??? for long time MFPers

tgh1914
tgh1914 Posts: 1,036 Member
edited September 25 in Food and Nutrition
I've been trying to gain for a little while now, maybe a few months. And of course I'm not WANTING to gain fat, but lean muscle mass. But I'm starting to think I'm going about it the wrong way. The way MFP's goal approach is set up is that when you tell it you want to lose weight at a given rate (1/2 lb or 1 lb per week, etc) it will give you the appropriate deficit based on subtracting the 3500 cals in a pound of fat across you weekly (or bi-weekly) cal budget, right? Likewise, when you tell it you want to gain weight at a given rate it simply is taking that same 3500 and ADDING it across your weekly budget. But since I'm not trying to gain fat, shouldn't I just custom set my cals to just over maintenance (maybe 100 or so) rather than allowing MFP to put the respective fat calorie number (3500/7 or 3500/14, etc) in as my goal? Does that make sense? I think MFP is treating it as if I want to gain fat and adding too many calories to my budget, right?

Any thoughts?

Replies

  • taso42_DELETED
    taso42_DELETED Posts: 3,394 Member
    bump. i was planning to ask this very question in a few more weeks (or maybe months) time.
  • jtsmou
    jtsmou Posts: 503 Member
    any time you're losing weight you're going to lose some muscle too though the ratio of muscle to fat loss changes depending on diet vs exercise. The easiest thing to do is probably to set your mfp to maintain weight, with increased protine and start lifting weights (or hitting the gym I guess) or using some of the higher quality strength bands with heavier resistance like bodylastics
  • anubis609
    anubis609 Posts: 3,966 Member
    Good question. I think I've experimented so much with my numbers that I don't even follow MFP guidelines anymore. I've literally been doing my own thing and treating inputs as strictly calorie and nutrient counts. As I've barely started this process of extreme experimentation, I haven't worked at it long enough to gather the necessary information to give an actual answer yet... I'm hoping the more successful veterans who've gained muscle mass and lowered their body fat will give a breakdown of what they did.
  • rawdefault
    rawdefault Posts: 66
    I read somewhere that while 1lb of fat is 3500cals, 1lb of muscle is 600 cals.
    Sorry I can't give a more detailed answer!
  • SHBoss1673
    SHBoss1673 Posts: 7,161 Member
    Yeah, Tharrop, you are essentially correct. MFP is telling you what it would take to gain a lb of fat. But that doesn't mean that's what you have to gain.

    Just remember, gaining muscle mass is a far different process than losing fat. Gains should be slow, and calories surpluses should be small. This way you gain muscle mass without the fat. Here's what I've done and suggest you do to gain weight.

    Plan your training schedule first. On cardio days, eat your maintenance calories plus exercise calories, on weight training days, eat maintenance plus about 150 to 200 calories. On weight training days try to increase lean protein intake by about 5% and reduce carbohydrate intake by the same amount if you can. Don't rely on non-food supplements to complete your protein totals, this isn't how the body expects protein. On weight training days eat a protein/carb snack immediately after any hard weight training session, and continue to eat small snacks with at least some complete protein throughout the day.
    Be careful not to enter into a calorie deficit for more than a day or so, the body won't really react to a single day with a calorie deficit, but string a few together, and muscle mass gains can begin to halt.
    This is my method, slow and steady. It took a while but it's how I dropped my body fat % about 3% while gaining about 10 lbs of LBM.
  • PJilly
    PJilly Posts: 22,165 Member
    Yeah, Tharrop, you are essentially correct. MFP is telling you what it would take to gain a lb of fat. But that doesn't mean that's what you have to gain.

    Just remember, gaining muscle mass is a far different process than losing fat. Gains should be slow, and calories surpluses should be small. This way you gain muscle mass without the fat. Here's what I've done and suggest you do to gain weight.

    Plan your training schedule first. On cardio days, eat your maintenance calories plus exercise calories, on weight training days, eat maintenance plus about 150 to 200 calories. On weight training days try to increase lean protein intake by about 5% and reduce carbohydrate intake by the same amount if you can. Don't rely on non-food supplements to complete your protein totals, this isn't how the body expects protein. On weight training days eat a protein/carb snack immediately after any hard weight training session, and continue to eat small snacks with at least some complete protein throughout the day.
    Be careful not to enter into a calorie deficit for more than a day or so, the body won't really react to a single day with a calorie deficit, but string a few together, and muscle mass gains can begin to halt.
    This is my method, slow and steady. It took a while but it's how I dropped my body fat % about 3% while gaining about 10 lbs of LBM.
    I think I want to try this. I have to admit I'm kind of laughing at myself. The idea of eating that much more scares me, even though I believe it's what I need to do to increase my muscle mass. Then I realized it's probably the same feeling people have who have a hard time eating their exercise calories. I shake my head when I read those posts, but analyzing my own reaction to eating more calories to gain some muscle makes me have a new appreciation and empathy for how they must feel. Interesting...
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