Rule Number 1: I must eat more calories than I burn to gain weight. No matter how much you try, muscle will not come from a pill or supplement, air or water. I have to eat more calories than I burn in order to get bigger…. PERIOD. Will talk about how many calories soon enough.

Rule Number 2: The types of food I eat will dictate the type of weight I gain. Assuming that I am following Rule Number 1, if I eat deep fried fatty foods and foods with lots of sugar, the weight I gain will be mostly fat. This is because muscle is built from amino acids and glycogen found in quality protein and carbohydrate sources, not from chicken fried steak and donuts. Liking a certain food does not make it healthy, and liking a certain food does not help you gain muscle. If you want to look like a cream puff, then eat cream puffs. If you want to look like an animal, then eat lean, quality, meats and carbohydrates.

Rule Number 3: I must eat 42 calories for every kilogram of body weight. This number is only an approximation, but it works 99% of the time. Simply divide your weight in pounds by 2.2 to get kilograms. Multiply that number by 42 and you’ve got it! Example: 220lbs./ 2.2 = 100 kg, 100 kg x 42 calories = 4200 calories.

Rule Number 4: The 3:2:1 Rule. I must eat three times as much carbohydrate as fat and twice as much protein as fat. Hence the name 3:2:1 Rule. The ratio of carbohydrate to protein to fat is 3 to 2 to 1. Here is an example. Let’s say I need 4200 calories a day.

Simply put, you need to eat twice as much protein as fat and, 3 times as much carbohydrate as fat. When in doubt, you can simply make sure your plate has 3 times more carbohydrate than fat and twice as much protein than fat on it.

Rule Number 5: I must eat at least 6 or 7 times a day. Don’t throw your arms up in the air just yet. I don’t mean 6 Thanksgiving dinners each day, I mean six small meals each day. Simply divide your daily calories into 6 or 7 small meals. In keeping with the 4200 calorie/day example, I would eat 6 meals of 700 calories (6 x 700 = 4200). That doesn’t seem so bad, right? After all, the Whopper, fries, and Coke your buddy ate at lunch yesterday had over 1000 calories. By comparison 700 calories should be a snap! One reason this is so critical is that your body is always trying to repair and grow after a tough game, practice, or workout. If you don’t have small amounts of protein and carbohydrate at your disposal to build and repair your body, you won’t have the tools available to build huge muscles. Also, eating smaller meals more often ensures the weight you do gain is muscle and not fat. After all, your body can only utilize a certain number of calories in each meal for muscle building muscle. The rest will get stored as fat. That is why people that only eat once or twice a day have a hard time losing fat and gaining muscle.

Rule Number 6: The ZigZag Rule. Boredom and adaptation are the two biggest enemies to an otherwise serious muscle-gaining program. After a while of eating all this food, you simply get tired of eating. This is normal; don’t deny it, don’t try and fight. Just outsmart it. After eating so many calories day in and day out, your body adapts and your metabolism gets faster and faster. Thus, you have to eat more and more to gain the next pound. This too, is normal; you can’t deny it, don’t try and fight it. JUST OUTSMART IT!! That is why the ZigZag Rule was created. In simple terms, you zig-zag your calories. Five day of high calories, two days of normal calories. By having only five high calories days per week, you won’t get bored (you get two days off each week) and your metabolism won’t start racing (those two normal days keep it in check).

Here is an example. Let’s say you normally eat 4200 calories each day. You like your weekends off to do as you please so those will be your “light” days. Monday morning through Friday night you crank up the calories to 5200 calories a day. Saturday and Sunday you ease back down to 4200 calories each day. Over the course of the week you will gain two pounds. Over the weekend, you may lose one pound. That’s ok, because you have still netted one pound of rock hard muscle for your efforts. Over 10 weeks, that will be 10 pounds of pure performance enhancing and collision winning muscle.

There you have it. No more rules, no more math. These are the secrets to the Holy Grail of building lean, ripped muscles. You can keep doing this until you reach your genetic limit, or until your so freaky big that your coach begins referring to you as “The Beef” or “The Hulk”.

To this point, we have talked exclusively about rules. Let’s go through a concrete, realistic example of what a normal day would look like in the world of serious muscle building. While going through this example, remember: proteins and carbohydrates have 4 calories/gram and fat has 9 calories/gram. We started off by dividing our goal caloric intake of 5200 calories into seven separate meals. We simply divide the total calories by seven and get the average calories per meal we need. In this example, it is 743 calories per meal on average. Our example meal plan has a total of 5201 calories for the day. Each meal has quality protein and carbohydrate in it. If you were a 220 lb athlete trying to gain muscle, you could eat just like this Monday through Friday, then eat normal (4200 calories/day) Saturday and Sunday. Obviously, if you weigh less than 220 lbs you caloric intake would be less. If you weigh less or more, just plug your weight into Rule Number 3. Also, for some simple ideas on “easy to make meal items” to build your own menu.

Supplements play a big roll in gaining muscle. The reason is simple. Most people don’t have time to prepare and eat 7 meals each and every day. This is where supplements can be your friend. You don’t want to rely upon supplements. Instead, make nutritional supplements (like Energy Balance) a “supplemental” portion of your diet. Use Energy Balance as an additional source of quality muscle building calories as well as glutamine to help with muscle growth and repair. Also, creatine monohydrate is an excellent supplement to help improve strength. I will spend more time in a future article speaking specifically about nutritional supplements.

Director of Sports Performance Nutrition

©  College Sports Scholarships