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by: ClareInnes
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There are two common fitness goals - to gain muscle mass and to lose body fat. Unfortunately, for the most part, the two goals are at opposite ends of the spectrum.

To increase your muscle mass, it is of course, necessary for you to 'up' the amount of calories that you take in on a daily basis. The opposite is true if you want to reduce your excess body fat.

Striving to accomplish both goals at the same time is rarely a good approach because more than likely you will just end up spinning your wheels and getting nowhere.

In order to build more muscle mass, a certain amount of weight gain is unavoidable and necessary, but what you can do is learn the facts about how to control it.

So can you really gain weight without getting fat? When adding muscle mass there are two approaches you can take...

The first idea is generally this...that the more food goes in...the more muscle goes on!

This plan is wrong for one simple reason. Once your body has used up all the calories that it needs in order to produce this lovely muscle tissue...the excess calories still need to be stored...how? BODY FAT!

Many guys who begin their training with the 'bulking up' theory of a massive intake of calories each day (five thousand and over) will find that after three to six months that they are carrying a fair amount of excess fat weight.

A far better direction to go is a much gentler approach to calorie intake. Eat enough to support your muscle gain, but without over-feeding yourself so that you end up with a whole load of unwanted body fat.

Now I guess you have a question...how many calories can you have, over and above what you would normally have to keep a stable weight?

You've probably already heard of the guy who claims he's added 20 pounds of muscle in the short timeframe of six weeks. While this may be a very rare occurrence among an individual who is brand new to weight lifting, has insanely good genetics and utilized an excellent training and nutritional program, the fact of the matter is that most guys are simply not going to be able to come even close to adding this much muscle tissue.

For the majority of guys, a reasonable expectation is to gain half to one pound of muscle each week. This is for someone who is naturally and healthily trained and is doing everything correctly. From this you can tell that you do NOT have to eat a ridiculous amount of calories to gain just two to four pounds of new muscle each month.

The higher your intake is, the more you risk putting on additional body fat. As a general rule, keep it to about 250 to 500 calories above maintenance in hopes of putting on mostly muscle without too much body fat. Keep track of your current body fat levels and appearance and if you see that too much of your weight gain is coming on as fat mass, reduce your calorie intake slightly.

Every persons body reacts differently when beginning a weight or muscle gain regime because everyones metabolism is different. As you try to optimise your 'bulking up', alter your calorie intake accordingly.

The moral of this tale is simple...take it nice and slowly with the muscle build up. If you do this, it will save you putting on excess body fat that you will then have to diet to get rid of...and you don't want that!

About the Author

About the Writer: Clare Innes has various lifestyle websites, including one devoted to muscle building You can also see her Weight Loss site at http://firstforweightloss.com Look out for more lifestyle websites in the 'First For...' series, curently under development.

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