I want to gain lean muscle mass and loose body fat.
I go to the gym and lift heavy weight to give my body the reason to build my muscles bigger and stronger.
I want to give my body the fuel to train hard and the building bricks to build bigger and stronger muscles.
I do this by eating good food and enough of it.
How do I know if I eat enough?
I start by calculate my BMR.
BMR is: Basic Metabolic Rate. That is my body calorie need in total rest.
You can calculate your BMR with the Harris & Benedict Equation or the Mifflin – St Jeor Equation.
Mifflin-St Jeor Equation:
For men:
BMR = 10W + 6.25H – 5A + 5
For women:
BMR = 10W + 6.25H – 5A – 161
Revised Harris-Benedict Equation:
For men:
BMR = 13.397W + 4.799H – 5.677A + 88.362
For women:
BMR = 9.247W + 3.098H – 4.330A + 447.593
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Katch-McArdle Formula:
BMR = 370 + 21.6(1 – F)W
where:
W is body weight in kg
H is body height in cm
A is age
F is body fat in percentage
Normal BMR for a man is something between 1600 – 2600 calories.
Normal BMR for a woman is something between 1400 – 2200 calories.
You can also do a Bod Pod body composition measurement. By doing that you also get a BMR calculation.
Because im not in total rest al day I need to calculate my daily calorie need. I do this by multiplying my BMR with a factor from 1 to 2+.
1-1.2 : Close to total inactivity. Practically never used unless im sick and completely eliminated.
1.3-1.4: I take the car to my job, go to lunch somewhere, go home in the evening. No demanding management or chores. Relatively uneventful day.
1.4-1.6: A day with a long walk, alternatively a bit of cleaning, washing, shopping, etc.
1.6-1.8: Training, a hard gym session, alternatively a couple of hours of cleaning/physical exercise of various kinds, some shopping/laundry, etc. Moving quite a lot for a large part of the day, but nothing super demanding.
1.8-2.0: A hard gym session, as well as cardio training. Alternatively, a hard cardio workout. Or a lot of everyday exercise in the form of very fast walking (hours), running errands, cleaning, physical work, etc.
2.0+ : As a rule, hard training (cardio training increases energy consumption more than strength training), in combination with everyday exercise; walks, household chores, washing, cleaning, etc.
Now I have my calorie need including my calorie need for my daily activity per day.
Normal for a man is something between 2200 – 5000 calories.
Normal for a woman is something between 1800 – 4000 calories.
For gym training average people its recommended to eat 1,4 – 2,2 gram protein per kilo lean body mass. Hard training people at higher level may want more, up to 3 – 5 gram per kilo lean body mass. So I multiply my lean body weight to the factor 1,4 – 5 to get how much protein per day I need.
1 gram protein equal 4 calories. So I multiply my daily protein need to 4 to get the calorie amount of protein. Then I reduce my daily calorie amount with the protein calorie amount. Left is my carbs and fat calorie amount intake per day. Carbs are 4 calories per gram and fat is 9 calories per gram. I try to get 50% of my calorie intake from protein, 25% from carbs and 25% from fat.
Now I can use a calorie counting app on my cellphone to register my food intake and check so I get the adequate amount of calories, protein, carbs and fat.
To gain muscle I ad 200 – 500 calories to my calorie need including daily activity and lift weights at the gym.
To loose body fat and retain muscle mass I reduce my calor
