# Does eating fatty foods help build muscle?



## Rick189 (Apr 14, 2011)

Like if you just worked out at the gym and did weightlifting etc.. then eat foods with a lot of fat/protein/carbs.. would this combination benefit me (if i'm eating foods with protein as well as the fatty foods) or would the fatty foods kill of the hard work to build that muscle? Also, should I limit the amount of fat I eat (since i eat a lot of junk food such as KFC/ice cream/cookies etc). Although, I do have a fairly fast metabolism too..


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## Ashley1990 (Aug 27, 2011)

i guess no...they would rather build ur tummy...


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## AJFA88 (Jun 16, 2007)

eat heavy, but eat lean. you need those extra carbs/protein/fats to build muscle. if you're on a dirty bulk, you'll gain lots of weight, but mostly being fat.


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## matty (Nov 2, 2009)

Well you could build muscle but it is unlikely and counter productive to put in the hard work and then have a poor diet on the side holding you back.


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## hiimnotcool (Apr 28, 2009)

you need fats in your diet.

1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass.
.45 to 1 gram of fat per pound of bodyweight is a good number.
fill the rest of your calories in with whatever you'd like.


also, it doesn't matter what you eat. it all matters if youre eating over your caloric maintenance. if you want to gain weight then eat 2-300 calories over your maintenance. if you want to lose weight eat around 500 calories under maintenance.


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## pegger18636 (Aug 3, 2010)

If you are trying to add muscle then severely limiting or restricting the amount of fat in your diet can hinder muscle gain, from what I've read.

This is because of something to do with fat molecules being necessary to form adequate amounts of certain hormones necessary for building muscle.
I forget which hormone now? But essentially fat is necessary to optimum hormone levels for building muscle.

When trying to build muscle, apparently aiming for around 30% or your total calorie intake to be from fat is what you want and once you start going lower than that, then it can start affecting your muscle building hormones.

On the other hand, if you are trying to cut body fat and tone up, you might aim for a lower fat intake since eating alot of fat amounts to eating alot or calories. Consider that a gram of carbohydrate is 4 calorie, a gram of protein is 4 calories, and a gram of fat is 9 calories.


Calorie surplus = gainting weight Calorie deficit = losing weight.

But what you eat along with how you train will dictate what you lose or gain.

**Its important to realise that carbohydrates and protein and not just fat can all be metabolized into body fat so dont get confused there, its about excess calories, as long as youre eating more than u burn some calories will be stored as body fat.

***Important to consider is that their are different type of fat.

If you are trying to add muscle without gaining a whole lot of fat, then eating lots of KFC cookies etc is not what you want to be doing.

If can be inevitable almost not to gain some fat while trying to add muscle, but eating a whole bunch of nutritionally empty unhealthy fat calories will just lead to a bunch of excess calories and body fat gained.
Those excess calories may lead to some muscle gain but only along with a lot of unwanted fat.

To add muscle you need to eat healthy.

When you choose fats, you want to aim for the healthy types of fats, mono unsaturated and poly unsaturated, while limiting your intake of saturated and trans fats.

good source of monounsaturated fats: unrefined vegetable oils like extra virgin olive oil, avocados, nuts and seeds

polyunsaturates: nuts and seeds typically have monounsaturated fat as well as omega6 polyunsaturated fat which are both decently healthy, omega3 supplement pills, high omega 3 fish like salmon and some others

omega 3 or are healthiest of all, a specific kind EPA and DHA which you can get from eating fish or fish oil in supplement form are called essentialy fatty acids bc ur body cant make them and they need to be obtained from your diet. These are particularly helpful for adding muscle burning fat and also have other health promoting effects on brain function and heart health and stuff.

to be avoided are the saturated and transfats, like in fried food or a whole lot of processed food u buy from the store and u see hydrogenated oil on the label, that means it has trans fats so don't want to eat a whole lot of that.

animal fats from meat and cheese and milk can be high in saturated and transfats, so you should try and not eat tooo much of that but those foods at least have some other nutritional content unlike other garbage with a bunch of those bad fats and nothing else in em.

Also for adding muscle and keeping slim you should like to aim for complex carbs with low GI and high in fiber avoid SUGAR and REFINED CARBS.

always choose whole wheat bread over white, brown rice over white,

good examples of the healthy carbs i just mentioned are kidney beans lentils brown rice quinoa whole grain pasta and other similar things 

when you eat sugar, you should aim to be getting in from fruits and fruit juices cuz they at least have other nutrients.

Lol I went a little overboard as usual with answering a question, hopefully you find some of that info useful and not boring and annoying.

also lastly as im sure u know high/adequate protein intake is important for gaining muscle and staying slim.

Good sources of protein where you get protein and not a lot of carbs and fats on the side are

protein supplements in whey isolate form always handy
egg whites, a few yolks are okay i wouldnt eat more than like 2 yolks a day tho typically
skim milk although theres a decent amount of sugar but just dont go overboard with it
chicken
fishhh
cottage cheese mix it with cinnamon and its pretty good
a few other lean meats


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## GotAnxiety (Oct 14, 2011)

Yeah fat important, you need it too produce most hormones in the body


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