Having a solid hardgainer diet not only involves a high protein diet but also the correct proportion of carbohydrates. A lot of beginners and hardgainers think that excess carbohydrates get converted into fats by the body’s metabolic processes and because of that, avoid taking carbohydrates (and even fats) in their hardgainer diet.
This is a big mistake as both carbohydrates and fats should be the main source of calories for your body’s energy use. During workouts, your body is actively consuming energy from carbohydrate and fat stores to enable muscle contraction. On the same note, the performance of your workout is directly related to sufficient stores of carbohydrate in the muscle. With a low carbohydrate intake, your body is forced to consume energy from fats and proteins, thereby depriving building blocks for your muscle building later on.
In short, sufficient carbohydrate = better muscle performance during muscle workout = better muscle building. Also, consuming carbohydrates as a calorie source = proteins not consumed instead = more proteins for muscle building.
More information on how to get a hardgainer diet that works
Now that you see the significance of carbohydrates in your hardgainer diet, you need to know which are suitable. A hardgainer diet wants complex carbohydrates such as oats, wholemeal bread, wheat, pasta, and perhaps potatoes and cereals for a few reasons:
1) Healthier source compared to relatively simple ones (and I certainly consider white rice to be one)
2) Improves your digestion
3) Natural higher protein content
4) Higher calorie per unit gram
White rice is debatable but coming from an Asian country of eating rice and majoring in metabolism studies in university, I see reports of obesity highly linked to high white rice intake. If you love rice, I would suggest you go for brown rice instead. It doesn’t taste as good, but it’s much better in terms of nutrition content. Also helps to keep diabetes away!
How much carbohydrate you should consume depends on your workout schedule. It is highly advantageous to your workout and lean muscle gains to consume a relatively higher carbohydrate intake on workout days. Why? Because the presence of carbohydrate in your body (specifically blood) stimulates the release of insulin, which is an important anabolic hormone involved in building up your muscles. While not as critical as testosterone, it is still quite significant as having insulin in your blood prevents glucagon and cortisol release which are catabolic hormones that do the opposite: break down structural proteins in muscles. Cortisol especially, is a hormone that is known to be activated about 40 minutes after your workout, so stalling that facilitates your workout too.
I recommend taking a rich carbohydrate meal 1hr before your workout as it seems to work best for me. Following that I take another high carbohydrate meal within an hour after the workout. Personally I prefer wholemeal bread and oats as they are easy to prepare and bring along to your gym. My choice of spread for bread is peanut butter as it is rich in protein. If you enjoy making sandwiches then great, stuff some tuna in and you are good to go.
To summarize, take only complex carbohydrates like cereals, oats, wheat, wholemeal bread, pasta, brown rice and potatoes. Get a good mix of protein and carbohydrate on your workout days; don’t be afraid to eat more potatoes or cereal. Remember, a good time to take more would be 1hr before and after your workout.
Now learn how to get to the next part of your lean muscle diet: eating the right fatty food!
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