9 Foods to Avoid When Building Muscle

LAST UPDATED: November 3rd, 2022

If you want to grow muscles, you can’t expect to eat a tone of bad calories and work out.

You need to eat healthy foods, high in proteins if you want to bulk without annoying fat layers.

So today you’ll see more about foods you should avoid if you want to improve strength and muscles.

Foods to Avoid When Building Muscle

1. Junk foods

Definitely, one of the foods to avoid when building muscle.

Fries, burgers, and other fast food may satisfy your appetite after strenuous training, but it may also significantly slow down your fitness progress.

Fast food has lots of fat and that slows down digestion, which can contribute to getting fat layers.

You should renew the glycogen stores after a workout and reduce fat layers.

2. Unhealthy Snacks

Salty snacks like chips and pretzels can reduce the levels of potassium, which is very important for muscle recovery.

Potassium is a mineral vital for the good functioning of the cells and retaining electrolytes that you lose during training.

Also, don’t exaggerate with sweets.

3. Bacon

This tasty food is good if you eat it moderately before you do exercise, not after.

It slows down metabolism after an intense workout.

If you want a protein substitute, try eating eggs.

You can read more about foods you should avoid after a workout here.

4. Pizza

Unfortunately, yummy pizza is not recommended after a workout, especially if it’s pepperoni pizza.

It has a lot of fat and eating only 1 slice of pizza can ruin all your efforts at the gym.

5. Sodas

If you are very thirsty after a workout, make sure you avoid drinking sugar-sweetened beverages, especially sports drinks.

Also, don’t drink fresh juices either, because they are high in fructose, which doesn’t help if you want to lose weight.

Drink something high in electrolytes during the workout, and afterward drink water.

6. Milk chocolate

Milk chocolate has many calories and sugar, so it’s not good for you after a workout.

Dark chocolate is a much better choice (with at least 70% cocoa) because it contains healthy antioxidants that fight free radicals and it has anti-inflammatory properties.

7. Pastry

You need carbs after a workout to restore glycogen in your muscles, that’s sure.

But donuts loaded with sugar and fat are not a good option, especially for your arteries.

You can eat a wholewheat pastry with peanut butter, for example.

8. Microwave popcorn

One of the worst foods that kill testosterone.

Everyone loves watching movies with a bowl of popcorn, but microwave popcorn has a negative effect on testosterone levels and sex drive.

A bag of popcorn isn’t healthy because of the package and the content inside.

It contains a lot of chemicals that can cause infertility, low sex drive, and even testicular tumor.

Make your own popcorn instead of buying an unhealthy one.

You can read more about the worst foods for testosterone here.

9. Flaxseed

Although flaxseed is high in fiber and it’s healthy, some research shows that it can reduce testosterone.

Flaxseed is high in lignans, plant compounds that bind to testosterone, and afterward your body gets rid of testosterone (it excretes it).