Question about gaining muscle eating 1500 calories a day. My comments are below...
### QUESTION ###
"My body is sensitive to caloric intake. Is it possible to gain muscle on a 1500-1700 daily caloric intake if I focus on protein rich foods? Or will I need to eat more? Seems like if I eat over 2,000 calories a day I gain fat no matter what I do (and I'm a health fanatic). Thanks"
*** MY ANSWER ***
1500kcal/day isn't enough for a guy to build muscle.
It doesn't matter how much protein you eat in this case.
Protein isn't what builds muscle, lifting heavy weights does.
Protein is just what your muscles are made of.
And if you eat enough, your body uses it to build muscle.
An analogy is to think of building muscle like building a house.
Imagine proteins are the bricks your house is made of.
The builders lay those bricks if you pay them well.
Their salary is the total calories you eat.
If you don't pay your builders, they don't lay the bricks.
And if you don't give them enough bricks, they can't build the house.
That means the quickest way to build the house as fast as you can...
... is to supply the builders with enough bricks...
... AND pay them a good salary
In this case: enough proteins, carbs and fats.
1g protein per pound of body-weight is enough bricks.
But 1500 calories a day is like underpaying the builders.
Might work for a while but eventually it pisses them off.
That's when they steal bricks behind your back...
... and sell them to make up for the poor salary.
This is the muscle breakdown you don't want.
Meanwhile, your workouts are like "earthquakes".
Each earthquake damages the brick walls of your house.
The builders react by repairing and strengthening those walls.
The house can then cope with bigger earthquakes later.
This is why building muscle starts with training hard...
https://stronglifts.com/apps/
Keep it simple.
-Mehdi
P.S. If you're getting fat eating more, it's probably because you've screwed up your metabolism eating so little for so long and being a "health fanatic". The fix is to slowly eat more to get your metabolism back to its normal level. That and avoiding extreme "crash" diets in the future.
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