I got a question from one reader about which diet percentage he should follow when gaining muscle. 50/30/20 or 40/40/20. For those who don’t know numbers represent the amounts of proteins/carbohydrates/fats in your diet. These are used by bodybuilders mostly as guidelines. But do you need to do it too?

Well…I think you should… Forget them. That’s just making things harder. It’s already enough that you have to count calories (which is boring..). So don’t get worked up about them. The only things you need to do in nutrition for gaining muscle is:

1. Know your BMR and eat 500 calories more than it is to be able to gain muscle!

3. Count calories in order to be sure you meet the first point!

These are only things you have to concern yourself with.

I don’t like percentages because they focus too much on proteins. For example:

If you follow 40/40/20 principle for example, then you will need to get 40 percent of your calories from proteins. For a 200lb (whose BMR is 3600cals +500) guy those 40 percents would be 1640 cals (which mean 1640:4=410 grams of protein per day!!!). Now screw that… that’s a shitload of proteins some professional bodybuilders don’t eat. That method sucks. Eating 200g of proteins per day is hard enough so stick with 1 gram per pound of weight.

Hope this was clear enough!

Best of luck with gains,
Adrian

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