Macros are the essentials to add on the extra surge of energy for bulking up. But have you decided what must be in your platter to get a muscular physique?
Well, it’s a myth that muscles only grow in the gym; your diet and macros intake play a significant role.
Getting informed about how to count macros for lean bulking will help you keep a perfect balance of calories and essential nutrients in your meal plans.
Both Macros and micros separately allow the body to grow and build muscle. In this discussion, we delve into the facts related to macros and how you can count them for better results.
Dive in to know how to count macros for lean bulking and why it’s important to combine enough of them into the diet.
Key Highlights:
- An optimum balance of macros and micros is essential to get better bulking results.
- For lean bulking, you need to know how to count the macros and get a perfect chiseled physique.
- Proper balance of protein, carbs, and fats with optimum calorie count will help in balancing the overall dietary nutrition for lean bulking.
- Keep an eye on the results and track your progress to avoid getting too much or too low of any macros.
Following is a detailed guide you can use to count macros for building lean muscle mass.
How to Count Macros for Lean Bulking?
Lean bulking is actually a type of bulking that needs the intake of limited and clean calories.
So, how to count macros for lean bulking then?
Counting macros for bulking is not a tedious task, but yes you have to keep your diet filled with enough essential nutrients and food.
The basics are carbs, protein, and dietary fats. Having the perfect combination of all three on a regular basis is a good approach for lean bulking.
There’s no shortcut to growing muscle mass. You need enough calories, and for that, your meals should be filled with enough carbs, protein, and fats.
It is well known that the daily dosage of these three essential macros usually varies from person to person and their body’s specific needs. Here, we’ll list all the steps to count your calories and macros for lean bulking.
While bulking, the primary goal is to gain muscle mass and for that, you need to add on calories from food. However, if you’re planning for dirty bulking, it can’t be a better approach.
Having a clean diet with the optimum amount of carbs, protein, and fats with balanced calorie intake is what I’m into and is usually what I recommend. Moving ahead to know how to count macros for lean bulking when bodybuilding.
Steps to Calculating Macros for Lean Muscle Gain
Calculating macros for lean muscle gain involves determining your protein, carbohydrate, and fat intake. Establish your total daily energy expenditure. For a better outcome, it’s essential to know how much you’re able to use.
Use an online calculator or a formula to estimate the number of calories you burn in a day.
This is your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Factors like age, weight, height, activity level, and exercise frequency impact this calculation.
Also, there’s a rule of 40/40/20 macros for bulking which combines 40% carbs, 40% protein, and 20% fats in the whole meal in a day.
Here are steps for the best macro split for lean bulk that you can follow:
#1. Essential Fats: Lean Bulking’s Backbone
For lean bulking, setting your fat intake plays a crucial role in supporting overall health and optimizing hormone function while minimizing excess fat gain.
Allocate around 20-30% of your total daily calorie intake to fats. Each gram of fat contains about 9 calories. Divide your fat calorie target by 9 to get the grams of fat you should consume.
For example, suppose you’re aiming for a daily intake of 3000 calories and have allocated 25% to fats. By considering macros percentage for lean bulk:
- Fat Calories = 0.25 * 3000 = 750 calories from fat
- Fat Intake in grams = 750 / 9 = approximately 83 grams of fat per day
Fat intake is important because it helps in delivering the stamina needed for better growth.
#2. Protein Powerhouse: Fueling Fitness
To get optimum calories from protein, it is essential to monitor your daily protein intake as well.
Protein is an essential element to support your muscles to grow. Ensure you’ve allocated the necessary calories for protein (aim for around 1.6-2.2 grams per kilogram of body weight) and fat (around 20-30% of your total calorie intake).
For example, if your total daily intake is 3000 calories and you’ve allocated 20% to protein and 25% to fat:
- Protein intake: (0.20) * 3000 = 600 calories
- Protein in grams = 600/4 = 150 gms
Make sure to fulfill your daily protein intake as it essentially fuels muscles to grow and you can use lean bulk calculator for bodybuilding to know how much you actually need.
#3. Monitor Carb-Loading: Building Blocks for Lean Bulking
Calculating your carbohydrate intake for lean bulking involves considering your overall calorie needs and then allocating the remaining calories.
For a 3000-calorie diet, subtract the calories from protein and fat from your total daily caloric intake to find the remaining calories available for carbohydrates.
If you’re looking to calculate carbohydrates, it’s important to note that the conversion factor for carbohydrates is 4 calories per gram, not 9 as with fat.
Divide the total carbohydrate calories by 4 (calories per gram of carbohydrates): 1650 calories / 4 = 412.5 grams of carbohydrates per day.
Overall, carbs are essential for bulking because they provide the amount of energy needed while training.
In fact, not being able to balance your carb intake can be an influencing factor when you’re trying to build muscle on a keto diet or any other diet that excludes a group of macros.
#4. Calorie Surge: Lean Bulking Essentials
Now that you have a calorie total, it’s indeed important to know that for bulking it’s essential to consume a certain amount of food. While considering your daily energy expenditure, balance your calorie intake with that.
Calorie surplus is actually easy, but consuming the right food is always a factor that needs proper analysis. Count the calories you’re taking in from different macros as well. For example, do consume limited amounts of fat, protein as well as carbs. Make sure your daily intake of healthy carbs is optimum.
So, after finding out how to calculate your macros for lean bulking, let’s check out the way to balance the intake in the next part of the discussion.
How to Balance Macros for Lean Bulking?
In order to balance the overall caloric intake and the macros, you need to follow a complete cycle that includes diet, supplements, and workouts.
First of all, you have to track your records. If you’re gaining weight too quickly or adding too much fat, adjust your calorie intake slightly. Similarly, if progress is slow, consider a slight increase in calories.
Here are some of the factors that you might be unaware of:
1. Food
What you eat is crucial for bulking as having good knowledge of your caloric intake is important. For better bulking results, you should combine lean protein that includes fish, greek yogurt, legumes, white poultry meat, low-fat cottage cheese, and lean beef.
Just like this, you can rely on almonds, nuts, and cheese for rich dietary fat sources. Keep a balance of the three macros and don’t overrely on any one of them as your primary source.
2. Supplements
There are plenty of supplements available in the market that claim to deliver optimum muscle-building results.
But from the perspective of caloric and macros count, it would be better to go for a supplement that offers clean calories.
Nowadays, mass gainers can be a better addition to your diet to grow muscle with balanced nutrition and calories. It combines the optimum amount of macros to fuel you with energy while improving muscle mass.
If you’re looking for any such supplement, do check out the Crazy Nutrition Mass Gainer review which is a mass gaining supplement with digestive enzymes to help avoid bloating.
3. Workouts
Keeping yourself engaged in an effective workout routine helps your body burn calories and use them to grow muscle mass. The needed amount of protein and carbs helps in enhancing the growth and energy needed for gains.
Bulking is all about what you eat and the type of workout you do. Try both compound movements and isolation exercises to get gains.
This was just a short and quick nutritional guide for counting macros for bulking. Now, here is a summary of the overall discussion on how to count macros for lean bulking.
Final Note
Calculating macros for lean bulking is an essential need while being on a specific fitness plan. To get a perfectly chiseled physique, it is vital to determine your daily caloric needs and then allocate specific percentages or grams to different macronutrients.
At least a rough target count of protein, fats, and carbs intake is needed to grow a well-sculpted muscular physique without getting too much fat.
Before incorporating any supplement and making huge additions or changes to your diet, it’s recommended to consult a healthcare professional.
Hopefully, the discussion shared here about lean bulking and the facts to calculate your macros will help you better understand how to get lean bulk naturally.
Perhaps, the most crucial aspect of all is staying on a clean diet and cutting out most of the processed foods out of your meal plan.