Do you know how to design the perfect diet for building massive muscles? With building muscle, you do only half of the work in the gym. What’s more important is what you do in the kitchen and what you eat: eat wrong, and you’ll be squandering all your effort and growth opportunities. Conversely, eat correctly, and you can see impressive gains even when your training program isn’t entirely up to par.
So how do you design the perfect diet for building massive muscles? It’s pretty simple, and there’s a basic diet system that bodybuilders across the web have been using to that very end: counting your macros.
What is a Macro?
A macro is a macronutrient, which is effectively a food group. For building muscle, three types of macronutrients matter:
- Protein
- Carbs
- Fat
Counting your macros means measuring how many calories you are getting from each of these sources in your diet and then ensuring that you’re getting the right amount to trigger the maximum growth.
How to Design the Perfect Diet for Building Massive Muscle
So the first step is calculating how many calories you need to consume.
To do this, you need to work out your active metabolic rate. Essentially, this means that you will be calculating how many calories you burn on an average given day.
If you’re trying to build muscle, you must ensure that you consume more than this minimum target daily. Conversely, if you’re trying to burn fat, you must ensure you consume less than this target.
Consuming more calories than your active metabolic rate is crucial because it signals the body that you are in times of plenty. In other words, your body can focus on being more anabolic and helping you build muscle rather than burning tissue for energy.
Your other aim is to ensure you consume one gram of protein for every pound of body fat.
If you then consider that there are four calories in every gram of protein, you can work backward to split your remaining calorie ‘allowance’ between carbs and fats. You should eat more fats than the fitness community led you to believe, as a diet high in fat provides more slow-release energy, better nutrient absorption, and more testosterone production!
The last word on how to design the perfect diet for building massive muscles
To build more muscle, eat more protein and fat than carbohydrates. But it would be best to consume enough carbohydrates and fiber to keep your energy levels up and your circulatory and digestive systems clean. Finally, the brain needs around 400 calories of carbohydrates to be healthy. So the brain is the reason keto diets cannot erase carbohydrates.
Try not to overdo the protein, as it is difficult to digest and places a lot of pressure on the kidneys. On the other hand, too much protein can damage the kidneys. It’s important to remember that your kidneys act as a filter and are necessary for you to live.
Thus, a good ratio of macros is 40-40-20. For example, if a man weighs 200 pounds and eats 2000 calories, he should eat 800 calories of protein, 800 calories of fat, and 400 carbohydrates. Since protein is four calories per gram, you can divide 800 calories by four calories per gram to get 200 grams of protein. Also, this allows the 200-pound man to eat 200 grams of protein. So, how do you determine your macros? If you or someone you know is considering bodybuilding, share this article on Facebook or Twitter so that others can learn more about building muscle.