Whether you want to lose weight, build muscle or both; make sure you get your macros correct.
To optimize your muscle growth have a look at our muscle building meal plan to get you started.
A simple way to calculate your macronutrient breakdown is to use the following formula:
- Work out your BMR
This is your basal metabolic rate, which is how many calories your body needs on a daily basis just to perform normal functions like breathing.
Roughly calculated by the formula below:
For Men
•   BMR = BW (Kg) x 24
For Women
•   BMR = BW(Kg) x 22 - Now, adjust this to suit your daily activity level
- Sedentary (little or no exercise, desk job): BMR x 1.1
- Lightly active (some standing/walking at work): BMR x 1.3
- Moderately active (moderate exercise/sports 4-5 days/week): BMR x 1.5
- Very active (hard daily activity i.e. building): BMR x 1.7
This will give an estimation of daily energy expenditure (not counting specific exercise, which you will need to account for, see below)
Weight training will account for approximately 3.5 x BW(kg) cals/hour, Â so an 80kg person, training for 60 minutes a day, could expect to burn 280Cal/ session - Add on required calorie surplus
Once you have found your TDEE (total daily energy expenditure to maintain body weight), we can work out our total calorie needs.
A good place to start is with a 200-400 Cal surplus on top of your calculated maintenance calories; this can be adjusted if required according to response. As we are now in a calorie surplus, we will be building muscle maximally, but will also be gaining some fat alongside this. - Now, calculate protein intake
A good aim is approximately 2g per kg or body weight - this makes for easy maths, and will put you in a good place to maximise muscle gain, but don’t worry if you can’t hit this target 1.7g/kg+ is still sufficient for the vast majority of people to gain muscle. (1-1.2g/lb of ideal body weight) - Calculate your fat intake
A good aim from a muscle gain perspective is to aim for 20-30% of your daily calories allowance to come from fat - 1g fat/kg body weight should put you in this region. - Calculate your carbohydrate intake
The remaining calories that you have left over after totalling the protein and fat can be given to carbs.