Hey,
You will need some more calories to gain weight, based on your weight and activity levels.
Your BMR is approximately 1600 calories.
If you exercise 3–5 times a week, your activity multiplier to be around 1.55.
That makes your TDEE to be 2,480 calories.
I would add 200 calories more (which takes your total to 2700 calories) and monitor my weight every week.
If I am not gaining, I will further add 100–200 calories more until I start gaining.
Hope this helps:)
Hey,
Almost 75% of your musculature is located in your lower body and your back.
Rest is present in your shoulders and chest.
And finally, your arm muscle (which comprises of no more than 5% of total musculature; honestly I don’t know the exact % but it not be more than 5%)
So ask yourself this question:
If I do barbell curls, or concentration curls everyday, will I build muscle faster?
I am sure you know the answer by now.
If you want to build muscle overall, then you need to train the biggest muscles in your body in the following priority:
Back: Deadlifts, Pullups, Lat pulldown
Shoulders and Chest: Military press, bench press
Arms: barbell curls, triceps pushdown
Give priority to the muscle groups as given above and thats the fastest way I know how to build muscle.
You can download 15+ Free FBX workouts that will help you build muscle in the most effective manner.
A sample Indian bodybuilding vegetarian diet:
Please note that, diet for muscle gain and fat loss will have the same food items, only the number of calories, and possibly the macronutrient profiling will change.
I am assuming that a vegetarian (unlike a vegan) will consume eggs and milk.
Breakfast options:
-Oatmeal with banana and crushed almonds with some unprocessed honey
-Asian mushroom omelette with 3 slices of whole wheat bread
Lunch Options:
-Brown rice with rajma (red beans) and big bowl of green salad
-2-3 Chappatis with dal (Lentils), any cooked vegetable and a bowl of salad.
Dinner Options:
3 rotis+ 2 bowls dal, a big bowl of salad and mix veg.
Try and get it cooked in desi ghee. Why?, its a myth that ghee is bad for your health. Find out here.
Add snacks:Almonds, walnuts are the best. Eat bananas generously as a pre-workout and/or post workout.
Protein Smoothie (optional): Cows milk+Whey. Add more fruits like strawberries etc if you like. Add a little bit of chocolate syrup. this works wonder for me, as it satisfies my sweet cravings and helps me to stay away from donuts, pastries etc.
One can have this smoothie as a complete meal, either as breakfast, lunch or dinner.
To get more protein eat yogurt, paneer (cottage cheese) with your meals. It ok to eat 3 meals a day (eating smaller meals a day is purely a myth and its not superior to eating lesser meals ).
Include lot of green vegetables (in the form of salads mainly), as micronutrients in them aids in the chemical processes in the body which helps build muscles.
To gain muscle:Eat about 200–500 calories more than your TDEE.
To lose fat:Eat about 500–750 calories less than your TDEE.
Related posts:
Macro distribution varies based on genetics, cultural and environment factors. I eat low-moderate carbs during a cut (it helps in improving my insulin sensitivity) at the same time, I eat about 40–50% of calories from carbs during the bulk phase.
Either phases I make sure that my carbs are complex in nature. I completely avoid simply sugars and only have them in the form of fruits.
Hope this helps:)
Hey,
Eating wayy… above your maintenance calories will always add more fat than muscle!
Every time!
I have suffered a lot due to that.
The word ‘bulk’ seems so bulky to me, that it automatically means to ‘eat a lot’!
Well, do you know this: “You are not what you eat, but what you assimilate and digest”?
Are you sure the 200grams of protein that you are eating is contributing to adding slabs of muscle mass to your frame?
Or maybe, your body only needs 120 grams for growth and the rest is converted into fat.
Or maybe, your digestion is impaired, and your body is not able to digest the protein properly and this is putting an extra stress on your kidneys to filter all the nitrogen waste?
The supplement industry has brainwashed into thinking that more protein equates more muscle!
Have pre workout proteins, have post workout proteins, take BCAA’s, oh and don’t forget your glutamine!
They have scared us the sh$t out us.
So many of us fear losing muscle, that we have our protein drinks right beside where we
Timing may be an important factor for professional athletes, as they want to use every advantage to beat their competition.
But for people like you and me, if we just take care of our overall protein intake (where you don’t need more than 1.6g/kg of BW) and eat that amount in 1, 2 or 3 meals or when ever we feel hungry and not when others want us to!
The other thing to take care when trying to ‘bulk’ or should I say gain muscle is to eat at least 25% of calories from healthy fats.
Fats are super healthy for you when you are trying to gain weight. These fats play a very important role in our physiology and they also keep you full for a longer period of time.
Eating carbs is not a problem at all.
You can eat upto, 40–50% of calories from it if you want to, or you can cut down to about 20%.
It all depends what your body is genetically pre-disposed to.
I know I do well when I eat no more than 300 grams even when I am on a lean bulk.
Just make sure that your carb sources are complex in nature like brown rice, potatoes, quinoa, etc and not refined. Fruits are ok, as the simple sugars in them are released slowly due to the added fibre in them.
Last part of the equation are your veggies.
You need micro-nutrients.
Muscle building is a very complex process which requires vitamins and trace minerals to complete.
And if you don’t have your veggies especially the green ones like broccoli, spinach, it hinders the muscle building process. I would recommend you to eat at least 1 lbs+/day of raw salads everyday.
On the exercise front, you really need to work hard to stimulate your muscle.
Most people don’t have the drive, intensity to push heavy weights. Sure, one can do ego lifting on a leg press machine, by using up all the plates in the gym, but when it comes to doing barbells squats, deadlifts, standing military press or even weighed pull-ups most people shy away!
So this my friend is the ‘healthiest’ way to bulk.
I have gained 40 lbs or so. But it has taken me a long time, due to the mistakes I made but now, I have corrected them, and most of my gains have only come in the last few years and I ain’t stopping before I gain another 20!
I applaud you for this reading this, as educating and empowering oneself is the first step in achieving anything in life.
All the best!
If a thin guy builds muscle, can go back to being thin again?
You build muscle when you progressively overload with weights.
When I was thin, it was tough to even deadlift an empty bar and now I can easily deadlift more than 300 lbs. As a result, I have gained more than 40 lbs of muscle.
Can I become thin again?
Why on earth would I want to do that when I have worked my ass off in the gym for more than a decade unless I am an actor like Christian Bale or Aamir Khan and paid millions of dollars to either lose weight or gain weight to fit into the character played in the film?
I have also become habitual of lifting weights over such a long time, I can’t help but go to the gym at least few times a week.
It becomes very simple to maintain one’s muscle mass, once you have to build it up to a certain point. What describes this phenomenon is a phrase called—”muscle memory”.
Muscle memory allows you to retain your muscle mass even if you don’t workout regularly.
Here is one anecdotal evidence from Steve Reeves himself:
This is a write up in his book Building The Classic Physique—The Natural Way (I highly recommend you pick up a copy):
Steve was asked how he prepared for his movie roles. At this time he had been maintaining a body weight of 190–195 lbs which is heavy enough for his height—185cm.
In his own words: “ I only needed one solid month of training to get back in shape. In fact, during one period when I was busy making movies, I only worked out one month a year. At this point, I was living in Switzerland and had a boxer dog and during winter I would hike through the woods for a couple of hours a day. So, with the help of good nutrition, few hours of walk a day, the muscle I build up would stay with me for up to nine months afterwards.”
Related posts:
Hey,
Follow these easy steps to build a male model body:
Step 1:Be Specific
“Clarity precedes Mastery” ~ Robin Sharma
Do we really know how much muscle we need to gain to have a pleasing look? What should be our proportions and so on and so forth?
Build a model physique requires intelligent application when designing one’s workout routine.
Please note we all vary genetically—muscle fiber type, muscle insertions, bone structure, body type [ecto, meso, endo] etc.
Step 2: Do this first: Drop your body fat to less than 15 percent, ideally around 10-12 percent.
After having surveyed more than 1000 gym members at my health club, I came to the conclusion that more than 95 percent of men have body fat in the range of 20–22% (the results will obviously be different for people living in the western world)
So the first thing you can do is lower your body fat while conserving your lean mass as much as possible.
Related Post:
How To Lose Fat Without Losing Muscles
Step 3:Figure out your sexy weight range.
Step 4: Calculate your proportions.
While, it’s impossible to be 100 percent accurate when using these formulas as people vary so much in genetically determined factors like height, body types, muscle insertion points and bone structures (small, medium or heavy). But they give us something specific to work with.
Details can be found out here:
Part 1: How to build the ideal male physique
Most recreational weight lifters in the gym focus on their mirror muscle—chest and arms, and overdevelop them as compared to the rest of their bodies.
For example, if your chest is overdeveloped, your shoulders will look small.
If you have overdeveloped traps, again your shoulders will look rounded and deter you from the squared shoulder look that is the epitome of male models. This is also one of the biggest difference between bodybuilders and fitness models.
The underdeveloped lower body is also very common and results in looking really stupid.
And lastly, if you put on extra muscle and go well outside of your sexy weight range, you will never be able to look like a male model.
Focusing on proportions is the key and not mass per se.
Therefore, I highly urge you to have a plan, punch out some numbers, and design your workout plan according to your body type, lagging body parts etc.
You want to read this answer if you want to know the best ways to increase Human Growth Hormone in your body.
This answer is divided into 3 parts
PART-1
WHAT IS Human Growth Hormone and why should you care?
HGH is a hormone released by the pituitary gland that helps in growth, cell reproduction and cell regeneration and its essential to slow down aging.
Illegal use of growth hormone has been used in industrial agriculture on livestock to help them grow faster and for increased milk production.
They are also banned in professional sports.
However, many bodybuilders and muscle athletes do inject it to slow down aging process and build muscles.
I strongly advise against injecting hGH as it has many side effects.
hGH is essential for children to help them grow, and peaks around the age of 19–20. After which the decline starts.
Once you turn 30, you enter into a phase called somatopause where hGH starts to rapidly decline.
This results in following symptoms [1]:
-Hair Loss
-Weak Bones
-Fatigue
-Depression
-Decreased sexual function
-Increased sensitivity to cold and heat
-Loss of lean muscle
Why should you care?
HGH when enhanced Naturallycan literally make you young, strong, energetic besides giving you other health benefits:
PART-2
3 Best ways to boost your HGH Naturally:
nOTE: According to the same study, endurance training actually results in decreased resting hGH and a blunted EIGR [exercise-induced growth hormone response].
In simple, terms you want to focus on resistance training ideally using heavy weights and staying within the rep-range of 5–10 and combining this with HIIT either viz sprints or cardio machine.
I do recommend limiting your feeding window to about 7–8 hours only and then fast for the remaining 16 hours.
For example, I wake up by 5am and then fast until 11am at least. Sometimes I stretch up to 1pm. Then I have my first meal. My second meal is at 7pm and then I fast until 11am the next day.
You can read more about this pattern of eating here.
These mini-fasts can normalize your insulin levels, and have other benefits too. This is no fad, but this is way we have evolved.
Eating 5–6 smaller meals seems unnatural to me….
Because of working out with heavy weights, doing intermittent fasting, and other changes in my lifestyle, I have managed to slow down aging and get many compliments stating that I look younger now as compared to when I was in my 20s.
hGH no doubt is called the ‘Fountain of Youth’ and if you are above the age of 30, you should follow the suggestions I have listed above if you want to look young, strong.
You be the judge:
PART-3
5 Additional tips:
Hey,
This answer is for you if:
Here’s a picture of me when I was 16 years old:
Look at my arms….I was ‘VERY CONSCIOUS’ of them and I was willing to do anything to grow them.
It took me a ‘longgg’’ time to realize how the whole thing works, I didn’t had any good mentors to guide me and I made lot of mistakes along the way….
I will make sure that you guys avoid all the mistakes that I made…
Here are some of the snapshots of me:
My arms vary between 16–16.5 inches. Depending upon how lean I am.
My ultimate target is 17inches, ripped. Since I am 187cm I know that size will look best on me.
Few facts about growing your ‘Skinny Arms’:
-In order to grow your arms by 1 inch you need to gain roughly 10–12lbs of muscle (not weight)
-You can temporary gain roughly .5 to .7 inch on your arms by using some advanced techniques to trigger sarcoplasmic hypertrophy. However when you stop using those methods, your arms size may drop back as that techniques usually rely on drawing lot of water into your cells to swell them up
-Triceps makes up 3/4 of your arm circumference. You should focus more on triceps
-You are training your arms indirectly. When you train your shoulders and chest you are also training your triceps. When you are training your back, you are training your biceps.
-You don’t require too much volume (sets* reps) when training your arms per week.
-One should stay within rep range [5–7] when training your arms, at least 6–8 months in a year
-You trigger the release of Human Growth Hormone and Testosterone by doing compound lifts like deadlifts and squats. These exercise grow your skinny arms more than isolated exercises like biceps curls or triceps pulldown.
Lastly Nutrition is of paramount as you are breaking down your muscles in the gym, but you need ample rest and sleep and enough calories to help you grow.
I have a step-by-step program that allows you to build ~20lbs of muscles in 3–4 months. This weight will add about 2–2.5 inches on your arms which is quite a lot. Have a look and let me know what you think: MUSCULAR-The Ultimate “Muscle Mass” Solution
Also I highly recommend you start with a beginners training routine to build a solid foundation in years to come. You can get the sample workout I promised earlier. Click here to go there: Ultimate Guide To Beginners Workout
Can you lose fat and build muscle at the same time?
Yes, yes and yes!
Your body can burn fat and build muscle at the same time just like…..
Your body can gain fat and burn muscle at the same time…
You don’t need to be in a caloric surplus to gain muscle, I repeat you don’t need to be in a caloric surplus to gain muscle.
Your body needs the following things to build muscle:
-Enough proteins: Up to 1.8g/kg of BW is the highest limit one should go for.
-Stimulus: This is done through lifting heavy weights. When you lift heavy weights doing compound lifts in the rep range of 5–7 you create maximum muscular tension.
In order to build muscle, you need to keep getting stronger in the above rep range.
-Enough Calories:As I said earlier you don’t need a caloric surplus to gain muscle. Your body is a very adaptive being. Once you provide a strong stimulus your body can use the fat reserves and direct them towards building muscle tissues. This is called caloric partitioning.
Say you are at 10% and weigh 180lbs. It means you have 18 lbs of fat reserves and we know that 1 lb of body fat has 3500c calories, so that’s 63,000 calories that the body has in reserves. It can use that energy towards anything that demands attention.
And when you are getting stronger and lifting heavy weights, its a good enough reason for your body to direct calories towards building muscle tissue.
Now there is a caveat to this:
-Once you have crossed the beginners phase, gain muscle and losing fat becomes relatively tough.
But I would say even if you have few years of training behind you but still haven’t gained much muscle, then you CAN lose fat and build at the same time.
-You need to intelligently manage your calories and do training in different phases to keep the body guessing.
Create a large enough deficit, and your body goes into alarm mode and shuts off its metabolism. This also causing you to lose your strength rapidly.
On the other hand, if you don’t create a good enough deficit then you don’t lose enough fat that can count as progress. I cover this quite nicely in my course LEAN.
I have under gone many transformations and so have hundred of my clients, and from experience I can say that
Heavy lifting + Intelligently managing your caloric intake can allow you to go from 20% body fat to 10% body fat in 3–4 months while building lean muscle.
Learn the 3 top mistakesyou may be making when trying to do the above.
Yes, they do.
Let me quote Stuart Mc-Roberts best-selling author of ‘Brawn‘, ‘Beyond Brawn‘:
“If you want to add 3 inches on arms, for example, you’ll need to build around 30 to 40 pounds (14 to 18 kg) of muscle over your whole physique. You can’t do that by focussing on your arms.
About two-thirds of your body’s total muscle mass in your thighs, buttocks and back. Your shoulders, chest, abs, arms, forearms and calves made up one-third of your total muscle mass.
Working your thigh-hip-back structure (through squats/deadlifts), yields substantial growth in that large area. But the same movements also produces growth elsewhere.
To build yourself up substantially, focus on big exercises, not detail exercises.”
If you want muscle, read this answer again….
