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In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast I give you an update on my calorie deficit 5 weeks in!
5 weeks down, 7 weeks to go!
I am excited about where I am and where things are trending! Hope you enjoy the update and chat soon.
-E
Ever wondered how to make a calorie deficit easier?
Let’s be honest, it sucks.
You are hungry, you have to be on point with your diet, and you are wondering when the heck the weight is going to finally come off.
Well, just know I feel you.
I understand where you are coming from and that is why in this quick article I am going to give you exact tips and strategies on how to make a calorie deficit easier.
There are going to be 10 immediately actionable tips and tricks I use to get you to make this whole weight loss thing just a tad bit less frustrating. I call them the 10 commandments of weight loss.
Just be sure to read through every single one of the 10 commandments so you can leave this article feeling confident in yourself to kick some calorie deficit butt.
Sound like a fair trade to you?
Perfect, let’s hit it then.
Before I dive into the 10 commandments, let’s first quickly cover what a calorie deficit is and how to find yours.
If you are reading this article right now, there is a good chance you know what a calorie deficit is.
Yet just to be sure, a calorie deficit is simply a negative energy balance equation.
Energy for the human body comes in the form of calories. Your body needs energy (calories) to do all of it’s bodily functions.
Digest food, recover from workouts, breathe, perform reproductive processes, etc etc.
There are a certain amount of calories you need to maintain your current body weight, this called your maintenance calories.
Therefore, if you eat below your maintenance calories, you are now in a calorie deficit.
This means you are eating less calories than what your body burns. Your body will then have to go to stored fuel for energy.
Stored fuel is body fat. Therefore that is how your body “burns fat”, is by being in this calorie deficit, and going to your stored fat as an energy source.
This is, by the way, the only way you lose body fat.
It isn’t through special diets, or certain supplements, or detox teas.
The only way to lose fat is through creating this calorie deficit. If you want some more help understanding what a calorie deficit is, check out this video I did HERE.
Now that we are up to speed on exactly what a calorie deficit is, how do you find yours?
Great question and something I can help with.
I am going to link here below my 100% totally free calorie calculator. This will be able to tell you how many calories your body needs to maintain it’s current weight.
It will also be able to give you calculations on how many calories your body needs to lose fat at a given rate.
When it comes to how to make a calorie deficit easier, it starts with knowing exactly how many calories you should be consuming to lose weight.
I would use this calculator below to determine how many calories your body needs to lose weight!
Calculator HERE
Remember though, any calculator that you use is going to be a rough estimate.
It is not going to be 100% accurate.
They can be pretty darn close ( Like mine! ), but even still you are going to have to put it into practice to truly know if it works or not.
I talk more about how to know if you are in a calorie deficit in this video HERE .
Now you know exactly what a calorie deficit is and what yours should be, yet that doesn’t make it easier.
There is a reason that we have such an obesity epidemic across the board which is that it is hard to eat in this calorie deficit.
Yet, that is truly why you are here reading this and I am here writing this.
I am going to now give you 10 actionable tips you can use starting today to make your calorie deficit easier.
Play close attention to each one as I want you to truly understand what it is and how to implement it into your diet today!
The first of the 10 commandments is something that is so simple, yet so effective.
That is going to be no matter what, make one of your meals per day a big ass salad.
Let’s say you have 3 meals per day, breakfast, lunch, and dinner.
For one of those meals, you know you are having a big ass salad.
Now, a few things here.
First, don’t over complicate it. People often ask me.
“Eric, what dressing do you use?! What’s in the salad?! Is iceberg lettuce or only kale?!”.
Homie, don’t overthink it.
Get a big bowl. Put some green stuff in it. Put some protein on top. Don’t lather yourself with ranch dressing, use a reasonable amount of dressing.
Then you are good to go.
Me personally, I just use the pre made salad bags.
I buy pre made salads, I use all of the greens, 1/2 of the dressing and 1/2 of whatever else they put in.
This makes it so I can decrease some of the unnecessary calories from the added extras and dressing, but still have it be more than just eating plain lettuce.
I then throw some protein on top. This could be
To name a few.
The reason you incorporate one big ass salad per day is because a salad is very high volume for very low calories.
What does this mean?
It means you can fill your stomach up with a ton of food because green vegetables are not very high in calories.
As opposed to let’s say an oreo or two. Imagine two oreos in your stomach vs a big ass salad for probably the same calorie count.
Massive difference right?
Start incorporating a big ass salad as one of your meals today! Make it a non negotiable.
You can put in things you like and enjoy, but make it a staple in your diet.
This is probably one of the most under rated and under utilized tools when it comes to how to make a calorie deficit easier.
There are 4 main ways your body burns calories. I can put a picture here below.
The first is your BMR, this is how many calories your body burns at rest if you just laid in bed all day.
The second is your NEAT, your non exercise activity thermogenesis. This is all of the extraneous movement you get throughout the day that isn’t dedicated exercise.
The third is your TEF, thermic effect of food. This is how many calories your body needs to burn to digest your food. ( Hint : Remember this for later! ).
The fourth is your EAT, your exercise activity thermogenesis. This is calories urned from exercise. ( Which is a huge reason why you should stop worrying about how many calories you burn during your workouts! ).
When it comes to making a calorie deficit easier, we know that you need to eat less calories than what you body burns correct?
Well, walking is going to increase your NEAT. As you can see, your NEAT takes up 15% of how many calories your body burns in a given day.
Therefore if you can increase your NEAT by walking, you are going to increase your overall energy expenditure, and help yourself get into that calorie deficit.
Us as humans are walking way less than we used to with desk jobs or transitioning from being a kid running around, playing sports, to now being an adult in the real world!
Therefore, utilizing simple walking can be a massive tool to help in how to make a calorie deficit easier.
I suggest getting roughly 5-10k steps per day!
I briefly touched on this earlier when talking about the salad vs the oreos.
One of the best ways you can stay full and satisfied while in a calorie deficit is going to be eating high volume foods.
Once again, high volume foods are just foods that you can eat a lot of, for not a lot of calories.
Salad is a great example of this because for example 2 cups of spinach is only 20 calories.
2 cups of spinach is a lot of spinach. That is going to fill your stomach up with food, yet for very few calories.
This will help keep you full, which causes you to be less hungry, which causes you to eat less calories overall.
Some more examples of higher volume foods are
Watermelon.
For a whole lb of watermelon it is only 150 calories. A whole pound!
Strawberries.
For a whole lb of strawberries it is only 140 calories. A whole pound!
Cauliflower rice.
Boiled potatoes.
Greek yogurt.
Cottage Cheese.
Oatmeal.
To name a few.
I am not saying these are the only foods you can eat, but working these foods into your diet is going to help you stay full and satisfied.
Which why do most people end up having trouble sticking to their calorie deficit?
They get HANGRY!
In a day and age where instagram rules wild and everyone is showing off their fancy food pics, I got a secret for you.
Being successful in a calorie deficit isn’t as flashy or pretty as the people on instagram might have you believe.
The truth is the majority of people who are successful on their calorie deficit / weight loss journey, eat very simple meals day in and day out.
I am not saying they have to taste bad, but I am saying they should be simple.
What I always recommend is eating majority one ingredient foods.
What does this mean? Let’s think about it.
One ingredient food, eggs. That is the only ingredient in eggs is eggs, right?
One ingredient food, oatmeal. The only ingredient in oatmeal is, just that, oatmeal.
One ingredient food, banana. The only ingredient in a banana is, you guessed it, a banana.
Therefore basing your meals around these one ingredient foods is going to help with a few things.
First one ingredient foods tend to be more filling, more nutrient dense, and less processed.
Meaning, you are going to once again get more full from them for typically lower calories.
Second, they are also easier to track and make sure you are in a deficit with. I talk about ways to make actually counting your calories easier in this article HERE .
Because, well, that is the whole reason they are designed in a lab is to make you over eat on them.
That way you go back and buy more of them!
Therefore trying to stick to one ingredient foods and trying to stick your meals around one ingredient foods is a huge pro tip in how to make a calorie deficit easier.
Protein is by far the most important macro nutrient, while at the same time the most under rated macro nutrient.
Protein is important for a few main reasons.
Number one is that it has the highest TEF.
Remember what TEF stands for? Thermic effect of food.
This is how many calories your body burns while digesting food.
Protein just so happens to have the highest TEF which means your body has to burn more calories simply just because you ate protein.
Don’t you think that will help with getting into a calorie deficit?
Protein is also the most satiating macro nutrient, which just means it is going to help fill you up the most.
If you are more satisfied and less hungry for cravings and other things alike, it will be a heck of a lot easier to stick to your calorie deficit.
Finally, protein is the only nutrient to help build and retain lean muscle mass.
The more lean muscle mass you have on your body, the higher your metabolism is.
Aka, the more calories your body burns.
Therefore for all of those three main reasons above, protein is massively important.
In terms of how much protein you should consume per day, I would recommend taking your goal body weight ( in lbs ) and multiplying between .8-1.
Let’s say your goal body weight is 150lbs. 150lbs x 8-1 = 120-150g of protein per day!
Pro Tip : I know protein can be hard to get sometimes in our diet, that is why I did a quick video HERE highlighting my best ways to eat more protein!
As well as you might ask me “Eric, what about protein shakes?!”. I will link the protein shake that I use HERE and recommend to all of my clients.
You can use my code “ERIC” at checkout to save 20% off if you wanna try it out!
If you are somewhat who snacks consistently throughout the day, this one is for you.
What most people do is they under eat on their meals and they over eat on snacks.
For example, if you look at how many calories you are getting from meals, it might be 2-300 per meal.
If you look at your calories from snacks, it is probably 1-2000 per day.
This, is not conducive to losing weight or sticking to your calorie deficit because once again, you typically aren’t snacking on celery or pickles.
It is normally the higher processed, higher palatable foods like chips, cookies, candy, pretzels, etc.
To fix this and make this calorie deficit life easier for you, please start having real meals.
A meal should not be 200 calories.
A meal should be 4, 5, 600 calories.
This happens a lot with people who are scared to eat breakfast and lunch because they think they are going to need those calories later on when they “get hungry”.
Yet what they don’t realize is the only reason they or you are hungry later in the day and want to snack is because you haven’t given your body enough fuel or calorie during the day, so it is asking for some.
This then leads you to be super hungry, have cravings, and start grabbing whatever is the most convenient.
This also then leads you to go over on your calories and gain weight.
Therefore to help fix this, start eating real meals.
Try to follow the one plate rule, and that is going to be.
If you do this at each meal, I promise your meals are going to be incredibly filling which is going to help you keep your overall calories in check for the day.
One of the easiest ways on how to make a calorie deficit easier is simply cutting out liquid calories.
First what are liquid calories.
Think things like soda, alcohol, milk, juice smoothies, juices, Starbucks coffee, etc.
Are these things bad? No of course not. One of the beautiful things about this whole “calorie deficit” thing is that it proves no one food makes you fat or gain weight.
It is all about your overall calorie intake.
Yet when it comes to liquid calories, these calories add up quick.
Think about your Starbucks coffee. That is easily 2-500 calories right there that you are drinking down the pipe.
If your calorie goal for the day is 1500, now all you have to work with the rest of the day food wise is 1000 calories?
Good luck sticking to your deficit is all I can say!
These calories add up quick and they also don’t really do anything for you.
As in they don’t keep you full, they don’t keep you satisfied, they aren’t very nutrient dense for the most part.
When you hear people say “empty calories” that is kind of what liquid calories are.
They don’t bring much to the table, rather they take a whole lot of potential food you could eat off the table.
Therefore cutting out liquid calories is a staple for me whenever I am trying to lose some body fat. It actually helped me lose 12lbs in 4 weeks .
This one is going to make a calorie deficit for a few reasons.
Number one, when you lift weights, you increase your metabolism by building lean muscle mass.
We learned that earlier, when talking about protein, right?!
When you build lean muscle, your BMR increases. Remember your BMR makes up 70% of how many calories your body burns at rest.
If you are doing anything to increase 70% of your daily calorie expenditure, you are doing something right.
Though second, and I believe most importantly, it gives you something else to focus on besides JUST losing weight.
As you already know this weight loss game is really a mental one. No one can deny that.
When you are so focused on the scale going down, measurements going down, progress pictures looking different, etc, you are focused on essentially tearing your body down.
You are focusing on what you don’t like about your body. That can be, for lack of better words, exhausting.
Yet when you introduce strength training and lifting weights, you now have something where you are focused on IMPROVING Your body.
You are lifting more weights, doing more reps, getting better form, seeing muscle definition, etc.
In a weight loss journey, I think that is crucial to have because without it, you will get so focused on the negatives that it will be impossible to stay consistent.
If you can’t be consistent, then you won’t see progress anyway jack.
Start lifting weights today. If you want some help with that, you can get 52 Free workouts HERE, or head HERE to get all of my best training programs.
This is a strategy I have used with my clients over and over again, and it just simply works.
It is the two, two, two rule.
The two and two rule is each day, no matter what, you need to
Now let me explain.
When I say “servings” I mean 2x per day.
So vegetables, if you have a salad at lunch, and spinach for dinner, you are getting two servings.
For fruit, if you have a banana at breakfast, and strawberries at lunch, that is two servings.
For the water, I put 2 liters of water.
Is there anything special about that? Nope.
It is trust a good amount of water to shoot for that is going to help you keep you full, satisfied and hydrated in your weight loss journey? Yep.
This rule isn’t rocket science, but that is what seeing results is all about.
It is about mastering the basics.
If you truly can get two servings of fruit, two servings of veggies, and two liters of water per day everyday, you will be hard pressed to NOT see progress.
I put this one last because I wanted you to leave with this.
When it comes to how to make a calorie deficit easier, this is in my opinion the most important thing.
You need to stop trying to rush your weight loss.
Stop trying to be perfect.
Finally, stop trying to lose 10lbs per week.
Why?
I understand we all want to see progress yesterday, who doesn’t.
Yet this is the number one reason why you can never see progress.
You are trying to lose weight as quickly as humanly possible so what do you do?
You start doing incredibly restrictive things like eating 1000 calories, cutting out your carbs, and only eating “Clean” foods.
Which, is not sustainable at all, so you do it for two weeks.
Then you think you “F*cked up” because you went off track ( uh, duh, that is legit impossible to stick to ) and think you ruined all of your progress.
Then you go off and binge for a few days, only to get “right back on track” with this incredibly restrictive approach.
Therefore you can never truly be consistent, and since you aren’t consistent, you can’t see any progress.
Stop. It. Now.
Stop trying to be perfect, you will never be perfect.
You don’t have to be perfect in order to lose weight! Seriously!
The only thing you have to do is be consistent. That’s it.
Yet consistency doesn’t come from being perfect or trying to lose weight as quickly as humanly possible.
Consistency comes from taking a slow, steady and sustainable approach over the long haul the you can keep up with and make an actual lifestyle change.
Which is what you want anyway right? You want to make this a lifestyle change?
Slow down man, stop trying to rush it. That’s what holding you back.
No more, got it?
Well, there you have it, The 10 commandments on how to make a calorie deficit easier.
I hope you got something from this article and if you did, feel free to share it with a friend who you think it could help.
Chat soon,
-E
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In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast I talk about how to stick to your diet on the weekends.
I give you my best tips and strategies that you can implement into your Weekends to make sure you are staying consistent and seeing the progress you want to see.
Hope you enjoyed this podcast and if you did feel free to leave a 5 star rating and review on iTunes as it would mean the world to me.
Hope it helps.
-E
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In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast I give you my honest thought on alcohol.
Remember, this is just my own perspective and point of view. There is a bit of research and science mixed in, but a lot of this is just one mans opinion and point of view.
Hope you enjoyed the podcast and if you did not agree with anything I said, I respect your decision as well!
Chat soon,
-E
In this article we are going to cover the best diet for building lean muscle.
There are certain things you should do and certain things you should not do.
Certain foods you should eat and certain foods you should not eat.
Don’t worry because in this article I am going to take all of the guesswork out of this for you.
I will tell you how much you should be eating, what to eat, in what quantities, etc.
You ready for it?
You sure?!
Alright, alright, let’s get into what you need to know about your diet for building lean muscle.
Before we go into anything nutrition related, I would be doing you a disservice if I didn’t mention this first.
When it comes to building lean muscle, yes, your diet plays a huge role. There is no one denying that.
Yet, what you have to remember is, building lean muscle doesn’t come from food alone.
You can’t just eat more food and magically build lean muscle.
TRUST me, I wish that was the case. I would have the most lean muscle in the entire world!!
Building muscle comes directly from following a properly and intelligently designed strength training program.
What is that you ask?
Well, let’s talk about what it is not first.
Beach body, p90x, YouTube video workouts, or just going into the gym and doing random machines.
All of those are modalities of exercising, which is great!
Something is better than nothing!
Yet if you are truly looking to optimize your muscle building journey (which, if you are reading this article, I am almost positive you are), you need to be following a real training program.
Well, here is what I will say.
I could literally talks for consecutive days straight about how to design a program.
In fact, I did an entire, super in depth article HERE if you want to check that out. That goes over a ton of basics when it comes to following a real training program.
Second, it must have something called progressive overload.
Again, I wrote an entire article on exactly what progressive overload is HERE if you want to check that out.
Yet essentially progressive overload is the number one scientific principle you need to adhere to and have in your training to cause muscle growth.
If you are not having this, good luck building any amounts of significant lean muscle mass.
I don’t care how great your diet for building lean muscle is, the only way to build lean muscle is by your body adapting to a stimulus.
That stimulus is the training program we have been talking about. You give your body that stimulus, it responds and adapts by growing stronger, more defined muscle.
If you do not have that, you are going up sh*ts creek without a paddle my friend.
I wanted to make this very clear before diving into the nutrition aspect because without it you won’t see any change.
Once more feel free to check out some of the resources above that I have laid out, or you can check out any and all of my training programs HERE .
Things can be a bit different depending on your training age, not your actual age.
Again, your training age refers to how many months or years you have been following an intelligently and properly designed training program.
Not beach body, or p90x, or YouTube video workouts. Nothing against those one more time, but that is not a proper training program.
Therefore if you never have or just very recently started following a properly designed program, this section is going to be for you.
If you are beginner, I got some good news for you. You my friend, are going to build muscle regardless of your nutrition.
Why?
Because right now the stress you are going to put on your body is so new that it is going to have to respond no matter what.
It hasn’t seen this before, so you will have to adapt and grow stronger more defined muscles.
You are lucky my friend, yet it doesn’t last forever, and we will touch on that soon.
A “beginner” stage typically lasts the first 6-12 months, 18 months MAX.
Now, with that being said, does that mean you should just eat whatever you want and there aren’t any ways to optimize your diet for building lean muscle mass that much more?
Of course not.
If you are beginner, you have basically one of three options.
If you are a beginner and you have some body fat to lose, yet you want to build some lean muscle mass, I would first check out THIS video .
Beyond that, I would go into a small calorie deficit and look to lose some body fat because again, you will be building muscle regardless ( I am still jealous of you ).
Let me be very clear here. If you have a significant amount of body fat to lose, or you maybe are “skinny fat” and have a beer belly, then I would recommend going into a slight calorie deficit.
If you aren’t one of those two scenarios, keep reading as I will cover you later on in this article.
But for now, if you are one of those two scenarios, here is how I would go about tackling this.
Set Your Calories
I would first start by setting your calories in your calorie deficit. This can be done by heading HERE To my totally free calorie calculator and inputting your information.
I would aim to hit the calorie mark that is anywhere between .5-1lb per week on average.
So let’s say the calculator gives you 1800 calories to lose .5lb per week and 1650 calories to lose 1lb per week, eat somewhere in between that range.
I personally would lean more towards the .5lb per week side because as you add in proper strength training, your body is going to start burning more calories, and you can maximize your muscle building.
You want to be in what is called a calorie deficit because you have body fat to lose. Since you are a beginner, you will be able to build muscle regardless, especially if you do what we talk about in this next section below!
Set Your Protein
I would then set your protein goal for the day.
I would take your goal body weight ( in lbs ) and multiply it between .8-1.
So let’s say your goal body weight is 150lbs. I would work to get 120-150 g of protein per day your diet.
If you need some extra help hitting protein, I gotchu with this video HERE .
And that is it! Focus on your overall calories, focus on hitting your protein, and let the magic happen.
We will talk about specific foods and such a bit later on in this article.
If you are more of the “skinny fat” person, where maybe you don’t have a ton of fat to lose, but you don’t look the way you want to, this section is for you.
Now let me be very clear again. Skinny fat is where you do not have a big beer belly, but maybe your stomach isn’t necessarily defined. Your muscles in your body aren’t necessarily defined or look “lean”, but you certainly don’t have weight to lose.
By the way, having a little excess stomach fat doesn’t mean you “have weight to lose”. It means you need to build muscle.
If this is you, here is the route I would go.
Set Your Calories
I would start by setting your calories. Use my totally free calorie calculator HERE and eat right around your maintenance calories.
You can give yourself a range, if your number comes out to say 2000 calories, maybe look to eat between 1800-2200 calories for your maintenance range.
You want to be right around maintenance calories because your body will be able to do something “body recomp”.
This is essentially building muscle and losing fat at the same time, giving you that leaner more defined look.
The reason you don’t want to go into a calorie deficit to lose body fat is you don’t have that much fat to lose, you more so need to build muscle.
This maintenance calorie range will allow you to do just that by optimizing lean muscle mass while burning fat over time.
The reason you will burn fat is as you accrue more lean muscle mass and you follow a training program, your calorie expenditure will increase leading to a bit more fat loss.
You could potentially go into a very slight calorie deficit, but if you do make sure it isn’t anything too aggressive. Maybe 1-250 calories under your maintenance calories.
Set Your Protein
For your protein goal you are going to want to follow the exact same guidelines as listed above.
Take your goal body weight ( in lbs ) and multiply between .8-1.
I would try to lean more towards the side of 1 if possible.
This will help you once again optimize lean muscle mass building, as protein is essential for recovering and repairing lean muscle tissue.
I also have an entire video on how to fix skinny fat HERE if you want to check it out.
If you are just straight up skinny ( me when I was in 10th grade and started this journey! ) then I would recommend you going into a slight calorie surplus.
This means you are eating more calories than what your body burns on a daily / weekly basis, which is going to be the most optimal diet for building lean muscle.
Especially at a moment in time where your body fat percentage is quite low, you can afford to intake a bit extra calories and pack on the lean muscle!
Set Your Calories
To get into your calorie surplus, once again, you can use my free calorie calculator HERE.
It will give you an option that says “Calories needed to build lean muscle”.
That is how many calories you should be eating, or roughly 300 ish calories above your maintenance calories.
This is again because you are looking to optimize weight and lean muscle gain, without getting too much excess body fat packed on.
Set Your Protein
For someone who is on the skinnier end, you want to set your protein goal a tad bit higher.
This is because usually you have less body mass to begin with, so your numbers will be a bit higher.
Typically I recommend taking your current body weight ( in lbs ) and multiplying between 1-1.2
If you currently weigh 150lbs, try to get around 150-180g of protein.
Now, truthfully speaking, 180g of protein is a lot, so if you “only” hit your bodyweight in protein that is ok! Yet if you can do that with no issue, it certainly will not harm you.
The more beginner you are, the more simple it is because again, you are going to build muscle mass regardless seeing that it is new to your body.
Essentially as you saw above, the two biggest things you are focusing on are calories and protein.
If you hit your calories and you hit your protein, then you are two thumbs up good to go and will kill it.
The more intermediate to advanced you get, the more things become just a bit more fine tuned.
I am going to be giving recommendations in this section for if you are relatively a lower body fat %.
That would be roughly between 8-12% for males and 18-20% for females.
If you are an intermediate to advanced lifter and do not have a lower body fat percentage, I would encourage you to watch this video HERE on how to lose fat and build muscle at the same time.
Also remembering, training age is not how old you are or how long you have been working out. Training age is how long you have been following a real training program.
You could be 46 years old yet done orange theory, beach body, and p90x for the last 20 years.
That is great, but that means you fall into the beginner category, which is a good thing because you can lose fat and build muscle at the same time!
Now, let’s dive into the changes when it comes to someone who is already a lower body fat % and want to have the best diet for building lean muscle.
The part where this changes in when it comes to someone more advanced, you have to take amore advanced approach.
Set Your Calories
First things first you are going to have to set your calories to be in a calorie surplus.
If you need the calorie calculator, HERE it is again.
I recommend being in a 300 calorie surplus, this is again 300 calories above your maintenance calories. If your maintenance calories are 2000, you would eat 2300 calories.
This is because when it comes to building muscle past the beginner stage, you need to give your body enough fuel to get the muscle building process done.
After it is a “new” stimulus for the first 6-12 months, your body says “alright, enough of this, we have gotten used to it”.
Now, it is going to need some extra from you to keep responding. Remember calories simply come down to energy or fuel.
You need extra energy to build, repair, and grow lean muscle tissue. Your body has to take care of everything first.
Organs, brain function, digestion, hormonal processes, etc, all of this comes BEFORE building lean muscle mass.
Then, once you have that covered, your body says “ok, all of that is done and there is some left over? Fine, we will build some lean muscle mass”.
Hence why you need to be above your maintenance calories. This is taking care of off your internal functions first, then giving your body some leftovers to play with.
It is similar to doing a budget and paying your bills. You have to make sure the bills are paid first, then you can go buy some clothes or a watch.
Same concept here. You need to be in a calorie surplus to optimize lean muscle mass building.
For the sake of this article, let’s say your daily calorie goal is 2300 calories for the day.
Next up you are going to want to set your macros.
Macros are short for macronutrients. Macronutrients are protein, carbs, and fats.
In the previous beginner stage, all you had to track was protein, why?
Because again, the more advanced you get the more dialed in this has to be.
As you go into a calorie surplus some fat gain is going to happen. It is just the reality of it, especially the more advanced you are. You might be able to get away with it more as a beginner but over time it is going to catch up to you.
Therefore we need to focus in a bit more on all of our macros.
Typically speaking in a diet for building lean muscle you want to have moderate to high protein, high carb, and moderate to low fat.
This is because when you are in a calorie surplus, what is the easiest thing to convert to and store as body fat?
You guessed it, fat. Fat is already fat! So it is easier to convert and store as fat.
So to minimize fat gain and optimize lean muscle mass gain, your macros need to be set up a certain way.
Let’s cover what that would look like for you.
First is going to be protein.
For your protein, you want to multiply your current body weight ( in lbs ) by .8-1.
So if you weigh 150, try you intake 120-150g of protein.
You also are going to need to calculate the total calories from protein in your diet.
For every 1g of protein there are 4 calories. Therefore let’s say you are doing 150g of protein per day.
150 x 4 = 600 total daily calories from protein.
Remember that as we will reference it again.
Second is going to be dietary fat.
For your fat, you are going to take your current body weight in lbs x .3-.4
Again, if you weigh 150lbs, 150 x .4 = 60g of fat per day.
For every 1g of fat there are 9 calories.
60g of fat x 9 calories = 540 total daily calories from fat.
Thus far from protein and fat combined we have 1140 calories.
Our total daily calorie intake was 2300. Remember that.
Last but not least is carbs.
Since we already figured out protein and fat, the only macro nutrient that is left over is carbs.
So, we will use our daily remaining calories to put towards carbs.
Remember that we had 1140 calories taken up already. Our daily calorie intake was 2300.
Therefore, 2300-1140 = 1160 calories to dedicate towards carbs.
For every 1g of carb, there are 4 calories.
So, 1160 / 4 = 290.
Therefore, 290g of carbs per day.
And there you have it!
You would eat
2300 calories per day
150g of protein
60g of fat
290g of carbs
In order to maximize building lean muscle mass while minimizing fat gain.
Now, what about exact foods?
Well here is the thing, jack.
There are no “muscle building foods” believe it or not. I know I know, shocking right?
The most important thing that matters is hitting those overall macro goals that we just laid out, whether beginner or advanced.
You can eat what you want within those macro and calorie goals and as long as it fits, you are good to go!
I will say though you want to be following the 80/20 rule when it comes to nutrition.
You should absolutely not just “dirty bulk”, which, if you don’t know what dirty bulking is, it is essentially just eating anything and everything you want to gain weight.
That is what people used to do back in the day ( me included, because I knew no better ).
Trust me, you don’t want to go that route. You will end up putting on wayyy more body fat than you’d like.
You will get 4 weeks into your muscle building phase and realized you built so much fat that you will have to cut down again, which defeats the purpose in the first place.
As well as your digestion matters a ton. When I was just eating whatever I want, I was gaining muscle ( and too much fat ) but my digestion was wrecked. I felt terrible, lethargic, always using the bathroom.
It isn’t fun, I promise.
Therefore make sure 80% of your foods are coming from nutrient dense whole foods, while 20% can come from treats and things you enjoy.
Provided it fits within your macro goals for that day.
Here are some examples below of protein, carb, and fat sources.
Hopefully this article gave yo everything you need to know about the best diet for building lean muscle.
Whether you are a beginner or advanced, there are certain strategies you can follow to optimize the things you are doing.
Remember though, without a proper training program, all of this would be for nothing.
If you want your training program done for you where you know you will see results, check out my programs HERE .
Other than that, hope you enjoyed, and look to chat soon.
-E
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In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast I give you my update 4 weeks into my calorie deficit.
4 weeks down, 8 weeks to go.
I talk about my changes in my diet, exercise, and mental state.
I hope you learned something from the podcast. If you want to try the protein powder I talk about in this podcast, feel free to head here below and use my code “ERIC” at check out to save 20%.
-E
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In this episode of the Eric Roberts Fitness Podcast, my assistant coach and I speak with Clubhouse member and teammate of the month Kim.
Kim is an incredibly special human being with an even more incredible story.
Kim talks about how she has finally learned that it is ok to put yourself first, how she lost 80lbs, and how she is no where close to being done.
If you want more information about joining the Clubhouse, you can do so at the link here below.
https://erfclubhouse.com
-E