Diet for Maximizing Muscle Gain & Minimizing Fat

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markobenin

New Member
Hey guys, I've been doing alot of reading about diet lately and am getting the impression that there is certainly not a definite answer out there, so I wanted to see what your opinions were on optimum caloric intake according to lean body mass and perhaps appropriate macronutrient ratios.

I'm 6'5 and currently 190lbs with roughly 10% body fat. I'm looking to put on more muscle mass and maybe get to 220-230lbs. It was recommended that I eat at least 4500cal a day to gain muscle mass so I started intaking that many calories recently for about a week now so I can't say how it's working out as of yet.

I'm in my first week of my first HST cycle, working out 3x a week, biking to class on the same days as workouts to class (<3-4mi on these days) and occasionally working part-time on weekends as an EMT (occasional lifting of patients and gurney). So I'd say my activity level is fairly moderate.

As stated earlier, I've been intaking around 4500cal +/- 200cal on a daily basis, with a rough ratio of macronutrients of 15%:55%:30% of fat:carbs:protein

In this case, i'm getting well over the 1g/lbs of protein per day, around 500g of carbs, sometimes more and not too much fat.

However I just came upon an article on T-nation (http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=1268956) with a table at the bottom with suggested calorie intakes in order to gain muscle and limit fat gains, and my lean body mass of ~170lbs corresponds to only 3440cal. Now this scares me as it's a little more than 1000cal below what I have been recently intaking.

Any suggestions as to what I might do in order to maximize muscle mass while keeping my body fat % low? If I can avoid "experimenting" and gaining unnecessary fat during this experimentation stage that'd be greeeeat...
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Thanks and looking forward to your suggestions!

-Marko
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">and my lean body mass of ~170lbs corresponds to only 3440cal.</div>

Your LBM is 90% * weight which is about 202.5 lbs.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Any suggestions as to what I might do in order to maximize muscle mass while keeping my body fat % low? </div>

Go on a slow bulk according to my uniform gain of weight assumptions. Just check out my 'Optimizing your Caloric Intake' thread that is linked in my signature.
 
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(colby2152 @ Aug. 22 2007,08:12)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE"> <div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">and my lean body mass of ~170lbs corresponds to only 3440cal.</div>

Your LBM is 90% * weight which is about 202.5 lbs.

<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Any suggestions as to what I might do in order to maximize muscle mass while keeping my body fat % low? </div>

Go on a slow bulk according to my uniform gain of weight assumptions. Just check out my 'Optimizing your Caloric Intake' thread that is linked in my signature.</div>
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Your LBM is 90% * weight which is about 202.5 lbs.</div>

.9*190 ~ 170lbs...
 
<div></div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">.9*190 ~ 170lbs...</div>

Oh... got it, I was multiplying it by your target weight. With that in mind, those figures may be right, but as I said -- check out that thread.
 
I just read your whole &quot;Optimizing your Caloric Intake&quot; thread Colby and I calculated my BMR using the UCW approach to calculate a higher BMR than normal. Using my current weight of 190lbs and approx. bf% of 10% and a desired target weight of 200lbs after this 8wk cycle of HST, I calculated my target bf% to be 7%. So I used the 200lbs and 7% to calculate my new BMR and got about 2200cal. I then multiplied by 1.1 as you suggested for the daily light activities, and added 750cal from the bicycling I do 3x a week to get to class and the 520cal from HST training. That gave me an approximate TDEE of 3688cal. Adding 200-300cal for a slow bulk gives me gives me roughly a 3900-4000cal intake. I hope I used your calculations correctly and got the correct approximate for how many calories I should intake in order to do a slow bulk. If all this information is correct, I think I'll cut down on the number of calories I've been eating, as 4500+ seems to be too much and will add unnecessary fat.

Any opinions as to whether I'm correct in my estimations?
 
<div>
(markobenin @ Aug. 22 2007,16:42)</div><div id="QUOTEHEAD">QUOTE</div><div id="QUOTE">Any opinions as to whether I'm correct in my estimations?</div>
Whoops! Be careful. Colby is an actuary. Guessing numbers is his business.

I used to work with actuaries at Mercer-Meidinger and the Wyatt Company.

He not only can help you estimate your caloric intake; he can tell you how many of us are going to die this year...!
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I would be hard pressed to find a person more qualified.
 
Haha sounds good, glad Colby is part of this lovely forum. It seems like I may ultimately have to experiment though, there is just so much information that differs out there that I don't know what to believe. I just read the John Berardi article &quot;essential Berardi&quot; and there is a section on eating for muscle mass, and using the calculations that HE mentions in the article, I come up with at least 4800cal a day, while I come up with 3900-4000cal using Colby's equations. I really don't wanna eat so much that I increase my fat% unintentionally, but at the same time I wanna eat enough to gain the maximal amount of muscle mass. Again I donno if this is possible, or if I have to succumb to the traditional bulking &amp; cutting cycles.

One very negative aspect of bulking in my opinion is that if you eat so much that hyperplasia of fat cells is induced, then you have extra fat cells that you cannot get rid of without surgery (too bad muscle cells aren't prone to hyperplasia
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). So you're kinda stuck with these additional fat cells....regardless of how much you cut after a bulking period. That's why I'm wondering if anyone has found research or just had experience with a certain calorie range that added the optimal amount of LBM while reducing fat gains. Too bad Colby is the only one responding though...
 
Markobenin,

This thread slipped by me a while back, but no thread is ever lost to me!
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The estimation does seem a bit high, but make sure your 750 calories / day for cycling 3x/week is correct. Total the calories burned through three days of cycling and divide it by seven for the correct estimate. Beradi's #'s came up higher because you probably applied them to a bulk. You used my uniform change of weight assumptions for a slow bulk. Last, but not least, these final numbers are just estimates, and you will have to test them week to week to make sure they fit you! For instance, your metabolism could be higher, and you probably should have multiplied the BMR by 1.2 instead of 1.1!

TR,

I am humble, but thank you for the compliments! And yes I can answer questions about future life expectancy!

-Colby
 
I know this might be a little simplistic, but its shear simplicity is why it has always worked for me...

I eat what I would consider a &quot;farm diet&quot;. Fruit is good - especially kiwi, bananas, and berries. Vegetables are good (especially if organic - or better still, homegrown). Meat is good (preferably wild-caught fish and grass-fed open-range beef). Milk and eggs are just fine. Green tea is a good antioxidant. Grains are great if minimally processed (such as steel-cut oats and true whole-grain cereals) and taken in moderation. Nuts, especially true nuts like walnuts and almonds, are the perfect snack food since the shells keep you from eating too much at once and they can give you a small but steady supply of extra protein between meals. Chocolate is a good treat, though it's definitely better to stick to real chocolate (75-90%) rather than sweet chocolate. Whey supplementation can be a convenient way to fully meet your protein requirements, and is good for shortly before and shortly after a lifting session.

Refined sugar should be kept to a minimum (I only have it in my coffee, and have been gradually cutting back on even that as I get used to the bitterness of the coffee itself). Spices, if you enjoy spicy food, make a good alternative for giving your food flavor - ginger and garlic are also great for this purpose. Refined grains should be kept to a minimum. Any food that comes prepared in a box should be avoided like the plague (with the possible exception of minimally-processed health cereals).

I like to keep a few &quot;handful foods&quot; around (like fruit-and-nut mixes, heavy on the nuts) that I can grab a literal handful of now and then between meals. Just don't leave them on your desk when you're working - I generally eat a little every time I go to the kitchen to refill my water bottle.

There's a little natural Caloric variation from day-to-day due to the lack of conscious regulation. For me this seems to coincide for the most part with my activity level, which I exaggerate a little by eating a bit more than I'm really hungry for on an active day and a little less than I'm really hungry for on an inactive day.

This probably isn't the best diet for someone who isn't familiar with preparing meals from scratch, but it gives you a very clear intuitive picture of what you're eating and seems to let your body instinctively regulate your tastes and appetite to match your nutritional needs.

It's a great diet for someone who can't stand weighing portions and counting calories. And it comes really close to the eating habits of such healthy and impressive old-time (and thus implicitly natural) strength athletes as Georg Hackenschmidt.

You probably won't make terribly fast muscle gains (certainly nothing over 1lb/week - probably more like 0.5) because it's hard to get in a very large caloric excess from &quot;primitive&quot; foods unless you start downing cream and whole coconuts. And you won't lose weight all that quickly either (again, certainly nothing over 1lb/week - probably more like 0.5), since you aren't forcing a large caloric deficit. But I've had consistent and long-running success with eating this way in terms of slowly-but-surely gaining muscle and reducing bodyfat. Considering how elusive that goal is, and the extra time it normally takes to cut after a bulking cycle, I don't think the slow gains are that bad a trade-off for the freedom of eating tasty food without detailed recordkeeping.

I should note, though, that timing is everything. I'm sure it's discussed elsewhere here, but it basically comes down to avoiding insulin spikes except right after a workout (thus saving most of the sugary stuff like fruit for after a workout - I like to make Odwalla-style juice for this purpose - and right after you wake up all glycogen-depleted in the morning), spreading your protein intake across the day (though you can add some extra protein before a workout and again shortly after), and strategically using slow-burning greens and natural fats to keep your energy level even throughout the day. I also drink take in a little extra fat along with some protein, such as meat with a coconut-heavy drink or whey (though casein would probably be better) with whole milk, right before bed because the fat slows protein absorption and provides a steady fuel supply for recovery processes - giving that protein a sort of time-release quality.

A multivitamin (particularly one tailored for athletes) can be good to fill in any micronutriant gaps you might have. Creatine is another simple supplement that a lot of people have had good success with. I don't really bother with anything beyond that, but I'm not exactly a hardcore specialist.

If I'm trying to &quot;bulk&quot; a little more quickly, I'll add this low-sugar ginger-pumpkin cheesecake thing I make (it's literally a 50/50 blend of cheesecake and pumpkin pie), eating a small slice in the morning and another small slice in the evening. Extra calories, neatly packaged.

Finally, the tired-but-true point that you need to get plenty of sleep holds regardless of diet. Your entire metabolic pathway goes to **** if you aren't resting, at which point you may as well be on the deep-fried Twinkie diet.
 
Thats pretty much my diet too, but I do have the occasional treat.

On days that I am bulking and cant seem to get my target calories... Dairy Queen really helps!
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