How many calories do you need to build muscle?

Your maintenance is the number of calories that keeps your weight stable. To estimate it, people often use the Mifflin-St Jeor equation, which calculates your basal metabolic rate (the calories your body burns at rest) from your weight, height, age and sex:

• Men: 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age + 5.
• Women: 10 × weight (kg) + 6.25 × height (cm) − 5 × age − 161.

Then multiply the result by an activity factor: about 1.2 if you're sedentary, 1.375 if lightly active, 1.55 if you train three to five times a week, and 1.725 if you're very active. The result is an estimate, not the absolute truth: it's a starting point.

Take a 20-year-old guy, 70 kg and 178 cm, who trains four times a week. His basal metabolic rate is about 10 × 70 + 6.25 × 178 − 5 × 20 + 5, or roughly 1,720 kcal. With an activity factor of 1.55, his estimated maintenance is around 2,660 kcal a day.

To bulk, he can start with a surplus of about 250 to 300 kcal, so around 2,900 to 3,000 kcal a day. After that, the scale decides.

More calories doesn't mean more muscle. Beyond a certain point, the extra surplus mostly turns into fat. A 2019 review in the journal Sports (Iraki et al.) on off-season nutrition suggests aiming to gain about 0.25 to 0.5% of body weight per week.

For our 70 kg example, that's about 175 to 350 g a week. If you're new to training, you can aim for the top of the range; if you've been training for years, the bottom is often more realistic.

Formulas are often off by a few hundred calories. The real method is adjusting:

• Weigh yourself on the same day and at the same time every week, ideally in the morning.
• Look at the average over two or three weeks, not a single weigh-in.
• If your weight isn't going up, add about 150 to 250 kcal a day.
• If you're gaining faster than planned, remove the same amount.

Calories provide the energy, but protein provides the building material for muscle. The International Society of Sports Nutrition position stand (2017) recommends 1.4 to 2.0 g of protein per kilo per day for people who train — about 100 to 140 g for our 70 kg example.

The rest of your calories will mostly come from carbs — your training fuel — and fats. For meal ideas, read the best high-protein meals for muscle gain.

The real challenge isn't the math: it's eating that much every day. Hitting your calories and protein often enough for it to add up takes consistency, especially when cooking isn't your thing.

With the Protéine Express bulking plan, every meal has about 930 kcal and 60 g of protein. Two meals a day already cover close to 1,860 kcal and 120 g of protein; a breakfast and two snacks easily take you to 3,000 kcal. If cooking is what holds you back, our plan for bulking when you hate cooking walks through a typical day.

Even with good math, these mistakes often slow progress:

• A surplus that's too big: you gain weight fast, but mostly fat.
• Never weighing yourself: without data, you adjust at random.
• Eating well on weekdays and almost nothing on weekends.
• Hitting your calories with too little protein.
• Switching plans before giving the previous one two or three weeks.

Keep your plan simple, measure your progress and adjust in small steps.

The exact values of every dish are listed on this week's menu. Order by Friday noon, from $13.49 per meal, and get delivered on Sunday from 9 a.m. in Montreal, Laval, Longueuil, Brossard and elsewhere on the South Shore and North Shore.