Bulking

Bulking or Making Gains

This post is for those of you who have decided that it's time to build some muscle or more commonly known in the fitness world as 'bulking'.

How many calories do I need?

Instead of a calorie deficit you just have to make sure you have a calorie surplus in order to build muscle. Because everyone is so different there isn’t a magic figure I can give you in order to achieve your muscle building goals but there are many calculators online which can give you a suitable starting point. When this has been established, add it to your online food diary app and you are ready to go!

Also be aware that when you are trying to add muscle it is inevitable that there will be small amount of fat gained too. Please don't worry about it as when it is time to lean out, due to different training protocols, this fat will ultimately disappear to reveal the newly built muscle underneath.

Consume enough protein

Your protein intake is very important as it is the ultimate muscle building macro. Ensure you consume 1g protein per lb of bodyweight every day, even the days you don’t train. Your rest days will be the time when your muscles repair and build so your nutrition should be optimal. A good way of making sure you hit your protein levels is to consume a protein source with every meal and always plenty of healthy greens!

I hope this helps those of you who have decided to take the plunge and build some muscle!

See you next week......................

Let's Get Started!

We have now arrived at the moment when we can put all the previous information together and begin calculating our macros to achieve either:

a) fat loss or
b) muscle building

We will start on the ever popular fat loss. FFor most of us this will be our ‘go to’ option. It won’t be about achieving that ‘summer body’ or that ‘bikini body’ – let’s concentrate on a body that suits us for the whole year and can be maintained long term.  Of course we want to feel confident in a bikini but we also want to slip on a pair of skinny jeans in winter and feel comfortable too.

See below:

Determine body weight on scales that you normally use. Even though they may not be very accurate, they will be good enough to determine weight loss or weight gain. We will use a 65kg female for this example.

2   Find a BMR calculator online. I tend to use http://www.bmi-calculator.net/bmr-calculator/  I entered 156cm tall, 65kg, 30 years old female (this is just hypothetical, I wish I was 30!) and I got a BMR of 1419 kcals which I rounded down to 1400 kcals. This figure determines a baseline calorie amount that you should not go under.

3   We then need to multiply our weight in lbs by 12 which will give us a calorie total to begin with. So 65kg in lbs is 143lb x 12 = 1716 calories. (This clears the 1400 cals BMR). We now have a baseline of 1716 which we will round down to 1700 calories. Again be aware that the fitness industry has many different equations to make these calculations but I have used the one that I feel has turned out the best for myself and my clients.

     Our 30 year old female now has 1700 calories to begin her fat loss journey with. The next step is working out her macros.

     Protein (1g per lb bw) = 143g (remember protein has 4kcal/g) = 572kcals

This leaves 1,128 kcals to split between carbs and fats, 564 each.

Carbs are 4g per calorie so 564 divided by 4 = 141g

Fats are 9g per calorie so 564 divided by 9 = 62g

6   To conclude:

141g Carbs

143g Protein

62g Fat

All this information now needs to be monitored on a daily basis. I would thoroughly recommend ‘Myfitnesspal'  which can be downloaded onto your smartphone aswell as your ipad and/or desktop. It will be necessary to add your statistics and adjust the goals to match your figures.

There will be a lot of weighing to be done so grab yourself some digital kitchen scales.

Stick with the your initial figures for a few weeks and monitor your weight. If everything is going well and you are steadily losing then keep it up until you reach your goal. Take a ‘before’ and ‘after’ photo and re-take weekly so you can see results!

If you find that nothing is happening and you are maintaining or even gaining, then your figures need to be re-evaluated. If you find you are craving more carbs you can sacrifice some fat for example. The only macro that you should try and stick with is your protein as this is the macro most people tend to neglect.

I think that is plenty of info to be getting on with! As far as muscle building is concerned, well I think I will leave that for the next blog.

I have written a ‘myfitnesspal’ user guide so if anyone wants a copy just message me your email address and I will send one over FOC!

Until next time fat loss bloggers......................

The F Word

In my previous blog posts explaining macros, I forgot a very important part of the equation and that is The F Word or more commonly known as fibre – in my opinion the unsung hero of the nutrition and fitness world. There are two types of fibre, soluble and insoluble and they both have a very important part to play in our health, but in order to keep things simple we are going to concentrate on fibre as a collective. It will always come round to balance so this is what you need to concentrate on.

Again, like everything else there are numerous numbers thrown around with reference to how much fibre we should consume. For a female around 20g – 25g is a good figure to aspire to. This will ensure gut health by assisting with digestion and also reducing the chances of developing many cancers.

I have listed below a few ideas on how to improve your fibre intake:

1. Rather than consuming fruit juice, eat the fruit including the skin as this is where the fibre is.

2. Eat raw vegetables as a snack.

3. When choosing brown bread ensure there is at least 3g of fibre per slice. This information is normally located on the back of the loaf under the nutritional label.

4.  If you fancy a snack, make your own popcorn! Popcorn contains soluble and insoluble fibre but just be careful not to add too many calories for your toppings.

To conclude this post, when it comes to calculating your macros and subsequent calories, don’t worry about the contribution of fibre. The difference it will make is minimal and in the end overcomplicate things. Primarily you should put your effort into your protein, fat and carbs as these are the macros which will have an impact on your overall goals and ultimately your results.

Next time I will conclude the whole macro/calorie question and let you know how you can apply all the information to reaching your fat loss/muscle building goals!

I hope this helps and as always don’t hesitate to message me if you have any questions.

Until next week, stay fit and healthy!