Building Muscle and The Calorie Myth

by Paul Delia
President, AST Sports Science

A big misconception in adding muscle mass is that you must consume above maintenance level calories to fuel the muscle growth. This is wrong and I believe it stems from “incomplete” thinking.

The human body is a very precise machine. You don’t just throw calories at it in hopes that some will stick in the form of new muscle mass. That’s a blind approach that will more likely lead to greater fat mass than actual muscle.

Your individual daily calorie maintenance level is the EXACT amount of calories your body requires to maintain all body functions including growth. All calories above your maintenance level WILL be stored as extra body fat. That’s the simple fact of the matter.

I can hear some of you now. “No, no, no. You need extra calorie to support the muscle growth.” Yes and no. Remember what I said, “Your individual daily calorie maintenance level is the EXACT amount of calories your body requires to maintain all body functions including growth.”

For a bodybuilder on anyone wanting to add lean muscle, the calories required to fuel this muscle growth on a daily basis is part of your daily calorie maintenance requirement. You see, in bodybuilding, you’re always trying to add lean muscle. When your body requires calories for muscle repair and growth, those calories are maintenance calories. You’re feeding your body what it requires to adapt and grow from the training you perform. Of course it’s more calories than if you were not trying to build muscle, but it’s an exact amount and not an excessive amount.

Your body in no way needs an excessive amount of calories for growth and repair. An excessive caloric intake, assuming the nutrients from these calories are constructive, will promote muscle growth, but every single extra calorie above what your body needs will be stored as fat.

So what’s the answer? The answer is simple; provide your body with the exact amount of calories it needs to support maximum muscle growth without exceeding your total caloric needs. Now I said the answer was simple, the execution is not so simple.

How do you know exactly how many calories you need? This is different for everyone. And it can change from day to day. You’ll need more calories on the days you train than on the days you don’t. However, very few people are going to measure their caloric expenditure and adjust their calories on a daily bases according to this expenditure. That’s reality.

Where to start . . .

A few years ago I developed the Nutritional Calculator to put you in a “caloric ballpark” based on gender, body type, age, and activity level. Plug in your parameters and you’ll get a caloric starting point, but more importantly you’ll get a nutrient breakdown of these calories that I have fine tuned over the years that are optimum for lean muscle growth.

Like I said, this is a “caloric ballpark.” In many cases it will be precisely the amount needed, in other cases these calories will need to adjusted either up or down depending on the individual.

If you need to adjust your calories I recommend adjusting 200 calories at a time. Don’t make big jumps in calories either way. What you are doing if fine tuning this number to arrive at your exact caloric need for maximum lean muscle growth without adding fat.

Adjusting your calories is easy and I have included a Nutrient Ratio Calculator so you can arrive at the optimized protein, carbohydrate and fat ratio with your adjusted calorie intake.

Take advantage of these important tools to create a perfect metabolic environment for muscle growth without the fear or uncertainty of adding extra body fat.

I think this is what most people here advocate.

Think of it like building a house.
If some days you can stack 8 bricks, others you can stack 10, and other days you can stack 12 bricks, wouldn't you rather supply 12 bricks every day, getting the house built as fast as possible (worrying about getting rid of all of the extra "bricks" stored as fat at the end)

This article has something wrong with it and I believe it is in the following two quotes.


Your individual daily calorie maintenance level is the EXACT amount of calories your body requires to maintain all body functions including growth. All calories above your maintenance level WILL be stored as extra body fat. That’s the simple fact of the matter.



When your body requires calories for muscle repair and growth, those calories are maintenance calories. You’re feeding your body what it requires to adapt and grow from the training you perform. Of course it’s more calories than if you were not trying to build muscle, but it’s an exact amount and not an excessive amount.


The first quote uses the term daily calorie maintenance level, something we are all familiar with from the BMR calculation. It tells you how much calories you will burn in a day given many factors of which LBM is one.

the common belief is that you need to eat more than maintenance if you want to add muscle (or fat) and you need to eat less than maintenance if you want to lose fat.

So it sounds like this guy is telling us something new, "wow, we can build muscle just on maintenance, how does it work?" But then if you read the Bold statement in the second quote we see that he says, of course you will be eating more calories then if you aren't trying to build muscle. "oh, well how are we eating just maintenance? when you aren't trying to build muscle, isn't that maintenance?"

the whole article is pretty much semantics. It seems like he has something new to say and that everyone is thinking about it wrong and then he basically says what everyone already believes. It's just a matter of degree. His nutritional calculator just basically factors how many calories above maintenance you need to eat to build muscle fastest (in his opinion).

Nothing new here at all. Is this guy selling his nutritional calculator?

So I agree this is what most people bulking do here already. John's bulk is a great example. He definitely ate above maintenance level.

Nothing new here at all. Is this guy selling his nutritional calculator?



Most likely. I think that's why everyone has ignored this thread.

The calculators are available free on the www.ast-ss.com website. The caloric split calculator provided has the ideal split for a mesomorph at about 55% pro, 35%carb, and 10%fat. It recommends that I eat over 350 grams of protein a day as a 160lb male. Without clear scientific evidence, I wouldn't even consider it. The value of 200 grams is iffy to me, but that's what I'll be using for the next month as a test.

His calculator is a cookie-cutter formula.


Now, wtf does this mean?

"I can hear some of you now. “No, no, no. You need extra calorie to support the muscle growth.” Yes and no. Remember what I said, “Your individual daily calorie maintenance level is the EXACT amount of calories your body requires to maintain all body functions including growth.”

For a bodybuilder on anyone wanting to add lean muscle, the calories required to fuel this muscle growth on a daily basis is part of your daily calorie maintenance requirement. You see, in bodybuilding, you’re always trying to add lean muscle. When your body requires calories for muscle repair and growth, those calories are maintenance calories. You’re feeding your body what it requires to adapt and grow from the training you perform. Of course it’s more calories than if you were not trying to build muscle, but it’s an exact amount and not an excessive amount."

Ok, so he says your daily calorie maintenance level includes the calories required for growth. He then says the amount needed for growth is an exact amount and not an excessive amount??? Lol, what stupidity is this? Of course it is an EXACT amount, but the problem is his cookie cutter calculator formula isn't going to tell ANYONE what that exact amount is. The exact amount is so unique to the individual and variable intra-individually that it IS impossible for any formula to say for sure. This is why we must consume an excess of calories in order to optimully fuel growth. If we do not we have no idea if we are consuming sufficient calories to fuel all of the growth we have stimulated with training.

The caveat to the above is that growth can occur in a calorie deficeit but that is so difficult to achieve in a natural trainee of any experience that we should not bother to include it in our discussion.

Not going to beat around the bush, Sorry to offend.

That article is 100% Pointless.

And im glad "gravityhomer" saved me the time from typing the reason behind it lol.

Please dont take offence from this post "sparkym" - Your not the author of the article, But boy did the author waste his time.

I can't believe someone wrote that, How does he get away with such nonsense?

Hey sorry guys, I thought the "Pro Bodybuilder" who wrote this finally slapped some sense into me.

I am ashamed to have thought this was a good article, sorry folks

Back i go to real bulking! :eat:

Hey sorry guys, I thought the "Pro Bodybuilder" who wrote this finally slapped some sense into me.

I am ashamed to have thought this was a good article, sorry folks

Back i go to real bulking! :eat:
Actually, I thought this article did have some merit to it. Reno_1ted touched on this a few months ago in reference to his bulking diet.

If your gaining BF, your cals are too high. You want what i like to call a "Bulking maintainance." That is where your taking in enough cals to build muscle and lift with intensity, but no more. Bulking is about finding what that level is, not just eating as much as possible.

Here's the thread (http://forums.johnstonefitness.com/showthread.php?t=9016&page=1) for those who are interested. I think a lot of people really miss this information when they're bulking.

I think there is some merit to looking at bulking from the author's perspective. The main point I got from the article is that you may not need to eat as many calories as you think in order to grow. I think everyone here would probably like to gain as much muscle as possible, while keeping fat increases to an absolute minimum.

Many people gain much more fat than they think when they bulk. Then, after they cut back down, their net gain of muscle is not nearly as much as they would have expected. It happens all the time. In these cases, perhaps a smaller caloric surplus would have been better....maybe that is the way to travel a straighter path to increased muscularity.

Consider the fact that many people can cut fat slowly while also gaining small amounts of lean mass. If the same person were to increase caloric intake by a couple hundred calories per day (instead of the usual 500 or more), perhaps weight gain would be slower but of better quality.

I think the author's point is that it is best to find your caloric 'sweet spot' where your calories are used for building muscle but not gain fat, and not just go on some 'bulking diet' where you increase your calories by large amounts.

I think the author's point is that it is best to find your caloric 'sweet spot' where your calories are used for building muscle but not gain fat, and not just go on some 'bulking diet' where you increase your calories by large amounts.

Yes. Not sure what the AUTHOR'S point was. Maybe this, but it was a poorly written article for sure. But this is certainly a good take-home message and something to keep in mind during bulking for all of us.