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Actually BMI is pretty worthless as a metric for individuals. It is a useful metric for large groups.
Regardless, you do have his BMI - the OP has given us his gender, height, weight and age.
His BMI is: 23.7
Understood on why you haven't waded through all the back & forth nonsense...but I already noted the usefulness in context and said the same.
Quote:
LBM would be nice but we don't have that data. But if estimate he has a ~24 BMI currently, he could go down slightly if he's got more fat than muscle making that BMI. Again, if thats his goal...thus making it less desirable to gain weight that isn't muscle. So minimal weight gain while bulking is his best option and he shouldn't arbitrarily ingest more calories than necessary to deliver enough protein to build muscle, while maintaining enough energy to workout with.
If he's fairly lean & muscular already, then yeah he's going to have to gain weight to add muscle mass. My assumption is that he isn't if he's asking the question but again...we don't have that data either.
So what is the argument you guys seem to have? You just don't like that I prefer to focus on the protein first?
Because thats the only thing I've disputed in any of the posts I've gone back & forth with...personal jabs aside.
When I say "mass", in the context of this thread, I'm referring to muscle mass.
Gaining muscle mass while simultaneously losing body fat, unless you're significantly overweight - which the OP is not, is very, very difficult to do.
Understood on your definition. And that's what I'm using as well, not focusing on total weight.
Gaining lean muscle mass (not to be conflated with zero weight or zero fat which apparently must be stated so people don't fly off the handle with strawman arguments) is just about being a little more careful with the calories you ingest. That might not be the right approach for a bodybuilder or powerlifter or pro athlete....but for an everyday Joe trying to gain a little muscle while not wanting to get fat and develop bad eating habits, its important. At least, I see it as important...you & others certainly don't have to agree.
I'm not telling you to "follow my advice because I'm the gatekeeper of some hidden science". It's available information and a lot of regiments emphasize not overdoing the carbs to stay as lean as you can while gaining muscle. But you won't gain muscle without getting your protein right so I focused on that first.
You really need to learn how to communicate more concisely. Your posts are like emotionally fueled text vomit.
Obviously you don't ingest 500g of carbs if you aren't the same body makeup and have the same goals as Hunter Labrada. More of your projection at work regarding strawman arguments.
There are plenty of examples of cycling your carbs and calories to build muscle and stay lean. But the key is making your protein intake consistent. Which is why I said the OP needs to start there and adjust accordingly. That is why I said the calories are not as important....to start with....in order to get the diet in the right direction.
That is what I said McBean, so accept it and move on.
More ad hominem attacks. Shocker.
The resource I linked to would put the OP between 340 and 510 grams of carbs per day. That's a pretty wide range that can be adjusted accordingly.
You once again link to an article that doesn't actually support your position. Quoting directly;
Quote:
Gaining muscle requires a calorie surplus, while cutting fat requires a caloric deficit, so the plan here is to cycle each phase short-term. That's achieved mainly by cycling carbohydrate intake. "I'm a big proponent of carb cycling because it allows your body to burn body fat and build muscle at the same time," says Adele, who has decades of experience taking individuals through transformation programs aimed at reducing body fat while simultaneously increasing muscle size.
The article clearly states that muscle gain needs a calorie surplus and fat loss needs a calorie deficit, which is correct. It then says you can gain muscle and lose fat at the same time but you have to view it on a larger timeline. It's still not happening at the same time though.
Beyond that, the idea of cyclical dieting is certainly well established (I've done them myself, and the Ultimate Diet 2.0 by the same author I've linked to previously is simply awesome) but as a relatively rank beginner, that approach is not really appropriate for him. A simple mass gaining phase followed by a cutting phase (if needed) is the more appropriate response.
Your advice to start with protein intake and adjust from there is only doing half the job. Even if he followed your advice of a cyclical approach he would still need to set the carb and fat intake along with the protein intake. To send him off with no baseline besides protein intake could lead to weeks of spinning his wheels while dialing in the rest. The approach I suggested is far more precise.
As an amateur bodybuilder and where I stand in knowledge, you are right and wrong. Frequency is really important as well. I urge the OP to research why you should have protein intake every 3 hours - 4 hours if you are interested in building mass and really tearing up those fibers. and i mean hypertrophy not hyperplasia.
I actually started off at 170 lbs, I am now 235 naturally. It took me 5 years but doable. and weight gain meaning lean mass gain with a low body fat % you dont want to be 200 lbs @ 16% BF. so watch what you mean with weight gain as insulin plays a huge role. Insulin can be bad and good for you in the bodybuilding world...but again will take me a long time to write
But you are right about eating enough as well. If you spend 3,000 calories a day, you need to consume 3200 - 3500. When it comes to carbs fats and protein, there is a huge biological role your body plays..which will take all day for me to write.
Your best bet is to figure out your body and find out where you surplus in calories. Once you find that calorie amount more or less, then split that amount into 5 - 7 meals. There is a lot of reasons why you should eat frequently, and increasing your metabolic weight is not one of them. (for now until you get more advanced)
If you need serious advice, send me a message. Trust me when I say I know what i am doing. Ive trained all of my friends with great success and yes I do it for free bc its fun for me.
I do shows as part time and hopefully try go up in the game, but its not easy. I enjoy giving advice since I love helping people. So shoot away ask me if you wish
I would disagree that frequency is "really important", and the actual research is pretty mixed.
Quote:
But is this also the optimal pattern for gaining muscle mass? On the one hand there is the suggestive study above where a group receiving three meals per day gained more LBM than a group receiving six per day; as well there is the research suggesting that maintaining constant levels of AAs might cause skeletal muscle to become “insensitive†to further stimulation; increasing extracellular levels of AAs and then allowing them to fall again appears to be superior. Both of these data points suggest that keeping blood AA levels stable throughout the day might not be optimal from the standpoint of muscle mass gains.
Another recent study throws a wrench in the typically held bodybuilder idea that simply maintaining continuous levels of amino acids with frequent meal feeding is optimal (29). In that study, two groups were compared. The first received three whole food meals while the second received the same three meals with an essential amino acid (EAA) supplement in-between. I should note that the study suffered from one huge design flaw: the groups got different amounts of total protein. It should have also tested a group that got 6 whole food meals and the same amount of protein as the EAA supplemented group.
I think proper meal frequency could more accurately be described as optimizing mass gains, but it certainly doesn't appear to be vital in any real sense.
Understood on your definition. And that's what I'm using as well, not focusing on total weight.
Gaining lean muscle mass (not to be conflated with zero weight or zero fat which apparently must be stated so people don't fly off the handle with strawman arguments) is just about being a little more careful with the calories you ingest. That might not be the right approach for a bodybuilder or powerlifter or pro athlete....but for an everyday Joe trying to gain a little muscle while not wanting to get fat and develop bad eating habits, its important. At least, I see it as important...you & others certainly don't have to agree.
I'm not telling you to "follow my advice because I'm the gatekeeper of some hidden science". It's available information and a lot of regiments emphasize not overdoing the carbs to stay as lean as you can while gaining muscle. But you won't gain muscle without getting your protein right so I focused on that first.
Total weight is not fat mass or muscle mass. It might seem like semantics but it's actually an important distinction and the fact that both myself and Hooligan had to clarify this for you should mean something to you.
You say that your approach is more conscientious of caloric intake by then the articles you link to are exactly in line with the recommendations I shared in the beginning. That caloric intake would, in general, allow someone to gain muscle mass at a maximal rate for an average lifter without excessive fat gain to accompany it. Since you didn't actually read the link, I'll quote you the exact tidbit about that;
Quote:
The bottom line is this: building muscle requires a surplus/excess of two things: the building blocks of muscle (protein/amino acids) and energy (calories). You can’t build muscle out of nothing and, without both in sufficient amounts, nothing happens. I’ll discuss protein intake in Part 2, here I only want to look at total caloric intake.
Bodybuilders always want to know “How many calories for mass gains?†to which the simplest answer is “Enough.†In principle, for mass gains calories should be high enough that a small fat gain is seen (as measured by calipers) every couple of weeks. This should be more than sufficient to support muscle mass gains.
Understood on why you haven't waded through all the back & forth nonsense...but I already noted the usefulness in context and said the same.
We'll agree to disagree on how useful BMI is as a metric for the OP, and that's fine.
The fact is, we only know what the OP has told us or asked us. He's said nothing about "lean gaining" or wanting to reduce body fat. As such, I'm forced to assume that gaining muscle mass is his priority, and he may or may not go through a "cut" cycle afterward, if he is unhappy with his BF%.
Add to that what he's told us about not being able to eat much volume and I cannot see how anyone would logically endorse cutting carbs from his diet.
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Originally Posted by MartinEden99
So what is the argument you guys seem to have? You just don't like that I prefer to focus on the protein first?
Because thats the only thing I've disputed in any of the posts I've gone back & forth with...personal jabs aside.
No, he needs more protein, that's already been communicated to him. Several times by several posters, in fact. He also needs to eat more calories, almost certainly significantly more calories. That's not going to happen by jacking up his protein intake alone when you factor in his meal volume issues.
...Gaining lean muscle mass (not to be conflated with zero weight or zero fat which apparently must be stated so people don't fly off the handle with strawman arguments) is just about being a little more careful with the calories you ingest. That might not be the right approach for a bodybuilder or powerlifter or pro athlete....
"A little more careful" does not require the OP to cut his carb intake level - based on what he's told us he eats, though.
Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinEden99
...but for an everyday Joe trying to gain a little muscle while not wanting to get fat and develop bad eating habits, its important. At least, I see it as important...you & others certainly don't have to agree...
Where has the OP said he's just "trying to gain a little muscle" or that he's worried about getting "fat and developing bad eating habits"? It seems like you're, perhaps, projecting your own goals onto the OP?
Quote:
Originally Posted by MartinEden99
...I'm not telling you to "follow my advice because I'm the gatekeeper of some hidden science". It's available information and a lot of regiments emphasize not overdoing the carbs to stay as lean as you can while gaining muscle. But you won't gain muscle without getting your protein right so I focused on that first.
Where have I ever advocated "overdoing" the carbs? Again, the OP is NOT GETTING ENOUGH calories or protein. Without BOTH he will not see any appreciable gains in muscle mass. So, "getting his protein right" is pointless without increasing his caloric intake overall. Given his issues increasing the volume of what he eats, it certainly seems like he will not be able to reduce his carb intake AND increase his calories to the needed levels.
Sheesh- he's 5'11' at 170! He's too thin to have the energy to do all these squats, bench pressing-- what not!
170 is not so skinny at a height of 5'11". It might honestly seem skinny and weak to someone with some serious muscle development resulting from several years or more of lifting, but by general standards 170 indicates a solidly medium-sized build.
In any case, the way to gain muscle is not to avoid the big lifts that do the most to kick muscle development into gear. The lifting regimen can, and for most people should, include other lifts, but the lifts you're suggesting that the OP avoid are the staples that should always be part of a mass-gaining program.
Rather than avoid squats, deadlifts, presses, etc., altogether, the idea is to work up the weight gradually. Gaining muscle--or getting into good physical condition in any form for that matter--is a long-term process, not something you accomplish in a few weeks of kicking ass.
To gain mass, you definitely want to include these kinds of exercises in your routine, but first you learn good form with fairly light weights, then move to medium weights and from there gradually work up to heavier weights once you are in shape to handle heavy lifting.
Follow a slow, steady progression, but do the big compound lifts for sure.
....the guy cannot eat a lot. He will gradually work his appetite up but in the meantime, he needs to work on maximizing what little he actually can eat.
You yourself say something here which deserves a closer look. Muscle gain is a gradual process. It appears that the OP will need to increase his total intake of food in order to make these gains. This may have to happen gradually, as the OP adds a little more to his diet at a time.
Keeping this in mind, regarding the debate going on in this thread about carbs, I'll join those saying that the OP should include a good portion of carbs in his diet. This does not mean eating a lot of candy bars, but consuming nutritious foods like whole grains and starchy vegetables.
Carbs in the form of these good foods should be increased along with other nutrients at whatever rate the OP is able to increase his overall consumption of food. If the OP has to increase his appetite gradually, so be it. Fitness in general is a long-term process, and this applies to gains in muscle as well as any kind of fitness.
Carbs are useful in the process of gaining muscle. Carbs provide the immediate energy for exercise. Consuming enough carbs frees up protein to fuel the followup process of building muscle in response to exercise. There are two problems with the advice to cut way down on carbs:
1) Consume too few carbs and it means the body will need to draw energy for the actual workout from protein, leaving less protein for building new muscle tissue in response to the workout.
2) Relying too much on protein to provide the energy for the workout means that you'll be relying on a nutrient that is inefficient for providing immediate energy. This may make it difficult to push through a good challenging workout.
Carbs to fuel the workout; protein to build muscle in response to the workout. You need both. If you're eating too little to support muscle growth, you need to increase the intake of all nutrients, including carbs and protein both. If you don't have a huge appetite, you may need to increase your food intake gradually. Fine. Increase your intake of calories--with a balanced increase in nutrients--at whatever pace works for you, but do it.
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