You ever wonder how many calories you need to build muscle?
If you are the least bit serious about building muscle, you know that Nutrition is a big part of the equation.
Without it, eveything else just falls apart..literally.
So I answered what you should be eating and when you should be eating in previous blogs.
Now, I will tackle, how much you should be eating.
I’ve come across many formulas for this..Some simple, and some complex.
A very simple one is Your Bodyweight x 15-18 = DAC (Daily Average Calorie intake) to build muscle.
You can find an excellent excel worksheet I’ve done for you that has a more complex and accurate formula with the formulas already done for you.
You simply need to enter your current weight and daily activity percentage.
It’s crucial that you adjust these numbers as you gain weight.
As I’ve seen, as you gain weight, you’ll need more and more calories to keep that rate of weight and muscle gain going up steadily.
This is another good cause of plateaus. People reach a nutritional plateau, thus they reach a muscle plateau because the muscles can’t build what they don’t have.
Undercutting this daily average is just as bad as overshooting it.
Just like you can’t bake a cake for 20 mins at 460° when the directions say cook for 30 mins at 350°, you can’t throw 4000 calories into yourself everyday and expect to gain huge gains over night.
If you aren’t burning close to 4000 calories a day, the rest of that will just be stored up as fat and we don’t want that do we?!
The trick is to exceed your Basic Daily Requirements by about 500 calories based on your bodyweight and level of activity.
This will give you just enough and then some to really build and build.
The next step is to count out the calories in the food you’re eating. This can be a pain at first, but once you get used to it, it’ll come naturally to you.
Remember, no one ever got better by doing the same thing over and over. You won’t transform your body by being nonchalant about your eating habits.
You can type in Calorie Counters in Google. Google actually has a pretty easy calorie counter itself.
I’ve also found another very useful site here. It’s by nutrition.gov and gives you tons of information including vitamins, fats, acids, etc. in just about every food you can think of.
Lastly, another good ratio of carbs to protein is between 4:1 to 2:1. You can do this with simple calculation at the grocery store or by pre-planning your meals ahead of time by using the Muscle Building Recipes ebook.
This was a short post, but very targeted. Be sure to download that free Excel Worksheet here so you’ll know where to start.
Until next time, Happy Lifting!
Mitchell
Filed under Body Building Tips, Muscle Building Programs by on Mar 24th, 2009. 1 Comment. 
As I promised on my About me page, I said that I will develop your mind along with your body. So get ready for the hard truth.
People hop in the gym to focus on building their body for a variety of reasons.
Among many things beginners overlook, the most crucial thing they overlook is the relationship between body and mind.
Without one, the other can not exist.
Your body won’t go where your mind won’t take it, and your mind limits itself to what the body can physically do (sometimes).
The trap that I see many people fall into, is that they limit themselves.
They determine what they can and can’t do, before they set one foot in the gym.
But if you’ve made it to the gym, I wanto congratulate you. Many people let various excuses keep them out in the first place.
Now, that you’ve started going, you must keep going. You can read my blog on finding your Gym Motivation to see just exactly what that is for you.
Now even though you’ve made it to the gym, many people have several limiting beliefs about what they can accomplish.
Along with the host of wrong information they got from their buddy about lifting (this blog is to clear up that junk he told you), people look at someone else and compare themselves. Or they’ll say “I’ll never be able to do that,” or look at a weight and say “That’s too heavy” and so on.
There are cross-overs in life so here’s a money analogy.
Many people look at something an say, “I can’t afford that.” Thus limiting themselves on what they’ll ever be able to buy.
The wiser approach is to say “How can I afford that?”. This opens your mind to the possibility for new ideas to come to you.
The same goes for anything in the gym.
Now, don’t get me wrong, it’s good to know your limits and trying to push yourself too far beyond them could land you in the ER.
But there’s a fine line between just being a little crazy and plumb out of your mind.
Another common mental mistake people make when going to the gym is Overestimation of themselves.
Like I stated in an earlier blog, men are ego driven beings. It’s just in our nature.
But don’t let your ego make you a zero.
Guys get in there and try to lift way too much (I fall into this trap sometimes) and begin sacrificing form and efficiency.
Then they brag about how much weight they can throw around but plateau all the time and never really get anywhere.
Like I said, there’s a fine line between not enough and too much when it comes to weights.
The Decision
The thing you need to make is a Decision about where you’re going and the fact that you WILL get there.
If you fall into one of the two categories stated above (like 95% of beginners), the good news is, there’s still time and hope.
You see, most people make a choice to go to the gym. Then they choose the wrong thing to do and later choose to stop going once they didn’t reach their unrealistic goals in their unrealistic time frame.
I’ve made a Decision that I will achieve my goals in a calculated time frame. Calculating the time frame takes experience and is part of the Art of Weightlifting.
But anyone can make a Decision.
The difference between a Choice and a Decision is that a choice can be changed while a decision can not. Part of the word decision is “cision” which means to cut off…like the word incision.
When you make a Decision, you’ve cut off all other possibilities. Anyone serious about any goal in life made a Decision to go for it.
Now, once you get started down that road, you’re bound to face difficulties and make mistakes. I’ve done it. We’ve all done it.
But if you’ve Decided that that’s where you’re going, nothing will deter you. You will find the information you need and correct what you need to correct to keep moving.
So make a Decision to achieve your weightlifting goals…not a choice.
That was Part 1 of The Lifestyle of a Bodybuilder – The Decision.
In Part 2, I will discuss the other changes that will come after you make that Decision.
Until next time, Happy Lifting!
Mitchell
Filed under Body Building Tips, Workout Motivation by on Mar 30th, 2009. 2 Comments.
