calorie intake

W

william795

New Member
I've been looking in on this forum for about a month now, but this is my first post.  Anyway, I've been working out for years trying different routines and make decent strength gains but have real trouble gaining lean mass.  As of right now I am 150lbs at 5'8", 25 yrs old, just finished my first day of 10's.  I really want to put some mass on but don't want to gain too fast as to put on a lot of body fat.  I signed up with MyFoodDiary.com to keep track of my calories and it says to maintain my current weight I should keep my calorie intake at around 2100.  What amount should I be taking in to gain mass but not too much fat?  I'm looking to be at a lean 160-165.
 
Crap! Sorry for the double-post.... It said "Internal Server Error" on my first one and I thought it didn't go through.
 
If your maintain is 2100 then just add 500 calories to that. Try that and watch the scales. Or 16-20x bodyweight for bulking. 2600 is 17.33X your bodyweight at 150.

Keystone
 
I shoot for 15-20% protein
15% fat- as high as possible in polyunsaturates, especially omega 3 and 6
the rest carbs,

500 calories excess is cool

You could try eating a higher protein diet, eating a lot of polyunsaturated fats especially LA and CLA and eating low GI meals to minimise fat gain.
 
W795

ill 2nd a lot of what keystone has said.

keeping track of your diet and w/o on the computer will help you out immensly down the road. if youve had trouble gaining in the past you may need to go over +500 cals a day but you also mention wanting to limit fat. i dont know how you would respond to excess cals and it sounds like your not sure either so just keep a good log and try to take some measr. and weigh in at a reg interval and it wont be long before youll be more "in touch" with what your body needs to get to your goals.

i personally use @30-40p 40-50c 20f macro %. for some that would not be enough carbs but its what works for me. this is where your log comes in. it wont be long b/f youll know what works for you. just dont get stuck trying to craft the perfect diet to start. excess cals are the key and all this other stuff youll fine tune as you go along.
 
Like bluejacket said, excess calories are the key. Keep a log to see how your weight and body composition is changing. If you are getting too much fat, that means you have too many calories, so cut back a little bit. For now, just focus on getting enough protein and enough total calories. The type of carbs and fats won't effect fat gain, total calories will, so just make sure you figure out how much you need to be eating first before you start trying to tweak carb amounts and types of fats. Remember, the types of fats and types of carbs are important only for heart health, etc, etc, not for weight gain, so keep that in mind when you are figuring out your calorie intake. Bulking for a few months with a lot of 'dirty' foods won't give you heart disease overnight.
 
Okay, another question... I just read the Pimp my HST column and he was saying that you should eat more on your workout days and less on off days. If my calories to maintain is 2100 and I'm taking in 2600 right now to bulk, would it be better to do like 2300(off days) and 2900(on days)? Or am I way off?
 
you are drastically overcomplicating this. And by thinking like this you are bound to fail before you start.

Here are the general concepts:

In order to increase your body weight you must consume more calories than you expend.

It is impossible to determine the exact number of calories you need in order to grow muscle while not gaining fat. Even if you had a good idea, the figure is likely to fluctuate from day to day, depending on your precise level of activity, how stressed you are at work, even the temperature etc.

Even if you managed to have a really good approximate idea of how many calories you need in order to grow muscle, there is no way to stop the body using some of those calories to make you fat if it wants to.

The only way to be sure that you are consuming enough calories to grow muscle is if your body weight increases over time. A 1pound increase in total body weight per week seems to be the rule of thumb thrashed about.

If you are not increasing your total body weight by this amount each week, you need to boost your calorie intake or else muscle growth will likely be frustratingly slow (as if it isnt frustratingly slow in the best of conditions! ).

If you increase your total body weight by more than this amount, then cut back a little on the calories or else you are probably adding a bit too much fat.

Bottom line is that if you want to grow some muscles, you will probably have to accept a bit of fat gain with it. If you obssessivley restrict the amount of fat you are willing to gain, you will most likely not grow very much muscle.

The only real way to grow muscle is to eat a good nutritious diet with plenty of calories to continually gain bodyweight on (without bothering too much about fat gain) while at the same time training hard and smart. Continue this until you reach your desired level of lean body mass (you can determine this by using calipers and a scale...do a search). Once there, reduce your calories slowly while contiuning to train hard and smart so that you start loosing the excess fat.

Doing this while continaully increasing the loads you are lifting over time is the really only successful strategy (at least without using any drugs etc).

Goodluck!
 
stevie laid out some good advise. it really is that simple to start. the trick is to periodically check your progress in order to stay on track.

typical pitfalls are
1. not enough cals. most people are bwx13 for maint. add 500 cals and see what it does for you. then follow stevies advice about the 1lb a week.

2. too many cals. if some is good more is better. modern society actually makes it pretty easy to get a lot of quick, cheap crappy cals from McDs or grocery store etc. if instead of 500+ you go to 1000+ this way you will gain but your fat gain will outstrip your muscle gain.

anyway, the point is to chart your diet/wo so you can stay in the 500+ range, get at least 1gram protien per 1lb body wgt. (mostly good quality pro, not all shakes) throw in some fruits and vegis to keep mom and the doctor happy and spend the rest of your energy on your workouts.
 
Yeah, I figured I might have been looking into it a little too much... I guess maybe I should've waited a couple months to read Pimp my HST. Thanks for the advice.
 
I would recommend this article from Bryan as well:

http://www.hypertrophy-specific.com/HSreport/iss04/index.html#art_1

cool.gif
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top