5 Rules When Eating To Gain Muscle
Often times, people who are looking to get big and muscular think that it’s all about the workout and taking the best supplements. And, yes it is about the workout and of course there are a few supplements I could recommend you, but in the end, they are focusing on the wrong factors.
One of the biggest contributors to your results is your nutrition. When eating to gain muscle, you have to be just as focused as a person on a fat loss phase. You do have more freedom to choose different foods and such but generally speaking, nutrition will dictate the results you get outside and inside of the gym.
I wanted to address 5 rules today for eating to gain muscle that you can potentially apply in your mass building quest if you are not doing these things already.
#1 Calculate Your Calories For Muscle Gain
If you are a regular guy who can easily gain muscle when you try, then I would recommend only about 15xBodyweight for your total calories (ie. 160lbs x15 = 2400 calories/day).
If you are more of a Hardgainer, I would recommend consuming about 20XBodyweight for your total calories. (ie. 160×20 = 3200 calories/day). Different people gain with different calorie requirements.
You can experiment from 15-20 as a multiplier against your bodyweight for your caloric requirements.
#2 Solid Meals vs. Liquid Meals
Eating like a bodybuilder where you eat 6+ meals a day can seem overwhelming at first. After all, 6 chicken breasts or about 30 eggs is hard to get in every day!
Instead, you should balance your average 6 meals a day into liquid meals and solid meals.
3 meals should consist of veggies, complex carbs and lean proteins. The other 3 in-between meals should be made up of protein shakes. 1-2 scoops of protein powder mixed with water and perhaps a handful of nuts. Eatin and balancing meals this way will allow you to get your daily calorie requirements without feeling stuffed all the time.
#3 Chew Your Food
I know there is a lot of food to eat when eating to gain muscle, but do not rush through your meals. I used to do this when I first started realizing how much food I needed to eat every day. I tried saving time by just eating as fast as I could.
The problem is, by eating too quickly, you impair your digestive abilities. You need to properly chew your food to allow saliva to bond to the food for proper digestion and absorption. Otherwise you can get indigestion and food assimilation may not occur as you would like it to.
#4 Keep it clean about 70% of the time
eating to gain muscle is not about pigging out on junk food every meal, but there is definitely more freedom when compared to dieting for fat loss.
The trick is to just eat as clean as you can about 70% of the time and the other 30%, feel free to indulge a bit and not worry so much. The 30% could include foods such as a pizza, fries or any other cheat meal you have been craving. Cheat meal should only be consumed post workout, in moderation and without going overboard.
And if you can, choose something that is a little healthier than pizza and burgers!
#5 Advanced Preperation
If you plan on consistently gaining muscle over a lifetime, you have to adapt an approach that makes it easy to follow.
Instead of cooking every meal before you eat it, which would mean actually cooking more than 40 times a week, set time aside about 2-3 times a week and cook your food in bulk for 3 day periods.
At the very least, try to cook several meals at once. Always cook more portions so that you can make a meal quickly to warm later on.
