Baby food for gaining muscle mass

There is no need to think that strong muscles are a feature of our post-Soviet times. Weightlifters in the USSR were concerned with gaining muscle mass no less than modern bodybuilders. Another thing is that dietetics and industry were not at the level they are now.

Sports nutrition used to be hard to come by, and if someone was lucky enough to get it "from abroad", then it cost a lot of money. And what is needed first of all for muscle growth? Of course, protein, which is in abundance in dairy products, meat, eggs, and also in cheap, but perfectly balanced baby food.

Yes, there were times when baby food was really high-quality and quite inexpensive, which is why athletes loved it. A completely natural product helped small children grow and gain weight. But weightlifters who devoured baby food with gusto did not complain about the lack of muscle mass gain.

So the idea of using baby food to gain muscle mass is far from new. But how relevant it is today is something that needs to be sorted out.

The fact is that recent studies make buyers doubt the quality of some products from the baby food group. So, not all nutritional mixtures are sufficiently balanced and natural. This is alarming for parents. It should also alarm athletes who also advocate for a natural diet.

But the main problem is not even this. What is good for children does not always bring the same benefit to adults. Yes, baby food contains a lot of proteins, but it also contains carbohydrates and fats in excessive quantities. After all, baby food is designed for the growth of the baby's body not only in the muscle area.

The danger of baby food for athletes is that it also contributes to the growth of the fat layer. That is, if you take it on days when there are no workouts, or in the evening, there is a risk of hiding the beauty of the muscles under a layer of hard-to-remove fat. And if you also take into account the features of the body type, then such a diet is not suitable for endomorphs at all. The results will be disappointing in any case.

It would be unfair to say that baby food cannot be used to gain muscle mass, because a diet with its participation is quite consistent with this goal. But worthwhile results without "side effects" on the waist and sides can only be achieved by correctly taking baby cereals.

It is believed that to increase muscle mass, you need to eat 150 g of baby food in powder form at a time, diluting the tasty mass with water or milk. But what does the athlete get? Depending on the brand of the product and the age for which the baby formula is intended, 100 g of powder can contain from 5 to 12 g of protein. How much baby food should you eat to cover the daily protein requirement?

But there is another nuance - this is the content of fat and carbohydrates. The same 100 g of product can contain about 4-5 g of fat and 60-80 g of carbohydrates. It turns out to be not a protein shake at all, but something close to a carbohydrate diet. Moreover, the composition of milk formulas for babies contains only milk (casein) and whey protein, and for older children also vegetable. There is no talk of complete animal proteins obtained from meat.

But how complete such a diet is for an adult is a big question. Yes, baby food contains many useful vitamins and minerals, but their volume is calculated for a small child, and not for an adult with completely different physiological needs. And if you also consider that heavy physical activity only contributes to the loss of these very useful substances, it turns out that the needs increase even more.

Baby food, although considered balanced, cannot replace the usual diet of an adult boy or girl. It can only be used as a supplement, as a source of easily digestible proteins and an energy supplement. But such a supplement is useful mainly before training and in rare cases after it. The rest of the diet should consist of complete animal protein. But you need to be careful with fats and carbohydrates, because the body has already received some of them with baby food.

If you practice a diet for gaining muscle mass using baby food, then you need to give preference to dry mixtures for the little ones, because only here you can find complete, easily digestible milk proteins in the right amount. Vegetable protein no longer shows such great effectiveness as a stimulator of muscle growth.

But if you compare the composition of baby and sports nutrition, you can find all the same components: whey protein and casein, but without the addition of fats and carbohydrates, which may be unnecessary. At least many food products are very generous with these components, so there is no shortage of fats and carbohydrates even in a regular diet. So why is baby food better for athletes?

Someone, looking at the price tags in sports nutrition stores, will say that it is much cheaper than cheaper baby formulas. Well, young mothers can argue with the sports elite regarding the budget of high-quality formulas, and they will be right.

The Soviet era has sunk into oblivion along with the penny prices for goods for the future of the country, and now from the shelves of stores we see price tags with tens and even hundreds of hryvnias for one package of baby food. Perhaps these price tags are still lower than those that adorn the shelves of sports nutrition stores, but you also need to consider the consumption of the product. According to reviews of athletes who used protein drinks and baby food in their diet to gain muscle mass, in the end it always turned out that specialized products for adults are more economically advantageous than nutritional mixtures for babies, despite the high cost of a package of sports nutrition.

So, how appropriate it is to return to baby food in our age, when there are many effective and natural products designed specifically for athletes, everyone decides for themselves. It is quite possible that for ectomorphs, baby formulas will be a profitable investment, helping to mold their body, but others should think carefully before conducting such experiments, unless their goal is not “insulation” due to fat reserves.

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