Many people strive for ways to gain muscle.  In order to gain weight (by “weight” I mean lean body mass of course) you must increase your daily caloric consumption.  You must consume more energy than you use.  Often when people try to “bulk up” they end up gaining lots of fat along with the muscle.  Since you don’t want to gain fat you must know how to increase your muscle mass without increasing body fat. 

It is said that a successful weight gain is one of 75% lean mass and 25% body fat.  I have had most clients gain lean mass while losing fat on a high calorie diet, once again everyone is different.  As a matter of fact there are so many misconceptions out there about “bulking up” and this is usually because most people will never get as precise as they have to in order to gain just lean mass without gaining body fat.  At Emerge it’s our job to ensure your approach is a precise one that enables you to add muscle without having to worry about the fat loss diet to follow to get rid of the fat you gained in the process.

To gain lean body mass and maintain or lower body fat levels keep these general rules in mind.

One pound of muscle is equal to approximately 1800 calories, mainly from protein and carbohydrates (glycogen).  To gain lean mass with minimal fat gain, you would generally add 2 calories per pound of body weight to your daily caloric intake.  The added calories should be mostly protein and complex carbohydrates.

Spread the calories equally over your daily meals.  If you can, you may want to add more meals to make up the extra calories.  You still don’t want to consume meals that are too big.  If you eat too much in one sitting, you may find yourself storing body fat.

For example, if you weigh 150lbs (150 X 2 calories per pound = 300 calories) and you’re eating at least 5 meals per day you should increase each meal by 60 calories.  By increasing your daily calories by 300, you could possibly gain a pound of muscle every week. This should occur with minimal fat gain, provided you are fairly lean to start.  I would like to mention that the increases in lean body mass can not continue forever, obviously muscle gains will hit a genetic limit.  If we could gain 1lb of muscle a week forever we would have 1000lb bodybuilders all over the place.  Most of the men I have trained with the Emerge bulking diet and training have gained 10lbs of lean mass in their first month while losing fat at the same time.

There are general rules when it comes to increasing lean body mass, the leaner you are to start with the more muscle you will gain versus fat when you consume above maintenance calories.  This just means you can adjust your daily calories that much higher and gain lean body mass faster, without the fear of major body fat gains.  The higher your body fat levels, the opposite is true. I would recommend getting your body fat levels lower prior to increasing calories to gain lean mass.

If you have a higher level of body fat then you have to monitor your weight gain very closely.  You will tend to gain more fat then muscle, this shouldn’t be a huge problem for you though if you are fluctuating your caloric levels throughout the week.

Like calorie reduction, I have given you some general guidelines to follow when increasing your calories.  And like calorie reduction, I tend to change these guidelines depending on the individual. 

If I am training someone with a fast metabolism and or a low level of body fat, I will tend to increase their calories quite a bit.  I have found that naturally lean people will benefit from taking in at least 1000 calories above maintenance, or even more.  I will make sure that the increase is “clean” nutrient dense foods and not an all out binge on anything in sight.  I monitor their weight gain closely and if I find that they are starting to store body fat then I will lower the caloric increase somewhat.

Now, taking in 7000 calories or more above maintenance doesn’t mean that you are going to be packing on 4lbs or more of muscle each week.  But you should see a significant lean mass gain in a very short time provided your training is intense and you are getting adequate rest.

I am far more conservative with someone who has a higher level of body fat.  I will usually recommend that they lose some fat first.  If they are not concerned about the present (or future) level of body fat and just want to increase muscle gain, I will still try to keep the fat gain to a minimum and follow the 2 calorie per pound approach.

So the take home message for dieting to increase lean body mass is to:

Always use exercise in conjunction with a diet to promote muscle gain and keep body fat levels under control.  You must consider your initial body fat level before deciding how many excess calories your diet should contain.  When starting a diet with a lower level of body fat, your diet can be higher in calories since you will gain a much higher percentage of lean body mass to body fat.

As you diet and you start in increase your lean body mass, you should adjust your calorie intake so that it actually gets larger.  So if you start a diet eating 300 calories above maintenance, as your lean mass increases, your daily calories should increase to 500 calories per day and so on.  If you don’t increase your daily calories, you will stop gaining lean body mass.  It takes those extra calories to grow, as your lean body mass increases you obviously require more calories to maintain it.

Once again like losing only fat, gaining only lean mass isn’t easy and often general rules don’t work for everyone.  If you want to gain lean mass and keep body fat at bay achieving a lean more muscular body in record time you should contact Emerge today!