How to Successfully Manage Your Diet for Good Volume

When it comes to dieting, you can find many articles on the Internet that explain how to lose weight and lose weight in a very short time. However, if you feel too skinny and decided to go to the gym to gain some muscle and build some mass, you may find it more difficult to find valuable information. As many hard gainers can attest, good volume is not an easy thing to achieve. That’s why I’m here today to give you some tips that will get you on the right track towards your fitness goals.

Controlling your body weight starts with a very simple statement. Your body needs a certain number of calories to maintain its mass. If you go below that amount, you will lose weight and if you go too high, you will gain a little. It’s as simple as that. You have two ways to calculate your maintenance, the first is to follow the same diet for a week or two and keep track of all your calories every time you eat something. If your weight has not changed at the end of this period, you get an approximation of your maintenance. All you have to do is increase your calorie count by 10-15% to start gaining weight.

If that seems too complicated, you can find a way to calculate that maintenance based on your age, weight, height, and activity. The formulas are available on the internet and many apps can now do it directly for you.

Now that you know your maintenance, you can easily create a surplus and start building some mass! However, it is not enough if you want to keep your lump clean.

You can actually gain some weight by eating ridiculous amounts of cookies and pizza every day, but I don’t think you started bulking up to get fat and unhealthy. To get good volume, you need to keep your diet clean and get the right amount of each macronutrient.

As many people know, protein is essential for building muscle, so you might think that increasing your intake as much as possible is a good idea for bulking up. It is not! Proteins, unlike fats or carbohydrates, cannot be stored by your body. This way, your body will use the amount it needs and will evacuate the rest naturally. That is why feeding protein powder and chicken breasts ten times a day will not be efficient for you. Generally, getting around 1g of protein per pound of body weight is recommended for optimal results.

Fats should also be a very important part of your diet and should not be feared by people, whether for bulking or cutting. Although some are to be avoided such as trans fats, there are many healthy fats such as Omega 3, 6 and 9 that you can find in nuts, olive oil and fatty fish for example, which are essential for your body. It is generally recommended that you get about 20% of your total calorie intake from fat. However, since a gram of fat offers so many more calories than protein and carbohydrates (9 kcal instead of the 4 kcal of the other two), you can increase that amount slightly to increase your calorie intake and reduce your fat intake.

Last but not least, carbohydrates should not be forgotten as they are the first source of energy for your body. Carbohydrates are divided into two categories, simple and complex. Simple carbohydrates (sugar, fruits, sweets…) will give you instant energy but won’t last long. We generally recommend taking them during or right after training to maintain energy or increase insulin levels and start building muscle after exertion. Complex carbohydrates (rice, pasta, bread, potatoes…) take longer to assimilate and therefore provide a sustained amount of energy over a longer period. Once you’ve calculated your protein and fat needs, all other calories needed to reach your desired amount should come from carbohydrates.

You already have all the basics to start a good bundle! With a caloric surplus diet packed with the right nutrients, there’s no reason you can’t reach your goal. You just have to be patient, consistent and hardworking while you train.