fooD
The firsT seT of rules per-
tains to food and how to eat to gain size.
The commonly asked question is usually
about protein intake. Ideally you want to
eat approximately one gram of protein
per pound of lean body mass (LBM). I
don’t mean your bodyweight, I mean fat-
free mass. If you’re 250 pounds with 25
percent body fat, then you’ll eat about
188 grams of protein per day. Protein
can be increased up to 1.5 grams per
pound if you wish, but that just takes
away from other macronutrients that
have a critical role in building muscle.
Start with one gram per pound of LBM
and adjust from there.
To find your carbohydrate intake, you
just double your lean mass. If you have
188 pounds of lean mass, this means
you’ll be eating 376 grams of carbohy-
drates a day. Finalize your macro count
by cutting your LBM in half to come up
with the amount of fat you will eat—at
188 pounds, this is 94 grams of fat per
day. This ends up being a total calorie
load of 3,102 calories per day. This is
a start, and you adjust from here. Ad-
justments should happen slowly, not in
large jumps; if you increase your calories
too quickly, you run the risk of gaining
excess fat, which is counterproductive to
an aesthetically pleasing physique.
66 april 2017 | ironmanmagazine.com