If you’ve been in the weight lifting and strength game long you’ve undoubtedly tried to manipulate your diet in order to see faster results. Whether your goal is to add some muscle mass, or put 50 pounds onto your deadlift, modifying your diet is a mandatory requirement in order to achieve these goals. The trouble is, we want to gain some strength and muscle mass without putting on extra “cheese” weight.
What I mean by cheese is body fat. We want to maximize muscle gain and minimize fat accumulation. How do we get this done?
1. Slowly increase the amount of calories consumed spread out through the day.
Eating too much food all at once is a great way to get fat quick. We want the opposite. The goal here is small meals throughout the day. We also want these meals to be about the same amount of calories. For example. If our target is 4,000 calories per day and we’re eating 6 meals that day. Each meal should be roughly 650 calories.
When first embarking on a muscle building journey we don’t want to make large increases in the amounts of food we eat all at once. Gradually start increasing the amount of food eaten and see how this effects your fat/muscle gain and progress in the gym. Based on this information you can increase or if needed decrease your calories. Try to evaluate your progress on a bi-monthly basis and make changes accordingly.
2. Adding in the right foods
The key to any successful nutrition program is eating the right stuff. I won’t go into detail because I’ve written about it in the past. Here are my favorite foods and how I eat to reach my goals. This link contains my primary diet while I was still in the process of gaining weight.
John Berardi brings up a great trick for weight gain and I agree whole heartedly. He advises “sneaking” more food in throughout the day in order to gain weight. I think this is an excellent point. Some great foods I include more of in my diet when gaining weight are nuts, nut butters, dried fruits, and olive oil in my shakes (can’t taste it). I also added in a bit of a “secret weapon” into my diet. Its my own version of a healthier weight gain shake.
3. Eating the right foods at the right times.
Carbohydrates can be a bit of a wild card in your diet. They are an excellent way to gain weight. However we just talked about the importance of slowly gaining weight to minimize fat accumulation. Therefore it makes sense to use carbs judiciously.
Our bodies take up and store carbohydrates more readily to be stored into glycogen (Our body’s storage of carbs) as opposed to fat at certain times of the day. We are most primed to uptake carbohydrates immediately after a tough workout. Save your heavy carbohydrate meals for after training. Our bodies are also a bit more sensitive first thing in the morning as well. Remember, activity drives carbohydrate into the muscle so eat your carbs early in the day and during / after training. For tips on how to take advantage of this phenomenon click here.
Carbohydrate cycling is a very popular way of eating employed by body builders taking advantage of carbs as a tool. The method is simple and focuses on eating more carbohydrates on the biggest / most important training days of the week. They save moderate carb days for less important training days and eat ever less carbs on off days. Eating this way will also maximize muscle gain and minimize fat accumulation. Play with that a bit and see how it works for you.
4. Consistency
Gaining weight properly is going to take consistent work. I’ll often hear my clients say that they were making great progress with weight gain, then had a bad week or two and lost 3 pounds. This happens. Be prepared for the long haul. Know that the next coming weeks will require extra cooking, preparation of food and grocery shopping. Make sure you have a plan to eat enough over the next few months and put that plan into action consistently.
5. Trial and Error
Gaining muscle and size will not work exactly the same for everyone. We are all individuals with different bodies, demands etc. Trying to apply a cookie cutter approach will not yield optimal results. You will have to figure out for yourself how much extra food you need in your diet and how much is too much. This means tinkering with your carbohydrate amounts and calorie intake. As you progress your needs may change. It’s a fun and ongoing process. Try evaluating your diet every week or 2 and make small changes as needed.
6. Knowing when to stop.
When you’re gaining weight, some of it will be going to fat and that’s just the nature of the beast. A younger trainee who just started training will have less fat gain. As you get more experienced, muscle gains will come more slowly. If you gain weight for an extended period of time chances are there will be some fat gain. That extra fat ain’t pretty! The key here is that when you decide to start taking the fat off again DO IT SLOWLY. Of course you’ll want to get your 6 pack back as fast as possible but the faster you start losing body fat the faster your strength levels will drop as well as that hard earned muscle.
Unfortunately your body is not evolutionarily biased to retain your hard earned muscle! Muscle mass is metabolically expensive (takes a lot of calories to maintain) and in times of starvation we evolved to get rid of extra muscle mass that wasn’t directly related to our survival. Once you start dropping your calories again muscle is the first thing to leave.
Make your fat loss as slow and deliberate as your muscle gains. Try to avoid the yo-yo effect. We don’t want to gain weight, become disgusted with the way we look and then go on a crash diet. You’re decision making should be very calculated, not emotionally reactive. Use your self discipline.
That being said, its easier to stop gaining weight before you gain too much fat. Once you get too much fat and start looking badly, the idea of starving yourself to get lean again starts rearing its ugly head. Be patient and realize that in the end a calculated decision is most important.