your food can not fulfil your magnesium needs, you would need to take help from magnesium supplements. Here’s when you know it’s time to start magnesium supplementation:

• Your diet lacks variety
• You have started training intensively
• You sweat a lot
• You are under constant stress
• You have sleep issues
• You have digestive issues.

By getting on a magnesium supplementation, you can:

• Reduce muscle cramps and soreness, helping you recover faster and better after your workout
• Improve your sleep quality
• Reduce your anxiety and stress levels
• Manage your heart health and blood pressure
• Help with bowel movement.

Some of the best forms of magnesium you can try for supplementation are:

• Magnesium citrate to help with digestion and sleep issues
• Magnesium glycinate to help calm your mind and body
• Magnesium malate for energy and muscle performance.

How to Have Magnesium Supplements

• If you are new to magnesium supplementation, don’t worry, we are here to help. Start slow.
• Recommended daily allowance or RDA for magnesium is 400 to 420 mg/day for men and 310 to 320 mg/day for women.
• Take magnesium with meals to improve absorption
• Take magnesium one hour before bedtime for stress relief and better sleep
• Do not overdo it because overdosing on magnesium can cause an upset stomach.
• If you are on any medication or have kidney issues, consult a doctor before adding magnesium supplements to your routine.

Magnesium-Boosting Foods and Habits to Support Supplements

Even if you take supplements, your diet and lifestyle matter.

Here are some magnesium-rich foods you must add to your plate:

• Dark leafy vegetables like spinach and kale
• Nuts and seeds
• Whole grains
• Legumes
• Dark chocolate
• Bananas
• Avocados

Some lifestyle changes can take you a long way by retaining your magnesium:

• Stay hydrated
• Have electrolyte-rich drinks to make up for magnesium lost by sweating
• Avoid too much caffeine and alcohol
• Eat whole foods instead of processed foods
• Try yoga to calm your mind

When you work out, your energy needs to be maintained to help magnesium levels as well. Adding supplements can help with that. Try mass gain supplements for your bodybuilding routines, and if you are just trying to stay in shape, then grab a protein bar before you hit the gym.

Read Also: The Psychology of Supplementation: Are You Addicted to the Ritual?

Takeaway

Magnesium is the unsung hero of our body. Now that you know how it quietly supports some of the most important functions, you should start taking it seriously and add it to your diet. Prioritise magnesium-rich foods daily and add supplements to your routine. Your body and mind will thank you.