Manipulating Carb And Fat Rations For Body Types

No two people are alike when it comes to building muscle and creating the optimal diet.

While the above guidelines are a great place to start, and they will will work fantastically well for the vast majority of people, you may find you need to tweak them slightly to suit your body type, genetics and metabolism. How?

Naturally skinny folks, who are scientifically known as ectomorphs often have very high metabolisms. If this is you (and you’ll probably know if you are) then you’ll probably need more calories than the average person – your body should be able to cope with a surplus of around 600 to 700 per day without gaining fat. Not only that, but you can handle more carbs too. Try getting the majority of these extra calories from carbohydrates to successfully gain the bulk you're going for.

At the other end, you’ve got the endomorphs – those unlucky people who suffer with excess fat even if they have a scarily modest calorie intake, and struggle to stay lean. If you’ve always been a little on the heavy side, your body may not like you going in on such a high carb intake to begin with. Take your fat intake up to 0.5 grams per pound and bump your protein up by 10 percent too, then recalculate your new lower carb intake.

The good news is that over time, your metabolism will adapt, and start using these carbs more wisely – putting them towards growth and recovery rather than storing them as fat, but you’ll have to build up slowly.

High and Low Carb Days

Incorporating high and low carb days — a technique known as carb cycling — is an ultra effective way to build muscle while staying lean.

Many carb cycling diets are ridiculously complicated, and you need a degree in advanced algebra to figure them out, but there’s no need to get quite so complex to make the most of this technique as you aim to gain muscle mass.

On the days you train, you'd simply increase your carb intake and decrease fat intake slightly, and on rest days lower the carbs a touch and bump up fats to compensate.

Carb and Fat Timings

With your carb and fat ratios sorted, you’re definitely on the right track, and will no doubt get fantastic results and build lean muscle, but to take your diet from great to perfect, the last consideration is macronutrient timing.

To get the most from your carbs, consume a higher proportion around your workout times. Ideally, take in around 30 percent one to two hours before you train, another 30 percent in the hour or two after training, and have the remaining 40 percent spread throughout the day.

Ingesting carbs before training gives you energy and starts off shuttling protein to the muscle cells (making for an excellent "preworkout supplement" entirely naturally), while eating carbs after your workout repletes your lower glycogen and blood sugar levels and kickstarts the rebuilding of damaged muscle fibers.

With these key factors all in place, you’re already ahead of 99 percent of the other wannabe muscle-heads.