Nutrition for Muscle Gain Without Turning It Into a Free-For-All
This post is part of The Ultimate Bikini Prep Guide – check out the full guide for more!
Yeah, the tagline of the article title is really the trick here. “Eating to grow” isn’t difficult – just eat. Probably more than you think. But eating to grow without accumulating too much body fat is a bit more of a precision game, and playing that game will obviously make your next cut an easier task since you’ll have less excess weight to then turn around and pull off.
So let’s cut to the chase and get into the details.
A Surplus Is Required — But Not a Large One
The concept here is CICO – calories in vs. calories out. Many people will say that’s all there is to bodybuilding, those people have clearly never worked with enough people to realize that it’s a GROSS oversimplification and there are many complicating factors that can make that seemingly fundamental concept act like it’s broken.
In many cases though it’s correct, and it’s always at least a reasonable place to start from. If you want to drop body fat, eat less than you expend. If you want to grow, eat more than you expend. Simple, right?
Well, kinda yes. How much more or how much less can take some time to figure out, and of course we need to account for lifting and probably some bit of cardio in that equation as well.
The first step is to find your maintenance equation. I dive into this at length in Bikini Blueprint, but basically it’s the caloric intake and output levels where your weight is stable. So if you plan on – long-term – lifting 5x/wk and doing 3 cardio sessions per week at 30 minutes each, do that and then we need to zero in on a caloric intake level (and appropriate macro distribution) where you weight is stable over a 10-14 day period (ignoring random fluctuations day to day).
For women this can range literally anywhere from 1400-3000 calories per day. Metabolic differences can vary WILDLY from person to person which makes online calculators all but worthless.
Here’s a better test – most of you probably know right now if you’re gaining weight, losing it, or holding steady. Do you know your precise intake level? If not, log your foods and get a number. Track your morning weight. Be consistent with your output (cardio, lifting, steps).
Within a week or so, you’ll know where you sit. From there, make moves no larger than 10% as needed. If you’re at 1500 calories and dropping weight, at 10% bump will put you at 1650 – very reasonable. Implement that, sit there for a week or two and watch.
THIS is the way to figure out your maintenance equation. It’s not as nice and convenient as a calculator, but it has the advantage of being accurate for you instead of a nice theoretical number with zero real world application.
Ideally you want to land at a caloric intake level – matched with your output – where your weight is BARELY trending up. Like 0.25% to 0.5% of total body weight per week, at the high end. More than that is almost certainly just excess body fat – even some of THIS will be body fat, but it’s nearly impossible to gain JUST muscle. A little body fat is ok, always check yourself – without bias – on your training intensity and ask:
Am I working hard enough to build muscle?
If the answer is yes, ask again and make sure. If the answer is no, congratulations – you’re probably making an assessment based on high expectations and you recognize – fairly – that you can likely work a bit harder. That’s a good mindset to embrace.
Steady, incremental progress is the key here, not rapid gains.
Fueling Training and Recovery, Not Just Appetite
The easiest way to get fat is to just eat according to your appetite. Most people do that, and, well…look at most people.
Your appetite is simply one of many signals to interpret, it’s not a direction. And frankly in a growth phase it’s VERY likely you’re going to end up needing to eat either way more than you’re comfortable with, or you’ll be growing well but still hungry and increasing more wouldn’t be wise.
It’s a signal – so be mindful of it, but don’t act on that alone.
Instead I would look to modulate your appetite into a more comfortable space via food selection and food volume manipulation.
Not growing but overly full all the time? More shakes/liquid meals. Favor easier, lower fiber carbs like rice and cream of rice over oats and potatoes. Reduce veggie content a bit. Incorporate more fruits. Experiment with higher fats and lower carbs (carbs are more volume and more filling). Make sure your food isn’t dry as hell, which makes it harder to get down.
Growing but still starving? Do the opposite of the above – higher fiber sources, fewer shakes, more veg, etc.
Food quality matters but it’s not mission critical. If you’re starving or overly stuffed, we need to bend the rules a bit in order to more easily hit your body’s needed intake level.
Assessing Progress and Making Adjustments
Piggy-backing on the above, we also want to set and adjust intake levels based SOLELY on results and rate of gain during this phase, not based on hunger or feels.
In Bikini Blueprint I teach a system where we set up for a self check-in every week, and that is the sole decision-making touchpoint each week. We collect all of this data, analyze it, make decisions on changes, and implement those changes for a week without a 2nd thought – so there’s time to actually get at least an early/initial response and assess how well aligned that response is with your goals.
We check the numbers of course as a first metric for rate of gain, but then of course we have to compare photos as well. I see it often where photos and numbers aren’t perfectly aligned – weight might be up significantly but the visuals still check out great – so we don’t need to correct based on numbers alone.
It’s about watching trends and taking an analytical approach with emotion removed from the equation. I teach you how to be your own dispassionate coach who can make those decisions fairly without being overly biased because it’s you.
And again, small moves are the goal here. A 10% bump in calories in a week would be as aggressive as I would get, and if I make that move I’m going to need to see really compelling evidence the following week to make a similar move again so quickly.
What This Phase Looks Like Nutritionally Compared to Prep
Growth phases always have more food, obviously, and I think it’s important for most people to allow some greater flexibility during this phase as well for a bit more ‘normal life’ experience. If you’re IN THE ZONE 365 days a year, that’s a great recipe for a short bodybuilding career because you’re much more likely to just burn out.
But we don’t let structure disappear. I’d still treat untracked meals as a planned thing as opposed to spontaneous “fuck it” meals. Perform your due diligence, continue with the boring meal prep routine, etc – but use some different foods, play around with your higher fats and carbs a bit, and experiment some. You can luck your way into some new food options you might want to keep during your next cut that make it easier to stick with.
We still need to be disciplined in this phase, but the priority can shift from being 100% dialed in every single day to just focusing on fueling the best possible training sessions you can manage.
I’m a big believer in using a growth as a bit of a pressure release valve – but it’s easy to get pretty sloppy here in doing that and then you run into problems with your next prep. So structure still needs to exist and be the default, but one-offs can happen and not be entirely detrimental to your long-term progress.
Get notified when new posts like this get published.
