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I'm not bullking. So, that's not the point. I'm just curious about this one question I have.
I hear that in a bulking phase the most muscle mass that you can expect to gain is 1/2 pound per week. How many more calories above maintenance does one have to eat to gain 1/2 muscle per week?
The common prescription for a one pound per week fatloss is to have a 500 calorie deficit per day. The idea being that one pound of fat is 3500 calories. At first I thought, 'well if we cut 500 per day to lose one pound we would want to add 250 per day to gain half of a pound.' But, fat isn't the same as muscle. And that recipe just doesn't seem right.
So, if someone wanted to add a half a pound of muscle per week how many calories above maintenance would they have to eat?
You're correct, 250 cal a day in excess to gain 1/2 lb per week. You can't guarantee that all of that will turn into muscle. But with the right routine you'll be pretty close to only muscle gain.
Muscle and fat are different, but in terms of calories, 3500 is a pound.
Its a little more complicated then fat loss, because with fat loss there is a good chance that you infact are loosing primarily fat if your deficit isn't to much and your training is good.
With muscle gain, you pretty much for sure are going to put on a little fat at least.
What I would do is slowly increase the calories, start with 250/day or something low and then give it a month or two and see where you are. Its pretty hard to keep track of say .5-1lb a week because with water retention and food in you no scale will be that accurate. But, say 2lbs in a month you can measure.
Just take it slow is my main point, muscle gain takes a long time.
That just doesn't seem right. It seems like it would be so easy for "hard gainers" to add size. 250 cals. per day above your maintenance doesn't seem that hard to maintain. Is it really that simple?
How can it be more complicated at the base level. Your body burns X calories to survive. If you eat less than X your body uses it's stores to make up the difference, ie muscle/fat. If you eat more than X your body stores the excess as muscle/fat incase one day you eat below X.
Your body is not above thermodynamics. Energy can neither be created nor destroyed, only change form.
All of the hard gainers I have met have been extremely active people. Extremely active people burn a lot of calories and don't have time to consume much, so it's harder for them to meet their calorie demands, let alone add some on top.
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yup. "hard gainers" just simply don't eat enough. they come here all the time talking about how much they do, how active they are, and basically how hard it is to eat soooo much. That's why the tips are for sneaking cals in and eating calorically dense food… because those people aren't eating enough calories, and when they're burning 4000kcal a day, they need to eat more and yet they're only eating like 3000kcal.
A true 'hard gainer' which I don't even feel exists.. would still add the same amount of weight as someone who is adding muscle, just their proportion of weight gain would have more fat. If someone is just skinny, that has nothing to do with them being a hard gainer.
Wow, people seem to make it sound so difficult. I figured that there had to be some component that I was forgetting about. It seems like the hardest part would just be remaining consistent. But thats no different from weight loss.
A true hardgainer is one who subconsciously responds to more food by moving more, fidgeting more, and eating less at other times (forgetting to eat, etc).
Most "hardgainers" at the gym simply think they are eating a lot already and think adding a protein shake is all it takes. Or, that they need to workout more. They are simply uniformed, not hardgainers.
I believe a lb of muscle is 2700 calories. I am a poor eater (don't like to eat) and therfore can be considered a hard gainer. The bulk is physically always harder for me than the cut. I just completed my second bulk and I ate about 200 cals a day over my daily burn. Over the course of 7 months I added almost 20lbs of which 4-5 of that is water flux.
Beyond the calorie in/calorie out algorightrm (which is really quite straight forward) there is also the training element to consider during the bulk. If you are bulking you want to do training that maximizes muscle gain. In my case, I changed to doing really high volume 2 times a week each body part training. Another option might be the Flex Wheeler style of HIT training. You would not go find a training program based on light weights, high reps or a lot of cardio for example.
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Calorie intake for bulking
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