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Your advice to help me gain 3 pounds of muscle

claritarejoice
claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
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Hi everyone! So my current goal is to gain 3 pounds of muscle. How can I do this? Any advice you have is helpful. I am a 5'7" female, currently 21% body fat. I have been having a hard time increasing the amount of weight I lift. Thanks for your input!

Replies

  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Hi everyone! So my current goal is to gain 3 pounds of muscle. How can I do this? Any advice you have is helpful. I am a 5'7" female, currently 21% body fat. I have been having a hard time increasing the amount of weight I lift. Thanks for your input!

    You need to eat in a very small caloric surplus to achieve this, and use some form of resistance training with progressive tension overload. I would attempt to gain no greater than .5 lb/week.

    What is your weight currently doing?
  • claritarejoice
    claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
    I have been doing stronglifts 5x5 since January and am currently at the following weights: squat 115 lbs, OHP 50, deadlift 115, bench 70, rows 50 lbs. It is not progressing very fast.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    What has your bodyweight done in the past month? Please make sure your diary remains open as ill revisit this tomorrow.
  • claritarejoice
    claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
    Thanks! I've stayed at around 143 pounds all month.
  • neanderthin
    neanderthin Posts: 10,286 Member
    Eat a few hundred more calories and push your weight progression. Most of the time when people can't add weight it's calorie related.
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Thanks! I've stayed at around 143 pounds all month.

    Please set your diary to public if you would like more detailed feedback, but in short, neanderthin is correct. You'll want to incrementally add calories. I'd start with 100/day and stay there for two weeks.
  • claritarejoice
    claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
    Thanks to both of you! Hmm my diary was set to friends and you are my friend . . . but I have now changed it to public :) It is so hard to log accurately. For instance I made fried plantains for my family for dinner tonight - I have no clue how many cals a piece is and nothing accurate in the database - so I added 50 quick cals to my dinner for it (random guess). I'm pretty sure I'm eating more than my diary shows.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Tagging
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    It does look like your logging is a bit inaccurate so I'd try to keep as accurate as possible. I see many days with 400-600 calories logged which I'm guessing are incomplete.

    That being said, I ran your averages for calories and macronutrients after deleting most of those days. After making a caloric increase I'd suggest the following for the next week:

    1700 kcals
    200 carbohydrate
    45 fat
    125 protein

    Do this accurately for a week and reply to us with an update and we will monitor and adjust from there. You will likely need to increase beyond this but I'd rather step your intake up to find the point at which you gain rather than just jumping your intake up.
  • bumblebums
    bumblebums Posts: 2,181 Member
    Thanks to both of you! Hmm my diary was set to friends and you are my friend . . . but I have now changed it to public :) It is so hard to log accurately. For instance I made fried plantains for my family for dinner tonight - I have no clue how many cals a piece is and nothing accurate in the database - so I added 50 quick cals to my dinner for it (random guess). I'm pretty sure I'm eating more than my diary shows.

    I'll leave the intake part of this to Sara and Sidesteel, but about logging homemade food: use the recipes function in the food diary. You enter all of the ingredients you used for the dish, figure out how many servings are in the whole batch, and then dole them out based on your chosen serving size--which should be figured out based on weight rather than volume. You can check the accuracy and completeness of individual ingredients in the MFP database by using reputable sources, such as the USDA nutrient database. Yes, there are some mistakes even in the USDA entries in the MFP db, but you can correct them yourself.
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    Locking this so we can keep track of active threads. Please PM me or SideSteel when you are ready to update us or if you want to ask anymore questions and we will unlock so you can. Please include a link to the thread in the PM.
  • claritarejoice
    claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
    Hi there! I tracked as accurately as possible for the last week. Here are my numbers:

    Friday 7/12 1957 cals, 254g carb, 61g fat, 126g protein
    Saturday 7/13 2007 cals, 228g carb, 64g fat, 126g protein
    Sunday 7/ 14 1589 cals, 183g carb, 48g fat, 120g protein
    Monday 7/15 1650 cals, 192g carb, 40g fat, 132g protein
    Tuesday 7/16 1959 cals, 243g carb, 59g fat, 134g protein
    Wed 7/17 1623 cals, 191g carb, 47g fat, 133g protein
    Thursday 7/18 1814 cals, 218g carb, 58g fat, 115g protein
    Friday 7/19 1683 cals, 216g carb, 46g fat, 128g protein
    Average 1788 cals, 216g carb, 53g fat, 127g protein

    My weight and measurements have not changed since April, so I've been maintaining on about 1800 calories. Thanks!
  • Sarauk2sf
    Sarauk2sf Posts: 28,072 Member
    What has your weight done in the last week? Has it stayed the same?
  • claritarejoice
    claritarejoice Posts: 461 Member
    My weight has not changed this week. I typically see a daily fluctuation between 140-145 pounds (before/after eating etc), but no real change. Thank you :)
  • SideSteel
    SideSteel Posts: 11,068 Member
    Bring calories to 1850 with the following

    125 protein
    45 fat
    225 carbohydrate

    Report back in 1 week please.

    PM us if you have questions sooner.
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