Bigger Leaner Stronger

by Michael Matthews

  Another example of user error is being passive with your upper body on the elliptical machine. The calorie calculations assume vigorous pumping with the arms, so if yours are just along for the ride, the readout is going to be wrong.

  How Accurate Are Mathematical Methods?

  You probably know the answer to this question as this is our last option, and yes, you’re correct. Mathematical models are the ticket for calculating your total daily energy expenditure.

  They can produce highly accurate estimates of how many calories you’re burning every day, which allows you to move ahead in your meal planning with a fair amount of confidence that your body will respond positively.

  There are a number of systems out there that you can use, and some are fairly complex.

  For instance, you might have heard of methods that revolve around the Metabolic Equivalent of Task, or MET. Think of an MET like a calorie, but instead of representing the amount of energy required to heat one kilogram of water one degree Celsius, an MET equals the amount of energy an average-size person will burn while sitting still for one minute.

  Different activities, then, have different MET scores. Walking at a slow pace for a minute burns about double the amount of energy as sitting still, and thus has an MET score of 2. Vacuuming is more vigorous, so it’s listed at 3.5 METs, and so forth.

  With these various scores, you can use formulas to calculate the total number of calories you burn throughout the day by first working out the calories burned for each type of physical activity you engage in, and then factoring in your basal metabolic rate and general activity levels.

  Does this method work? Absolutely. Is it tedious? Indeed. So much so that you need a spreadsheet just to get through it.

  Some people enjoy geeking out on numbers and details, but most prefer a workable back-of-the-napkin approach instead. Thankfully, this exists too, and it’s called the Katch-McArdle formula.

  This formula has an equation for calculating your BMR, but also contains BMR multipliers for estimating your TDEE based on your general activity levels.

  This means that all you have to do to compute your approximate TDEE is multiply your BMR by a single number.

  There’s a problem with this formula, though. Its multipliers will probably overshoot the actual amount of energy you’re burning. I don’t have any research to directly back that statement up, but I’ve worked with thousands of people and consistently found it to be the case. It’s also common knowledge among experienced bodybuilders.

  This is why I recommend the following slightly modified activity multipliers when calculating your TDEE:

  BMR x 1.15 = Sedentary (little or no exercise)

  BMR x 1.2 to 1.35 = Light activity (1 to 3 hours of exercise or sports per week)

  BMR x 1.4 to 1.55 = Moderate activity (4 to 6 hours of exercise or sports per week)

  BMR x 1.6 to 1.75 = Very active (7 to 9 hours of exercise or sports per week)

  BMR x 1.8 to 1.95 = Extra active (10+ hours of exercise or sports per week)

  These calculations won’t tell you how much energy you’re burning on any given day, of course. To do that, you’d have to go the MET route we just discussed.

  Instead, these equations estimate the average amount of energy you burn every day based on how active you are.

  Fortunately, this snapshot of your average daily energy expenditure is all you need for reliable fat loss and muscle gain. It also makes creating meal plans a breeze, which works wonders for long-term compliance.

  Let’s see how this math works for me.

  We already know that my BMR is about 2,100 calories, and I do four to six hours of moderate exercise per week.

  Per the calculations above, my TDEE should be around 2,800 calories (2,100 x 1.4), give or take a hundred calories or so.

  And that’s empirically correct as my meal plan currently provides around 2,800 calories per day, which perfectly maintains my current body composition. What’s more, when I intentionally eat less than this, I lose fat, and when I intentionally eat more, I gain fat.

  You’re up next! Take a few minutes to calculate your average TDEE, and then let’s move on!

  If math really isn’t your forte, you can find a handy-dandy BMR and TDEE calculator on my website. Go to www.biggerleanerstronger.com/calculator.

  3. Calculate your target daily calorie intake.

  Once you’ve calculated your average TDEE, you’re ready to figure out how many calories you should eat every day.

  The first step in working this out is determining what you want to do with your body composition.

  If you want to lose fat, you need to eat fewer calories than you’re burning.This is known as cutting.

  If you want to maintain your current weight and body composition, you need to eat more or less how many calories you’re burning. This is known as maintaining.

  If you want to gain muscle as quickly as possible, you need to eat slightly more calories than you’re burning.This is known as lean bulking.

  Let’s break down each.

  How Many Calories You Should Eat to Lose Fat

  As you know, you must be in a calorie deficit to lose fat, but how large should that deficit be? Ten percent? Twenty percent? Larger?

  In other words, should you eat 90 percent of the calories you burn every day? Eighty percent? Less?

  Some fitness folk advocate a “slow-cutting” approach where you use a mild calorie deficit and lax workout schedule to whittle down fat stores over the course of many months.

  The advantages of this are claimed to be less muscle loss, more enjoyable workouts, and fewer issues related to hunger and cravings. And there’s some truth here.

  Slow cutting is at least slightly easier and forgiving in some ways than a more aggressive approach, but the upsides aren’t all that significant in most people, and they come at a steep price: duration.

  Namely, slow cutting is, well, slow, and for many dieters, this is more troubling than eating a bit less food every day.

  For instance, all things being equal, by reducing your calorie deficit from 20 to 10 percent, you’re halving the amount of fat you’ll lose each week and doubling the amount of time it’ll take to finish your cut.

  This is a problem for most people, because the longer they remain in a calorie deficit of any size, the more likely they are to fall off the wagon due to life commotion, dietary slipups, scheduling snafus, and so on.

  Furthermore, when you know what you’re doing, you can maintain a significant calorie deficit that results in rapid fat loss without losing muscle, suffering in the gym, or wrestling with metabolic hobgoblins.

  This allows you to enjoy faster results without having to sacrifice anything but calories, and this in turn allows you to spend more time doing the more enjoyable stuff (maintaining and lean bulking).

  Therefore, my recommendation is an aggressive but not reckless calorie deficit of about 25 percent when cutting.

  In other words, when you’re cutting I recommend that you eat about 75 percent of your average TDEE. For most men, this comes out to 10 to 12 calories per pound of body weight per day.

  For example, we established that my average TDEE is 2,800 calories, so when I cut, I should drop my calories to about 2,100 (2,800 x 0.75). And this is exactly what I do whenever I need to lose fat, and it has allowed me to get very lean without any muscle loss to speak of.

  I didn’t pick this 25 percent number out of thin air, either. Studies show that it works tremendously well for both fat loss and muscle preservation when combined with resistance training and high protein intake.

  For instance, a study conducted by scientists at the University of Jyväskylä (Finland) split national- and international-level track and field jumpers and sprinters with low levels of body fat (at or below 10 percent) into two groups:14

  Group on
e maintained a 300-calorie deficit (about 12 percent below TDEE).

  Group two maintained a 750-calorie deficit (about 25 percent below TDEE).

  After four weeks, the first group lost very little fat and muscle, and the second group lost, on average, about four pounds of fat and very little muscle. Neither group experienced any negative side effects to speak of.

  More evidence of the effectiveness of my recommended approach can be found in a study conducted by scientists at Brigham and Women’s Hospital with 38 overweight men.

  After 12 weeks of maintaining a calorie deficit of about 20 percent, lifting weights about two hours per week, and eating a high-protein diet, the men lost, on average, 13 pounds of fat and gained 7 pounds of muscle.15

  And just to take it to the extreme, a 90-day study conducted by scientists at the University of Nebraska with 21 obese, middle-aged women found that subjects eating just 800 calories per day and lifting weights just 90 minutes per week lost an average of 22 pounds and gained a significant amount of muscle mass.16

  These findings are also in line with what I’ve experienced working with thousands of people.

  When combined with a high-protein diet and rigorous workout schedule, a calorie deficit of about 25 percent allows for speedy fat loss and considerable muscle gain without any serious side effects.

  How to Calculate Your Cutting Macros

  Once you have your cutting calories worked out, turning them into daily macronutrient targets is easy. Here’s how:

  Forty percent of your calories should come from protein.

  Forty percent of your calories should come from carbohydrate.

  Twenty percent of your calories should come from dietary fat.

  Protein and carbohydrate contain about four calories per gram, and dietary fat contains about nine calories per gram. Therefore, all you have do to figure out your macros is the following:

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.4 and divide the result by 4 to figure out your target daily protein intake (in grams).

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.4 and divide the result by 4 to figure out your target daily carbohydrate intake.

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.2 and divide the result by 9 to figure out your target daily fat intake.

  For most people, this comes out to around 1.1 grams of protein and carbohydrate per pound of body weight per day, and 0.25 grams of dietary fat per pound of body weight per day.

  In fact, if you want to skip most of the math, you can just use those macro guidelines when starting a cutting phase and move on to the next step in the process (meal planning).

  If you’re very overweight, however, I don’t recommend this “macro shortcut” because it’ll have you eating far more protein than is necessary. In this case, use the 40/40/20 method instead.

  Let’s see how this works out for me. If I were cutting, my target daily calorie intake would be 2,100 calories, so:

  2,100 x 0.4 = 840 and 840 / 4 = 210 (grams of protein per day)

  2,100 x 0.4 = 840 and 840 / 4 = 210 (grams of carbohydrate per day)

  2,100 x 0.2 = 420 and 420 / 9 = 47 (grams of dietary fat per day)

  Or with the macro shortcut:

  195 (pounds) x 1.1 = 215 (grams of protein per day)

  195 x 1.1 = 215 (grams of carbohydrate per day)

  195 x 0.25 = 49 (grams of dietary fat per day)

  How Many Calories You Should Eat to Gain Muscle

  You learned back in chapter 10 that a calorie surplus is conducive to muscle gain, and that the easiest way to accomplish this is to intentionally eat a bit more calories than you’re burning every day.

  This has been confirmed in a number of studies that show a calorie surplus boosts muscle protein synthesis, increases anabolic and decreases catabolic hormone levels, and improves workout performance.17

  All of that adds up to significantly better muscle and strength gains over time.

  You don’t want to eat too many more calories than you’re burning, however, because after a point, increasing food intake no longer boosts muscle growth but just fat gain instead.

  This extra fat gain does more than hurt your ego, too. It even further accelerates fat storage and slows down muscle building, because as body fat levels rise, insulin sensitivity drops.18

  The better your body responds to insulin’s signals, the better it can do many things, including build muscle and resist fat gain. As the body’s sensitivity to insulin falls, fat burning drops, the likelihood of weight gain rises, and protein synthesis rates decline.19

  So, how large should your calorie surplus be to maximize muscle growth while minimizing fat gain?

  Unfortunately, I’ve been unable to find any research that gives a tidy answer, but I’ve spent enough time in the natural bodybuilding scene and worked with enough people to know that the point of diminishing returns is somewhere around 110 percent of your average TDEE.

  That is, you’ll likely gain just as much muscle eating about 110 percent of your average TDEE as you would eating 120 or 130 percent but a lot less fat.

  And so that’s my recommendation for lean bulking: eat about 110 percent of your average TDEE. For most men, this comes out to 16 to 18 calories per pound of body weight per day.

  For me, this would mean eating about 3,100 calories per day (2,800 x 1.1). And again, this is exactly what I do when I want to start a lean bulking phase, and it results in slow and steady muscle gain with minimal fat gain.

  How to Calculate Your Lean Bulking Macros

  Here’s how to turn your lean bulking calories into macros:

  Twenty-five percent of your calories should come from protein.

  Fifty-five percent of your calories should come from carbohydrate.

  Twenty percent of your calories should come from dietary fat.

  To figure this out, do the following:

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.25 and divide the result by 4 to figure out your target daily protein intake.

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.55 and divide the result by 4 to figure out your target daily carbohydrate intake.

  Multiply your target daily calorie intake by 0.2 and divide the result by 9 to figure out your target daily fat intake.

  For most people, this comes out to around 1 gram of protein, 2.2 grams of carbohydrate, and 0.35 grams of dietary fat per pound of body weight per day.

  Again, if you want to skip most of the math, you can just use those macro guidelines when starting a lean bulking phase and move on to the next step in the process (meal planning).

  Let’s see how this works out for me. If I were lean bulking, my target daily calorie intake would be 3,100 calories, so:

  3,100 x 0.25 = 775 and 775 / 4 = 194 (grams of protein per day)

  3,100 x 0.55 = 1,705 and 1,705 / 4 = 425 (grams of carbohydrate per day)

  3,100 x 0.2 = 620 and 620 / 9 = 70 (grams of dietary fat per day)

  Or with the shortcut:

  195 (pounds) x 1 = 195 (grams of protein per day)

  195 x 2.2 = 429 (grams of carbohydrate per day)

  195 x 0.35 = 68 (grams of dietary fat per day)

  How Many Calories You Should Eat to Maintain Your Weight

  This shouldn’t really come into play until you’ve completed several cycles of cutting and lean bulking and more or less have the body you want.

  You use your lean bulking phases to add muscle and your cutting phases to strip away fat, and along the way, assess your physique to see how far you still have to go to look the way you want to look.

  Eventually, you’ll cut down to a lean body fat percentage and absolutely love what you see in the mirror. This will be one of the most rewarding experiences you’ll have in your fitness journey.

 
It’ll continue to pay dividends, too, because from that point forward, you’ll get to focus more on enjoying the fruits of your labor than the labor itself.

  In other words, it takes a lot more work to build your best body ever than it does to maintain it.

  Once you have your “maintenance body,” you don’t have to work out as much if you don’t want to, you can do less weightlifting if you want to try other forms of resistance training, you have a lot more wiggle room in your diet, and the occasional dietary flubs don’t even register in any meaningful way.

  Keep all that in mind as you progress on my Bigger Leaner Stronger program, because if you stick to it, you will get there. It’s only a matter of when.

  Calculating your maintenance calories is straightforward. There are two ways to do it:

  Eat the same amount every day.This would be your average TDEE, and for most men, it comes out to around 14 to 16 calories per pound of body weight per day.

  Practical speaking, this will mean that some days you’ll be in a slight calorie deficit and other days a slight surplus. That’s fine. They will balance out to neither weight loss nor gain over the course of weeks, months, and even years if you so desire.

  Eat more on the days that you’re more active and less on the days that you’re less active.This requires that you estimate your energy expenditure each day and eat accordingly.

  I prefer the first option because it’s the simplest, but the second can be better for people who are very active on certain days and very inactive on others. If you’re one of those people (or just want to give the second method a try), here’s the easiest way to set it up:

  BMR x 1.15 = Sedentary Day

  On days where you’re not exercising or otherwise physically active, eat 115 percent of your BMR.