Muscle gain

Dricus2017

Hi there
Just a quick question, I'm currently in a light bulk phase but would like to know should I eat back my calories that I burn during exercise or should I just stick to the recommendation from the app and disregard the calories burnt as I'm sceptical as to how accurate that could be?
My aim is to gain muscle mass with as little fat gain as possible. Any recommendations for macro percentages?

My weight currently is 97kg, want to push up to 100kg

Thanks in advance for the advice
Dricus

nossmf

First off, welcome!

When bulking, you need calories eaten to exceed calories burned, so yes, you need to eat back calories burned during a workout. The follow-up question is whether to trust the calorie-burn reported by the app. If you do not trust the burn, then start off by eating back half of the calories reported, monitor for several weeks, see what happens to your weight. If it goes down or remains the same, you can add back in a little more; if it's going up slowly as desired, then you're good to go.

As far as macro percentages, that is more of an individual choice based upon whether you want to follow a Keto diet, vegan diet, or anything else out there. The two important numbers you need to worry about are overall protein intake and overall calories eaten.

To maximize muscle gain and minimize fat gain, you want to gain weight slowly, so your calories eaten needs to be only slightly above maintenance, say 100-250 per day over whatever keeps your weight the same.

For protein, aim for at least 0.7g/lb of BW, or 1.5g/kg of BW. For you, that means getting at least 150g per day. Eating more may be helpful, and some will say do as much as 2.2g/kg, or 213g per day, though I have been pleased with my results from the lower number. YMMV.