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Quick Wits: The 2500 Calorie Rule for Gaining Weight to Build Muscle · Wits & Weights | Strength & Fat Loss Over 40

• 0:00
  Philip Pape: Are you trying to pack on muscle mass, but you're confused about how many extra calories you need in that surplus.
• 0:05
  Philip Pape: Join me on today's Quick Wits as I break down the science behind the 2,500 calorie rule for gaining weight and building muscle effectively.
• 0:15
  Philip Pape: Welcome to the Wits and Weights podcast.
• 0:19
  Philip Pape: I'm your host, Philip Pape, and this twice a week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your host, Philip Pape, and this twice-a-week podcast is dedicated to helping you achieve physical self-mastery by getting stronger, optimizing your nutrition and upgrading your body composition.
• 0:30
  Philip Pape: We'll uncover science-backed strategies for movement, metabolism, muscle and mindset, with a skeptical eye on the fitness industry, so you can look and feel your absolute best.
• 0:41
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in, your absolute best.
• 0:49
  Philip Pape: Let's dive right in.
• 0:50
  Philip Pape: Welcome to another Quick Wits, your no BS guide to evidence-based strategies for your health, physique and performance.
• 0:53
  Philip Pape: And today we're diving into a really important concept.
• 0:56
  Philip Pape: If you are looking to gain weight to build muscle, it's the 2,500 calorie rule.
• 1:03
  Philip Pape: Now, if you're familiar with nutrition at all, you've probably heard of the 3,500 calorie rule for fat loss, which states that a deficit of 3,500 calories is needed to lose one pound of body fat.
• 1:18
  Philip Pape: But when it comes to gaining weight to build muscle, the equation looks a little bit different, because muscle tissue is much denser than fat tissue and that means gaining one pound of muscle, or, more accurately, a pound that's composed of part muscle and part fat, because we can never really just gain muscle.
• 1:37
  Philip Pape: Sadly.
• 1:38
  Philip Pape: There's always going to be some fat along for the ride.
• 1:40
  Philip Pape: This requires a different surplus due to the different densities, and so research tells us that when you're in a calorie surplus and you're gaining weight, you can expect to gain muscle and fat in roughly equal amounts.
• 1:53
  Philip Pape: I know you might have heard like newbies can gain almost all muscle and an advanced trainee who works really, really hard can gain mostly muscle.
• 2:00
  Philip Pape: But the 50-50 ratio is actually a pretty ideal rate to gain for most people and it's what you should expect.
• 2:08
  Philip Pape: And if you go more than that, if you gain more muscle to fat than that, then that's awesome.
• 2:13
  Philip Pape: Just consider that a bonus.
• 2:14
  Philip Pape: But plan for the 50-50.
• 2:16
  Philip Pape: And even at that rate, you are still going to maximize muscle growth while minimizing excessive fat accumulation.
• 2:24
  Philip Pape: And today I'm not talking about rates of gain.
• 2:26
  Philip Pape: We've done that in other episodes.
• 2:27
  Philip Pape: I will just say that the optimal range tends to be 0.2 to 0.3% of your body weight per week.
• 2:34
  Philip Pape: But we're talking about how many calories do you need to eat to gain at the rate you want to gain?
• 2:40
  Philip Pape: So, to gain a pound of body weight at a ratio of 50 to 50 muscle to fat, you actually want to consume around 2,500 calories, and that's again because of the different densities.
• 2:51
  Philip Pape: A pound of muscle has about 600 calories, where a pound of fat has like 3,500 calories.
• 2:58
  Philip Pape: And again, there's a lot of complex, complicated subtraction and stuff going on there that I'm not going to get into today.
• 3:03
  Philip Pape: Um, and if you're, if you take half of those each and add them together, that's where you get the 2,500 calories.
• 3:12
  Philip Pape: It's really a little bit less than that, but we're accounting for the thermic effect of food and other variances and rounding and all that.
• 3:18
  Philip Pape: 2,500 calories is a good, simple rule of thumb.
• 3:23
  Philip Pape: Now, it's important to note this is a guideline.
• 3:25
  Philip Pape: This is more of a thumb suck estimate, so it's easy to do on a cocktail napkin and again, your individual results are going to vary on a lot of factors.
• 3:33
  Philip Pape: So I like this as a starting point and for many people it will work pretty well and in fact, so I like this as a starting point and for many people it will work pretty well and in fact, if you use macro factor it's going to use the similar type of assumption.
• 3:43
  Philip Pape: But then if you start gaining faster or slower, it will know that you personally are gaining more or less muscle to fat and then it will adjust so you don't gain too much or too less, too little on the scale given that ratio.
• 3:58
  Philip Pape: So I hope I didn't confuse you too much.
• 3:59
  Philip Pape: It's pretty simple.
• 4:00
  Philip Pape: If you want to gain weight, to gain muscle, assume a 50 to 50 muscle to fat ratio.
• 4:05
  Philip Pape: Give your body what it needs plenty of protein, plenty of carbs.
• 4:09
  Philip Pape: You are including nutrient-dense whole foods.
• 4:12
  Philip Pape: You're basically hitting those targets and going for a 2,500 calorie surplus for every pound you're trying to gain.
• 4:18
  Philip Pape: So if you're trying to gain a pound a week, that's going to be 2,500 divided by seven and that'll be your surplus per day.
• 4:25
  Philip Pape: So it'll be less than 500 calories per day.
• 4:28
  Philip Pape: Now most people aren't actually trying to gain a pound a week.
• 4:30
  Philip Pape: They're trying to get something like maybe a half a pound a week or even a little bit less, and so a lot of my clients.
• 4:36
  Philip Pape: We end up being somewhere around 100 to 200 calories a day, male and female.
• 4:41
  Philip Pape: Female tends to be on the lower end, of course, because they are going often at a slower rate and or because they're smaller.
• 4:47
  Philip Pape: So you want to make sure that you've got a good training program.
• 4:50
  Philip Pape: You're using progressive overload, doing all the things, and then the calorie surplus is going to give you the best bang for the buck.
• 4:58
  Philip Pape: And, by the way, I did do a really solid.
• 5:01
  Philip Pape: You know what?
• 5:02
  Philip Pape: I'm going to give it away for free in this quick wits, I'm going to hopefully remember to include the link to my muscle building nutrition blueprint.
• 5:09
  Philip Pape: You can download that and it has all of the details you need to know, including this 2,500 calorie rule, so you can set up for success your muscle building phase, and then it's just a matter of doing the work right Nourishing your body, fueling that body, being patient, persistent, being strategic, getting there all the way.
• 5:26
  Philip Pape: If you need a little help, you know how to reach me.
• 5:28
  Philip Pape: Until next time, keep pushing yourself in the gym, Keep fueling the gains in the kitchen, because you need that surplus to build that muscle and stay focused on your goals.
• 5:39
  Philip Pape: One rep, one meal at a time.
• 5:40
  Philip Pape: Thanks again for tuning in.
• 5:41
  Philip Pape: Thank you for tuning in to another episode of Wits and Weights, If you found value in today's episode and know someone else who's looking to level up their wits or weights, please take a moment to share this episode with them and make sure to hit the follow button in your podcast platform right now to catch the next episode.
• 5:58
  Philip Pape: Until then, stay strong.