Eat Big: In order to gain size you must increase your caloric intake. Here is my formula to get a good estimate of how many calories you should be taking in a day. Now, this is not exact, and there are other factors that should be taken into consideration but it is a good number to work around.

Multiply your body weight times 0.22

Example: If you weight 135 pounds, it would look like this.
135 x .22= 29.7 (move the decimal point over two spaces to the right) 2970 calories per day

Now, here is the tricky part. 4000 calories may seem easy to reach; I mean one meal at McDonalds is about 1000 calories when you include a soft drink right? Well, the object is to gain muscle mass and stay lean. With that being said, meals from McDonalds are not going to work. You see, most lean foods are low in carbs, or low in calories period. Therefore you are probably going to eat about 6 times a day. This can be done 100 percent with no supplements but I strongly recommend whey protein. Reason being is this; whey protein contains lots of amino acids and other muscle building ingredients that are hard to find in your average meal. Out of the total amount of your calories per day, 50 percent should be carbs, 30 percent protein, and 20 percent fats. I am not going to break down what good carbs, and good fats are but what I will do is give you a list of simple and effective muscle building foods. These foods either contain good carbs, high protein, or good fats.

Wheat Bread
Wheat Tortillas
Wheat Pasta
Turkey Burgers (Lean)
Turkey Ground Meat (Lean)
Sliced Turkey
Hard Boiled Egg Whites
Peanut Butter
Chicken Breast
Beans
Brown Rice
Fruit
Avocados (Increases Testosterone Levels)

Lifting Big: When lifting to bulk up, the idea is to reach muscular failure. The key is to perform exercises that will force your muscles to grow bigger. How do I know if I am using the right amount of weight to gain size? The best way to know that you are lifting the correct amount of weight to gain size is, using a weight that will not allow you to perform more than 5-8 repetitions. If you are able to do more than 5-8 repetitions, you should add more weight. Here is a list of some “big workouts”. The workouts are very effective when building mass and should be performed regularly to increase muscle mass.

Deadlifts
Bench Press
Pull ups
Squats

Cardio: There are two types of exercise you can perform for fat burn. The first and most common is cardio. It is simple, after your weight lifting routine, hop on a treadmill and power walk for 30-45 minutes. Following your weight lifting routine with cardio should be done on all days that you lift. It is a better idea to keep a speed that does not cause exertion, reason for that is this, once you pass a certain pace you will actually start tapping into the muscle that your body is creating. Keeping at a reasonable pace will target only the fat that you are trying to burn.

Circuit Training: This is not your average fat burning routine, mainly because it is simply a lot harder. Circuit training consists of various exercises performed back to back with about 15 seconds of rest in-between. Circuit training should be performed alone on a separate day. This kind of training will take a lot out of you and will not be done to its full potential if you have burned through your energy with weights. There are hundreds of circuit training routines that are very effective; most routines consist of jumping from machine to machine. Now, if you workout at a public gym this may not be ideal considering other people will be using the equipment. I came across an awesome circuit training routine that makes a lot more sense than most. This routine can be done with one barbell and the same weight for every exercise. This routine will be much more ideal if you are in a gym and cannot jump from machine to machine. Here is a link to this awesome circuit training routine.

Rest: One of the biggest mistakes people make when trying to gain muscle is working out too much. You should be working out a maximum of 5 days per week. I recommend just 4 days a week when trying to bulk up and stay lean. Rest is the most important piece of this puzzle, without rest you will never grow. See, your muscles grow while you rest. Just to put it simply, lifting tears the muscle and it heals while you rest; as it heals it grows to avoid being exhausted from another workout. Taking 2-3 days off per week and getting minimum of 8 hours of sleep at night is crucial when building muscle.

Please feel free to contact me at MuscleMonsters@gmail.com