Figuring out daily macros for building muscle?
Hi everybody. I have been on my bulking routine for about a month now. My diet is very healthy and I am making decent strength gains each week. The only problem is I cannot determine my calorie and macro needs. Every calorie maintenance calculator that I find online tells me something completely different. One tells me I need 2,800 calories to maintain my weight, another tells me I need 3,200 a day to maintain, etc. I am currently using myfitnesspal.com to track my calories and nutrients but it hasn't exactly helped me. It says in order to achieve the results I am aiming for (gain 2 pounds a month), I need to eat 3,110 calories (more on days when I lift). For the most part I like the diary but it frustrates me. According to myfitnesspal, I need 311 g carbs, 233 g protein, 104 g fats every day (more if I work out). The problem is it is very hard to track my macros each day considering how confusing this thing is. Today after my 5th meal, I looked at my diary and I only had 64 calories remaining... with 48 g of carbs and 35 g of protein left... which is ridiculous! So my question is, is there any way I can track my macros another way in order to acquire my goals? If I need more calories a day or if I have my macros all wrong, please let me know! I am very serious about my clean bulk and I cannot afford to mess up like last time. I have been hitting the gym for a year now but I haven't made any progress due to being misinformed about working out. I am now back to where I started and I want to do it right this time. If anyone can PLEASE help me out, I would greatly appreciate it! Thank you!
BODYBUILDING: How to count Macronutrients in everyday life (i.e. when you go to a buffet), guesstimation?
I don't do macro/calorie counting myself but rather go with my instincts/gut feel and eat clean healthy food which are not processed. I'll reserve my comments on the other camp which counts each and every calorie that goes in and spend a lot of effort trying to monitor/record that on a daily basis.I've had some success this way, so I adopted it as my lifestyle. My advise, when you are away from home, especially on social gathering, don't take up much of fatty foods (that are very obvious in the first place) and it doesn't really harm if one takes in a cheat meal once or twice a week (anything more than that might mess up your efforts of losing weight or gaining muscles)Also remember, that the more muscles one has the more calories it burns (although it is debatable as to how much, one camp says each lb of muscle on your frame helps burn additional 50 calories a day while another one says around 7-9 only) So it would be OK to eat a little bit outside the menu, while one is on his journey to build some mass.Hope this helps, thanks for the A2A.
How exactly do you do meal prep for bodybuilding?
Hi! Since I meal prep every day 4.000 calories on a consistent basis, I hope I can give you some valuable tips. Most important: You have to distinguish between CLEAN and DIRTY meal prep. The effort necessary to food prep is way higher when you want to go clean, since you do not simply add cookies or ice cream to your containers.Well, if you’re interested in CLEAN and HEALTHY meal prep – here are my top 5 tips :)GET A RICE COOKER. For real, this tool is essential in my kitchen since it takes so much time from the whole process of food prepping. Normally you put rice/quinoa/noodles to a pot, wait till it’s boiling and always watch that it does not overcook. Well, when using a rice cooker, all you need to do is placing the desired amount of dry rice in – add 2.5 times the amount of water and you’re good to go. Saved time: easy 15minTHREE. This is the magic number when it comes to food prep. You want all your prepped lunch or dinner meal consist of 3 main ingredients. Carbs (rice, quinoa, potatoes), Veggies (micro nutrients!) and protein (salmon, chicken). Just take one ingredient from each category.AVOCADO. Admit it or not, if your prepped meals do not taste good, you will not continue after one or two weeks. The easiest way I discovered is by mashing half an avocado onto your food. Let it be rice, veggies or potatoes. Avocado makes everything taste good!OIL. I assume you want to build muscle. Which requires a caloric surplus … so what I do every day, I add 15g of pure extra virgin olive oil to my meals. It tastes awesome AND it gives you super high quality calories.ONE RULE. If you take the time in the morning or evening before to prepare all food. With snacks, lunch AND dinner, than make a very important rule a foundation: ALWAYS empty all containers before you go to bed. If there is half snack box remaining, EAT it :) Make it a rule and stick to it – always eat everything you prepped and you will reach your goals :)If you want to see how my food prep looks like and the exact recipes I do… I made some days ago a video about. Check it out:Have a great day!!
I've never worked out before, is CrossFit a bad idea?
First let me say, I'm not trying to be the next Mr. Olympia. I do though, want to get in great shape and from what I hear CrossFit is the best way to do that. I know NOTHING about working out or exercise, and I am a 20 year old male, at average/below averageish weight, very weak overall. If CrossFit isn't a good idea for me, do you have any recommendations how I can build muscle and cardio given my weak frame and inexperience working out? Do I NEED to diet to get results? (Again, I'm not trying to enter a bodybuilding competition). Thanks.
How can I build my body like bodybuilder & eat whatever I want?
It is not as easy as simply sticking to IIFYM and eating lots of burgers, sweets and stuff. There is a huge difference between the traditional notion of IIFYM (not a very new concept, existed during the old bodybuilding era) which says that you should eat healthy meals while counting your macros and the new notion of IIFYM which says: screw it, just eat whatever the hell you want to. The second one does not work if you want to look like a bodybuilder (let's not even talk about anabolic steroids, etc. where your nutrition needs to be 100% on point!)One realization you have to make:It is20 % workouts80% nutritionThat said, focus on perfecting your nutrition - perfect workouts will come after a couple of months/years of experience and personal contacts.Nutrition - hints to get to the first 80%choose a diet or go for macro counting (not just IIFYM - it has to be healthy IIFYM if you want to look like a bodybuilder) - at the beginning you are not experienced enough to trust your "gut"design a nutrition plan - lots of inspirations can be found on GOOGLE!EXECUTE the plan - get a set of easy, fast and healthy recipes like here (50 Fitness Meals That Take 5 Minutes Each (Downloadable Ebook) ) that will help you stick to your routineCONGRATULATIONS - YOU GOT 80% SUCCESS with these 3 hints!Workouts - some hacks to get to 100%:read at least one classic book about bodybuilding suchs as "Beyond Brawn" or "New Encyclopedia of Modern Bodybuilding" to get a better foundation than 90% of the gym ratsFocus on the big 4allow yourself a pause of 2-3 mins between the sets when youre doing one of the big 4focus on increasing weight incrementally - for this reason buy a couple of extremely lightweight platestrain squats and back with high repsThe better cardiovascular endurance the harder you can train!low rep exercises first in each workout sessionsleep moreeat even more (50 Fitness Meals That Take 5 Minutes Each (Downloadable Ebook) )