How Many Calories Do Hardgainers Need to Eat to Gain Muscle?
Sep 20, 2024 mindpumpI’ve gotten a lot of questions from leaner clients and friends as to how they can put on muscle. These are individuals who struggle to put on muscle and/or weight. We refer to these types of clients as hardgainers. Most of the time if you fall into this camp your biggest issue is your nutrition. To put on some serious size, you need to make sure you are eating enough of the right things.
Figuring out your Maintenance
Finding out your maintenance requires two things; 1) Calculating your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR) and 2) Figuring out your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). Your BMR is essentially the number of calories your body needs just to survive. This is as if you were doing nothing but lying in bed all day. There are different ways you can calculate all of this but the most accurate way is to track everything you eat and drink for two weeks, then calculate the daily average of your calories and macros. You can use a TDEE calculator like ours, but they are typically not as accurate. This will give you a starting point.
I would like to first emphasize that if you are struggling to put on weight, your first step is to know your numbers. This doesn’t mean you have to forever track everything you eat, but whatever you were doing before by guessing clearly wasn’t working, so you need to get a little more meticulous. By figuring out how many calories you need just to maintain your weight, you get a better launch point as to how many calories you need to add to gain weight. The benefit of this is, once you figure out where you land, you can always come back to this number.
Caloric Surplus
Now you know your “maintenance” calories. Again, this is just a starting point and you may find after playing with this for 2-3 weeks that you require more or less calories. That’s fine and part of the experimentation process. If you now want to gain weight, you need to eat MORE than this. What we are trying to do is ensure you are giving your body the extra fuel it needs to build muscle. Traditional bodybuilding bulks just had people eating as much as they could which absolutely put on more muscle, but it also put on a lot more fat.
There is indeed a cap to how much muscle we can put on at any given time. Beyond that rate of gain, eating more does not equal more muscle. Just more fat. If you put on too much fat during your bulk it will require a longer diet phase, which depending on how lean you want to get, may risk burning off some of that muscle in the process. What we want is a happy medium. Enough calories to ensure you are in a surplus, but not at the expense of too much fat gain.
I would recommend starting with 250-500 calories above your maintenance. So, if you eat 2500 calories to maintain your current body weight, you’d want to eat 2750-3000 calories. Try that surplus for 2-3 weeks. If you find you still aren’t putting on weight, you can bump up the calories by another 100-200 calories. If you are gaining too much fat, you can dial it back a bit.
What Makes Up Those Calories?
So now that we are in a surplus, we want to make sure we are eating the right macronutrients.
Protein: Aim for 1g/lb of bodyweight. This will ensure you are supplying your body with more than enough protein to grow and is the most important piece in terms of ensuring all your hard work in the gym pays off. If you undereat protein, you may find you struggle both in the gym and seeing muscle added onto your frame.
Fats: Fats are essential for hormone regulation (think testosterone production) and overall health. Generally, I like clients to eat a minimum of 50 grams of fats or 30% of your overall calories.
Carbohydrates: Carbohydrates get a bad rap, but when you are working out in the gym, they provide your body with the primary and preferred energy source for workouts and recovery. The remainder of your calories that are left after your protein and fat needs are met can be filled with carbohydrates.
We want to stick to mostly whole foods and limit processed foods. This will ensure not only are we getting the proper macronutrients listed above, but that we are getting our micronutrients as well. The ONLY time I’d say to opt for processed foods (as a hardgainer specifically) is if your bulking calories were so high you just couldn’t reach it with the whole food approach. I’ve had some clients who needed upwards of 4000 calories just to gain a pound! When you are eating that many calories, whole foods are just way too filling to hit day in and day out. That is where I recommend creating a calorie dense protein shake in the morning (add in oats, peanut butter, avocados, yogurt, etc) so that you are still getting whole foods but it is a lot easier to consume, or you can opt for more calorie dense foods as needed. Don’t go crazy and make 90% of your diet from these, but use it to fill in the gaps.
Consistency is Key
Now that you have the numbers, the hardest part isn’t hitting the numbers. It is hitting the numbers day in and day out. Too often when hardgainers tell me they can’t add weight it’s because they usually have a caloric intake that is so high that they’re simply too full to keep eating that much 7 days a week. Keep an eye on how your body responds to your surplus. If you are not growing, you are going to have to continually add more food in, that’s just the nature of the beast. It may seem beyond ordinary, but then again, what you are looking for is beyond ordinary results.
