Kaged Muscle’s 6-Week Biceps Program: Nutrition

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When your goal is to add mass to your biceps (or anywhere for that matter), you need to provide the quality nutrients that support muscle growth. But you don’t want to go over the top with total calorie consumption. After all, your biceps are a fairly small muscle group, and they’ll grow just as effectively without consuming every calorie you come across.

Kaged Muscle provides the rationale for what you should consume every day, and then we provide you with a sample daily meal plan. In addition, we’ve provided several options so you can get in a broader spectrum of nutrients throughout the week. Here are our nutrition recommendations for supporting biceps growth:

Consume enough calories to support growth

You’ll be training with intensity through this six-week program, particularly on your biceps days (Monday and Thursday), so you need to support muscle growth. If you’re losing bodyweight, then you likely aren’t consuming enough calories to maximize biceps growth. Over the course of this six-week program you should aim to gain about a pound a week. Of course, you won’t be adding six pounds to your biceps, but this modest gain in weight will help you maximize biceps growth without excessively increasing body fat.

To-do list: Consume about 20 calories for every pound of bodyweight each day. That means a 150-pound guy should get in about 3,000 calories every day. A 200-pounder should target 4,000 calories. Consume more or less than these recommendations based on your metabolism and goals, keeping in mind that you don’t want to gain more than about two pounds per week.

Get in plenty of protein every day

You should consume at least 40 percent of your calories from protein each day. Protein provides the raw materials for muscle growth. Protein consumption should be spread fairly evenly throughout the day to provide a steady stream of amino acids to support anabolism (muscle building) while fighting catabolism (muscle breakdown).

To-do list: If you’re going to consume at least 40 percent of your calories from protein and your goal is to get in 3,000 calories per day, then you need about 1,200 calories from protein. Since each gram of protein contains 4 calories, you need to get in about 300 grams of protein each day. That’s simple enough to do with our nutrition and supplement recommendations, detailed below.

Keep your carbohydrate intake moderate

You should also consume about 40 percent of your daily calories from carbs every day. That means you should also consume about the same number of grams of carbs as protein because carbs have the same amount of calories per gram (4). Yet with carbs you need to be careful about which types you include at particular times of the day. Here Kaged Muscle explains these types of carbs and when you should consume them:

• Fast-digesting carbs: These include sugar, processed flour, and honey. They spike insulin release, which you want to avoid most times of day because it encourages body fat storage. However, these carbs also support muscle building when consumed around your workouts. You can consume sugar before, during, and after your workouts.
• Slow-digesting carbs: These include yams, brown rice, quinoa, and oatmeal. These carb sources are great for supporting muscle growth without adding body fat. You should consume them most times of the day except before, during, and after workouts when they’ll slow insulin release due to their fiber content. You can also consume starchier carbs such as pasta, white rice, and potatoes when you’re in a muscle-growth phase.
• Fibrous carbs: These include vegetables and fruits, and beans and lentils. You should strive to consume at least 30 grams of fiber every day. Foods such as broccoli, spinach, and black beans will help you reach this target.

To-do list: Get in only about 25–50 grams of fast-digesting carbs before and after workouts. Rely on slow-digesting and fibrous carbs for the rest of your carbs consumption throughout the day. As with protein, a 150-pounder emphasizing biceps growth should get in about 300 grams of carbs per day, and about 75% of these should come from slow-digesting and fibrous carbs.

Don’t fear dietary fats

Dietary fats support muscle growth when you’re training with intensity. You should emphasize both healthy and saturated fats in equal measures. The most important type of healthy fats to consume is Omega-3s. The best sources of these fats are fish such as salmon and sardines. Other good sources include avocadoes and olive oil, as well as walnuts. Saturated fats are found in meats and dairy, and they provide advantages for healthy individuals seeking to add muscle mass. Primarily, saturated fats provide the building blocks of important hormones such as testosterone.

To-do list: You should strive to get in about 20 percent of your calories every day from dietary fats, split evenly between healthy and saturated forms. Consume them at all times of day except before and after workouts because they slow digestion and reduce insulin release. Again, this is an effect you want most of the time, but not around the timing of your weight training.

Get your fill of fluids

It’s crucial to consume plenty of water and other fluids when you’re following an intense training program for muscle growth. Your workouts cause you to lose fluids through sweat, and you also lose additional fluids through increased metabolism (including while you sleep). To make sure you’re providing your body with all the hydration and nutrients that come with this, follow our guidelines.

To-do list: Consume at least eight eight-ounce glasses of water a day, and even more on workout days. Also emphasize no- and low-calorie beverages such as black tea, green tea, and coffee that provide fluids. Also supplement with Hydra-Charge, described later, to help replace valuable electrolytes lost through sweating.

Get a sample daily meal plan on the next page.

PUT IT ALL TOGETHER: KAGED MUSCLE’S SAMPLE DAILY MEAL PLAN

Here’s an example of what you should consume on a daily basis to support biceps and overall muscle growth.

Note that we’ve provided a range you should consume on a daily basis. That’s because every bodybuilder has different caloric needs. Based on your weight and our description of your nutrient needs, what you should consume each day will fit into these parameters.

Find food swap suggestions & cheat meal rules on the next page.

KAGED MUSCLE FOOD SWAPS

Here’s a list of foods that fit each category mentioned before that you can substitute into you plan. This will help you add variety to your diet, helping you keep growing through differing food and the nutrients they contain. Seek to vary your daily meal plan throughout the week.

Protein sources:

• Lean beef (steak or hamburger)
• Whole eggs/egg whites
• Chicken breast and dark meat
• Turkey breast and dark meat
• Salmon and other fatty fish
• White fish
• Tuna
• Seafood (shrimp, crab, etc.)
• Lean pork
• Cheese
• Lean breakfast meat
•  Lamb

Fast-digesting carbs

• Dextrose
• Table sugar
• Honey
• Molasses

Slow-digesting and starchy carbs

• Yams and sweet potatoes
• Brown and white rice
• Oatmeal
• Buckwheat pancakes
• White and red potatoes
• Pasta
• Whole-grain bread
• Beans
• Lentils
• Quinoa and other old-world grains

High-fiber carbs

• Vegetables (broccoli, cabbage, etc.)
• Beans
• Lentils
• Fruits
• Nuts
• Seeds
• Fiber supplements (psyllium, glucomannan, red yeast rice)

Fat sources

• Egg yolks
• Avocados
• Olive and canola oil
• Sardines
• Fatty fish (salmon and others)
• Olives
• Nuts and seeds

CHEAT TO GROW, CUT TO SHOW

On this Kaged Muscle program you can also include two cheat meals a week. They should be your evening meal, and you should place one on Sunday night. This will help fuel your biceps workout on Monday. Keep calories in this meal to no more than about 1,000, but you can take in your favorites so long as you also consume plenty of protein. You can consume your other cheat meal based on your social life, allowing you to lead a normal life. After all, you aren’t on a diet; you’re on a muscle-growth program.

In the future, Kaged Muscle will provide a program that will help you strip off body fat while maintaining muscle mass. This will help bring out all the details you’ve created in your biceps that you can’t yet see. You’ll have to cut calories, but this will allow you to see the results of all your hard work on the Kaged Muscle 6 Weeks to Massive Arms program.