Did you know that you can actually put on a significant amount of muscle? That there’s a scientific way to go about it, you don’t have to try out random things and hope you are gaining muscle? I want you to know that you, as a mom, or as a woman maybe in in her 30s or 40s, you could actually make a huge change in your fitness level and muscle level.
Sometimes I think we feel like we’ve been stuck in a spot for so long that it feels like it’s our destiny. Let me tell you though, that you CAN do this. We’ve been talking about muscle gain, and it is TOTALLY possible for you to grow in muscle size and strength. And today’s post is all about 3 steps to get you there.
Last week we talked all about the science of muscle gain, how it happens, and if you missed that please go back and read to Part 1 of this series so you have an understanding of what we are going to be talking about today. Today is all about the tacticals for nutrition for muscle gain.
So, in order to gain a significant amount of muscle quickly, we know that we need 3 things. We need:
First, to lift weights, or provide some way to give our muscles a message that says “I need you to grow so I can lift this load easier next time”. We do this by using progressive overload. If you don’t know what progressive overload is, go back to Episode 4 of the podcast, the #1 thing you can do to get results in the gym.
The next thing we need is to provide our bodies with what it needs to actually build the muscle, which is amino acids, which we get from eating protein.
The last thing we need to do is NOT be in a calorie deficit.
We need to be eating enough because not eating enough calories signals to our body to SLOW down muscle growth. This makes sense from a survival standpoint, right? If your body feels like its energy stores are threatened, it’s not going to prioritize muscle gain.
So that’s a summary of what we discussed last week.
Now I’m going to talk you through the how. How do we do this.
First, we need to establish that we want to prioritize muscle gain through this season.
I’ve talked before about how I follow seasons of either muscle gain, fat loss, or maintenance. Being single-minded about your goal, being either fat loss or muscle gain is what you need to decide here.
It is technically possible, especially in the beginning of your weight training journey, to do what’s called a "recomposition", which is where you gain muscle and lose fat at the same time, but it is slower, has more room for error, and really only is for true beginners and lasts about 6 months to my understanding.
But it is a possibility that it may work for you. I did not have success with this method, I talked about that in my nutrition for fat loss series, but feel free to try that if you want.
I just want to be really honest with you about it. I feel like I see a lot of stuff on social media from influencers or whatever doing a “recomp” and they were able to lose a significant amount of fat and gain and significant amount of muscle at the same time, but honestly I feel like most of them are younger, early to mid 20’s. I’m in my mid 30’s and so my body is not in muscle growth prime, so to speak. I’ve had 3 babies biologically, I have a large family to my time is limited, I’m in my mid 30’s and things just aren’t the same for me as for, say, a single mid-20’s person. Just being honest here. Or it could be me, I didn’t respond well to recomping.
So that’s up to you to decide.
I’m going to teach you what worked for me on this podcast, which is separating the phases of muscle growth and fat loss, so you body is only focusing on one thing at a time. I believe this gives a net gain at the end of it, in the sense that you will be leaner with more muscle with using separate muscle gain and fat loss seasons, than trying to recomp for the same amount of time. I hope this is making sense.
So today’s discussion is how to do a season of muscle gain. I’m going to assume this is your fitness goal right now, and not a season of fat loss. You can go listen to my Nutrition for Fat Loss series, where I discuss if you should be start with a season of fat loss or muscle gain first.
I generally recommend that you do NOT go into a season of muscle gain without tracking your calories. I know it seems like a lot to do, but it is just way too easy to go over and gain excess fat if you aren’t careful. I use MyFitnessPal to track.
However, you can use the plate method if you want to try that first if you are absolutely opposed to recording calories, or if it triggers you mentally, but you will need to be watching your weight carefully each week and month to be sure you are gaining the right amount.
So there’s some sort of tracking involved regardless. If you don’t know what the plate method is, you can get that here.
This guide is designed for fat loss, but you can adjust the amounts of foods you are eating to tailor it for muscle gain instead.
If you are someone who struggles with weight gain, then I would say you are ok not to track your calories IF you keep seeing your weight go up, so again, we are doing some form of tracking, it may not be calories but we are watching our body weight carefully.
People in the weightlifting community who struggle to gain weight are sometimes called “hard gainers”, basically it’s a big challenge for them to gain weight. If you aren’t seeing a steady gain month to month then you may need to start recording calories so you can know your numbers and what you need to hit each day to keep gaining. If you are not eating enough and you are lifting weights you risk losing even more weight, and that isn’t your goal if you are a hard gainer.
The rest of us don’t have any trouble gaining weight and probably just do it on accident, so best practice is to record your calories.
First, we need to know what our maintenance calories are. I do talk about this in my nutrition for fat loss series part 2, but I’ll do a quick refresher.
You can estimate your maintenance calories in a couple of ways. One is a calories per pound method.
Multiply your body weight by somewhere between 14 and 16, and that will give you a rough estimate.
Alternatively you can use a predictive equation. This is a formula that has been validated by research to be a good estimate.
I used to use these all the time when I worked in the hospital to estimate calorie needs of my patients, especially if they were exclusively tube fed or something like that. And while these equations are good starting points, they may need adjustments and we did that all the time in the hospital setting. So what I encourage you to do is track your calories at maintenance for one month to make sure you know your maintenance level.
So that’s step one: track calories at maintenance for one month, and weigh yourself. I’ll talk more about weighing yourself later.
If you stay the same, congrats, you know your maintenance calories! You can move on the step 2.
If you gained, then cut 100 calories off and try again for another month. Once you are staying steady for a month, you can move on to step 2. This isn’t a thing we want to rush, take your time with it.
Step 2 is to add 10% to your maintenance calories. We only need a SMALL increase in calories to promote muscle gain. We want to do just enough to build muscle and only gain minimal fat. So that is about 10% over maintenance.
Step 3 is to monitor your progress. You will do this by watching your weight on the scale. A good amount of weight gain is about 1-2 lbs per month. If you are gaining weight and ALSO growing in strength in the gym, meaning you are lifting more weight every week, or adding reps, then you KNOW you are gaining muscle.
What I usually recommend is that you weigh daily. I know people say not to do this, but I feel like weighing daily sort of desensitizes you to the scale and you start to see how things impact your weight, like a salty meal the night before, or being on your cycle, how all that impacts your weight on the scale. For me it promotes curiosity about my body instead of anxiety like it used to.
So I recommend weighing daily and then doing a weekly average. So if your weekly average is going up by 1-2 lbs per month, then you are gaining at a good rate. You are going to keep this up for as long as you want, really, but I suggest at least 4-6 months. Then you can do a planned season of fat loss to shed any extra fat you gained.
And that’s it!
Well, what did you think? Want to start a season of muscle gain? Or feel like you need to start with a season of fat loss?
If you need help with any of this, please feel free to reach out to me. I am starting to take coaching clients now and I would love to help you reach your goals.
I know that this whole process can seem overwhelming, but I can honestly say that doing a season of muscle gain has been one of the best things I’ve done for my body. I got SO much stronger and my muscles grew SO much. And it is so much fun! I love working out in a season of muscle gain. It is SO crazy how much faster you progress when you are in this season. I can’t wait to start my fall season of gain.
So to recap, there are our 3 steps. 1. Figure out your maintenance calories. 2. Add 10% to that number. 3. monitor your progress.
I hope this episode was helpful to you! As always, please reach out if you have any questions, and if you need a workout plan to follow for your season of muscle gain, then you can download my free strength training template here.
Happy Lifting!
-Rachel
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