Can Eating Pizza Really be the Key to Building Muscle?

**Sanitized Transcript:**

Pizza party! When we were kids, we were always excited about Friday night. Why? It was pizza night! Growing up, we didn’t put much thought into the food we ate. Well, actually, we only thought about whether it would taste good! Luckily for us, during those years, our metabolism was firing at full capacity, and we weren’t overly concerned with our body composition!

However, those days are gone. As we grew older, the foods we ate started to have a larger effect on our bodies. Our health became more of a concern, and one of the first foods to be deemed unhealthy was our delicious pizza. But is this blanket restriction warranted?

Can pizza actually be a muscle-building food? The truth is, it can be! What makes a pizza a muscle-building food largely depends on how it’s made and what you put on it.

This video will break down the pizza pie and how it can either add pounds of fat or pounds of lean muscle! Be sure to watch the whole video to learn how you can incorporate this dish into your diet and see great results! Plus, we’ll share what we would order… or what we do order!

Let’s be honest, we don’t need to give you the background on pizza! You know what it is! A mixture of dough, cheese, and meat! And for those who say it’s unhealthy, it has vegetables too!

Speaking of, why do people say that as if the vegetables on pizza don’t count? They count!

Pizza is one of the most common foods in the American diet. Research shows that on any given day, about 13% of the US population will eat pizza. When you take out those under the age of 6, the population aged 6 or older reaches a remarkable 22 percent! That means about 1 out of every 4 people eat pizza on any given day.

Now, we haven’t done any specific research on this, but we’re willing to bet that a decent amount of these people are also going to the gym! Are these gym-goers who enjoy this Italian cuisine sabotaging their muscle-building potential? At its core, pizza is just bread, tomato-based sauce, cheese, meat, and vegetables. Lay out these ingredients, and you can see that there’s no reason for pizza to be excessively unhealthy. In fact, you could manipulate these ingredients to make a reasonably healthy meal; even a meal that’s perfect for building muscle!

So let’s take a closer look at the actual ingredients of a pizza to see how you could alter them to create an anabolic pizza! The base of the pizza is its crust. Originally made with wheat-based flour, depending on the person or restaurant, a variety of flours could be used. For example, some common flours are all-purpose flour, bread flour, and pizza flour. Lately, you can even choose pizza with cauliflower crust! Each specific flour has its own unique nutritional breakdown as well.

We’re not going to go into detail on these yet; we’ll break these down later after we talk about what macros you need to build muscle. But know that we do have two choices that are most ideal for building muscle. On top of the crust, you then have a sauce as the first layer, usually tomato-based, which was the original sauce used. As the dish grew and expanded, other sauces began to be used, with some of the more common alternative sauces being a simple butter garlic base, alfredo, or pesto sauce.

Next up, cheese! The original cheese on pizza, and most common, is mozzarella! And similar to the sauce, there are plenty of other options! Cheddar, gouda, provolone, parmesan; the list is extensive! If you can’t decide on one, you can use a couple, but know this: there is one that is ideal for building muscle, and we’ll tell you which one in a bit! Once you have your cheese sorted, you could call it a meal right there! A simple slice of cheese pizza is a classic meal, and for many people, it’s all they want! While this does have potential to build muscle, the only way to maximize your pizza is with toppings!

Whether you pick just one or ten, the toppings you choose to put on your pizza can have a huge effect on its ability to support muscle growth. Will it become anabolic? Well, you’re going to have two choices: meat and vegetables, and you’ll need to choose wisely! What should you choose? We’ll show you the best toppings to put on your pizza in a little bit.

For now, keep in mind that these are the basic ingredients, and the actual content of a pizza can vary greatly depending on where you’re buying it; are you eating at a restaurant, buying frozen pizza, or making your own? If you’re going to buy from a basic fast-food chain, these are likely going to be the most unhealthy. Many of these chains use added sugar to enhance the taste of the sauce or crust. In addition, they tend to use unhealthy oils and more sodium. Just think about these places as you’re going to a fast-food restaurant; don’t expect them to prioritize health.

Apart from chain restaurants, you can also have your local restaurants. Obviously, these will vary widely. However, there may be a better chance of getting a pizza made with fresh, healthy ingredients. Another option is frozen pizzas, which a lot of people love. Frozen pizza is a $5 billion dollar industry and is growing! These vary widely, but any frozen food is going to use a lot of preservatives. They tend to have more added sugar and salt than normal, and when you’re picking one or the other, it’s usually the lesser of two evils.

Another way you can enjoy pizza, and the healthiest, is by making your own! This will obviously take time, but you have 100% control over every single ingredient! If you are concerned about what you eat, this is the only way to be certain about it.

So now we know the basics of what makes a pizza and where you can buy them. But let’s put them on the back burner for a moment and go through what nutrients you need to build muscle.

The first and most important nutrient you need is protein. Protein contains the actual building blocks of muscle, amino acids. When a food containing protein is consumed, the protein will be broken down so that the amino acids will be set free to carry out their individual functions. For example, leucine will trigger mTOR, which stimulates muscle protein synthesis. While you don’t need to know the function of every amino acid for the purposes of this video, just know they are crucial for muscle growth.

You also need to realize one more important variable of protein: the source. While we use the word “protein” to describe the nutrient, not all protein is created equal; this is similar to how not all carbs or types of fat are equal.

When it comes to protein, there are two main categories: animal protein and plant protein. Remember we just spoke about amino acids? Well, there are 20 different amino acids that make up protein. However, depending on the source, the protein will have varying amounts of the individual amino acids. The problem is that for a protein to maximize muscle protein synthesis, it needs a certain amount of every amino acid, and this is where major differences occur. When a protein has a sufficient amount of all amino acids, it’s called a complete protein; all animal protein classifies as a complete protein. This includes cheese, pepperoni, ham, chicken; whatever!

Now, there are some sources of plant protein that can be classified as a complete protein, but most are known as incomplete. This means that the protein has insufficient amounts of one or more amino acids. As a result, the protein will not optimize muscle protein synthesis, which controls muscle growth. With that in mind, to maximize muscle growth, you should eat at least 0.7 grams of protein per pound of body weight. However, you may see better results eating 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.

The next nutrient you need to build muscle is carbohydrates. Carbohydrates’ primary role in the body is to provide energy during exercise. However, it also has a couple of other functions.

The first general role is to add calories. Easy and not much else to say! But in addition to this, eating carbs does play a role in building muscle. Researchers aren’t totally sure of the exact mechanisms, but very low carb diets do tend to result in less growth. But don’t worry, pizza has plenty of carbs regardless of what pizza you eat!

And now, fat. Fat doesn’t play an especially important role in building muscle; well, maybe it does, but we’ll look at that in a bit. Other than this secret function, fat mainly provides calories. Now it does play other important roles for general health but not necessarily muscle-specific.

One criticism of pizza is that it tends to have high amounts of saturated fat, mostly from the cheese. In addition, many of the processed meats used also contribute to your saturated fat intake. Be mindful of this when eating your pizza, and you may want to choose low-fat options when available.

Oh yeah, there’s one more thing: calories! Of course, we mentioned this when speaking about fat and carbs, but it’s important to point this out specifically. Growing muscles need plenty of calories, and pizza delivers plenty; probably too many!

In fact, the most difficult part about adding pizza into your diet is going to be controlling your calories. In general, pizza is usually a very high-calorie item due to the ingredients: bread, a lot of cheese, and oily meats.

When you are trying to build muscle, you need to be in a caloric surplus; this means eating more calories than you burn. However, you don’t want to eat so many calories that you gain a lot of fat. Speaking of, let’s talk about bulking. Bulking simply refers to purposefully eating enough calories to gain weight. However, there are two types: the first is dirty bulking. This means a person basically eats as much as they can, which usually includes junk food. Their only concern is calories, wherever they come from.

The other type of bulking is a clean bulk. As you could probably guess, a clean bulk is when a person eats a surplus of calories but does so by eating healthier foods. Further, they will also control their calories so they only eat a surplus of 300-500 per day.

As you could probably guess, pizza is usually associated with a dirty bulk. Order a large pizza with extra cheese and pile on pepperoni, sausage, and any other meat they have. So how many calories are usually in a pizza? Well, this largely depends on the pizza, and not just due to size. The dough used for the crust, the amount of cheese, sauce, and ingredients; all of these can vary widely.

In addition, different restaurants will differ as well. However, on average, one slice from a large pizza can range from 150-300 calories. However, we all know that no one just eats one slice. Luckily, thanks to research from the United States Department of Agriculture, we can actually look at the habits of individuals who eat pizza. On average, an adult consumes 700-800 calories every time they sit down to enjoy!

We now know what we need for muscle growth! A lot of protein, carbs, maybe some fat, and calories! Let’s see how we could best manipulate the ingredients to build the most awesome, muscle-building pizza you can get!

So let’s start with the crust. The crust of your pizza can make or break your pizza in taste. However, it also accounts for a significant percentage of the calories, which can put you in a bit of a dilemma.

When it comes to your traditional crusts, there isn’t going to be a whole lot of difference in terms of calories. All-purpose flour, pizza flour, whole-grain flour; their nutritional content is going to be relatively the same. You may find some claims that one or the other has higher protein content, but in reality, none are great, and the differences are trivial. Therefore, if calories aren’t an issue for you and you don’t have nutritional concerns, your best bet is to simply use the one that you prefer taste-wise.

That said, a nice whole-grain flour could be a good pick as it can be a nice way to add fiber to your diet. However, many people feel that whole-grain crust drastically changes the flavor of the pizza. Apart from the flour used, there’s another easy hack you can use to instantly cut out calories. Rather than ordering hand-tossed or a traditional type crust, go for the thin crust!

As the name implies, a thin crust pizza uses significantly less dough. Depending on the restaurant and size of the pizza, a thin crust may have anywhere from 50-80 fewer calories than hand-tossed. That is a significant amount, especially if you’re eating more than one slice; again, we know you are! Along with fewer calories, you’ll consume less sodium and added sugar as well!

But still, there’s another choice: cauliflower crust! Cauliflower crust is made out of, you guessed it, cauliflower! As such, it’s going to have fewer carbs and overall calories than other dough pizzas. Further, cauliflower crust actually has more protein than others.

But how does it taste? Speaking from firsthand experience, we actually like it! In fact, we’ll even order it specifically for the taste every once in a while when we do order pizza. It doesn’t taste like cauliflower, and we would highly recommend it if you haven’t tried it!

In fact, if you are planning on using pizza to build muscles often, we’d definitely suggest you stick to one of these two options. Be aware that when it comes to cauliflower crust, while you can find numerous types of frozen pizza with cauliflower crust, it can be a bit tough to find at chain restaurants, so you may need to look around.

Now that you have your crust settled, let’s talk about the sauce. Usually, pizza sauce is associated with a tomato-based sauce. However, the original type in Italy is usually lighter than what we’re used to in the United States. Still, there are other options such as white sauce, alfredo, and red sauce. So which one is healthiest? Well, the original pizza makers! The thinner, lighter type of sauce associated with pizza from Italy is regarded as the healthiest. It’s basically crushed tomatoes with garlic, extra virgin olive oil, sea salt, and dried oregano. That’s it! This can obviously be relatively healthy!

Keep in mind that unless you make it, you can’t be sure what’s inside unless you ask. Again, think about making your own! From here, people may then add ingredients such as butter and cream. If you’re on a health kick, stay away from these! They may taste good, but it comes at the price of extra calories. You could also go rogue and have a pizza with no sauce! Usually called a white pizza, this is a pizza crust topped with cheese and toppings.

Just be careful when ordering, as sometimes a white pizza will have alfredo or a white sauce. Other times it may use a lot of butter or oil instead. In these cases, you may be better off with a tomato-based sauce.

Time for the cheese! Cheese is a dairy product, so we know that this is a decent source of protein.

When it comes to cheese, there are a ton of options. Cheddar, parmesan, and gouda are just a few. But there’s one that comes out as the most commonly used, and loved: mozzarella!

And get this, similar to the original sauce used, mozzarella is also one of the healthiest options out there. It’s usually lower in sodium, high in calcium, and delivers a decent amount of protein as well. Depending on what one is used, mozzarella usually comes out to be around 30% protein.

But remember what we said about saturated fat, as this is true for mozzarella as well. Therefore, you can choose a low-fat option if you are making your own pizza; this is obviously an advantage of making your own.

And now, the toppings! There are a lot of toppings to choose from! You can put just about anything you want on a pizza; the only one that causes controversy is pineapple! But seriously, your choice of toppings can have a huge effect on your pizza. When it comes to choosing vegetables, we say use them all! Seriously! Tomato, onions, mushrooms, olives, even broccoli! They’re all good and deliver much-needed vitamins and minerals for your body and muscles!

Plus, it will fill you up more. This means you’ll fill up from eating vegetables rather than eating more bread! Now let’s get to the meat. One of the reasons pizza usually gets a bad reputation is that traditionally, it tends to use a lot of oily, salted, processed meats such as pepperoni and sausage.

These meats tend to be very high in calories, fat, and sodium. Therefore, even though they taste good, they’re not good for you! Luckily, you can usually find other options. Well, at least a few. For example, ham, steak, and ground beef are potentially healthier options; emphasis on potentially! It’s up to you to check! While those are okay, there’s one meat that is clearly the best. Our number one pick for a pizza topping is grilled chicken!

It seems like a decade ago, you would rarely see grilled chicken offered as an option. We’re not sure when, but somewhere along the line, the popularity of grilled chicken rose and started to be found everywhere; and we love it! Even when not found on pizza, grilled chicken is the go-to food for bodybuilders. It’s high in protein, low in fat, and has no carbs! Therefore, it’s only natural to put it on pizza if you’re building muscle!

So what kind of pizza would we make or order for a muscle-building meal? We’d start with a cauliflower crust, maybe even a thin crust, and then a thin layer of tomato-based sauce. We’d then use a thin layer of low-fat mozzarella cheese. Next, we’d be sure to use plenty of garlic, basil, and other herbs. On top, we’d then lay out some arugula, tomato, onions, and maybe some mushrooms. And last but not least, chicken! We’d double the chicken! That’s going to get your muscle growing!