A lot of skinny guys and serious hardgainers are so caught up in gaining weight and creating a calorie surplus that they forget their overall health. While we all want to look good and increase lean muscle mass, we should never sacrifice our long-term health. Many bodybuilders and fitness models have great looking bodies but are in fact really unhealthy and are opening themselves up for disease and long-term illness.
I find it really important to learn good habits with your bodybuilding diet at a young age. This means putting the right foods in your body and maximizing your overall health. One of the easiest ways to do this is to consume an abundant supply of antioxidants. Antioxidants are really important for your body and keep your immune system in optimal health.
Antioxidants refer to a group of compounds that fight free radicals in your body. Free radicals are your worst nightmare when it comes to overall health and even energy levels. Free radicals have a negative effect on your body’s systems and can even take over your immune system and other physiological functions if they spiral out of control. If you have a diet rich in antioxidants, these serve as a shield against free radicals and eliminate them from your body. The result is that you will have a stronger immune system, will prevent disease and sickness, have increased energy levels, and will maximize your overall health.
Antioxidants are also important for building lean muscle mass and giving you energy for your workouts. When your body runs like a piece of fine machinery, you will be a muscle-building machine and be able to power through intense workouts effortlessly. This article is going to discuss the important of antioxidants for building lean muscle mass and give you guys a list of some of the best antioxidants to put in your body daily.
Antioxidant Benefits: Boosts Immune System and Overall Health
Antioxidants are a key component to a healthy immune system. When you have a weak immune system, your body will not be able to fight off sickness and you will find yourself catching things like the common cold and flu a lot more often. When you are sick, you can’t train at your maximum intensity – and you create a catabolic effect on your body. This is very counterproductive to your muscle-building goals!
One of the most important benefits to antioxidant consumption is boosting your immune system and overall health to ward off things like the common cold and flu. If you can fight off these common sicknesses, you will find yourself gaining lean muscle mass much faster and training with more intensity. A healthy immune system is exactly what you need as a naturally skinny guy to maximize your genetic muscle-building potential. If your body is not operating at its healthiest efficiency, you are really creating an uphill muscle-building climb. Gaining healthy weight and boosting your immune system starts with killing off your body’s free radicals – and the most effective way to do this is with daily antioxidants!
Antioxidant Benefits: Recovery and Endurance
One of the most important muscle-building benefits to antioxidant consumption is that they have been shown to lesson recovery time between intense workouts and also boost muscular endurance.
This is in large part due to the fact that healthy antioxidant consumption allows your body to run like a machine, and this means that your body is not only able to fight off sickness easier, but it’s also able to repair and heal itself much faster. A lot of the top antioxidant foods are fruits and vegetables, and putting the most nutrient-dense foods in your body creates the perfect storm of maximum muscular recovery.
Consuming antioxidants and having less free radicals in your body also means that you will be boosting your muscular endurance. Since free radicals slow you down and make you susceptible to sickness and illness, this obviously affects your training intensity and workouts. Do you think you can train at your body’s 100 percent maximum intensity when you have a weak immune system and tons of free radicals in your system? Of course not! One major benefit to antioxidants is incredible muscular endurance! The longer and more intense your workouts become the more lean muscle mass you will be able to break down, and since your body is operating like a machine, you will also recover expeditiously. This creates a positive upward spiral of intense workouts, quick recovery, and optimal health and energy levels.
What are the Best Antioxidants to Gain Healthy Weight?
So by now I’m sure you are pretty excited about antioxidants and the multitude of health benefits they possess. Let’s dive into what some of the best antioxidants are for your overall health and muscle-building efforts.
One of my favorite antioxidants to boost energy levels and overall health is green tea. Green tea is abundant with the antioxidant EGCG, which has a ton of health benefits. Green tea is really high in antioxidants and gives me a bunch of energy throughout the day. Matcha green tea is a very specific kind of green tea that has one of the highest antioxidant profiles in the world. While matcha green tea is very expensive, I highly recommend it if you can afford it. The antioxidant and overall health benefits are incredible.
One of the easiest ways to get the right amount of antioxidants in your body to gain healthy weight is to eat what I like to consider a “rainbow diet.” This means that you are eating a good variety of fresh fruits and vegetables. Fruit such as blueberries, blackberries, strawberries, and grapes. Red grapes, for instance, are high in phytochemicals, which are antioxidants that prevent cancers and heart disease.
The most abundant source of antioxidants and health benefits come in the form of dark green veggies. These are nutrient powerhouses and contain an incredible amount of antioxidants. You should be consuming things like spinach, kale, broccoli, and collard greens regularly.
Nuts also contain a good amount of phytochemicals, and I recommend consuming a variety of the following: walnuts, Brazil nuts, almonds, and cashews.
Some of the other high antioxidant foods that will complete the rainbow diet include sweet potatoes, carrots, dark red kidney beans, squash, celery, red peppers, whole grains, wild rice, and wild-caught fish.
Consume a wide variety of these antioxidant foods and drink green tea regularly, and you will have a body that operates like a machine. Not only will you feel great and have increased energy levels, but you will also gain healthy weight and increase your lean muscle mass much faster.
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