subject: Eating The Perfect Amount [print this page] Step 1: Eat more calories than you spend Step 1: Eat more calories than you spend
If you are determined to add some muscle to your physique, you'll need to focus on a fundamental concept: you are going to gain weight. To gain weight, your total intake of calories from food in a day must be greater than the calories you use up in a day. Building even just a pound of muscle requires tons of calories, so get ready to eat up.
Imagine this: you want to build a large house. The materials you will need are bricks, mortar, and anything else to build it up. The bigger the house is going to be, the more materials you are going to need and use. This analogy applies also for your body, except the house you are trying to build is muscle and the materials you need is food. To put it briefly, the more you eat, the faster you will build muscle, as the more materials you have, the more you can build. However, for our bodies, we must have the balance where we eat just enough to support building muscle, but not too much, or else we're going to be adding on fat as well.
Imagine this: Bob, for example, wants to add some muscle. He is somewhat unfit at 180 pounds and his weight is stable at 2,000 calories per day. He begins training at the gym, and his newbie effect brings him 10 pounds of muscle while shedding 10 pounds of fat. He is the same weight, but leaner and in better condition. He trains for another month the same way, but this time he hits a wall and doesn't get any more muscular; his weight remains the same. Bob finds some good advice about how to build muscle and finds out must he eat some extra food to build it. So, he eats an extra 200 calories per day, increasing his intake to 2,200 calories a day. When he goes back to the gym for a few weeks, he adds some more muscle and barely any fat. Bob is quite happy with the results. Bob wonders if he eats some more, then he'll get even more muscle. So, he adds another 200 calories, boosting his calorie intake to 2,400. After a few weeks at the gym, Bob finds out that he hasn't gained muscle any faster than before, and worse, he's actually gaining some fat. Bob decides to go back to what worked before and sticks with it. In this story, it is crucial to find your own balance or sweet spot because it dictates how much you need to eat to build muscle, but without gaining fat as well. It will be different for every individual according to their body types; some can eat a lot without gaining fat, some can't. It's a sweet spot that you'll have to figure out for yourself.
Some tips:
1. Weight yourself every other day for a month on % body fat scale (which gives you your weight and your fat %). 2. Are you gaining weight? If yes, is your % body fat increasing? If it is, eat a little less. If it's not, congratulations! You've found your sweet spot. If you're not gaining weight, eat one more small meal per day. This should be a pre- or post-workout meal the days you train. Keep tracking your weight. Is it increasing? If it is, congratulations! You've found your sweet spot. If it's not, add more daily meals until you start gaining weight and muscle. Got the idea?
