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I've been theorizing about this in my head lately and I'm curious as to what people feel the perfect caloric ratio and intake is while bulking, or more importantly trying to build muscle. In the pure form of "bulking", especially with anabolic help the general guidelines are get enough protein and fill the rest with whatever you want so long as you get your calories. The anabolic help will make less of those calories turn to fat though you'd still end up a bit pudgy if you truly ate as much as you should.
However for natural bodybuilders, or those who may have anabolic supplementation but don't want to gain too much fat, what is considered the proper ratio? I've been dieting for a few months now and it won't be long till I actually get to start to bulk. As I said I don't want a massively high calorie diet and put on 20 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. My goal is to eat enough to support muscle and strength gain with minimal fat gain. Hell who doesn't want these goals?
While dieting it's pretty well known that almost any ratio will work so long as you get sufficient protein and sufficient fat(specifically good fats). I've had success with everything from the traditional high carb/low fat diet, to an iso-caloric diet and all the way to the other extreme with a keto diet. So long as you're in a negative calorie balance you will lose weight. So it doesn't matter if you get 70% or 20% of your calories from fat, it will all be burnt no matter what.
However in a positive caloric balance things change. Fat, if not burnt, will instantly be stored as fat. If you're getting enough calories from carbs for energy and getting enough protein to build muscle then surely any fat you eat will be stored. You simply can't burn it as you ingest it in a hypercaloric state. The body will no doubt favor carbs for energy in this situation and any excess fats have nowhere else to go. Even if you were eating keto style you would still gain fat during a hypercaloric phase. Your body burns only fat for energy during this time, but if you are ingesting more fats than you can burn then they will be stored, simple as that. And if you want to build muscle you HAVE to be in a hypercaloric state.
With all this in mind I'm contemplating on which ratios would be truly optimal. I can see how a low fat option could work well. Not only low fat, but an emphasis of getting what little fat you eat from EFAs. You can't go super low fat as your body needs it to function, but getting only what you need seems the best option. This alone isn't the answer though as excess carbs and/or protein can be stored as fat as well. So from here you'd guess that as far as carbs and fat go you should eat just enough carbs to supply your energy needs and just enough fats(EFAs specifically) to keep your body functioning.
That leaves us with protein. All excess calories should theoretically be from protein as we want all excess calories to be used in muscle building. This is not as easy to figure out as it would seem though because if you were eating enough calories in only carbs and fats to supply your energy needs then this would put you at maintenance level. Eating only what you need to burn during the day will cause you to maintain weight. We also don't want to gain more than a pound or so a week, assuming no AS are used, so broken down over 7 days thats only 500 calories over maintenance a day. 500/4 is only 125grams of protein and for us big guys that hardly fits the bill of 1.0-1.5g per pound of bodyweight. So if we want to fulfill this requirement we need to do one of two things; keep carb and fat intake the same and simply create a bigger calorie surplus in pure protein calories. For a 200lb bodybuilder this is 200-300 grams of protein which is 800-1200 calories a day extra. With the help of AS this might not be a big deal as your body is extremely efficient with protein synthesis at this time and would be able to convert all of that. For natural guys some of this would no doubt be stored as fat so we just shot ourselves in the foot.
So now we figure we need to get that protein in but we can't go that high over maintenance. Our next choice is to drop either the carbs or the fat to make room for protein calories. We can't drop the fat because we're already eating the minimal amount so we have no choice but to drop some carbs. This will no doubt help us burn the fat that we are eating, but it will also start to burn some of our valued protein as fuel. In a perfect world our body would get enough energy from our stored sources(bodyfat) and spare the protein for muscle building. Unfortunately this isn't going to happen so we end up burning some of our precious protein. The carbs will no doubt be burnt first and spare some of the protein, but at some point our body will run out of carbs and have to burn protein. I guess this is just something we have to except and possibly the reason such a high protein intake is suggested. That and the fact that a good deal of protein burns itself up simply being digested. *This one of the reasons a high protein diet tends to lean you out since you are getting less useable calories than if you had gotten those calories from fat or carbs.*
Surely there is no easy or perfect answer. The only thing I can come up with is that during a bulk phase, unless you are trying the anabolic diet, you should keep fats to a minimum. Fats are not the enemy in diets and maintenance diets, but for muscle gain they seem a bad choice. Carbs are considered bad for dieting, but for building muscle they are actually quite good. They promote insulin release which will enhance protein synthesis for muscle building and without carbs and insulin I don't think it'd be possible to gain muscle very efficiently if at all. Carbs also tend to be protein sparing during a muscle building phase. Whenever there are sufficient carbs in our system our body won't have to burn protein for fuel and it will be allowed to do what it needs to.
With all of that in mind here are some guidelines I've came up with for a bulking phase that promotes LBM gains with minimal fat.
- Keep fat intake to a minimum, and make sure what you do get is mostly EFAs.
- Get plenty of protein, optimally 1-1.5g per lb bodyweight. Some might say 2g but I don't think that is truly required unless you're on AS.
- After figuring out protein and fat intake, fill the rest with carbs but don't go over 500-750 calories above maintenance depnding on desired weight gain.
- Remember to consider your workouts in your BMR and get your 500-750 calories above that. If you weigh 200lbs and you figure your BMR is 3000 then don't eat 3500 calories on days you workout. Chances are you burn up most of those 500 extra calories. On days off however DO figure it out this way. This means cycling your calories between workout and non workout days. If you want to eat identical calories everyday then get less of a caloric surplus on workout days and make up for it on days off, just remember to make it add up to 3500-5000 calories depending on how much you want to gain per week. I'd suggest no more than 1lb a week drug free or you're gonna see some fat quickly.
- With all that in mind I think a general ratio to shoot for would be 50/30/20 carbs/pro/fat. Possibly even 50/35/15 or 60/25/15 depending on your goals. For a 200lb bodybuilder that worked out 3 days a week, and perhaps did 30 min of cardio following workouts, it would work out like this.
BMR on off days = 3000
BMR on workout/cardio days = 3500
Goal = 1 lb gain per week
Protein intake = 1.5gx200 = 300 grams = 1200 calories
Off day calories = 3500
1200 cals protein = 34%
525 cals fat = 15%
1775 cals carbs = 51%
Workout day calories = 3500 + 500(energy burned during workout/cardio) = 4000
1200 cals protein = 30%
600 cals fat = 15%
2200 cals carbs = 55%
or if you want to keep the same ratios as off days:
1360 cals protein = 34%
600 cals fat = 15%
2040 cals carbs = 51%
Again this makes a lot of assumptions. This assumes you want to gain about 1 lb per week, that you really did burn that amount of calories on workout days, that your BMR is truly 3000 etc... Of course after 1-2 weeks you'd have to adjust these ratios and calorie levels based on results. This also doesn't go into detail about how you construct your meals. Should you do the ratio at every meal or try to change ratios depending on when you eat, etc...
Anyways these are my thoughts and they are by no means proven or positively correct. I just had this information rambling in my head and wanted to get it out. I also wanted to see what other people thought about this theory and hopefully answer with some of their own. If I don't hear any better ideas soon I will probably go forward with my own ideas and will publish my results. I'll also be tracking skin fold and circumfrence measurements, weight changes and all changes during this time.
I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this subject.
However for natural bodybuilders, or those who may have anabolic supplementation but don't want to gain too much fat, what is considered the proper ratio? I've been dieting for a few months now and it won't be long till I actually get to start to bulk. As I said I don't want a massively high calorie diet and put on 20 pounds of fat in 12 weeks. My goal is to eat enough to support muscle and strength gain with minimal fat gain. Hell who doesn't want these goals?
While dieting it's pretty well known that almost any ratio will work so long as you get sufficient protein and sufficient fat(specifically good fats). I've had success with everything from the traditional high carb/low fat diet, to an iso-caloric diet and all the way to the other extreme with a keto diet. So long as you're in a negative calorie balance you will lose weight. So it doesn't matter if you get 70% or 20% of your calories from fat, it will all be burnt no matter what.
However in a positive caloric balance things change. Fat, if not burnt, will instantly be stored as fat. If you're getting enough calories from carbs for energy and getting enough protein to build muscle then surely any fat you eat will be stored. You simply can't burn it as you ingest it in a hypercaloric state. The body will no doubt favor carbs for energy in this situation and any excess fats have nowhere else to go. Even if you were eating keto style you would still gain fat during a hypercaloric phase. Your body burns only fat for energy during this time, but if you are ingesting more fats than you can burn then they will be stored, simple as that. And if you want to build muscle you HAVE to be in a hypercaloric state.
With all this in mind I'm contemplating on which ratios would be truly optimal. I can see how a low fat option could work well. Not only low fat, but an emphasis of getting what little fat you eat from EFAs. You can't go super low fat as your body needs it to function, but getting only what you need seems the best option. This alone isn't the answer though as excess carbs and/or protein can be stored as fat as well. So from here you'd guess that as far as carbs and fat go you should eat just enough carbs to supply your energy needs and just enough fats(EFAs specifically) to keep your body functioning.
That leaves us with protein. All excess calories should theoretically be from protein as we want all excess calories to be used in muscle building. This is not as easy to figure out as it would seem though because if you were eating enough calories in only carbs and fats to supply your energy needs then this would put you at maintenance level. Eating only what you need to burn during the day will cause you to maintain weight. We also don't want to gain more than a pound or so a week, assuming no AS are used, so broken down over 7 days thats only 500 calories over maintenance a day. 500/4 is only 125grams of protein and for us big guys that hardly fits the bill of 1.0-1.5g per pound of bodyweight. So if we want to fulfill this requirement we need to do one of two things; keep carb and fat intake the same and simply create a bigger calorie surplus in pure protein calories. For a 200lb bodybuilder this is 200-300 grams of protein which is 800-1200 calories a day extra. With the help of AS this might not be a big deal as your body is extremely efficient with protein synthesis at this time and would be able to convert all of that. For natural guys some of this would no doubt be stored as fat so we just shot ourselves in the foot.
So now we figure we need to get that protein in but we can't go that high over maintenance. Our next choice is to drop either the carbs or the fat to make room for protein calories. We can't drop the fat because we're already eating the minimal amount so we have no choice but to drop some carbs. This will no doubt help us burn the fat that we are eating, but it will also start to burn some of our valued protein as fuel. In a perfect world our body would get enough energy from our stored sources(bodyfat) and spare the protein for muscle building. Unfortunately this isn't going to happen so we end up burning some of our precious protein. The carbs will no doubt be burnt first and spare some of the protein, but at some point our body will run out of carbs and have to burn protein. I guess this is just something we have to except and possibly the reason such a high protein intake is suggested. That and the fact that a good deal of protein burns itself up simply being digested. *This one of the reasons a high protein diet tends to lean you out since you are getting less useable calories than if you had gotten those calories from fat or carbs.*
Surely there is no easy or perfect answer. The only thing I can come up with is that during a bulk phase, unless you are trying the anabolic diet, you should keep fats to a minimum. Fats are not the enemy in diets and maintenance diets, but for muscle gain they seem a bad choice. Carbs are considered bad for dieting, but for building muscle they are actually quite good. They promote insulin release which will enhance protein synthesis for muscle building and without carbs and insulin I don't think it'd be possible to gain muscle very efficiently if at all. Carbs also tend to be protein sparing during a muscle building phase. Whenever there are sufficient carbs in our system our body won't have to burn protein for fuel and it will be allowed to do what it needs to.
With all of that in mind here are some guidelines I've came up with for a bulking phase that promotes LBM gains with minimal fat.
- Keep fat intake to a minimum, and make sure what you do get is mostly EFAs.
- Get plenty of protein, optimally 1-1.5g per lb bodyweight. Some might say 2g but I don't think that is truly required unless you're on AS.
- After figuring out protein and fat intake, fill the rest with carbs but don't go over 500-750 calories above maintenance depnding on desired weight gain.
- Remember to consider your workouts in your BMR and get your 500-750 calories above that. If you weigh 200lbs and you figure your BMR is 3000 then don't eat 3500 calories on days you workout. Chances are you burn up most of those 500 extra calories. On days off however DO figure it out this way. This means cycling your calories between workout and non workout days. If you want to eat identical calories everyday then get less of a caloric surplus on workout days and make up for it on days off, just remember to make it add up to 3500-5000 calories depending on how much you want to gain per week. I'd suggest no more than 1lb a week drug free or you're gonna see some fat quickly.
- With all that in mind I think a general ratio to shoot for would be 50/30/20 carbs/pro/fat. Possibly even 50/35/15 or 60/25/15 depending on your goals. For a 200lb bodybuilder that worked out 3 days a week, and perhaps did 30 min of cardio following workouts, it would work out like this.
BMR on off days = 3000
BMR on workout/cardio days = 3500
Goal = 1 lb gain per week
Protein intake = 1.5gx200 = 300 grams = 1200 calories
Off day calories = 3500
1200 cals protein = 34%
525 cals fat = 15%
1775 cals carbs = 51%
Workout day calories = 3500 + 500(energy burned during workout/cardio) = 4000
1200 cals protein = 30%
600 cals fat = 15%
2200 cals carbs = 55%
or if you want to keep the same ratios as off days:
1360 cals protein = 34%
600 cals fat = 15%
2040 cals carbs = 51%
Again this makes a lot of assumptions. This assumes you want to gain about 1 lb per week, that you really did burn that amount of calories on workout days, that your BMR is truly 3000 etc... Of course after 1-2 weeks you'd have to adjust these ratios and calorie levels based on results. This also doesn't go into detail about how you construct your meals. Should you do the ratio at every meal or try to change ratios depending on when you eat, etc...
Anyways these are my thoughts and they are by no means proven or positively correct. I just had this information rambling in my head and wanted to get it out. I also wanted to see what other people thought about this theory and hopefully answer with some of their own. If I don't hear any better ideas soon I will probably go forward with my own ideas and will publish my results. I'll also be tracking skin fold and circumfrence measurements, weight changes and all changes during this time.
I'd love to hear others' thoughts on this subject.
