Help with getting lean muscle

N

NACHONOBLE

0
4 months ago I set myself the goal of getting a leaner body and shedding some pounds. I immediately changed my diet and started pushing myself with regular work outs. Now, while I lost a hell of a lot of weight and have become slightly more defined, I have not really built the amount of muscle I desired. I appreciate the fact that it will take a very long time to gain a fair amount muscle but still, I am surprised I've not really made any progress so far when it comes to muscle building especially when considering how suddenly I lost fat. I even avoided any cardio workouts over 15 minutes because I was afraid it would burn muscle and instead sticking with a short yet intense cardio workout called the M-100s.

When thinking this over, I wondered if it was the diet I followed, up until recently this is the diet I followed: (this is calculated using GDA percentages, I find it tedious to calculate exact amounts)

56% Calories (roughly over 1000 calories)

54% Sugars (This may seem high, but all this sugar came from fruit)

41.1% Fat

12.4% Saturated fats

26.5% Salt

45.1 grams of Carbohydrates

105.5 grams of Protein

After comparing this to other bodybuilder's diets, I came to the conclusion I was eating too few calories, carbohydrates and protein to be able to gain the muscle I wanted. Yet I didn't want to go straight onto a bulking diet and eat over 2000 calories in fear of putting the weight back on. I then decided to formulate a diet closer to ones I had studied from these bodybuilders, which is as follows:

82.9% Calories (roughly around 1800 calories I believe)

67.9% Sugars (Again, majority of it from fruit)

57% Fat (Too high?)

55.6% Saturated Fat (Too high?)

61.3% Salt

111.2 grams of Carbohydrates

172.8 grams of Protein

Will this diet be more efficient in building muscle while keeping the flab at bay? Is there anything else I'm doing wrong?

Thanks in advance,
Stephen :)
 
Stephen: how much do you weigh and do you have a sense of your bodyfat levels? If not, measure your waist around the thickest part (bellybutton) first thing after you wake up and use the bathroom.

Your calories look much too low, but without knowing more about your current stats, it's hard to say.

BTW: you haven't gained muscle because you were dieting so hard. You need to be in a caloric surplus to put on muscle mass. It's a delicate balancing act.
 
Thanks for the response. :)

I weigh just about 11 stone/154 pounds and my waist-line is currently 77cm/30.3 inches. In addition to that I am 176cm tall (5.77 feet?).

Please understand though, ideally I want to be able to gain muscle as well as continuing to burn bodyfat because despite slimming down; I still have a small amount stubborn body fat left hiding my abdominals and I know I will have to eat slightly fewer calories to achieve this. I'd like to avoid going from a slimming phase to bulking phase so suddenly. However, that being said, I will do anything to achieve my goals. I'm willing to listen to any advice you have. :)
 
It's going to be hard to do both unless you are an absolute beginner (think of the Confucius saying "Man who chases two rabbits catches neither"). You have a couple of choices:

1) Work on gaining muscle, then slowly cut after that to remove the fat and retain the muscle.

2) If you are not comfortable with your body fat level currently, continue to cut until you get to a level that you are comfortable with. Then maintain that for awhile to let your body adjust/get used to it, then set off on trying to gain (slowly).

The problem with #2 is one many people make: they really don't have much muscle to begin with and are flustered that they aren't ripped considering how hard they are dieting and exercising. Based on your size and waist circumference, you sound like you are pretty lean already.

I know you want results quickly, but my suggestion would be to first find out your maintenance caloric level (Basal Metabolic Rate - BMR) where you are neither gaining nor losing weight. Buy a food scale if you don't already have one and track how many calories and grams of protein, carbs and fat you take in each day (Microsoft Excel is great for this). Once you find that, tweak it based on your goals.

I think you are way under-eating and need to up your calories substantially. Using some online BMR calculators, even if you input that you are totally sedentary, your BMR is still over 2k calories a day; if you want to gain muscle, it's going to be way higher than that.

My suggestion, hit the weights hard and up the calories. Keep your diet clean: eat LOTS of protein, good fats and watch your carbs if you are carb sensitive. Plus you need to throttle back on the fruit intake if I am reading your numbers correctly. Fruit is "healthy" in many regards, but can be a detriment to body composition changes. I would suggest eating more vegetables (as many green ones as you can) and keep the rest of the carbs starchy (except around hard weight training sessions).

Edit: if you are going to up the calories, do it slowly. Also, start measuring your waist often (always first thing in the morning after emptying your bladder). I would even suggest doing it daily for awhile and tracking it so you can see any trends. The scale really is not a good guide by itself. If your weight is going up and your waist stays the same, you're doing it right.
 
Ok, that sounds fair.

According to the BMR calculator I've used, my BMR is 2622.52, which I’m pleasantly surprised with. :p I think I’ll start a clean bulk then work on cutting what fat is left later. How many calories in total do you reckon would be suitable for building more muscle mass in my case?

Yeah, I must admit, I am a tad bit impatient. But as long as I’m reaching my goals and making progress, I can overlook the time it takes.

When it comes to cutting on fruit, how many fruits should I be having a day? On my original diet I ate 3 apples a day, now I eat 3 apples and a banana. Would just sticking to 2 apples a day be better? Is there any vegetables you would recommend? At the moment I really only eat mixed salads and broccoli, in fact, (as much as I hate to admit) until recently…the only vegetable I would touch was potato. Also, how does fruit affect body composition just out of interest?

Also, do you think my saturated fat levels are too high? Do they have any effect of weight gain/loss? I’m not too concerned about my other fats as they are mostly from healthy sources.
As for being carb sensitive, how do I find out if I am or not? All I know is when I was on a low carb diet, I shed the pounds quite easily. However, towards the end of my low carb diet, I had days where I felt really physically drained and oddly enough, it occurred on my rest days more than my training days.

Another thing, how high should my protein levels be to obtain muscle? I heard it should be 2 grams of protein per pound of weight/body mass? I don’t want to have took much mind you, I heard it can end up making you constipated, haha.

As for a food scale, I've already got one. I actually purchased it just 2 days ago as I wanted to be sure I was getting the right quantity of nutrition in my food. I try to plan my nutrition carefully, I even measure my drinks. And to be honest, I judge my results more by what I see in the mirror more than anything else.
Sorry if I’m responding to your replies with more questions but I really appreciate the information your giving me. :)
 
Stephen: I think that is a good choice. The BMR is just a guide (YMMV – your mileage may vary), so take things slowly. Especially since your calories were so low before, your metabolism may have slowed a bit. Without knowing what you’re doing for exercise (weights/cardio, how often/long, etc.) it’s hard to say how much you should eat. I would bump your calories by about 300 per week. So if you’re at 2,000, go to 2,300. Monitor your waist and weight (and mirror) for a couple weeks, then adjust.

Regarding fruit, there’s not real magic number here and I doubt you’ve done any “harm” with your past consumption. I would just rather see those sources replaced with either low-glycemic carbs sources (oats, brown rice, etc.) or faster ones right around your weight sessions. It’s fine to fit a piece or two of fruit into your diet provided it fits with your target macros. I would suggest having an apple in the morning with some protein. If you want, you can grab a banana (with protein) around workout time. Again, you are going to have to play with this to see what works for you; but I think you should stop at two pieces/day.

Body comp and fruit intake: in short, the sugar contained in fruit, fructose, replenishes glycogen in the liver first and any remaining will need to be burned immediately or stored. Unfortunately, fructose does not store well as muscle glycogen, which is the fuel your muscles use during your workouts. So there is a propensity for excess fructose to be stored as fat. This explanation is far from scientific and I am sure someone much more knowledgeable than I in biology could have a field-day with what I just wrote. But the bottom line is: have a little fruit, but don’t go overboard. There are better carb sources out there. And if you’re concerned with getting the vitamins and minerals from fruit, 1 – 2 pieces/day will do it, but anything lacking could be made up with veggies or a multivitamin.

Saturated fat: unless there is a horrid history of heart disease in your family, I wouldn’t even begin to worry about it. A good hearty steak will fit in perfectly with a bulking diet.

Protein, I don’t think you need to go to 2g/lb unless you want to. I’ve done that before and tolerate it well, but I am at 1.5g/lb currently. Always get over 1g/lb and, if I had to assign a hard number to it, I would say aim for between 1.3 & 1.7g/lb to begin with. But feel free to go higher if you want.

Food scale: good you’ve got one. I am not sure what you mean by measure your drinks, but if you are wanting to calculate how many calories are, say, in a glass of milk, you would measure drinks with a measuring cup (1 cup = 8 fluid ounces). The scale can be used for any solid foods.

Weight training: one thing I haven’t seen mentioned is what you are doing to gain muscle. I hope it includes squats and deadlifts as those should be the cornerstone when first starting out. You may want to check out Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe. Good stuff there.

Lastly, it’s good to hear you’re patient. It’s a slow road, so if you are putting on a pound a week, you’re doing well. But don’t be surprised if it takes a ton more calories to gain weight that you thought. I bulked last year and started at 3,000 cals/day. I ended up over 4,500 when I was through….and that was just to put on 20 lbs.

Hopefully this is useful to you. I am by no means an expert. I have been lifting for over 20 years and, at 41, I am just starting to figure it out. What took me so long, and my big regret, is that I wouldn’t stick to one goal. If I bulked, I chickened out because I thought I was getting too fat. And I never really dedicated myself to getting lean. Last year I finally said screw it and went on an all-out cut….and got down to the leanest I have ever been (by far) and I didn’t lose any muscle in the process. I wish I had this focus when I was in my 20s.

You keep the focus, you’ll be amazed at how much you can change yourself in just a few years time.
 
Thank you very much for the great advice, you may not be an expert, but you obviously have much more experience than I do, which is the main thing. :)

As for weight training, I started off by mainly doing body-weight routines with a little lifting here and there, but these last 2 few months I've been splashing out on some more equipment and lifting weights a lot more. I've mainly been doing full body exercises as I heard they were better for weight loss, but now I'm thinking it would be better to hit different muscle groups on different days? For example, hit chest, back and abs one training day and then hit quads, hamstrings, inner thighs and shoulders next training day. What do you think?

And what I meant by measuring drinks was by using measuring cup as you said, haha. Sorry, didn't explain myself properly there. I tend to eat/drink my food and drinks by each gram/ml as indicated on the packaging, that way I can tell I getting the right amount of nutrients without going under or over what I need.

Plus, does 200g of protein sound good?

Thanks again.
 
200g sounds good.

If you're just getting into the free weights, I would suggest checking out Starting Strength. It may look a bit boring, but there is a lot of value in properly learning to squat and deadlift. You could tweak it a bit if you want to integrate arms, abs, etc. (even though Rippetoe tells you not to do this). Once you get the motor patterns down and your strength increases, you could look at a more traditional bodybuilder routine.

You may also want to check out John Romaniello's stuff (aka Roman). He has a very easy writing style and knows his stuff (I used one of his programs to get lean this past year). He has a 4 part series here you may want to check out:



Lastly, and this is very important, do a bit of research, then decide on a program and STICK TO IT for at least 6 - 8 weeks before trying something different. I don't know how many times I, and countless others, have jumped from one program to another in search of the "perfect" one. It doesn't exist. You will only find what works for you by trying different methods and giving them due time to work. They ALL work....you will just find some will work better than others FOR YOU.
 
Ok, I'll look it up. I have some Workout books which have already been a great help.

As for training programs, I've already used a few from the Men's Health and Fitness magazines I've purchased and I've only ever jumped programs once so far, all the others I have stuck with til they were completed. :)
 
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