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I said that I would do a more detailed post on the topics of “bulking” and “cutting” earlier today, so I’m going to start with the topic of bulking, since there have been a few questions regarding it recently and also this is the time of year where a lot of people will be looking to add some mass. Managed to get this done earlier than expected, too.
Where to start?
Use a website such as the below to calculate your daily energy requirements:
http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
This website will overestimate your energy requirements the higher your body fat percentage is, so you may want to use the calculation from the following thread:
http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=690756
Anyhow, both of these will only give an estimate; don’t take the figure that you get as your definite energy expenditure.
Rates of Gain
After you’ve got a rough idea of your total daily energy expenditure, it’s going to depend what level of training you’re at as to what you do now. In one of Lyle McDonald put this model out (1,2,3,4+ refer to years of proper training and the other colums refer to muscle gain):
1 20-25 pounds per year (2 pounds per month)
2 10-12 pounds per year (1 pound per month)
3 5-6 pounds per year (0.5 pound per month)
4+ 2-3 pounds per year (not worth calculating)
Again, this isn’t going to be the same for everybody, but it gives a good idea as to realistic rates of gain. When you’re new to training, haven’t been training very intelligently or coming off a long lay-off from training, your growth potential is going to be greater than that of an advanced lifter. As you can see, an advanced lifter isn’t going to be gaining a great deal of muscle mass over the course of a year, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to be in as much of a caloric surplus, as if he was to try and gain say 1lb per week, over the course of a year that is around 52lbs; that’s a great recipe for getting fat.
Note, the chart from Lyle is about muscle gain, not fat. So in a new lifter, you’re generally going to lose some fat AND gain some muscle, so if the net gain on the scales isn’t what is shown in that scale, don’t go and shovel a ton of extra calories down your throat if your lifts are going up and you’re looking better in the mirror.
Constructing a Diet
Since this is looking at bulking, once you have your estimated maintenance calories, you’re going to want to add calories so that you’re in a caloric surplus. However, as I mentioned, the ‘size’ is going to be dependent upon a host of factors. An example I’ll use is a 180lb male with 2 years solid training experience. I’d generally aim to have them gain at most, 0.5lbs per week (it’s not a case of “fuck, gained 0.6lbs this week” though), so ‘ideal’ calorie surplus would be around 250kcal, but the problem with this is, unless your day to day activity is consistent, there are going to be plenty of days where you may end up eating at maintenance calories, or even in a deficit; so if you’re a person that is prone to spontaneous bouts of energy expenditure through your job, or lifestyle, I’d say go higher.
Once you have your estimate calorie requirements, you’re going to want to break that up in to macronutrient requirements (macronutrients are protein, carbs, fat; often referred to as just ‘macros’). This is very individual and varies from person to person, although there are some general guidelines I’ll put out:
Protein – 1g per lb of bodyweight
Fat – 0.4g per lb of bodyweight
Carbs – Non Essential
So for the 180lb example, I’ll say he has a total daily energy expenditure of 3,000kcal. He works a desk job, so energy expenditure is relatively consistent, to gain he’s going to want 3,250kcal per day. The problem with this is that if people are trying to hit the EXACT same number of calories every single day all year round, things can get a bit ‘OCD’, so I’d advise macronutrient ranges that I’d work out something like this:
180 – 200g Protein
475 – 500g Carbs
72 – 80g Fat
The minimum he’d be eating if he was to have 180/475/72, would be 3268kcal and the most he’d be eating if he was to have 200/500/80, would be 3520kcal. (For those who do not know, 1g protein/carbs = approx 4 kcal, 1g of fat = approx 9 kcal. You don’t need to eat 1g per lb of protein and you don’t need to eat 0.4g per lb of fat, but those are just general guidelines (wouldn’t go lower on the fat, though). For example, if you wanted to you could go higher protein/lower carbs or higher fat/lower carbs, or whatever; everybody is going to respond differently to different macro breakdowns though, so it’s worth playing around with, but that’s a starting point.
Next, I want to make the point that 'clean' or 'dirty' foods do not exist. Eat a varied diet and apply common sense and moderation. Don't completely eliminate anything from your diet because people tell you it's 'dirty'. Here are a few quotes from some extremely knowledgable people in the industry:
Leigh Peele: "Clean" food is a myth. There is no such thing as clean eating. There is such a things as choosing nutrient dense foods, but contrary to popular belief this has little to do with whole foods.
Jamie Hale: What is clean eating? Clean eating for the low-carber means anything low-moderate carbohydrate, for the low-fat advocate basically anything low-moderate fat. The whole natural food advocates define clean eating as eating minimally processed, natural foods. In other words, cleaning eating means different things to different people.
Alan Aragon: It really makes no difference from a purely physiological standpoint as long as macronutrition is in check. This is evidenced by the mere fact that you can take ten different coaches (or competitors) and see that they have ten distinctly different approaches to pre-contest preparation. Nevertheless, their athletes will all show up on stage at the maximal degree of leanness that their genetics will allow. You’ll never see a competitor magically show up in better shape than he once did all because of switching out one doughnut per week with a cup of brown rice and a tablespoon of olive oil.
On a final note about clean versus dirty dieting, the effects of eating hot dogs and syrup for your protein, carbs, and fat versus eating typical health-nut bodybuilding fare would only impact the athlete in the long term. I’m talking about the cumulative effect of years of not ingesting disease preventive and immune enhancing nutrients typically lacking in classic junk food.
So, in summary; just make sure the food you eat fits into your macros and that you are getting plenty of the vitamins/minerals in your diet.
Training
Going to keep this last bit relatively short, as a novice the best programme IMO is a 5x5 with accessory work. When you’re just starting out you want to familiarise yourself with the main compound movements (squats, deadlifts, bench), get stronger and add muscle; a 5x5 with accessory work is a very good way to make sure you’re doing all of those.
Summary
Calculate energy requirements
Calculate macronutrients
Follow a good, structured training programme
Track Progress (pictures, weight, training etc)
Any questions, just ask. I’ve probably missed something out.
Where to start?
Use a website such as the below to calculate your daily energy requirements:
http://www.health-calc.com/diet/energy-expenditure-advanced
This website will overestimate your energy requirements the higher your body fat percentage is, so you may want to use the calculation from the following thread:
http://www.readytogo.net/smb/showthread.php?t=690756
Anyhow, both of these will only give an estimate; don’t take the figure that you get as your definite energy expenditure.
Rates of Gain
After you’ve got a rough idea of your total daily energy expenditure, it’s going to depend what level of training you’re at as to what you do now. In one of Lyle McDonald put this model out (1,2,3,4+ refer to years of proper training and the other colums refer to muscle gain):
1 20-25 pounds per year (2 pounds per month)
2 10-12 pounds per year (1 pound per month)
3 5-6 pounds per year (0.5 pound per month)
4+ 2-3 pounds per year (not worth calculating)
Again, this isn’t going to be the same for everybody, but it gives a good idea as to realistic rates of gain. When you’re new to training, haven’t been training very intelligently or coming off a long lay-off from training, your growth potential is going to be greater than that of an advanced lifter. As you can see, an advanced lifter isn’t going to be gaining a great deal of muscle mass over the course of a year, so it wouldn’t make sense for him to be in as much of a caloric surplus, as if he was to try and gain say 1lb per week, over the course of a year that is around 52lbs; that’s a great recipe for getting fat.
Note, the chart from Lyle is about muscle gain, not fat. So in a new lifter, you’re generally going to lose some fat AND gain some muscle, so if the net gain on the scales isn’t what is shown in that scale, don’t go and shovel a ton of extra calories down your throat if your lifts are going up and you’re looking better in the mirror.
Constructing a Diet
Since this is looking at bulking, once you have your estimated maintenance calories, you’re going to want to add calories so that you’re in a caloric surplus. However, as I mentioned, the ‘size’ is going to be dependent upon a host of factors. An example I’ll use is a 180lb male with 2 years solid training experience. I’d generally aim to have them gain at most, 0.5lbs per week (it’s not a case of “fuck, gained 0.6lbs this week” though), so ‘ideal’ calorie surplus would be around 250kcal, but the problem with this is, unless your day to day activity is consistent, there are going to be plenty of days where you may end up eating at maintenance calories, or even in a deficit; so if you’re a person that is prone to spontaneous bouts of energy expenditure through your job, or lifestyle, I’d say go higher.
Once you have your estimate calorie requirements, you’re going to want to break that up in to macronutrient requirements (macronutrients are protein, carbs, fat; often referred to as just ‘macros’). This is very individual and varies from person to person, although there are some general guidelines I’ll put out:
Protein – 1g per lb of bodyweight
Fat – 0.4g per lb of bodyweight
Carbs – Non Essential
So for the 180lb example, I’ll say he has a total daily energy expenditure of 3,000kcal. He works a desk job, so energy expenditure is relatively consistent, to gain he’s going to want 3,250kcal per day. The problem with this is that if people are trying to hit the EXACT same number of calories every single day all year round, things can get a bit ‘OCD’, so I’d advise macronutrient ranges that I’d work out something like this:
180 – 200g Protein
475 – 500g Carbs
72 – 80g Fat
The minimum he’d be eating if he was to have 180/475/72, would be 3268kcal and the most he’d be eating if he was to have 200/500/80, would be 3520kcal. (For those who do not know, 1g protein/carbs = approx 4 kcal, 1g of fat = approx 9 kcal. You don’t need to eat 1g per lb of protein and you don’t need to eat 0.4g per lb of fat, but those are just general guidelines (wouldn’t go lower on the fat, though). For example, if you wanted to you could go higher protein/lower carbs or higher fat/lower carbs, or whatever; everybody is going to respond differently to different macro breakdowns though, so it’s worth playing around with, but that’s a starting point.
Next, I want to make the point that 'clean' or 'dirty' foods do not exist. Eat a varied diet and apply common sense and moderation. Don't completely eliminate anything from your diet because people tell you it's 'dirty'. Here are a few quotes from some extremely knowledgable people in the industry:
Leigh Peele: "Clean" food is a myth. There is no such thing as clean eating. There is such a things as choosing nutrient dense foods, but contrary to popular belief this has little to do with whole foods.
Jamie Hale: What is clean eating? Clean eating for the low-carber means anything low-moderate carbohydrate, for the low-fat advocate basically anything low-moderate fat. The whole natural food advocates define clean eating as eating minimally processed, natural foods. In other words, cleaning eating means different things to different people.
Alan Aragon: It really makes no difference from a purely physiological standpoint as long as macronutrition is in check. This is evidenced by the mere fact that you can take ten different coaches (or competitors) and see that they have ten distinctly different approaches to pre-contest preparation. Nevertheless, their athletes will all show up on stage at the maximal degree of leanness that their genetics will allow. You’ll never see a competitor magically show up in better shape than he once did all because of switching out one doughnut per week with a cup of brown rice and a tablespoon of olive oil.
On a final note about clean versus dirty dieting, the effects of eating hot dogs and syrup for your protein, carbs, and fat versus eating typical health-nut bodybuilding fare would only impact the athlete in the long term. I’m talking about the cumulative effect of years of not ingesting disease preventive and immune enhancing nutrients typically lacking in classic junk food.
So, in summary; just make sure the food you eat fits into your macros and that you are getting plenty of the vitamins/minerals in your diet.
Training
Going to keep this last bit relatively short, as a novice the best programme IMO is a 5x5 with accessory work. When you’re just starting out you want to familiarise yourself with the main compound movements (squats, deadlifts, bench), get stronger and add muscle; a 5x5 with accessory work is a very good way to make sure you’re doing all of those.
Summary
Calculate energy requirements
Calculate macronutrients
Follow a good, structured training programme
Track Progress (pictures, weight, training etc)
Any questions, just ask. I’ve probably missed something out.
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