If your muscles don’t have all the essential macronutrients they need, they won’t be able to grow and develop. Planning a hyper caloric diet to gain volume is a basic premise for your strength training to give the results you expect. Take note of the keys to increase volume and not fat.
Food and exercise must go hand in hand so that you can meet the goals that you have set for yourself in your sporting activity. Although if it is possible to lower body fat while increasing lean mass, it will depend on the initial body composition and physical condition. The most common is to separate these goals, especially when it is necessary to lose weight first and then develop muscle.
If you want to increase the volume of your muscles, you need to eat as many calories as you expend to leave the “extra” margin allowing muscle development. It is not about eating more “of everything”, this is the big mistake in which we make more often. It is not about consuming more calories without control, but about the quality of these.
To make your daily menus become your best allies, it is important to plan a hyper caloric diet with which you gain volume and not excess fat that will later cost you to eliminate in the definition stage.
How to plan a high calorie diet to gain muscle
There are some basic lines that should be known to know how to apply them when establishing you’re eating plan to gain volume:
- Any diet, and this of course, has to be personalized. It is essential to make a prior nutritional assessment to know where to start. Know the days of training and intensity of these. They cannot be improvised, for the diet to be effective it must be energetically adapted to a training plan. It is convenient to have biochemical data (an analysis that you can request at your health center) to adapt it to micronutrients, which will also be essential for greater sports performance. Finally, it is necessary to know the body composition values from which one starts (weight – height ratio, BMI and also, fat percentage). The greater the presence of adipose tissue, the more demanding when it comes to controlling that excess of calories that we take with food.
- A hyper caloric diet to gain volume implies a higher calorie intake, between 15% – 20%, depending, precisely, on the aforementioned conditions. That is about 300-500 more calories in our daily menu.
- In the good balance between carbohydrates, proteins and fats lies the success of your eating plan so that your muscles grow. Keep in mind that you need:
- Carbohydrates, to have enough energy to allow you to train effectively.
- Quality proteins, which are “the bricks” to repair your muscle fibers, a process by which hypertrophy will take place.
- That it provides healthy fats in a proportionate and balanced way that help your joints through pro and anti-inflammatory processes, in addition to being essential to create certain cellular structures and that in turn favor general well-being.
Key nutrients in a hyper caloric diet to gain volume
Strength training, by itself, is not enough to make your muscles grow. Sufficient rest, foods that deeply nourish and meet the needs of muscle fibers and proper hydration are key pillars to have an enviable core, biceps or quadriceps.
If you want to gain volume, plan your hyper caloric diet taking into account the most hyper caloric foods but without neglecting the nutritional principles:
Carbohydrates
Strength training, aimed at growing your muscles, involves increasing your energy expenditure. You are going to perform a demanding training, with intense sessions based on multiple repetitions, either supporting your own body weight or in most cases, with extra weight. The carbohydrates slow absorption should become prominent in your weekly menu. Oatmeal, corn or wheat for breakfast, pasta or rice dishes for lunch, always in their integral versions for a more efficient metabolism and with a greater contribution of micronutrients.
When you plan your hyper caloric diet, give prominence to compound carbohydrates on the days you spend more time training, they will be the fuel your body uses when training, on the other hand, reduce your intake on rest days (essential days for muscle growth).
Protein
In it is the key to the development of your muscles. Lean beef and poultry (like chicken and turkey) are perfect to complete your meals. Also the protein from fish, which is ideal for dinners, alternating between white fish and blue fish.
Nor should we forget foods rich in vegetable protein and fiber, such as legumes, perfect for lunch twice a week. And of course, an essential food such as eggs, because in all its culinary options it is a source of protein of high biological value, providing all the essential amino acids (those that the body does not manufacture by itself and are dependent on the diet).
Fats
Don’t exclude them, control them. In a hyper caloric diet that helps you gain muscle, quality fats play a very important role. Nuts, in moderation, before or after training. Virgin olive oil, to dress your beans and salads. Blue fish, rich in essential and healthy fatty acids such as omega 3, cannot be lacking in the perfect hyper caloric diet to gain muscle mass and volume.
