When it comes to building muscle, only half of the work is done in the gym. What’s just as important, is what you do in the kitchen and what you eat: eat wrong and you’ll be squandering all the effort you put in and all the opportunities for growth. Conversely, eat correctly and you can see impressive gains even when your training program isn’t quite up to par. So how do you build big muscles in the kitchen? It’s actually pretty simple and there’s a basic diet system that bodybuilders across the web have been using to that very end: counting your macros.
What is a Macro?
A macro is a macronutrient, which is effectively a food group. When it comes to building muscle, there are three types of macronutrient that matter:
* Protein
* Carbs
* Fat
Counting your macros then, means measuring how many calories you are getting from each of these sources in your diet and then making sure that you’re getting the right amount to trigger the maximum possible growth.
How to do it
So the first step then is to calculate how many calories you need to be consuming in total. To do this, you need to work out what’s called your ‘active metabolic rate’. Essentially, this means that you’re going to be calculating how many calories you burn in an average given day.
If you’re trying to build muscle, you then need to ensure that you are consuming more than this minimum target every day. Conversely, if you’re trying to burn fat, you need to make sure you consume less than this target.
Making sure to consume more calories than your AMR is important because it sends a signal to the body that you are in ‘times of plenty’. In other words, your body can focus on being more anabolic and on helping you to build muscle rather than burning tissue for energy.
Your other objective is to make sure you are consuming one gram of protein for every one pound of bodyfat.
If you then consider that there are four calories in every gram of protein, this allows you to work backwards from there to split your remaining calorie ‘allowance’ between carbs and fats. Note that you should eat more fats than we have traditionally been led to believe, as a diet high in fat provides more slow-release energy, better nutrient absorption and more testosterone production!
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