Many people want to know how to gain muscle without bulking and cutting or getting fat along the way. In this video, I’m going to show you a step by step guide to building muscle while remaining lean and having low body fat levels. As someone who has done this myself for many years, I know exactly how to teach you to do the same thing.
It starts by calculating out your daily maintenance level of calories. There are many complicated ways to do this but I think we can keep it simple and still have this be a really effective way to finding the right starting place. If you can see your abs, even just a little bit, when you look in the mirror then you will multiply your weight in pounds by 15 to obtain your first crack at maintenance.
If you cannot see your abs, then you are obviously at a higher body fat level and will want to multiply your weight in pounds by 12.
From here, try to eat consistently for the next 2 weeks and assess what is happening to your body weight and/or body fat levels. If you notice that you are gaining too much fat then you will want to cut your calculated maintenance level down by 10 percent, eat at this new level for two more weeks, and re-assess. If you steady out your levels at this point then you have effectively determined your baseline.
If you find that you are losing too much weight and not building muscle, then you would want to increase your calculated calorie total by 10 percent and once again reassess after two weeks.
From here, you have to answer the question of how quickly you desire to build muscle and how much tolerance you have for gaining a little bit of body fat. Obviously, this is the point where you are going to have to be honest about your physique goals and the speed at which you are looking for noticeable muscle gaining results.
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Let’s take three levels of calorie surplus to compare the effects of each one.
You can eat in a very modest 100 calorie surplus each day. The issue with this is that the amount of calories that your body has in excess to help build muscle is going to be present but low enough that the rate at which you will build muscle is going to be slower. Keep in mind, this does not mean that you will not be gaining. It just means that it will take a longer time.
The good news about this approach however is that the majority of weight gained here is going to be muscle rather than fat. In fact, science shows that around 90 percent of the weight gained when in a small 100 calorie surplus is lean muscle and only 10 percent of that is body fat.
If we move up to a 300 calorie surplus a couple of things start to happen. First, we have a faster rate of muscle growth. That said, you will see a higher percentage of body fat making up the total weight gain. Here again, science suggests that about 30 percent of the weight gain is from body fat added but still 70 percent muscle growth.
If we move even higher, to a surplus of 500 calories, we once again see a faster rate of muscle gain but also body fat accrual. At this degree of calorie surplus we have more body fat accumulation – approximately 50 percent of the total weight gained.
So if you were going to try and determine how much of a calorie surplus you wanted you would have to consider your tolerance for adding body fat and the rate that you wanted to see a bulkier body. The issue with this is that many people start to develop some habits during the bulk that makes it harder for them to successfully cut later on.
This is where bulking and cutting can become problematic for many and taking the much more modest approach to increasing calories seems to be a more long term successful approach to take.
Be sure to eat approximately the same way throughout the trial period. This means, trying to keep your macros proportionately the same. The thermic effect of food results in a higher metabolic cost to digesting proteins as there are carbs and fats.
You also want to be sure that you are not eating out vs home too much during the trial as this will likely result in some big calculation mistakes.
The bottom line is, you can definitely gain muscle without getting fat or having to bulk. Sure, it will take a little extra time but when you consider the long haul and how much healthier you will be in the big picture along the way to making your gains, I believe it is the best approach.
If you’re looking for a step by step meal plan that will help you build muscle and lose fat at the same time, be sure to head to athleanx.com via the link above and choose the program that best suits your physique goals using the program selector tool.
For more videos on how to bulk and cut properly and the best way to eat to build muscle without getting fat, remember to subscribe to our channel via the link above and remember to turn on your modifications so you never miss a new video when published.
