Everyone wants to be fit however definition of fitness is different for everyone. It all depends upon individual fitness goals. Since everyone has a different body type, one particular solution cannot be applied for everyone. Most of the folks in the age band of 20 to 40 are looking to build muscles to look good & maintain their strength & endurance. However, it is important to understand that bulking has its own share of pitfalls & a lot of muscle building aspirants end up putting up fat. Today we are going to discuss how to build lean muscle without increasing your body fat.
Before we get into specifics, let us define what is bulking, cutting & maintenance.
- Bulking refers to increasing calorie intake in order to build muscle & gain strength.
- Cutting refers to decreasing calorie intake to lose fat while maintaining your strength & muscle mass
- Maintenance refers to maintaining your calorie intake to keep your strength & muscle mass without gaining or losing weight
Do you need to have a calorie surplus to build muscles? Let us understand first how we build muscles? Generally we resort to weight training or body weight exercises & perform them to the point of failure using muscle fibre which your body generates. This activity will break down certain muscle fibres which will get bigger & stronger once you are fully recovered by resting & eating enough protein to rebuild muscle tissues. It is not necessary to bulk to build muscles. Most of us think that they need to bulk to build muscles. However your body does not think “ I am calorie surplus”, I need to build muscles. When you eat something, your body receives macronutrients- protein, carb & fats & decides how to use them. These are generally used to:
- Build muscle
- Product energy.
- Store as adipose tissue(fat).
How does your body burn calories?
Our body burns calories in order to operate even at rest. Your basal metabolic rate(BMR) is the number of calories your body needs to function during rest. This varies depending upon age, gender, height & weight. Your Total Daily Energy expenditure tells you how many calories your burn per day including the calories burnt through workout. Your body uses calories in the following way:
- When you consume food, your body uses calorie to generate energy for proper function or organs as well as workout
- If your body does not require energy, it will check if your muscle requires repair. For this , the body uses carbs & protein.
- The residual calories or if it does need calories for repair, the same would be stored as fat.
For building muscles, please adopt the following:
- Train your muscle to failure.
- Have enough energy to keep your body organs functioning.
- Consume enough protein to rebuild muscle fibres & prevent muscles to be used as energy.
- Rest
Energy can be generated in following ways:
- Having enough food to generate energy.
- Burn the excess fat which can be used as energy.
So for building muscles, you do not need to either do bulking, cutting or maintaining. However this becomes tricky if you have high body fat to start with. You need to check your body fat percentage. If you are overweight/obese, you do not need to bulk to build muscle, since you ca burn fat which can be used as energy. The following is worth considering:
- If you workout regularly & you are constantly gaining muscles & strength, you have a fair idea of your daily calorie intake. You just need to adjust your macronutrients to minimise fat gain & maximise muscle gain. Ideally you should reduce fat & carb intake & increase your protein intake. This can be achieved even if you are in calorie maintenance. You just need to know your workout routine.
- However if you are working regularly & have not built/gained muscles/strength, you probably need to adjust your macronutrient ratio to increase your calorie intake on a bi-weekly basis. The next section will discuss about different bulking methods.
- If you do not workout regularly but have been building strength, focus on eating high quality foods without worrying too much about caloric intake.
- If you do not workout regularly but have a lot of fat to lose, you are more likely to build muscle while losing fat. You should adjust your macronutrient so as to have a high proportion of protein & fat.
How do you do bulking?
- Clean bulk: The idea is to have moderate increase in calories while having the right quality of food choices. However this method takes more time to build muscles. However this form of bulking prevents any health problems in the long run.
- Dirty Bulk: the goal is to promote quick weight gain by gaining a lot of extra calories from high-calorie and junk foods. This is usually followed by a cut in order to burn the fat loss gained.
