Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle with Bodybuilding Nutrition- Part 2

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

In part 1 of Muscle Building 101, you were introduced to the muscle building equation.  Understand the equation.  Know it.  Get the big picture and concept of bodybuilding first before moving to this part.

The remaining articles in the Muscle Building 101 series will address each factor of the equation to help you build muscle.  Here, you'll find out all the nitty, gritty details of muscle building nutrition.

Now, bodybuilding nutrition is probably the least understood part of building muscle mass.  So many people get this wrong.  I'm not even sure why.  Maybe they are so pumped up about training and lifting weights that they neglect going over how to eat properly.  Or maybe the topic of nutrition just isn't interesting to a lot of people who are so eager to pump up their arms and fool with the weights.

Regardless, you must master the nutrition factor of building muscle.  If you don't, expect little to no results.

Calories Surplus: Eat Big to Get Big

First, realize that you're going to have to change the way you eat through calorie surplus.  What is calories surplus?  It's energy balance.  To put it in simple terms, you have to eat a lot to gain muscle mass and strength.  That's where the "eat big to get big" maxim came from in bodybuilding circles.

Your muscles are capable of generating large force and power.  It needs a lot of fuel, fuel as in food and calories, to maintain itself.  It is very energy intensive.  The body refuses to grow muscles if it isn't forced to because muscles need a tremendous upkeep of calories.

So it only makes sense that you need to eat extra to gain muscle weight.  In other words, muscle is high maintenance like a Beverly Hills valley girl.  There's no way around this.  You must eat more than you are used to.  This is what you call "bulking" in bodybuilding-speak.

Now how many calories do you have to eat to gain muscle mass?  The answer isn't exact as long as you get more than maintenance calories requirement.  We'll call it the MCR.  Your MCR is the amount of calories you eat every single day to maintain your weight.  So if you're maintaining weight eating around 2,400 calories a day, then that's your MCR.

Positive Energy Balance

To build muscle, you'll add an extra 500 calories above MCR.  That 500 calories figure will provide the surplus necessary to start building muscle.  Now here's another 2nd grade equation for you to take note of,

calories intake - calories expenditure = total calories ( + )

The calories intake is the number of total calories you eat each day.  Calories expenditure is the total calories burned through exercise and all other activities.  This also includes the calories you burn when you're doing nothing:  breathing, heart beating, and even sleeping.  You burn calories while at rest.  This is called your basal metabolic rate.  So once you subtract one from the other, the outcome in total calories has to be positive.  And this state is called a positive energy balance.

You must be in this positive energy state to gain weight and build muscle. That's why you're going to add 500 calories above your normal calories intake figure.  Here's the equation to first figure out your MCR to find calories surplus requirement,

- for males, take body weight X 16 = MCR

- MCR + 500 = calories surplus

- for females, take body weight X 15 = MCR

- MCR + 500 = calories surplus

Now there are a lot of different equations out there that factors in activity level to find the calories surplus needed to build muscle.  If you find another equation you can use that one but what matters most is that we do have a surplus.  I find this equation here to be simple enough for the newbie to start with.  If it's not enough you can always adjust upwards and add calories to your diet for correction.

For hardgainers, or if you have, or know you have, a very fast metabolism,  I recommend adding an extra 800 calories above MCR instead, rather than 500 calories.

Macronutrients

So now you know how many calories you need to eat, next comes what to eat and in what amounts.  There are basically 3 types of macronutrients:

1. carbohydrates
2. proteins
3. fats

You need to eat all 3 types of nutrients in your diet if you want maximum results.  These nutrients are the fuel that supplies the muscles with energy.  They give your muscles the "incentive" to grow.  They're the stimulus.  Food is the catalyst.  Compare food to oil.  Oil is that substance or resource that make a car's hydraulics and engine work and start.  Without oil, the car won't run.

The same goes for food.  You must eat more food than you are used to to build muscle and gain muscular weight.  You must eat them in the right amounts.  After calculating calories surplus figure, you're going to break it down into ratios.  You're going to find out how many grams of carbs, protein, and fats you have to eat.

Without getting into all that nutrient uptake and partitioning science stuff, I'm just going to tell you to use either a 50/30/20 carbs/protein/fats ratio to start with.  This means that 50% of your calories will come from carbs, 30 % from protein, and 20 % from fats.  And you can calculate this through grams.  Each gram of carb is 4 calories, each gram of protein is 4 calories, and one gram of fat is 9 calories.  The math is easy to do through simple division.

50/30/20

Let's look at some numbers for examples,

Let's say you weigh 140 lbs,

16 X 140 = 2,240 is MCR

2,240 + 500 = 2, 740 is calories surplus,

Now if we take the 50/30/20 rule, we have to find 50% of 2,740, 30% of 2,740, and 20% of 2,740, so

• .50 X 2,740 = 1,370 calories will need to come from carbs

• .30 X 2,740 = 822 calories will need to come from protein

• .20 X 2,740= 548 calories will need to come from fats

So now we divide them by their respective number of calories per gram to find the total number of grams for each,

• 1,340 / 4 = 342.5 grams of carbs

• 822 / 4 = 205.5 grams of protein

• 548 / 9 = 60.8 grams of fats

Round those figures off to 340 grams of carbs, 205 grams of protein, and 60 grams of fats.  So overall, that's how many grams of each nutrient you need to eat with a calories surplus of 2,740 using the 50/30/20 c/p/f ratio.

So when you calculate your own calories requirements and surplus, substitute your own numbers for finding the required number of grams and calories from each nutrient.

40/40/20 or 33/33/33

You might've also seen other popular macro ratios like 40/40/20, 33/33/33, or 35/35/30.  They're also fine to use as long as you get plenty of protein, carbs, and fats in total calories into your system.  You can start with 50/30/20 or any of the macronutrient ratios that are listed.

Another good hard rule is to eat at least 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight.  If you weight 150 lbs, eat at least 150 grams of protein.  But often you'll find that you'll need to eat more than that once you calculate the 50/30/20 rule.

Stick with complex carbohydrates, the carbs that are low on the GI glycemic index scale as they allow for a slower release of insulin.  Eat complete proteins from lean meats and low fat diary products.  Eat the essential good fats, the polyunsaturated and monounsaturated fats found in all kinds of fish, seafood, and flax oil/fish oil.  These are the  omega 3s, omega 6s, andomega 9s essential fatty acids, EFAs.

Here are some of the recommend food choices you should choose to put in your diet,

Complex Carbohydrates, Proteins, Essential Fats

Complex carbs are the number one source of energy for all bodily functions and muscular exertion.

• all kinds of fruits and vegetables; (green beans, cabbage, carrots, cauliflower, broccoli, celery, lettuce, onions, cucumber, berries, tomato, beet, string breans, asparagus, green peas, pears, apples, oranges, pears, mangos, etc.) you'll also get your fiber with veggies and fruits

• whole grain breads and cereals

• whole wheat pastas

• oatmeal

• brown rice, wild rice

• beans

• yam, pumpkin, squash

• sweet potato

• corn

• raw nuts, lentils

Protein

Protein are the building blocks of muscles.  Your muscle fibers are made up of actin and myosin protein filaments so it only makes sense to feed your muscle with more protein.

• lean cuts of red meat and poultry (chicken, turkey, ham)

• all types of fish, especially tuna, cod, salmon, and swordfish

• seafood and shellfish

• diary products; low fat skim milk, cottage  cheese, yogurt, eggs, powdered eggs

Fats

Fats help regulate metabolism, bolsters the immune system, recovers your muscles, cushions the vital organs, and keeps you in tip top shape for the gym.  They also reduce the risk of heart disease while lowering bad cholesterol and raising good cholesterol levels.

• flax seed, flax oil

• fish oil

• all types of fish

• egg yolk

So the above are the recommended food choices you can use to structure a muscle building nutrition plan.  Don't make this any more complicated as it looks.  The bottom line is to eat a balanced diet with plenty of protein, carbs, and essential good fats.  Each nutrient is important as they do their work to help you build muscle and strength.  Remember the 1 + 1 analogy?

And you don't have to stay "clean" eating all the healthy stuff.  A burger here and a big mac there once a week is fine, especially for those with very fast metabolisms.  Don't eat a lot of crap and junk food but you don't have to completely eliminate them from your diet.  It's hard to eat clean when you're bulking up.

And water.  Drink lots of it.  The body is roughly 75% water anyway.  The recommended intake is at least a third of a gallon to half a gallon of water a day.

You Don't Need Supplements

Next, you also have supplements.  For newbies and starters, I don't recommend you use a lot of supplements from day one.  Rather, eat whole foods.  Real foods.  Supplements are there to "supplement" a good muscle building diet.  They shouldn't replace it.  Here's a short list of supplements that I do recommend,

• whey protein powder

• casein protein powder

• egg protein powder

• creatine

• multivitamin; any will do, I use centrum

Eat 5-6 meals per day

Next up, meal frequency.  Eat 5-6 smaller meals per day rather than 3 large meals.  This is actually a great benefit to you for a number of reasons.  It makes it much easier for you to get in the required amounts of calories each day.

If your calories surplus is 3,000 calories, then you can imagine it'll be quite hard to eat 1,00o calories for each meal if you're only planning on eating 3 meals per day.   And it'll be even worse if you choose to skip breakfast and eat 2 meals a day.  You might not be used to eating a lot anyway.  So you have adjust by splitting these meals into smaller meals, more frequent meals throughout the day.  The increased meal frequency would also  stimulate your appetite so you will be able to eat more often without stuffing yourself feeling full all the time.

Increased meal frequency also increases nutrient partitioning and intake into the muscle's cells.  The nutrients are actually getting to your muscles for repair and growth.  No fuel wasted.  So remember to eat more frequent meals.  4 meals per day should be the minimum.  You can separate the meals in any way you want.  3 full meals and 3 snacks in between meals. 4 full meals and 2 snacks.  All 6 small meals.  A good rule to follow is to eat something every 3 and a half to 4 hours.

Post-Workout Shakes

Finally, we have post workout meals.   Your post workout meal could serve as a snack after workouts.  You have to eat something or drink a protein shake after every single weight session in the gym.   Why is this so important?  Because, after a workout, your muscles are the most receptive to repair.  After a tough workout, your muscles are "screaming" for protein and carbs.

Don't go on for hours after a workout without eating anything.  Get something into your stomach after a workout.  It needs it.

Insulin response is high.  Insulin response is responsible for shuttling nutrients into your muscles for immediate repair.  Cortisol, the stress hormone that has a helping hand in breaking down muscle tissue (not something you want to happen) is also high.

Feed your body after a workout to satisfy the insulin response and to reduce cortisol.  Your muscles will thank you for it by becoming thicker, bigger, and stronger.

Making a protein shake is easy.  Just throw in 2 servings/scoops of whey protein (the fast absorbing protien powder) into 2 scoops/servings of maltodextrin (fast absorbing high GI carb powder) into a blender, mix in some yogurt, milk, or fruits you want.

Then pour the contents into a shaker bottle and drink up.  If you don't want to go through the hassle of making a shake or spending your money on supplement protein powders, then just eat a light meal or sandwich after the workout.  As long as you get in some nutrients to your muscles, you'll be fine.

Here's a good video from BazBlog, a 58 year-old lifter,  that sums up the philosophy of lean mass eating,

And this concludes the nutrition part of Muscle Building 101.  In the third article of Muscle Building 101, you'll find out how to exercise and lift weights in the gym to finally provide that workout stimulus to your muscles (as discussed in the muscle building process in part 1).

Let's get to it.

• Muscle Building 101: Bodybuilding Equation- Part 1

• Muscle Building 101: Bodybuilding Nutrition- Part 2

• Muscle Building 101: Bodybuilding Workouts- Part 3

• Muscle Building 101: Bodybuilding Workouts- Part 4

• Muscle Building 101: Putting it all together- Part 5

Train Hard.  Train Safely.  Train Smart.

If you have any questions or comments, don't hesitate to leave a comment below or email me at ZQH245@gmail.com or ZQH250@gmail.com

photo credits:
roonb
hamed saber
stevendepolo
LFL_16
Adam Pieniazek

Related posts:

1. The Hardgainer’s Guide to Building Muscle and Strength: Hardgainer Nutrition- Part 4 In the last 3 parts, we talked about the strength training and work capacity aspects of hardgainer bodybuilding.  Now here, lets conclude with a basic primer of mass building nutrition for a hardgainer.  You can also refer to the muscle building 101 nutrition guide for a more comprehensive mass eating primer. As a skinny hardgainer, you’ll [...]...
2. Muscle Building Nutrition Recall the bodybuilding equation derived from the universal training principles of bodybuilding. Muscle Growth = Progressive Strength Training (Exercise) + Mass Eating Plan (nutrition) + Sleep and Recovery In this article, we’re going to focus on the mass eating plan factor of building muscle mass.  Now nutrition and eating properly to gain muscle is often the most [...]...
3. Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle with the Bodybuilding Equation- Part 1 In this 5-parts series, I’m going to go over, in a very simple format,  how to build muscle effectively, efficiently, quickly, and easily the correct way.  Building muscle is not complicated once you know what to do.  Lean mass building is not exactly a hard science.   It’s about knowing what to do,  taking action to [...]...
4. Fundamentals of Bodybuilding Nutrition Recall the bodybuilding equation derived from the universal training principles of bodybuilding article. Muscle Growth = Progressive strength training (Exercise) + Mass Eating Plan (muscle building nutrition) + Sleep and Recovery In this article, we’re going to focus on the mass eating plan factor of building muscle mass. Now, nutrition and eating properly to gain muscle is [...]...
5. Build Muscle Mass with Mass Gain Nutrition Diets If your goal is to build muscle, what is the number one thing you will immediately think of and plan for?  Think about this for a moment.  Most likely, 9 out of 10 people wanting to gain muscle mass will try to research all the top strength training workouts and the most popular bodybuilding programs [...]...
6. Muscle Building 101: How to Build Muscle with Bodybuilding Workouts- Part 3 In part 2 of Muscle Building 101, you read about building muscle and bulking up with proper muscle building nutrition.  Now, let’s move on to the more exciting part of bodybuilding… exercise.  Exercise in the form of strength training and weight lifting.  Strength training is the second stimuli, apart from nutrition,  that contributes tremendously towards [...]...
7. A Simple Bodybuilding Program to Help You Build Muscle Gaining muscle mass is a step by step process that involves progressive resistance training in the form of strength training, eating a bulking diet with a surplus of calories, and getting a lot of sleep every night. If you don’t know how to gain muscle mass, those are the 3 basic fundamentals that you have to [...]...
8. Supercharge Your Muscle Building Efforts with Bodybuilding Split Routines that Work If you do a search around the internet or input any of the listed terms into google search, “bodybuilding split routines” “weight lifting workouts” “muscle building workouts” “bodybuilding programs” “gain muscle workouts” Google will return search queries listing sites that detail the typical ultra-high volume routines emulated or taken straight from muscle magazines.  The routines generally consist of 4 or 5 [...]...
9. Selecting a Bodybuilding Program for Gaining Muscle and Building Strength You can find a lot of bodybuilding programs online and in muscle magazines and fitness books. But how effective are they? How do you know what to look out for before deciding to following a bodybuilding program or routine. There are really just 4 main things to analyze and decide if that bodybuilding program is [...]...
10. Muscle Mass Diet If you’re struggling to build muscle, the first thing you should look at is your muscle mass diet. More than likely, you’re not eating enough calories to build muscle. You’re not on a muscle mass diet at all. Remember that calorie surplus is extremely important. The surplus should be at least 500 calories above what [...]...

Tagged as: bodybuilding, carbs, fats, Muscle Building Nutrition, protein, Supplements