So, do you have to eat big to get big?

If you read articles pertaining to putting on mass from any of the muscle comics, they usually tell you that you need to eat, and eat BIG! Read enough of these and you’ll be brainwashed to the point of pile driving the plate into your mouth at the end of your meal!

Before loading up on Maalox and Pepto Bismol on your next visit to the grocery store, have comfort in knowing you don’t need to eat till you have food coming out of your ears. Yes, you do need to eat more calories than you burn in a day to put on muscle, however, there comes a certain point you’re just going to be wasting time and money eating foods that will go to waste and add junk to yer trunk.

It’s true that one of the main aspects for optimal muscle gains is to be in a state of daily caloric surplus, i.e., consistently eat more calories than you burn in a day.  The problem is

that the ambiguity of the statement causes most people to confuse it for a green light to become a buffet molester.

So, the problem here isn’t so much that this point is untrue as much as it’s an excuse for people to get sloppy with their nutrition plan.

Your body can only grow at a certain speed. It can only use a finite amount of macronutrients to repair and build up your body.  Over feeding past this point doesn’t cause you to build more muscle, you’ll simply store the excess calories as fat – I like to call this “The Point of Expanding Returns.”

The point isn’t to put anything into your system to try and reach your daily caloric requirement.  It’s important that a mass building nutrition plan is made up of quality foods consisting of the proper ratio of macronutrients

If you want to have that “hard look” from training, gaining what amounts to a blanket of flab surrounding your body is going to ultimately hide the results from your hard work.

It’s true that to optimize muscle gains you need to eat more calories than you need in a day which will lead to putting on some fat.  However, it’s also important to watch the calories so it’s your muscles, and not your waistline, that’s stretching the measuring tape a month or two down the road.

While a few actually do want to gain extra fat for various reasons, if you don’t watch your body fat levels when adding mass, blindly terrorizing the buffet table is going to cause you grief down the road.

Yes you’ll gain all sorts of muscle and strength if you’re training and resting properly, however, if you want to lose body fat, you’ll have to shift your focus off of gaining muscle mass, strength and performance, and on to losing fat.  Depending on the amount of fat you want to lose, and the rate at which you want to lose it, there’s a good chance you may sacrifice some muscle

The truth is your body only needs proper resistance training, sufficient rest and a properly balanced nutrition plan that includes about 300-500 more calories than your daily caloric requirement to gain muscle.  Individual difference may mean some people will require more or less, and yes, there are a few people who seem to do better with 1000 or more extra calories.  Start off with a smaller amount and slowly build up until you find your ideal amount of excess calories.  However, remember that eating more than you require for optimal muscle growth doesn’t force your body to grow more muscle than what it’s naturally capable of.

By keeping an eye on your nutrition plan and body composition you won’t be in for a rude awakening a month or two down the road.

Action Steps

Choose a body fat limit

Avoid the consequences of a sloppy mass building nutrition plan by watching your body fat percentage.  Many get lazy about this, but the smart one’s keep an eye on things and make adjustments to make sure their body fat levels don’t get out of hand.

Check things weekly and adjust your nutrition plan and/or level of activity appropriately.

Remember the caloric intake required when trying to maximize strength and especially size gain, will lead to an increase of fat levels.  If you limit calories too severely you will limit your gains as well.

Body fat Scale

There are many scales on the market that can read your body fat percentage; Tanita is one of the leaders in this field.

Measuring tape

A cheaper, but less accurate way, to track your body fat levels is to use a tape measure to measure your waist.  Take the measurement at your belly button level without a shirt, and ideally at the same time of day each time you measure.

I recommend using both methods at the same time if possible.  Record your measurements in a notepad, and limit this to once a week.

Adjust caloric intake and/or activity levels when BF levels get too high

If you notice your BF% is climbing too high, adjust your caloric intake or expenditure (i.e. activity level) appropriately to bring it back to a satisfactory level.  By doing this you minimize the amount of fat you’ll accumulate, and the amount of time you’ll spend having to lose it if you choose to.

© Raymond Toulany

Muscle Growth

Muscle building is magnificent ways of accomplishing strength by replacing a novel body structures having curves, organic strength as well as lines. This requests accurate work out with muscles. Muscle building is an overwhelming practice, also a leisure pursuit which is highly authoritative, in view of the fact that it is worthwhile in addition to that it also offers you some real great paybacks; such as an enhanced appearance, increased strength, growth in confidence plus including all, a hale and hearty look. It is an acknowledged fact that encompassing muscles, is to a great extent more gorgeous than a fat body. Building muscles is not an easy task to perform, but it is fairly simple. If you are ready to put in the appropriate effort, then you will surely not face any problem in building muscle.

Muscle building is extremely in good turn with fitness devotees all over the world. A grand look along with budding self confidence nature is what everybody desires to accomplish. Muscle building is the course of accomplishing muscle from end to end with the amalgamation of exercising using weights, hoisting the sum of calories addicted, along with its recreation. The spirit lying behind muscle building is to be figured up as follows: promoting the muscle with an adequate amount of calorific in take to give support in the muscle development and no more.

Muscle building is over and over again perplexed with burning of fat. Despite the fact that some quantity of fat is burnt, it does not go ahead in losing weight. Muscle building is confirmed to be obliging not only for development in athletic aptitude but at the same time it also set in motion your basal metabolism as well as endorses fat smoldering. Muscle building is incredibly significant if losing fat is a preferred consequence of your work out. The moment you bend over your body your mass reaches up to a certain extent, you can intake more for the reason that the muscle requires a more fuel to utility.

Muscle building is an extended procedure which can even take months for noticeable outcome. It solely depends on your permanence, calorie ingestion as well as proper rest which recompense you with immense prizes, which is an overwhelming body everybody will envy. Muscle building is a progression, easy to trail but it desires effort as well as uniformity to bring about your goals.

Muscle Gain

Dave Garran asked:


If you are like me, you probably said a thousand times “I’m going to start to start a muscle building program”. So you went to the local gym and for four months or so you worked out everyday in a muscle building program until eventually you start felling bored, your muscle building program consumes precious hours of your day and you eat 6-9 meals a day – not to mention looking at steroids with good eyes. Eventually you quit, and all that extra fat won’t go, in fact it becomes worse than before!

I realized this doesn’t work. I convinced myself that spending 3-4 hours everyday at the gym is not a good investment – we have families, time-consuming work, even we want to relax instead of lifting weight.

Muscle building program that can change your life

Most of these so-called gyms are relatively new in our society. A society that makes you spend $100 monthly on gym, a few more dollars in steroids and a couple of complements more. At this time you may be feeling the same as I did once, but I wondered, “how it was in the old days?”.

When I was a kid, my father gave me a small book about muscle building program. This book was only 20 pages or so, with exact exercises to workout all the muscles in the body, an ideal muscle building program. After an initial laugh – the pictures where very funny for a 15- year old kid – I started to look this muscle building program and the fact is, none of the exercises used weights or anything, they where simple and straightforward, all you needed was to form the figure and produce resistance between the parts of your body. So I started to workout with this muscle building program, and I must say, the results were incredible. As years went by and gyms started to pop out all over, I forgot about this muscle building program.

Now I have a 9-hour job, a family, and many obligations and the gym – as I told you before – doesn’t sound like a good way to stay in shape. so I remembered this little book. Of course I’ve lost it years ago but I figured out someone would have thought the same way somewhere. So I started to look for muscle building programs that resembled that little book. Soon I found this muscle building program based on the same principles that little book had: short exercise – 7 minutes! -, high results muscle building program.

At first I was reluctant. I thought “Oh my, another of those muscle building programs” but somehow I was attracted by the concept, a concept I realized myself 20 years ago. So I thought “80 bucks is worth it to try, in fact I’m spending this same amount every month in a gym I don’t go”

I have to tell you…this muscle building program uses the same principles of that little book and extend them further. Thanks to muscle training videos I don’t have to guess the exact positions to get the best results and everything is explained in detail. I started this muscle training program about two years ago and there was no single day I didn’t want to exercise, it is fun, I don’t get tired and the results are amazing, fat loss, incredible strong, and with only 7 minutes per day! Even my wife joined me when she saw the results. Now we workout together and if you see her you wouldn’t believe it’s because this simple muscle training program, you would think that it took several hours at the gym to get that slim body!

I’m sure you’ll be delighted to get your time back and be in shape at the same time. Believe me, we are in a consumers’ society, and mankind had survived gyms, steroids, nutrition meals and all that stuff. Take a chance and change your lifestyle, and save a few bucks on the road with this muscle building program!



Build Muscle