The gym goes hand in hand with a solid diet plan and some essential supplements. Without the complete package we are likely to short change the results that we get from all the gym hours we are putting in. When muscles get broken down from reps under the iron we need calories to build them back up again. As a result of the above it poses a question, do you know how many calories you are taking in everyday , essentially are you overfeeding in some way to ensure that your goals are met?
Bodybuilding can be an exact science. There are formulas that enable you to ensure that you will progress as you plan to. It is well documented in the scientific literature that eating in excess of 500 calories a day from what your body needs a day to function is a sure fire way to know that your efforts in the gym will not go wasted. This approach, often called bulking, the aim being to get bigger through increased muscle growth, needs a certain amount of calories to function.
The body has a certain calorie requirement every day. If we only eat enough calories for our body to function on a daily basis then the chances of these calories being used to build muscle is very slim. The body has a hierarchy system, muscle building is not high on this hierarchy, but normal physiological functions are. So if we are only consuming calories at a baseline level we cannot expect these calories to be used for the purpose of building muscle, more important tasks are at hand. Hence the need for extra calories, and thus the 500 calorie excess was born.
Some people maintain their weight very easily and a simple method for such people might be to eat an extra meal or 1-2 snacks a day. It’s not always convenient to make all your meals a science experiment and count calories, heck sometimes it’s just a pain to have to think about it. So you might start off by adding in extra meals or snacks above and beyond what you would usually eat. This could be the aim for your first month of a new bulking training cycle. The chances are that if you are already good at maintaining your weight and eating what your body needs then adding another meal or few snacks is going to add an extra 500 calories to your diet and thus get you on the road to muscle gain.
If this approach does not work then you might have to turn it into a science experiment, or for the really skinny guy that finds it hard to gain weight then you might have to adopt the “stuff your face” method. Some people really do need a large calorie excess to gain weight, it’s just the rotten end of the stick, and if this guy is you then tracking calories might not be worth it, but eating till you feel a little sick and very full 1-2 meals a day might be the way you have to go. The bulking approach often leads to some gain in fat, but because gaining muscle is not an exact science we need to provide the calories the body might need to do its job. Eating under will short change your results, but for someone shooting for as much muscle gain as possible then eat the excess and then aim to burn the gained fat off at a later date. So whether you aim for the weighed and measured approach or go for eat extra method make sure there is plenty on board to enable you to reach your goals.
