Muscle mass is gained in two ways: in the gym and in the kitchen.
If you're aiming to gain muscle and haven't thought about your diet, now is the moment.
If you're wanting to gain muscle, there are a few things to keep in mind when planning your diet. They're also very straightforward: unless you're a professional athlete or weightlifter, there's no need to stress over every detail or spend money on pricey supplements.
Calories
Muscles need a reason to grow, which you may provide through resistance exercise.
They do, however, demand a lot of energy in the form of calories.
It's critical to get the appropriate calorie balance in your diet if you want to gain muscle without gaining fat.
If you eat too many, you'll gain muscle and fat; if you eat too few, your body won't have enough energy to generate muscle and may begin to break down your muscles for fuel.
If you work out hard and often, you should consume roughly 40-50 calories per kilogram of body weight to maximize muscle growth[1]. If you weigh 80kg, this equates to 3200-4000 calories, which is roughly 1000 calories more than the calories needed to maintain weight, depending on how much you exercise.
The calorie surplus should be lower if your workouts are not severe or consistent.
But be careful not to overdo it. Many bodybuilders go through cycles of muscle growth and fat reducing since muscle gain is usually accompanied with fat gain. If you're gaining too much weight, reduce your calorie intake.
As long as you continue to train, this shouldn't have a big impact on your muscular growth. It's also lot easier to avoid gaining weight by reducing your caloric consumption than it is to lose weight once you've gained it.
If you're only trying to get lean and add muscle, or if you already have some excess fat to lose, you should aim for a mild calorie surplus on training days and a maintenance or tiny deficit calorie intake on rest days. Your muscle growth may be slower, but you're less likely to gain fat as a result, allowing you to achieve better body definition sooner.
Protein
Your body requires the building blocks of amino acids, which are found in protein, in order to produce muscles. Muscle growth will be sluggish or non-existent if you don't eat enough protein.
According to studies, muscular growth requires at least 1.5-2 grams of protein per kilogram of body weight. If you weigh 80 kg, this equates to 120-160 grams of protein, or 480-640 calories of protein. Proteins, on the other hand, are not all created equal.
Leucine
Protein synthesis is the mechanism through which muscles grow in the body. The procedure is lengthy, involves numerous phases, and necessitates numerous components, the most important of which being the amino acid leucine.
The impact of protein content on muscle protein synthesis was compared in a 2016 study. They discovered that a high leucine content causes dramatically increased protein synthesis.
You don't need to go out and buy leucine supplements to acquire this amino acid in your diet, though.
Most animal products contain high quantities of leucine, with cheese, most meats, whey, and eggs being the main sources.
Plant-based protein sources include less leucine than animal-based protein sources, but vegans need not worry: the difference is minor, with plant-based protein sources providing an average of 7% leucine. If you're a vegan, I'd suggest soy products and pea protein, as they have the largest concentration of this amino acid.
Balancing Macronutrients
Muscle growth and performance are influenced by the balance of the other macronutrients in your diet, such as fat and carbs.
You burn calories while you workout. Protein synthesis is substantially slower if your body does not have enough readily available energy. Exhausting and sub-par workouts are also a result of a lack of energy.
For these reasons, I recommend getting plenty of carbs, your body's preferred source of energy, on workout days. But don't go overboard; if you do, the extra carbs will be stored as fat.
On non-workout days, I would advocate cutting back on the carbs, as high-carbohydrate diets, particularly sugar-rich diets, cause insulin spikes, which impair your body's capacity to digest calories and cause a slew of other health problems.
This implies you'll be relying on fat to make up the difference.
Fat has gotten a poor rap over the years, yet it's a wonderful slow-burning fuel source that also supplies important fatty acids and fat-soluble vitamins to keep you fit and healthy. For muscle building, I'd advocate a diet that's higher in protein and fat than carbohydrates, especially on rest days.
Timing In the past, there was a lot of emphasis on timing in workouts. People used to believe that you only had a small window after a workout to ingest enormous amounts of protein for best effect.
This isn't the case, as we now know. A major study released in 2013 revealed that timing doesn't really matter as long as you eat within a couple of hours of doing out.
There are some benefits to eating a protein and carb smoothie mid-workout if you're a committed athlete looking to maximize gains, but the benefits are minor.
Final words
The effort begins in the kitchen if you want to grow and retain muscle. Get the calorie balance right: enough to keep muscle while not causing your body to gain fat.
Consume enough protein to provide your body with the building blocks it requires, and give yourself adequate energy on workout days while taking it easy on rest days. Also, stay hydrated, especially on days when you're exercising.
Make sure you're getting the correct nourishment so you can reap the benefits of your hard work.
