There’s TONS of BS out there regarding what you should and shouldn’t be doing to gain mass or cut fat…keeping in mind you can only do one of these at a time, but we’ll get into that)
Do I eat dirty foods when I bulk?
Do I eat clean food when I am trying to get shredded?
What about my training style? Heavy, low reps for size and light weight, high repetitions to burn fat and get lean right?
WRONG
People are making the whole equation a lot more complicated than it really is…
The answer to which ever variation of the gain muscle/burn fat equation is
Goal based calorie consumption
Whether you build muscle or burn fat has absolutely nothing to do with the amount of repetitions you are performing, or the nature of the food you are eating.
Imagine that your body is a cash register…
At the end of each day when you count the till you will either have less than you anticipated, or more than you anticipated.
If you have less you’re essentially losing money
If you have more you are gaining money
Follow my train of thought?
Now, let’s apply this analogy to our bodies.
Your body has a TDEE, a magic number which is the exact amount of calories your body needs to maintain its current state, because let’s face it… our bodies primary purpose is to survive – they don’t want to gain or lose anything, instead they attempt to simply maintain.
Whether you gain muscle or lose fat comes down to whether you are above or below your magic caloric number for the day.
If you’re eating below your TDEE you will lose fat.
If you’re eating above your TDEE you will gain muscle.
You cannot do both at the same time unfortunately (naturally, anyway).
Stay tuned for part 2 – calculating your caloric numbers and applying a deficit or surplus based on your current goal.
SJ
