Trying to gain muscle

Kuzon

I love this app and it is very handy but I'm trying to gain muscle and I'm afraid the daily limits are geared towards losing weight. For example, I have read that you should be getting 1g of protein for each pound you weigh. Currently I should be getting 150g of protein but my plan tells me 100g. Should I not be using this app if I'm trying to gain muscle?

Thanks,

Jeff

bizco

You can customize your macros and you should. MFP's default for protein (15%) is dreadfully low and geared toward a total sedentary lifestyle.

To customize go to My Home>>Goals>>Change Goals>>Custom. Save your changes. Increase your protein to 30-40% of total calories.

You probably already know this but to gain muscle you need HEAVY weight training and a calorie surplus. You can either overtype MFP's calorie goal while you're on the customize screen (path above) OR go to settings and change your goal to gain XX lbs. per week. If you change your settings, MFP will revert back to it's default and you will have to again go to customize screen to change your macro %s.

Kuzon

Thanks Bizco! I couldn't find the path to change the defaults before, thanks again for letting me know the path. So I changed my calorie intake and protein percentage. Is there anything else you would suggest? Also, you said that MFP will revert back to defaults? So I will have to go to the settings every day to change them?

Kuzon

I've been doing this for about a month now. When I started I was 155 and after a week 1 I went down to 152. After week 2 and 3 I stayed at 152 but still noticed my body was becoming more defined with muscle. After week 4 I only went up .5 pounds.

Am I doing something wrong? I read somewhere that you should be gaining 1 pound a week when trying to build muscle. At first I thought my body was burning excess fat while building muscle thus maintaining the same weight. Now I'm not so sure. I'm afraid that I'm not getting enough calories but I don't want to add more and end up gaining "bad weight" I guess.

I calculated my TDEE and have 3038. I currently have my plan set to 3064 but just read today that I should be adding 300-500 calories on top of my TDEE. 3538 seems like a lot and just want to make sure I'm not misinformed?

neanderthin

Gaining muscle is about eating in excess of your maintenance and lifting heavy progressively week after week. A wide range of protein intake does work and if your not gaining weight and muscle then increase your protein and carbs, considering carbs are protein sparing and needed when bulking. Most people are afraid to gain weight, even when their trying like yourself, which is why people fail....eat and lift, added fat is going to happen, they go hand and hand with increased muscle, so get use to it.

Kuzon

Cool thanks for the advice. So I guess 3500 calories a day does not sound far off then? I'm not used to eating so much, haha!