Bodybuilding.PH

How many calories do you really need to gain muscle?

Before I let loose, let me say that I get you. I know what it's like to have a metabolism akin to a hummingbird on trailer-park meth. Hell, I still get hungry 20 minutes after eating a meal. I understand your situation.

Now that we have that outta the way...

Hey. How about you pick up the freakin' fork? No, you're not "gonna get fat" if you eat a few extra hundred calories needed to build more muscle. You're not gonna "lose your abs".

"But Nate, I eat a lot already."

Oh yeah? Do you really?

I'm upset you're making me do this because I really loathe math, but let's break out a formula to see how many calories you really need to gain muscle.

Grab your calculator. This is gonna hurt your head.

Step 1: Figure out Resting Metabolic Rate (RMR)

RMR is the energy it costs to keep your body alive. If you just sat on the couch for the entire day, your RMR is how many calories you'd need to take in. Let's figure out our RMR's and then look to add muscle.

Skinny Dude, 155 pounds at 9% body fat.

First, we're going to divide his bodyweight by 2.2 to get it in kilograms.

155/2.2 = 70.45

Now we're going to take his body fat percentage and multiply it by his body weight (in kg) to figure out his fat mass.

70.45 (weight in kg) x .09 (9%body fat) = 6.34

Now we subtract the second number (6.34) from the first number (70.45) and we arrive at Skinny Dude's fat free mass.

70.45 – 6.34 = 64.11 fat free mass.

Now we can determine his resting metabolic rate (RMR) or the baseline amount of calories he needs.

Here's the formula for RMR:

Resting Metabolic Rate for Athletes (in calories per day) = 500 + 22 x fat free mass (in kilograms).

Again, for Skinny Dude, we'd multiply 22 times his fat free mass and add 500 to that number as shown below:

RMR= 22 x 64.11 + 500 = 1910.42

1910.42 is Skinny Dude's resting metabolic rate. He needs to get at least this amount of calories per day. But that's not gonna cut it.

To see how many calories Skinny Dude should eat to gain some serious muscle, we have a few other calculations to do.

Step 2: The Cost of Your Daily Routine

This represents how many calories are required to do stuff throughout the day—everything from getting up, finding your socks, walking around campus or the office, cooking dinner, and watching The Simpsons.

Cost of Daily Routine is equal to the RMR you calculated above multiplied by an activity factor that matches your day-to-day routine. Which one best describes you?

1.2-1.3 for Very Light (not getting out of bed)

1.5-1.6 for Light (office or school work)

1.6-1.7 for Moderate (some activity during day)

1.9-2.1 for Heavy (heavy labor)

Note: Don't consider your workout when choosing a number. We'll do that later.

So let's say Skinny Dude walks around campus or the office, sits in his chair, and doesn't do much else. He'd be at 1.6.

Here's the formula:

RMR x Activity Factor = 1910.42 x 1.6 = 3056.67 calories. And we're not done yet.

Step 3: The Costs of Trying to Get Jacked

Next, we need to determine how many calories weight training burns so we can figure out our final caloric goal.

We'll use METs (Metabolic Equivalent), which is a way of showing the rate of energy expenditure from a physical activity. The common MET value for intense weight training is 6.

Cost of Trying to Get jacked = Body Mass (in kg) x Duration (in hours) x MET value

Here's Skinny Dude's formula for how many extra calories he needs to gain muscle.

Cost of Trying to Get Jacked = 6 METS x 70.45 kg x 1 hour = 422.7

The Final Formula

The amount of calories Skinny Dude needs to get jacked:

We're going to take his RMR x Activity Factor (3056.67 for Skinny Dude) and add his Cost of Trying to Get Jacked (422.7).

3056.77 = 422.7 = 3478.7 total calories!

And, because it's always better to round up, we'll make it an 3,500 calories every day for Skinny Dude to gain muscle. That's nearly 500 more calories than his "maintenance" level.

Run the calculations for yourself. Are you eating that much?

FAQ: Should I eat that many calories every day even when I'm not training?

Yep, because that's where growth kicks in. Think about it this way: on non-training days you're taking in an extra 500 calories. That's an extra 2,000 calories per week if you're on a three-day training split like the programs in Built for Show. And an extra 2,000 calories per week—provided they come from good sources—will definitely help you pack on some muscle.

Run the calculations. See how many calories you need. Pick up the fork.


Question for you guys: What's the hardest part of trying to get big? Is it eating a lot of calories, training, or something else? Let me know in the comments!    


Note: This was inspired and adapted from John Berardi's Massive Eating plan.