My Nutrition Guide to Building Muscle
In order to gain muscle effectively you need to be eating carbs that fuel energy, healthy fats that keep you satiated or “full” as well as proteins that build muscle. Most people overlook healthy fats that ideally should make up about 25% of your macro’s dependent on your goals.
Macros or macro-nutrients refer to the three key food groups mentioned above and are necessary for our body to function optimally.
A good rule of thumb for building muscle is the following breakdown:
Protein – 1 gram of protein per pound of body weight. I weigh 146lbs (championship weight 👊) so I should aim to have 146 grams of protein per day
Carbs – 2 grams per pound of body weight. So here I would multiply my weight by 2= 292 grams per day of carbs
Healthy Fats – 1 gram of healthy fats per 3 pounds of body weight. (146/3=48 grams of fat)
Note that protein and carbs both contain 4 calories per gram and fats contain 9 calories per gram.
If you want to get into the specifics you can start weighing your food. For example a chicken breast per 100 grams has about 30 grams of protein give or take. Therefore, I should be aiming to have around 4 or 5 chicken breasts a day to meet my protein intake.
That said, you don’t want to be just eating chicken all day everyday, mix up your protein sources between fish, red meat and chicken etc as they will contain higher/lower grams of protein per 100 grams.
Actionable steps:
- Buy a food scales and start weighing your food to identify how many calories you are eating regularly.
- Download MyFitnessPal App — this is a great way to track your calories and see whether you are meeting your daily intake.
3. Go to this link and scroll down the the Total Daily Energy Expenditure Calulator:
https://www.muscleforlife.com/weight-loss-calculator/
If you’re looking to build muscle then you should be looking to multiply your TDEE by around 5–10%. Just select the ‘surplus’ option and it will give you the amount in calories you should be looking to hit!
