Some people think the first steps toward building muscle and losing fat are the hardest because they’re new to it. Actually, it’s the opposite - because of their unfit condition, any amount of exercise will get them some sort of results. Some call this the newbie effect.

The science behind the newbie effect is that unfit people beginning exercise will regain their normal condition very quickly. Males can gain 5-15 pounds of muscle while losing 5-15 pounds of fat in only two months, and females can lose the same amount of fat while gaining 2-5 pounds of muscle. Your body will soon regain shape regardless of the training regimen you choose. Your body is only getting back into regular, fit condition, so it should be relatively simple. This is why all the training programs out there offer training for at least 2 months. However, this is also the reason that after 2 months many people stop seeing results and hit a wall. This is because the program is poorly designed after the newbie effect has worn off.

If you’ve had the same experience of “hitting a wall”, this book will help you “break it down”. This novel will revolve around the 3 keys to building muscle, losing fat, and just feeling and looking great. They’re time-tested, come from my 7 years of experience in fitness and weight-training research.

If you are determined to add some muscle to your physique, you’ll need to focus on a fundamental concept: you are going to gain weight. To gain weight, your total intake of calories from food in a day must be greater than the calories you use up in a day. Building even just a pound of muscle requires tons of calories, so get ready to eat up.

This is a good analogy: if you are building a house, you will need bricks, wood, mortar, stone, and other materials. The larger the house is, the more materials will be required. In the same way, when you’re building your body up, you’re going to need more materials (food) to build the extra muscle.

To put it briefly, the more you eat, the faster you will build muscle, as the more materials you have, the more you can build. However, for our bodies, we must have the balance where we eat just enough to support building muscle, but not too much, or else we’re going to be adding on fat as well.

For example, let’s say Bob’s weight, 180 pounds, is stable at 2,000 calories a day. Bob wants to build some muscle, so he begins training at the gym. After two months, he has gained 10 pounds of muscle and lost 10 pounds of fat. His weight is still 180, but he is fitter. He trains for another month, hoping to add more muscle, but he remains at 180, and doesn’t get any more muscular.

Bob finds good advice and begins to eat a little more every day: he’s now at 2,200 calories, and his weight goes up again. He’s not gaining much fat and is happy with it.

Bob wonders if he eats some more, then he’ll get even more muscle. So, he adds another 200 calories, boosting his calorie intake to 2,400. After a few weeks at the gym, Bob finds out that he hasn’t gained muscle any faster than before, and worse, he’s actually gaining some fat. Bob decides to go back to what worked before and sticks with it.

The morale of this story: you need to find your own sweet spot.

Some tips:
1)Weigh yourself every other day for a month on a scale that calculates your body fat percentage as well.
2) Check if you’re gaining weight, and if yes, see if your body fat is increasing. If it is, eat less. If it’s not, you have found of your sweet spot!

If you’re not gaining any weight, add another small meal to your diet. This should be eaten preferably before or after a workout. Keep tracking your weight until you find a sweet spot. If you’re still not gaining weight, add more small meals every day until you are.