When trying to add muscle mass, maintaining a state of caloric surplus is a must. For this task, you need to eat a lot and you need to eat more often than what you’re used to. And in some way, eating is no longer a mindless, automatized activity you perform in order to survive – eating becomes a job. And being good at this job means making an effort to regularly consume the best, cleanest muscle-building foods, unless you want to gain a few nice extra layers of body fat instead of lean muscle.

Lean meats and fish are fantastic sources of top-quality protein. But if you rely only on these two foods to meet your daily requirement of protein, you would get bored pretty soon and more importantly, you would be missing out on a few other great high-protein choices which offer their own unique set of benefits, such as kidney beans. Actually, you’d be pretty surprised to learn all the ways on which kidney beans can accelerate your clean bulking efforts and help you reach your goals faster!

Here are 5 big reasons to add these nutritious beans to your plate more often:

#1. They’re calorie-dense

Bulking is all about letting yourself eat all of those high-calorie foods you weren’t allowed to even think of while you were dieting. However, you’d be wrong to stuff yourself with burgers and fried foods and call it bulking – this approach will only leave you fat and frustrated, believe us. Instead, you need to eat clean high-calorie, nutrient-dense meals made of whole foods. Kidney beans are a great choice for that since one 100 grams serving of kidney beans packs more than 300 calories!

#2. They’re very rich in carbs

One of the main mechanisms of bulking is loading your body with carbs, and a typical bulking diet relies heavily upon high-carb foods such as grains, potatoes, rice and pasta. And now you can add kidney beans to that list. A 100 grams serving of kidney beans offers around 60 grams of slow-digesting carbs that can boost your energy levels and accelerate the recovery process. And the best part is that they’re gluten-free.

#3. They pack plenty of protein

Although they’re much richer in carbs than in protein, the amount of protein found in kidney beans is amazing – a 100 gram serving of kidney beans contains a whopping 24 grams of protein. If you struggle to reach your recommended daily protein consumption by consuming the regular meat-based bulking diet, adding kidney beans to your diet will instantly solve that issue. And they taste great too!

#4. They contain iron and magnesium

Although they don’t get the same amount of attention like carbs and protein, iron and magnesium are very important muscle-building nutrients. Magnesium is crucial in the synthesis of fat, protein and nucleic acids, it supports healthy brain function, muscular contraction, cardiovascular health and bone metabolism, while iron helps reduce muscle fatigue, assists the regulation of internal temperature and supports the health of blood cells. Kidney beans, of course, are abundant in both of these essential minerals.

#5. They’re loaded with fiber

If your digestive system is less than strong and healthy, your mass building efforts will be challenged, to say in the least, no matter how hard you train. Yes, great physiques are made in the kitchen, but if your digestion is poor, all that great food you’ve been eating could be going to waste. That’s why you need to make sure to include adequate doses of fiber, which is the best friend of your gut, in all of your big meals. Kidney beans can help you get the most bang for your buck in this case as well, since a 100 gram serving offers more than 25 grams of dietary fiber.

If this article has made kidney beans sound like the perfect plant-based bulking food, that’s because they really are one of the best additions to your mass-gaining diet you could ever make. As long as you make sure they fit your macros and daily calorie count, these beans can greatly support your clean bulking efforts.

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