Lesson #5.1
How to Plan Your Meals for Your Goals For Muscle gain

I understand it can be challenging to change a lifestyle, improve your body, improve your mindset or bettering your health, not to mention scary and overwhelming but luckily with this lessons and membership, I will help you get you on your feet and win that confidence BACK!

— Mariana Campos, CEO & Founder

For Muscle
Gain

If you gain weight easily, start with maintenance calories, with a protein-to-weight ratio of 1:1, carbs at 30%-40%, and fats at 20%-30%. Adjust calories based on your body’s response. For lean muscle gain, aim for a surplus of 250-500 calories daily. However, too large a surplus can cause fat gain, while too small might not fuel muscle growth. Ensure adequate protein intake. Building lean muscle takes time, so be patient and stay consistent with both training and nutrition.

Macro Division For Muscle Gain

And for our final trick, we are going to calculate exactly how many calories and grams of each macronutrient you need to be ingesting in order to reach that calorie intake and create a balanced meal plan.

To convert your macronutrient percentages to decimals, divide each percentage by 100. For example, if you want to consume 40% of your calories from carbs, you would divide 40 by 100, resulting in 0.4.

Next, multiply each decimal by your total daily calorie intake (either your caloric deficit, surplus or maintenance calories, depending on your goals) to determine how many calories you should consume from each macronutrient.

How It Works?

For example, if your total daily calorie needs are 2,000 calories and you want to consume 40% of your calories from carbs, you would multiply 0.4 by 2,000, resulting in 800 calories from carbs.
Again, these are calories that we already have as a surplus, not your maintenance calories. Remember, depending on your goals you need to ingest different numbers of calories.
- Lastly, divide the calorie value of each macronutrient by its calorie value per gram to determine how many grams of each macronutrient you should consume. As a reminder, carbohydrates and protein provide 4 calories per gram, while fat provides 9 calories per gram.
Here’s an example calculation for someone who wants to consume 40% of their calories from carbohydrates, 30% from protein , and 30% from fat:

Assume total daily calorie needs are 2,000 calories to build muscle, this time.

Convert macronutrient percentages to decimals:
- Carbohydrates: 40 / 100 = 0.4
- Protein: 30 / 100 = 0.3
- Fat: 30 / 100 = 0.3
Multiply decimals by total daily calorie needs:
- Carbohydrates: 0.4 x 2,000 = 800 calories
- Protein: 0.3 x 2,000 = 600 calories
- Fat: 0.3 x 2,000 = 600 calories
Divide by calorie values of macronutrients:
- Carbohydrates: 800 / 4 = 200 grams
- Protein: 600 / 4 = 150 grams
- Fat: 600 / 9 = 67 grams

Wrapping Up

Therefore, this person should aim to consume 200 grams of carbohydrates, 150 grams of protein, and 67 grams of fat per day to meet their macronutrient and calorie needs. (I love me some good easy math)

Remember that you can also calculate your protein intake with what I mentioned above (1 gram per lbs of body weight)

Example, if you weigh 154 lbs you will be ingesting 154g of protein and to calculate how many calories coming from that protein you will simply multiply those 154g of protein x 4 (calorie value of protein) = 616 calories.

BOOM! There you have, your perfect calorie intake made just for you! Awesome, isn't it?