Strong lifts food intake opinions

smittybuilt19

Hello, I stared SL 5x5 last week. I understand I need to be in a calorie surplus to gain muscle. My maintenance cal # is approx 2300 per day. My initial thought was to stick to the maintenance number on off days and hang around 3000 cals on lift days. I will be lifting 3 days a week. I have very few reservations about gaining some fat in the process now that I know how to lose it. As far as muscle repair process goes, I know nothing. What are your opinions on my off day calorie count? Should I just stick to the maintenance or go with the approx 3k everyday?

PS I plan to do SL for 12 weeks and then re-evaluate my capabilities and figure out how to proceed.

Thanks for your input in advance!

aelunyu

Chances are, you are nowhere near recruiting the kind of fiber that would require such a drastic surplus. Plus if you have larger stores of fat, some of that will help you synthesize protein through its oxidation.

I would eat maintenance for now, and see how far you can progress on just that. If and when you plateau, which I cant imagine would be anytime soon, you can think about slowly increasing calories to continue progression.

It's more than likely that in your first year of training, you're basically only laying a foundation for the next 10 years of training. So I wouldn't get too scientific about it.

3foldchord

I am actually more hungry the day AFTER I lift. I started with eating more on lifting days, less on rest days, but it was backfiring, now I often have my higher calorie days on my rest days- that's when I am hungry.
try one ay for 6-8 weeks, then if that doesn't work, try another way.

I also suggest sticking with maintenance the first time through SL, but I am very new to this, too. (and in a cutting cycle, I guess it's called. I don;t want to gain muscle, just don't want to lose it while losing body fat

holothuroidea

That sounds about right.

Under optimal conditions, men can count on about 2lbs of muscle gain per month. If you aim to gain about half fat and half muscle, that would be 4lbs per month, or 1lb per week. So, as a general rule, your surplus should be about 2500 cals/week (it doesn't take the same amount of calories to build muscle as it does to store fat, and this is just an approximation), and over 3 days that's about 800 extra calories you need.

I got my info from reading the articles at bodyrecomposition.com, there are a lot of people here who know more about this stuff than I do but that's my understanding of it.

I do think this method assumes starting at a relatively low bf%. If you have a high bf% and untrained muscles, you can probably get away with just eating maintenance or even a small deficit for the first few months.

JenMc14

Why would you eat at such a large surplus? I usually see recommendations of 100-200 calories over maintenance to start, or 10-20% (I think). If 2300 is your maintenance, 2760 would be 20% more, and even that seems a bit high. I think I'd go around 2500-2600 a day and not differentiate between working out and non working out days. That being said, the weekly totals aren't too far off, but it you do 3000 3 days a week and 2300 4 days a week, you're eating 18,2000, if you do 2500 every day you're at 17,500. I think in order to keep the fat gain to a minimum, traditional minimum is to stick to a smaller surplus.

MisterDerpington

I would just stick with a surplus throughout the week instead of alternating. By the way, I would check out Startingstrength.com.
Much more dedicated to gaining weight and strength in those forums.

MisterDerpington

Where do people get this 2lb of muscle a month thing? I've seen skinny kids online gain 40lb in 3 months time and their squats go up by about 150lb and I can assure you they didn't only gain 6lb of muscle.

smittybuilt19

Why would you eat at such a large surplus? I usually see recommendations of 100-200 calories over maintenance to start, or 10-20% (I think). If 2300 is your maintenance, 2760 would be 20% more, and even that seems a bit high. I think I'd go around 2500-2600 a day and not differentiate between working out and non working out days. That being said, the weekly totals aren't too far off, but it you do 3000 3 days a week and 2300 4 days a week, you're eating 18,2000, if you do 2500 every day you're at 17,500. I think in order to keep the fat gain to a minimum, traditional minimum is to stick to a smaller surplus.

Thanks for your opinion! Does keeping fat gain to a minimum necessarily mean keeping muscle gain to a minimum? Like I said I really don't mind putting on extra weight for the 12 weeks if it will help with strength gains.

smittybuilt19

Thanks so far folks! Gotta clock in at work. I'll check back in a few hours.

neandermagnon

you need the extra calories for the recovery/rebuilding process, not the workouts themselves, so yes you should still be eating at a surplus on rest/recovery days

I'm doing stronglifts 5x5 and eating for weight gains, although I'm not tracking, I'm just eating loads. But if I don't gain very much weight I'll start tracking to make sure I'm in a surplus.

FrenchMob

Where do people get this 2lb of muscle a month thing? I've seen skinny kids online gain 40lb in 3 months time and their squats go up by about 150lb and I can assure you they didn't only gain 6lb of muscle.

I have a cousin an a roid/HGH cocktail that put on 40 lbs of lean mass in a YEAR. 40 lbs in 3 months is not going to happen. There's plenty of fat in that 40 lbs.

MisterDerpington

Where do people get this 2lb of muscle a month thing? I've seen skinny kids online gain 40lb in 3 months time and their squats go up by about 150lb and I can assure you they didn't only gain 6lb of muscle.

I have a cousin an a roid/HGH cocktail that put on 40 lbs of lean mass in a YEAR. 40 lbs in 3 months is not going to happen. There's plenty of fat in that 40 lbs.

Nobody said it was all lean mass. Newbie lifters can get some good gains though. At least compared to an intermediate or advanced lifter.

Danny_Boy13

If your goal is to gain there are many theories to do this. One is to increase your maint intake by 250-300cals and get a min of 1gram protein per body lb to gain. While others will say to eat 500+cals and get 1.5grams of protein / lb of weight so forth and so on. Personally what I would do is to eat a little above maint and drink a min of 1/2 gallon of whole milk per day. You WILL gain some pudge doing this due to the milk intake but when you are ready to lean out it will come off. I personally took this approch... I started at 175lbs @ 13%bf, went to 190lbs @ 19%bf. I leaned out over the course of about 12weeks (eating at a cal deficit and using portion control meathods) and lost 20lbs and am down to 12%bf. It was fun to see my body make these changes.

In short what works for one may or may not work for the other or be enjoyable. Experiment a little bit, do your homework. Read up from accredited sources and experts in the field. Just know that there is no one right way.

Edit: Mark Rippatoe actually recommends a gallon a day for weight gain but I cant handle that much milk per day.

haroon_awan

I'd watch these two videos as they will answer your questions and anything I say will just be a repeat of it to be honest. Only thing I would add as some have done is that there is no direct benefit from doing higher and lower calorie days when lifting v non-lifting, from my (albeit limited) knowledge.

Macros to gain weight when bulking
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5PoC8MuoM_Q

Macros day-to-day
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7JH1uCyEgLk

smittybuilt19

Thanks for the help y'all!