Updated: Jun 9, 2022
Your daily protein requirement refers to the amount of pure protein your body needs on a daily basis, not only to maintain normal bodily functions but also to prevent muscle wasting and to increase lean muscle mass.
Your daily protein requirement refers to the amount of pure protein your body needs on a daily basis, not only to maintain normal bodily functions but also to prevent muscle wasting and to increase lean muscle mass.
How I calculate daily calorie needs contradict the method I was taught, and there is good reason for that. The reason is very simple – RESULTS!
If you are curious about how I calculate it, continue reading…
Calculating my daily protein requirement
The most widely recommended amount of pure protein your body needs on a daily basis, to maintain normal bodily function, prevent muscle wasting and increase lean muscle mass is to aim for 1g of pure protein per pound of your Ideal or Goal Weight.
Lets do the math:
Goal weight: 60kg
Convert goal weight into pounds: 60 x 2.2 = 132lb or 132g of pure protein per day
Calculating my daily calorie intake
First, lets calculate how many calories there are in 132g of protein. There are 4 kcal in in 1 gram of protein, so we multiply 132g by 4 = 528 kcal
For effective fat burning and generous lean muscle gains, it is recommended that 40% of your total daily calorie intake comes from protein. Therefore, with 528 kcal derived from protein, we can easily establish your target, total calorie intake by applying the following calculation:
528 (kcal from protein) is 40% of what? = 1320kcal
How to factor fats and carbohydrates into your total daily calorie intake
With a total daily calorie intake of 1320 kcal and 528 kcal derived from protein, the remaining balance must come from fats and carbohydrates.
1320kcal – 528kcal = 792kcal
It is recommended that 20-30% of your total daily calorie intake should come from fat. Fat allows you to feel fuller for longer and promotes fat loss, and since healthy fats are an essential macronutrient and carbohydrates aren’t, it makes sense to aim for the maximum of 30% fat, with carbohydrates making up for the remaining 30%.
Therefore we simply divide 792 kcal by 2 to establish how many calories must each come from fats and carbohydrates.
792kcal divided by 2 = 396 kcal
Now let’s take a look at what we have so far:
Total kcal: 1320kcal
40% Protein: 528kcal
30% Fat: 396kcal
30% Carbs: 396kcal
Next we are going to convert the number of calories to grams for each macronutrient. We have already established that 528 kcal equals 132g of pure protein, now let’s do the same for fats and carbohydrates.
Just like protein, carbohydrates also contains 4kcal per gram, therefore we simply divide 396 by 4 to know how many grams of pure carbs you need to eat on a daily basis.
396 / 4 = 99g of carbohydrates
Fat on the other hand contains 9kcal per gram, we therefore divide 396 by 9 to know how many grams of pure fat you need on a daily basis.
396 / 9 = 44g of fat
So there you have it:
Total kcal: 1320kcal
40% Protein: 528kcal/132g
30% Fat: 396kcal/44g
30% Carbs: 396kcal/99g
On weight training days I increase carbohydrates by 25g for an extra boost of energy supply.
Updated: Jun 10, 2022
When your #1 goal is to build muscle, there are two things that need to be kept in mind when creating a caloric surplus:
Maximizing muscle gains
Minimizing fat gains
There is a limit to the amount of muscle the human body is capable of building (and the rate at which it can be built). There is also a limit to the number of calories your body is capable of using to build muscle. If you supply your body with more calories than that amount, those extra calories will always be stored in the form of fat, not muscle.
For that reason, we need to avoid making the calorie surplus TOO big. At the same time, if the caloric surplus is TOO small, muscle will either not be built at all, or it will be built so unbelievably slow that progress will go unnoticed. So the goal here is to get the surplus just right. Here are my recommendations for most people, most of the time…
Ideal Caloric Surplus for MEN: 250 calories per day.
Ideal Caloric Surplus for WOMEN: 125 calories per day.
Additional calories above this amount is likely to cause too much fat gain, and fewer calories would likely slow down muscle growth to nonexistent levels. The caloric surplus above will usually produce the best results possible in terms of maximizing muscle gains and minimizing fat gains for the majority of the population looking to build muscle.
It is also ideal because it will cause you to gain weight at the ideal rate. So, just what is the ideal rate of weight gain when trying to build muscle?
Men: On average 1kg per month
Women: On average ½ kg per month
When you start training, muscle gains occur more rapidly in the first 3-6 months, thereafter it tends to slow down. You can monitor your progress based on what your weight is doing from week to week by doing the following: Weigh yourself once a week first thing in the morning on an empty stomach, or, weigh in every morning and take the weekly average.
Are you gaining weight at the ideal rate? If so, congrats. Keep eating this number of calories each day, make sure you maintain consistency and continue to apply progressive overload and results are sure to follow.
Are you training but losing weight or just maintaining your current weight? If so, your surplus is too low (or it just doesn’t exist at all) and therefore needs to be increased. Just add 250 calories for men and 125kcal for women to your current calorie intake and then monitor what your weight does over the next couple of weeks.
For simplicity you can download the Eat for your goal weight chart below.
