How do I start a muscle building calorie surplus?
And how do I track data to stay building?
step 1: What's your target calorie goal?
1) Determine your goal rate of body mass gain per month
2) If that's 1 lb/mo then:
take 3500* cal / 28 days = 125 cal surplus**
*3500 calories roughly = 1lb of body mass gained
** We'll use 28 days instead of 30/31 because it divides into 4 weeks evenly
step 2: eat your surplus consistently
1) For the first 2 weeks eat at that surplus goal +/- 50 calories
2) Weigh-in 5-7 times per week
For Example:
If your starting maintenance calories are 2300, you would aim to eat 2375 - 2475 per day to hit a weekly average of your 2425 calorie surplus target.
step 3: Track Weekly averages
1) Build a basic spreadsheet that tracks weekly average calories and weigh-ins
2) You may want to add a column for weekly rate of change
3) You may want to add a column for weekly goal weight
In this example 1lb / mo = 0.25lb per week
step 4: assess
In this Scenario:
After the initial gain from added calories (glycogen and water), weight increase stalled, so we will increase targets for the next week by 125 cals, and re-asses in 2 weeks.
real life scenario data
real life scenario Results
16 Week Bulk
Increased calories 4 times after experiencing metabolic adaptation
Gained 3.9lbs of body mass
Likely 1.9 - 2.8 lbs of muscle
Likely 1.0 - 1.9lbs of fat
Top end maintenance calories increased from 2,300 to 2,675
