Part 3: Gaining Muscle without the Added Fat

How to eat for muscle

To bulk or not to bulk…

We’ve all heard it, ‘gotta eat big to get big’, and by all means this is true, but how big to we want to get? As explained in Part 1 we can only gain a certain amount of muscle before the rest of our weight gain is just adipose tissue. So really we should be thinking ‘gotta eat a little bit more than usual to get a little bit bigger’.

To build muscle we need a calorie surplus, because without that where are we meant to get the energy to develop it from? The degree we go over our maintenance calories depends on how much muscle we think we can realistically gain, as seen in Part 1.

This may leave you thinking ‘I have no idea how many calories that means I need?’ and that in itself is a tricky question, and there is no easy answer. There are many formula’s out there, and I have my own personal approach in how I work this out. However, a very simple formula made by Alan Aragon is the following:

Target BW X (9-11 + average total weekly training hours)

So we know we need to eat more than we burn off, where we get those calories from however matters, and by that I mean the macronutrient ratios. As a general rule of thumb you’ll want 1g of protein per pound of lean body mass, of course everyone is a little different, but this seems to be a good standard. The rest then comes from fat and carbohydrates, and the way we set these is highly variable. Some people seem to perform better from a higher carb bias and vice versa for fat. I like to set fats at around 0.3-0.6g per pound of body mass, leaving the rest to come from carbs. From there making small adjustments to see what works best for you. However, please note both fats and carbohydrates are important for sports performance and overall health, so don’t be too extreme with your bias.

Now we can go about gaining lean muscle tissue, as we are eating in a calorie surplus with the correct macronutrient amounts. Next time I will be putting what we have learnt together, making gaining muscle without the added fat easier than ever before!

Further Reading:

• Part 1: Building Muscle with the added fat
• Part 2: Building Muscle with the added fat
• Part 3: Building Muscle with the added fat