Macro Cycle, Worth Trying For Gaining?

Nutrition
1

LMB = 150
Age = 20
Goal = Hypertrophy / Bulk

I’m fed up looking at the scale and not seeing it move, either the scales are broken or I’m not eating enough. Ofcourse it’s because I’m not eating enough. Time to stock up, and follow a meal plan.

I’m currently 187lbs, I’m not following a meal plan at the moment but I’m estimating I’m eating around 2500 cals a day, maintaining my weight. I have thought about just adding an extra meal or just eating more, I just EAT and it’s not all that balanced as it stands.

How do you cycle or count your diet? Calories, or by bodypound or Marco?

Macro Cycle Diet sounds good to me, 40:40:20 (other any other recommendations?)

Calculating total calories however is giving me a sore head, so many protocols and recommendations out there available it’s a head spin. I’ve listed a few below.

  • CT’s lean bulking protocol is LBM of 150lbs = 3037 kcals
  • (Weight x 18) is another = 3330 kcals
  • CW’s recommendations is LBM in lbs x 16 = 2320 kcals

Tossing between CT’s and (Weight x 18). Here’s an example of the marcounits for CT’s, any thoughts on this please?

  • Total Daily Calories: 3100 Kcal
  • Protien: 310g Grams (40%)
  • Carbs: 310g Grams (40%)
  • Fats: 69g Grams (20%)

Just need to structure meals around this now, and see how it goes, if no gain, i’ll just simple add more Total Daily Calories or drink more milk.

2

You mentioned that you ‘think’ you eat around 2500 kcals a day. Make sure you are eating that much, as many people cannot estimate calories that well.

If you are eating 2500 a day, then bumping up to 3100 seems fine; the macros are not as important as you might think (Unless they’re way too drastic, which in your case, they are not)

And as for me, I spend an hour or so making a ‘perfect’ diet plan, with perfect nutrient divisions and timing. I print it out and hang it in my kitchen.

My goal is to achieve that plan, but if I want to eat something else, I just see what I can swap out or in.

For example, If the ‘perfect’ meal is tuna and brocolli cooked in coconut oil, but I really don’t want that that day, I just see how its about 260kcal and 30g protein, rest is fat. The nutritional profile sounds similar to a hunk of fatty meat, so maybe I’ll swap that in.

In the end, daily calories are similar as well as the macros (+/- 5%), but I never need to recalculate every day, just for a meal if I want to swap.