Gaining muscle and losing fat are the wishes in the minds of most people who want to become fitter, but can these two things go hand in hand?
Building muscle mass is going to require you to take in a surplus of calories because, well, let’s face it, you can’t build muscle out of nothing (unless of course you have some chemical help going on). Losing fat mass on the other hand is going to require you to be in a negative calorie balance because that is what will get your body burning off additional body fat as fuel for its tissues.
Trying to do these things at once is rather counterproductive, and will generally tend not to get you the results that you require.
If you want to increase your muscle mass, you have to accept the fact that there must be some weight gain, although exactly how much is the factor that you can control.
So is it really possible to get bigger without getting fatter? Let’s see…There are two different ways of increasing your muscles…
Some take the approach of just eating as much food as they can possibly cram into themselves. Their life suddenly becomes one long 24-hour buffet in their quest for muscle mass as they are under the thinking that the more food that goes in, the more muscle synthesis that will go on.
This plan is wrong for one simple reason. Once your body has used up all the calories that it needs in order to produce this lovely muscle tissue…the excess calories still need to be stored…how? BODY FAT!
For those guys who are out there taking in five thousand or more calories per day, this is obviously going to be way more than they need and will result in a considerable amount of unwanted fat weight over a period of three to six months (how long most people will ‘bulk’ for).
The second option is to adopt a more moderate approach and only eat so many additional calories to support this muscle growth and that’s it. This will allow you to hopefully get as much lean tissue gained as possible without the accumulation of a monstrous rise in body fat.
So that leads us to the next question you’re probably wondering. How much muscle can you build? How many calories over maintenance should you be eating?
Everyone has seen the ads showing the poor little guy who made good, piling on over 20 pounds worth of muscle in six weeks. It is possible, under extreme conditions where he has the best trainer in the world and genetics that Schwartzenegger would kill for, but generally you can expect things to happen rather more slowly.
For the majority of guys, a reasonable expectation is to gain half to one pound of muscle each week. This is for someone who is naturally and healthily trained and is doing everything correctly. From this you can tell that you do NOT have to eat a ridiculous amount of calories to gain just two to four pounds of new muscle each month.
The higher your intake is, the more you risk putting on additional body fat. As a general rule, keep it to about 250 to 500 calories above maintenance in hopes of putting on mostly muscle without too much body fat. Keep track of your current body fat levels and appearance and if you see that too much of your weight gain is coming on as fat mass, reduce your calorie intake slightly.
It is always best to go by REAL WORLD results since you are in the real world after all. You can read as much as you like as to how many calories you should be eating, but this does not mean that’s going to be the exact number that will produce results? Different people have different metabolisms that will respond to an increase in calories in various ways. So as you go about your bulk, adjust according to the results you are getting.
Just keep in mind that if you take it slowly with the muscle building, you won’t have to put in time to diet away that excess body fat that you received as a free gift. Let’s face it - dieting isn’t fun for anyone!