Nutrition | powerbuilding

Cutting / Loosing bodyfat

Weight Loss

Weight Gain

_-Nutrition-_

Before we get into specific details on how to bulk up (gain muscle mass), getting stronger, loosing weight but cutting (cutting fat, no emo shit brah) or even loosing fat while gaining muscle you have to know a few things about the basics of nutrition. Read through each of the pages below by clicking the buttons and then, only then continue on how to set up your new diet with the advice below. Enjoy!

In this section I will discuss:
Both cutting and gaining muscle while loosing fat

Cutting

To have a successful cut you need to understand a few things:

Muscle = good, girls and guys alike
why?
The more muscle you have the higher your metabolism is, meaning if you disregard muscle gain then your weight loss slows down because you have to eat less and less calories to loose the same amount of weight.

Secondly, Loosing weight isn't about the scales, it's about the ratios! Ratio of what? Muscle to fat my friend!
You could drop 50 pounds of fat but if you disregard muscle gain or maintenance, you'll have lost maybe 20 pounds of muscle. This is a bad thing! Remember the whole metabolism thing?

Body fat percentage is what makes someone look lean or the overused word "toned"

This is the ratio of fat or muscle. Aneorexic people could technically be obese! Little to no fat doesn't make you obese right? It does if your body fat percentage is over a certain amount! They might be skinny as hell but they have almost NO muscle.

Here is a rough idea of percentages:

Men Women

Obese: 25%+ 39%+
Overweight: 19%+ 33%+

Healthy:                      8%+                          21%+
Lean:                         5-8%                    15-20%
Ripped!!!:    3-4%                   10-15%

How to eat:

Follow the tab either "cutting" or "Gain muscle loose weight" or "gaining weight"
Cutting:

Purely cutting fat down to a lower percentage

Gain muscle loose weight:
"toning" VERY hard for advanced athletes, easy for beginners

Bulking:
Gaining muscle and strength, getting heavier

Here we go, the mean and potatoes of lifting! BULKING BOY!
There are different types of bulking and I'll address all the types I know of below. A bulk requires one thing: A calorie surplus. (Exceeding your daily maintenance of calories every day)

Dirty Bulking

Easiest way to bulk but also the most unproductive.
Pros:

Easily gain muscle
no calorie or macro nutrient counting

strength will do up easily
It's fun as hell

you don't have to watch you food one bit
Cons:
Unnecessary weight gain
Need longer cutting phase after bulk
Lower standard of body health
Is in no way optimal for your body to work at it's best

What is it?

Dirty bulking is just what it implies, a bulk but with dirty food, unhealthy food, ANY food.
It's the "just eat" mentality where if it's mean or protein you eat as much as you can fit in your mouth. Carbs? Hell yeah! Simple sugars, simple carbs, bread, pasta and delicious unhealthy goodies all day! Fats? pffft, a whole pizza for me!
Dirty bulks are fun and require no work which is why everyone does them when they start. MAJOR flaw: you'll gain a LOT of fat doing this so this means a longer cut phase means a longer period of no size gains which means less strength meaning more possible muscle loss. All that dirty bulking seem like a good idea now?

Clean Bulking

Pros:
Extremely low fat gain over time
Always in a calorie surplus every day
Healthy
Optimal for your body
Allows for some flexibility to have the odd cheat food
Cons:
Requires knoledge and tracking of macro nutrients
It's hard work
Restricted foods

What is it?

My bulk of choice! The premise is find your maintenance of calories which is the calories needed to neither gain or loose weight, then add 300-500 on top. Eat that every day and you'll gain a MAXIMUM of 1lb of fat a week. I believe this to be optimal. To keep your sanity which doing this you can have the odd cheat meal every now and then. Cheat meals aren't just for cutting, they are for bulks too! Eat healthy on a clean bulk, whole foods, whole meals, whole grains, veggies, fruits, lean proteins, red meats, nuts, beans, fish and everything which is good for you! Simple sugars for post workout only and that's pretty much it!

Maintenance bulking

Pros:
Almost NO fat gain
Healthy
Optimal for your body
Allows for some flexibility to have the odd cheat food
Cons:
Requires knoledge and tracking of macro nutrients
It's very hard work
requires strong willpower

Much stricter than a clean bulk
Restricted foods

possibility of not hitting a surplus everyday

What is it?

A bulk I am yet to try!
You eat your maintenance of calories every day without a surplus.
A bulk requires a surplus right? Yes it does which is why you throw the odd cheat meal in every now and then. 500 calories every 2 days for 1 cheat meal is a good way to start.
There is also one strict condition! The quality of EVERY calorie you eat has to count! You have to maximise you micro nutrient intake with vegetables, fruits, whole organic and natural foods. Oats, beans, brocili, chicken breast, salmon, pilchard, mackerel, sardines, turkey, Brussels sprouts, sweet potato and everything else which contains a MASS amount of goodness with little calories. Eat extremely healthy, eat big, be strict and have the odd cheat meal and you SHOULD in theory gain lean muscle mass and almost NO fat! SCORE!

Bulking

Cutting

Gain muscle, loose fat

What's my maintenance of calories?
Find your current weight and log it

Step 1:

Go work it out on a calorie calculator, here are a few, find an average to use.
http://scoobysworkshop.com/calorie-calculator/
http://www.calculator.net/calorie-calculator.html
http://www.freedieting.com/tools/calorie_calculator.htm

Step 2:

Eat that many calories for 4 weeks, while training. Eat EXACTLY the same number of calories, g of protein, g of carbs and g of fat a day. Weight everything out, be super anal, no cheating, no alcohol, drink water get decent rest

Step 3:
If in 4 weeks, the scale has gone up:
by 0.1-1 lb - Take 125 calories off your daily intake
by 1-2 lbs - Take 250 calories off your daily intake
by 2+ lbs - Take 400 calories off your daily intake

The same is the case for if the scales go down.

Step 4:

Once you find out your daily calories, you know EXACTLY what your daily maintenance is. Then input your details in ONE calorie calculator and note the difference. Now when you loose or gain weight, you always know what calculator to use, how much to add or subtract from that number and how to diet!

It takes time and effort but it'll be worth it! I'm soon to do this! You're not alone :p