How I gained Muscle and Stayed Lean

Last year I gained 18 pounds of muscle which I am very proud of.  This year I plan to continue to gain muscle and following in Athletic gentleman’s philosophy that fitness should enhance your life not consume it, I plan to make sure I am enjoying my life.

Before I started paying attention to what I was eating and lifting weights consistently I weighed a whopping 145 pounds (on a good day) and as of this morning I weighed in at 163.  My family and friends have all made comments at this point about the transformation in my physique.  Additionally I feel more confident in social situations, especially around women.

So how did I gain 18 pounds of muscle in a year?

I followed Athletic Gentleman’s Skinny to Built plan.  I lifted weights 3 days and aimed to get some physical activity (ultimate frisbee or hiking generally) 1-2 of the remaining days each week.  The programs I’ve tried in the past we’re 4-5 days a week in the gym which was hard with work and school and I eventually got discouraged because I missed several workouts (I knew I shouldn’t give up but I couldn’t maintain that schedule).  Getting to the gym consistently 3 days a week was do able and I gained more muscle than when I was previously lifting 5 days a week so this was a win-win.

Opposite from programs I’ve followed in the past, I lifted my heavy set first, while my muscles were fresh, and followed that up with a few dropsets.  I made great strength gains using this method! Adding 80 pounds (125 lbs to 195 lbs for 3 reps) to my bench press in a year. A went from doing 2 pullups (bodyweight) to weighted pullups using 35 lbs for 5 reps.

As for nutrition, the program outlined a range for the mix up of my macro intake.  I aimed for my calories to consist of 25% protein, 35% fat and 40% carbs.  I didn’t follow these ratios exact but generally aimed each day to get within a 10% margin.

In order to build muscle your body energy (calories) but there is a diminishing return above ~400-500 excess calories.  So in order to stay lean while building muscle I increased my calorie intake by ~300 each day, which provided the extra energy my muscles need to repair and grow but was not an excess that would get turned into fat.

The biggest thing that my success can be attributed to is being consistent with my workouts and nutrition.  Hitting the gym even 3 days per week is not always easy but mentally letting go of I must go Monday, Wednesday, Friday and adapting as needed to fit my schedule allowed me to be consistent.

Eating inline with my planned macro ratio was challenging at first but meal prepping (cooking 2-3 meals at a time) was a savior.  Making a crockpot of Chili or getting a rotisserie chicken and prepping the fixings for tacos for a few days made it possible to make this nutrition plan a lifestyle change and not a “diet”.

Overall I am proud and very happy with the muscle gains I made last year.  Like I said at the start, this year I want to focus on continuing to make gains and ensure fitness is enhancing my life not taking over it.

 

How I use If It Fits Your Macros

IF It Fits Your Macros is a popular “diet” in fitness community now.  I put diet in quotations since it doesn’t restrict what you can eat per say but rather is a daily blueprint for how many macronutrients (protein, fats and carbs) you should consume and calories.

To get started with If It Fits Your Macros (IIFYM) I first determined my daily caloric requirements.  There are several calculators out there to assist with this or you can use an app like My Fitness Pal to determine what your currently consuming on average.

I determined my daily maintenance calories to be 2200.  Since my goal was to gain weight I increased my daily caloric intake by 300 to 2500 calories per day.

One thing to note on your maintenance calories is these will change as your body changes. You will not be able to stick to the same plan and make progress indefinitely.

Once I gained 7-8 pounds and drop a percent or two of body fat my weight gain began to stall.  The reason is I now weighed more (higher caloric needs) and gained considerable muscle (muscle requires more calories) so my new maintenance calories were much closer to what was previously a surplus caloric level.

Ok we have our calorie requirements.  Now how do macros fit into the picture?  From here we do some math to determine how much of each macro we will consume.

Before we get into the math lets understand the caloric properties of each macro.  The three macronutrients are protein, fats and carbs.  Proteins and carbs both contain 4 calories per gram while a gram of fat is more calorically dense at 9 calories per gram.

Alright so I knew I needed to consume 2500 calories per day but how many are suppose to come from protein vs carb vs fats?  There are many formulas for the ideal macro ratio – I stuck with a simple formula of 25% protein, 35% fat and 40% carbs.

So lets do some math to get our calorie requirements for each Macro.  My calories from protein will be 2500 x .25 = 625.  Fat calories will be 2500 x .35 = 875.  Which leaves us with carbs at 2500 x .40 = 1000.

Great now I had calorie goals for each macro but that isn’t super useful so lets translate that to grams.  We know carbs and protein both contain 4 calories per gram so lets do that math.  Protein in grams is 625 / 4 = ~155 and carbs are 1000 / 4 = 250.  Lastly fat we know has 9 calories per gram so 875 / 9 = ~100.

Alright at this point I had a plan I was going to consume 2500 calories that are made up of 155 g protein, 100 g fat and 250 g carbs.

So I went through the exercise of calculating how many grams of each macro I should consume which I recommend doing to understand the relationship between each nutrient and how it fits into your diet.  That being said My Fitness Pal (MFP) makes this very easy and do the heavy lifting for you.

You can input your current weight, goal weight and activity level and it will calculate your target calories.  I’ve found this to be fairly accurate but there are other methods and calculators on the line that you can verify with.  After setting that you can adjust your percent goal for each macro and boom you have your goals and setup.

Alright so I had a game plan at this point…great what now.  I simply started tracking everything I consumed in MFP.  After a few days it was clear how I needed to adjust my meals to hit my macro goals.  I generally needed more protein and fats on most days and few more calories.

I knew what I needed to do at this point. More calories, more protein and more fat.  Well that was great news because you know what contained all those..Bacon!  Yes, I started adding bacon to a meal most days along with a protein shake when I needed an easy way to hit my target.

I wanted to wrap this up by touching on the type of foods you consume.  I’ve seen people eat highly processed foods lacking in really any micro nutrients or vitamins and still make progress with their physique if they made sure to hit their macros.  So you can eat really anything you want as long as it fits your macros.

However….there are health concerns with eating processed foods, loads of sugar and salt and being deficient of micro nutrients.  I’ll let you do some research on that but suggest that you keep your food choices generally whole foods and avoid foods with loads of added sugar.

At this point I’ve been using If It Fit Your Macros for almost a year and put on 19 pounds as of writing this post.  I look better, feel better and am considerably stronger (a solid weight lifting program is needed to accompany your nutrition plan to accomplish this).

 

A Hardgainer’s Perspective on Gaining Weight

Do you want to know how to gain weight fast?  After seeing the progress I’ve made over the past year most people want to know the short cut so they can join me in the gaining muscle and transforming their physique.

First let’s distinguish between weight and muscle.  I hear from people “I want to gain weight” but in reality they want to gain muscle.  Adding pounds to your frame in the form of additional fat will not do anything for your physique and for most athletic scenarios will not help your performance.  So for most people, myself included, gaining muscle is really the goal.

So lets reframe the question, How can I gain muscle fast? In reality there is no “fast” way to build muscle.  There are several things you can do to optimize the rate at which you build muscle.  Such a eating enough calories and a proper mix of macro nutritions along with getting stronger.  You might as well set yourself up for the largest amount of success possible but be realistic about gaining muscle – it is not going to happen overnight.

Everyone has a natural limit on the rate of muscle everyone can gain.  You’re body’s potential muscle gain will decline overtime as you add more muscle.  That may sound discouraging but in reality these diminishing returns will not be a factor until you’re several years into a committed fitness routine.  Which is great news for most since they are new on their journey of adding muscle (I include myself in this camp still).

So how much muscle can you expect to build (I like to measure progress in terms of months)? When I first starting lifting weights and eating a proper macro balanced diet I experienced insane muscle growth in the range of 3+ pounds per month.  This muscle building honeymoon lastly roughly 2-3 months which was great motivation when starting out.

After I made my “beginner gains” my progress settled between 1-1.5 pounds per month for the nearly a year.  That rate may not seem big but when you look at it from the lens of a longer period like a year, 1.2pounds per month for 12 months is ~15 pounds of muscle.

You may ask yourself what would 15 pounds do to your physique?  Well 5 pounds made me feel a confidence boost and my family began to notice.  At 10 pounds my friends started commenting on my progress.  Finally, after nearly 12 months of dedication and 18 pounds of added muscle, nearly everyone I previously met noticed my improved body.  I felt great about myself and proud of the work I put in to make this change.

So what do I expect my gain rate to be going forward?  Well, I’m less concerned about it now that my body is in condition that I feel good about.  I now enjoy working out, and eating macro balanced diet is my preferred nutrition plan…really these have become a part of my lifestyle.  So I will remain committed to my fitness journey and continue making progress but adding muscle and size won’t such a huge focus.

I’ve learned that goal setting is a fulfilling mental exercise so despite gaining muscle becoming less of a priority at this point I still expect and aim to gain 6-8 pounds in the next 12 months.

After experiencing the joy of accomplishing my goal of transforming my body I’ve began helping my friends (that are interested – not every is) set goals and make a plan to gain muscle and get stronger.  That is has been very fulfilling for me and I hope this blog encourages people outside my friend circle to make positive changes in their life, gain muscle and transform their relationship with their body.