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Part I: Nutrition — The Simple, Beginner’s Guide To Strength And Muscle-Building

Posted by on Jan 21, 2013 in Diet It UP, Featured Article, Muscle It UP, Workout Plans | 4 comments

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*Nutrition is part I in our four-part ‘Simple, Beginner’s Guide To Strength And Muscle-Building’ series.

Part I: Introduction & Nutrition
Part II: The Lean It UP 5×5 Workout
Part III: Science-Backed Supplement Recommendations
Part IV: 10 Tips for Surefire Success

 

So you’re new to working out or maybe you’ve worked out for a few years, but you’re still looking to get stronger and put on additional muscle mass — you’ve come to the right place. Often this topic gets unnecessarily overcomplicated. In one sentence you need to eat a lot, eat clean, lift heavy, and lift often. Simple enough, right?

Over the course of our four-part ‘Simple, Beginner’s Guide To Strength And Muscle-Building’ we’ll give you all of the simplified, need-to-know info to help streamline your path to a healthy, powerful, lean physique.

First things first: nutrition. It took me several years of floundering around in the gym making minimal progress before I realized that without optimal nutrition you can’t maximize gains. It’s no surprise — no matter how much you bust your butt in the gym, if you nourish your body with crap you’ll only see half-ass results.

A quick word for the ladies: if you follow this program you will NOT look like The Incredible Hulk (however, you may look more like the woman below). I hear it all the time, “I don’t want to lift heavy weights, I’m going to look like a man.” The truth of the matter is, without copious amounts of exogenous testosterone (steroids), natural female lifters just don’t have the hormonal or genetic make-up to build muscle in the same way men do.

Dive in — stop worrying, start lifting.

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Optimal Nutrition — Calories:

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Working out puts enormous stress on the body. In order to build muscle you need to provide the body with sufficient molecular building blocks to effectively repair, recover, and ultimately grow. Specifically, in addition to eating enough to fuel your body’s everyday activities (e.g. breathing, digestion, etc.) you also need to take in sufficient incremental food to support your body’s muscle building progress (anabolism).

But if you’re taking in more calorie than you burn, doesn’t that also mean you’ll get fat in the process? The simple answer is yes — it’s nearly impossible to gain pure lean muscle mass without any fat gain on the side. The main objective here is to ensure that the caloric surplus isn’t excessive, that way any fat gain will be minimal and easily burned off. In fact, for beginner and intermediate lifters, a moderate caloric surplus may produce steady gains in lean muscle without any significant, visible fat gain.

So how many calories should you eat each day? First you need to figure out your maintenance caloric intake, which is simply the amount of calories needed to maintain your body weight. To determine your maintenance level of calories, I recommend tracking your caloric intake and weight for a week or two. If your weight is roughly the same over that time period, use your average calories as your maintenance calorie number. As an alternative, you can use Lean It UP’s downloadable calorie and BMI calculator to proactively estimate your personal caloric requirements.

As a rule of thumb, once you’ve determined your maintenance level of calories add an additional 200-300 calories as your starting point. The goal here is to gain roughly one-to-two pounds of lean muscle per month, with little-to-no fat gain. If you’re not seeing any gains after about a month, simply increase your caloric surplus by 100 per day and reassess your progress after a month. On the flip side, if you feel as though you’re gaining too much body fat, decrease your caloric intake by 100/200 per day.

Remember: overall weight gain is not a bad thing…muscle is a lot more dense than fat.

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Optimal Nutrition — The Macronutrient Formula:

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1) Protein:

Consume 1 g of protein per pound of body weight.


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2) Fat:

Consume 0.35-0.45 g per pound of body weight.

 

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3) Carbohydrates:

Eat your remaining daily calories in carbohydrates, preferably from whole grains, fiber, vegetables, and whole fruit.

 

4) Water:

You should drink enough water so that your urine is always either clear or very lightly yellow. For most people this will be at least half your body weight in ounces throughout the course of the day (if you’re 180 pounds, shoot for at least 90 oz. of water per day. One average cup of water = 8 oz.).

Personally I tend to drink closer to one ounce per pound of body weight. Staying hydrated is one of the keys to a healthy body, which produces solid workouts and proper recovery. Dehydration < 2% can kill athletic performance and energy levels — avoid it!1

 

Sample Calculation:

Overall, you can calculate your optimal daily macronutrient requirements with the following info:

  • 1 g Protein = 4 calories
  • 1 g Fat = 9 calories
  • 1 g Carbohydrates = 4 calories
  • Water = 0 calories

For example, I weigh 180 pounds and my daily maintenance level is 2,200 calories. Assuming I want a surplus of 300 calories to gain lean muscle, I need to consume 2,500 calories per day with the following breakdown:

  • Protein: 180 g, or 720 calories (180 lbs x 1 g/lb)
  • Fat: 75 g, or 675 calories (180 lbs x .42 g/lb)
  • Carbs: 275 g, or 1,375 calories (remaining calories)
  • Water: 90 oz. (180 lbs/2)

Note: To calculate the total number of carbs required, use the following formula: Total calories – (protein calories + fat calories), divided by 4. I.e. 2,500 calories – (720 +675) = 1375 calories, divided by 4 calories/g = 275 g.

 

Food Sources:

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Now that you know how much to eat, where exactly should you source your calories from? The good news is that there is a tremendous amount of variety available with food choice. As a recommendation for general health and muscle gain, I recommend a diet that consists primarily of high-quality, non-processed whole foods, such as a fresh veggies, fruit, meat, fish, nuts, and whole grains. Foods not found pre-packaged in a can, box, or bag are your best friends.

The exception to this rule would be a whey protein shake, which is ideally consumed post-workout. For protein, stick to lean meats and other low fat options such as non-fat Greek yogurt. When choosing fats, avoid trans fats (aka hydrogenated oils) found in many processed foods such as margarine and various baked goods. Finally, with carbs consume low Glycemic Index carbohydrates such as those listed in the example below. This will help keep your blood sugar levels flat lined and stabilize your energy throughout the day, which helps prevent sudden hunger cravings shortly after eating.

 

Some examples:
  1. Protein: eggs, chicken breast, salmon, tilapia, lean beef, turkey breast, tuna, Greek yogurt, cottage cheese, milk, etc.
  2. Fats: nuts and nut butter (almonds, peanuts, walnuts, etc), olive oil, coconut oil, avocado, flax, salmon and oily fish, eggs, etc.
  3. Carbohydrates: brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoa, lentils, oats, fruits, etc.
  4. For a complete list of low calorie, high protein meal ideas you can refer to our guide here.

In addition to those listed foods, it’s absolutely essential to have a diet rich in vegetables, particularly green leafy vegetables to ensure adequate levels of micronutrients (vitamins and minerals). As a rule of thumb aim for a minimum of 3 servings of vegetables per day.

 

Conclusion

If you’re like most folks, and the idea of keeping track of your daily food intake sounds pretty miserable, I can tell you from experience that after a while it becomes very habitual and no longer feels like a chore. Most importantly, if your primary goal is to maximize strength and body re-composition then tracking your calories and macronutrients is essential.

Think of it this way, as a beginner you probably spend 3-5 hours/week working your butt off in the gym and realistically tracking your macronutrients takes an additional five to ten minutes per day — in the grand scheme of things that’s a VERY small time investment to collect an extremely large payoff. You do the math.

If you’re not willing to track your daily food intake, my recommendation is to try it out and track your intake for at least two weeks. This will allow you to get a better handle on the amount of food you are eating and make any adjustments needed, without having to log your intake on a daily basis. If you refuse to track your macros and you don’t see the results you were expecting, well…I’m just going to say I told you so!

 

That’s it for part I — keep a look out for parts II, III, and IV in the near future.



Joshua Nackenson

Contributing Author at Lean It UP
Joshua Nackenson, CSCS, is a medical student at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine with a passion for all things related to fitness and nutrition.

His primary athletic focus is powerlifting, where he competes in the 165lb and 181lb weight classes. In between powerlifting training and competitions, he stays fit by competing in local 5ks and Tough Mudder events.

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References, Notes, Links
  1. Barr, SI. “Effects of Dehydration on Exercise Performance.” Canadian Journal of Applied Physiology 24.27 (1999): 164-72. [↩]
 

  • Miguel

    I know this is pretty old, but I wanted to ask you what you thought about weight loss. Does the same macronutrient formula apply? Also, I’ve been cutting for a couple weeks using a ratio of 40/20/40 that means almost no carbs and a whole lot of protein. Do you think ratios are relevant or does it not matter as long as you’re getting the right amount of protein and fats per day? The reason I ask is because it sucks not eating carbs and all that protein is expensive, I weigh 192lb and am intaking 230g daily from a mixture of whey, casein, and whole foods.

  • Rich

    So theres only two workout that we rotate through (A and B). Do we just alternate days between which one we do. (I.E. Monday=A, Tuesday=B, Wed=A, etc.). If you could clarify that would be great.

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