How to gain muscle mass: the rules of the male diet

Tra­di­tion­al­ly, it is believed that the biggest dis­ad­van­tage of a fig­ure is excess weight. Exces­sive thin­ness — although not as com­mon a prob­lem as over­weight, but its solu­tion requires no less effort. Most­ly men suf­fer from a lack of kilo­grams, since a thin body does not look coura­geous. It is a mis­take to believe that in order to gain weight, you only need to include high-calo­rie foods in unlim­it­ed quan­ti­ties in your diet. In this way, you can only accu­mu­late fat and as a result get a nar­row chest, thin limbs, as well as a huge sag­ging bel­ly and a num­ber of health prob­lems. There­fore, men should approach mass gain respon­si­bly and com­pe­tent­ly.

Individual calculation of the number of calories for weight gain

A sound strat­e­gy for safe­ly gain­ing weight through prop­er nutri­tion should begin with a vis­it to the doc­tor. This is nec­es­sary to make sure that exces­sive thin­ness is not asso­ci­at­ed with chron­ic dis­eases and hor­mon­al changes. If the doc­tor has not iden­ti­fied any abnor­mal­i­ties, then you can take action using an inte­grat­ed approach, which includes the fol­low­ing points:

indi­vid­ual cal­cu­la­tion of the required num­ber of calo­ries and cor­rec­tion of the diet in accor­dance with the data received;

• draw­ing up a fit­ness pro­gram that will help build mus­cle mass.

To find out the num­ber of calo­ries you need to safe­ly and sus­tain­ably increase your body weight, you first need to cal­cu­late how much ener­gy your body expends to main­tain nor­mal rest­ing activ­i­ty, or basal meta­bol­ic rate. This can be done as fol­lows, using the stan­dard for­mu­la: to the num­ber of kilo­grams of body weight, mul­ti­plied by 10, you need to add the prod­uct of height in cen­time­ters and a fac­tor of 6.25. From this sum, sub­tract the num­ber of years mul­ti­plied by 5, and add 5 to the result­ing val­ue, i.e. (weight in kg * 10 + height in cm * 6.25 — age * 5 + 5) u003d basal meta­bol­ic rate of the body at rest.

Know­ing the num­ber of calo­ries that pro­vide basic metab­o­lism, you can begin to cal­cu­late the dai­ly calo­rie intake that con­tributes to weight gain, tak­ing into account dai­ly phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Depend­ing on the lifestyle a man leads and whether intense prop­er phys­i­cal activ­i­ty is includ­ed in dai­ly activ­i­ty, the basic calo­rie intake must be mul­ti­plied by the stan­dard coef­fi­cient:

• with a seden­tary and seden­tary lifestyle with­out any fit­ness train­ing and active phys­i­cal activ­i­ty, the coef­fi­cient by which you need to mul­ti­ply the basic calo­rie intake is 1.2;
• if the lifestyle is more active and includes, for exam­ple, dai­ly walk­ing up to 5 km or fit­ness up to 3 times a week, then you need to mul­ti­ply by 1.375;
• the coef­fi­cient of aver­age phys­i­cal activ­i­ty with the cor­rect phys­i­cal load — 1.55;
• if train­ing in the fit­ness room is car­ried out at inter­vals of 6–7 times a week, then the basic metab­o­lism must be mul­ti­plied by 1.725;
• with a lifestyle that includes both dai­ly loads in the gym and high phys­i­cal activ­i­ty at work, the coef­fi­cient should be max­i­mum — 1.9.

The num­ber obtained as a result of the cal­cu­la­tions is the indi­vid­ual dai­ly norm of the num­ber of calo­ries that must be sup­plied with food to meet the inter­nal needs of the body, tak­ing into account phys­i­cal activ­i­ty. Experts have found that it takes 3,500 calo­ries to gain one kilo­gram of weight, so it is impor­tant to cre­ate a calo­rie sur­plus in your diet equal to this indi­ca­tor. For exam­ple, by adding 500 calo­ries dai­ly to your dai­ly intake, you can gain a kilo­gram of weight in a week.

Proper physical activity for gaining muscle mass

Prop­er phys­i­cal activ­i­ty plays a huge role in weight gain. It is impor­tant that it does not con­sume calo­ries in excess of the required norm and con­tributes to the for­ma­tion of new mus­cle tis­sue cells. For these rea­sons, when doing fit­ness, you need to take into account the fol­low­ing nuances:

• car­dio should be reduced to a min­i­mum.

They are very ener­gy-con­sum­ing, and when solv­ing the prob­lem of thin­ness, the main thing is, on the con­trary, with the help of nutri­tion, cre­ate a calo­rie sur­plus in the body. In addi­tion, if the dura­tion of a fit­ness work­out with a car­dio load exceeds 60 min­utes, then the body, along with fat cells, begins to break down mus­cle cells. A safe, sta­ble and har­mo­nious weight gain implies, first of all, build­ing mus­cle mass;

• in order to build mus­cle mass, and, con­se­quent­ly, increase body weight, the basis of prop­er phys­i­cal activ­i­ty should be strength exer­cis­es with weights.

The empha­sis should be on work­ing with a lot of free weights and strength machines, but with a small num­ber of rep­e­ti­tions of each train­ing move­ment. Ade­quate work­ing weight must be select­ed indi­vid­u­al­ly empir­i­cal­ly: if after per­form­ing 6 rep­e­ti­tions the forces remain for anoth­er 1–2 rep­e­ti­tions, then the weight must be increased.

Tips for men to gain weight through proper nutrition

In order for the weight gain process to be as effec­tive and pro­duc­tive as pos­si­ble, men should con­sid­er sev­er­al prac­ti­cal rec­om­men­da­tions:

• food that cre­ates a sur­plus of the dai­ly allowance should be healthy and bal­anced. The dai­ly calo­rie intake should be increased by slow car­bo­hy­drates and pro­teins, and not by high-calo­rie fat­ty foods. With this approach, weight gain is due to mus­cle build­ing, and not as a result of the accu­mu­la­tion of body fat. Car­bo­hy­drates pro­vide the body with calo­ries and ener­gy, and pro­teins form new mus­cle tis­sue cells, as a result of which a set of mus­cle mass occurs;
• for more effec­tive mus­cle build­ing, you can use pro­tein shakes from the range of sports nutri­tion. The bal­anced for­mu­la of these cock­tails, con­sist­ing of pro­teins, car­bo­hy­drates and amino acids, con­tributes to a rapid increase in mus­cle mass and vol­ume, and there­fore to weight gain;
• it is nec­es­sary to con­trol the process of weight gain by weigh­ing on an emp­ty stom­ach at the same time after a cer­tain peri­od of time, for exam­ple, once every 3 days or once a week.