The Best Diet Plan To Build Lean Muscle

In this article, I’m going to tell you exactly what is the best diet plan to build lean muscle.

Now, you want to build muscle…

But not just any muscle.

You don’t want to look bulky.

You don’t want to look big and bulky like one of those bodybuilders you see on TV.

You want to build lean muscle that makes you look toned, defined, fit, and athletic.

Lucky for you I’ve written an entire article just for you.

I’m going to ensure that after you’re done reading this, all of the guesswork will be taken away for you and all you have to do is execute and watch the results roll in.

Now, let’s get into the specifics.

The main reason is that there is no one size fits all approach.

You likely fall into one of the categories below.

Specifically, we are going to cover how to build lean muscle if:

• You are a beginner who also:
  • Is skinny, thin, and already lean
  • Is “skinny fat”
  • Has a lot of body to lose
• You are intermediate to advanced (someone who has 2+ years of consistent, progressive training under their belt)

So without further ado, let’s dive in.

The Best Diet Plan To Build Lean Muscle

Some General Housekeeping…

Okay, before we get balls deep into this topic, I need to address a couple of things and make them abundantly clear.

Firstly, I know I used the “lean muscle.” This is because this is the term most people understand so I want to be able to get my message across to the audience I want to communicate to.

However, there really is no such thing as “lean muscle.”

Muscle tissue is muscle tissue. Fat tissue is fat tissue.

You lose fat and build muscle through different bodily mechanisms.

This means that the type of muscle you see on bodybuilders is the same type of muscle you find on fit bikini women.

Different body types, genetics, training experience levels, possible use of PEDs (performance-enhancing drugs) just allow people to accomplish different levels of muscle development.

As far as whether you want to build muscle mass or want to just simply build muscle definition or tone, you will require the same exact training plan.

The end result of your physique will be determined by the things stated above along with your overall body fat levels.

By losing more body through addressing your nutrition, you will become leaner and have more muscle definition in addition to a good strength training program.

Secondly, while diet is extremely important to build lean muscle, it isn’t the main driver of building lean muscle.

You can’t just nail your diet and expect the muscle to just suddenly pack on and make everything better.

Otherwise, I would be too busy being on the cover of fitness magazines and not sitting here writing this article for you. 🙂

However…

The best way to build lean muscle is going to be following a properly and intelligently designed strength training program.

How do you know if you’re following one of these?

Well, firstly, let’s talk about what isn’t one of these:

• At home workouts like P90X, Beach Body, Aerobics Tapes, etc.
• Most gym/studio group fitness classes
• YouTube video workouts
• Going to the gym and doing random machines and exercises

While all of these are different types of exercise that get people moving, sweating, and more active (which is great!) because some activity > no activity…

If your goal is to build muscle in the most efficient and effective way possible to achieve a lean and toned physique, you need a real strength training program, my friend.

What Is A Real Strength Training Program?

In an effort to keep this as simple and succinct as possible, I won’t go into too much detail about how to design a proper strength training program because I could go on for literal days about all of the details and minutiae.

In fact, I pretty much have gone for literal days putting together this other comprehensive article on basically everything you need to know about building your own strength training routine which you can find HERE.

But the most important, foundational thing that all real strength training programs have is incorporating the concept of progressive overload.

If you don’t happen to be familiar with that term, HERE is an entire article I wrote explaining it.

Believe me when I say that progressive overload is the single most important factor in a training program because, without it, you’re not going to build a single ounce of lean muscle.

This is because your body doesn’t build muscle in response to how well you nail your diet.

Your body builds muscle in response to adaptation to a stimulus.

That stimulus is going to come from having that real strength training program that incorporates progressive overload as we discussed.

When you give your body a proper stimulus from a real training program, it responds by constructing more muscle cells, which when you compound this over time, the increased number and density of muscle cells will increase your muscle strength, size, and definition.

I wanted to make this very clear because without this stimulus none of your hard work otherwise would mean a damn thing.

If you want to know about training, be sure to check out the other resources I’ve linked above, but otherwise let’s get into this.

The Best Diet Plan To Build Lean Muscle: Two Scenarios

Firstly, there are two situations because the game sort of changes depending on your lifting experience or “training age.”

No, not how many birthdays you’ve had so far, but how many years you’ve been following an intelligent and progressive lifting regimen.

Again, not P90X, YouTube video workouts, or group fitness classes. Nothing against these but they don’t even compare to a proper strength training routine.

Now, let’s get into these two scenarios.

Beginner Methods To Build Lean Muscle

The first one up is going to be if you are a beginner.

What defines a beginner?

Some who has been following a real strength training program anywhere between 0 and 18 months.

And boy oh boy do I have some good news for you.

If you’re a beginner then you are in the prime time of your life to make some gnarly gains and build plenty of lean muscle.

This is commonly known as “newbie gains.”

This is because weight lifting is simply such a new stimulus to your body that you can make crazy gains following any program you want while paying zero attention to your diet!

(In fact, many of the clients I have worked with are able to take advantage of this phase (even those who have been lifting for years because they weren’t following a proper strength training program while training independently!)

But does this mean you shouldn’t follow a proper training and diet program?

Of course not.

If you want to optimize your results by getting gains that keep on coming far past your newbie gains phase or want to stave off the risk of injury for as long as possible, then I would highly suggest following a real strength training program.

However, also know that this phase doesn’t last forever. Even if you’re following a proper strength training program, newbie gains will last anywhere between 6-12 months, maybe even 18 months max.

Now, in my experience, if you are a beginner, you also likely fall into one of these three categories.

If You Have A Lot Of Body Fat

First off, let’s define what “a lot” means because some people seem to think that just because they have a little bit of chub, they need to go on an aggressive fat loss plan.

When really, they are far better off just focusing on building as much lean muscle as they can and their body composition is going to be drastically improved.

If you’re not sure, give my other article a read HERE.

Of course, this depends on person to person, but I usually say if you can’t see any ab definition at all then you likely don’t need to focus on fat loss and be in a deficit.

So you fit the criteria if you have a significant amount of body fat or are “skinny fat” with a beer belly.

In your case, I would recommend going into a slight deficit.

Setting Your Calories

The first thing you should do is set your calories because when it comes to fat loss, a calorie deficit – eating fewer calories than you burn consistently – is the key.

Head over to my free calorie calculator HERE to get started.

In your situation, I would recommend aiming to lose anywhere between 0.5 to 1 lb per week.

So if the calculator spits out 1500 calories for 1 lb per week and 1750 calories for 0.5 per week, you want to be eating between 1500 and 1750 calories.

I know it’s going to be tempting to want to lose fat faster, but I still highly recommend sticking closer to the 0.5 lb end because the slower you lose the fat, the more efficiently you’ll be able to use that fat to build lean muscle.

And besides, having more lean muscle do so much more for your body and physique than losing a few pounds of fat.

Since you’re a beginner with a lot of body fat to lose, you’ll have absolutely no problem losing fat and building muscle at the same (which makes me super jealous btw).

Setting Your Protein

Now, let’s talk protein.

Protein is important because it’s the building block of muscles.

Without adequate protein, you’re not going to be able to build muscle even if you’re training and working hard (can’t build a house without woods, bricks, etc. can ya?).

For protein, aim for anywhere between 0.8-1.0g per pound of goal bodyweight.

For example, if your goal weight is 150 lbs, then you want to be eating between 120-150g of protein.

And that’s it! Just focus on hitting your calories and protein and train effing hard.

No need to worry about your carbs/fats ratio.

This is because the research shows that it doesn’t really as long as calories and protein are matched across diets.

“Skinny Fat”

If you have more of the “skinny fat” body type where you don’t quite have a lot of fat to lose, but you also appear “soft” with little to no muscle definition, then this section is for you.

To reiterate, “skinny fat” does not mean you have a big beer belly. Maybe your stomach and muscles aren’t quite as defined as you’d want them to be, but you don’t really have “weight” to lose.

Lastly, I want to this very clear because people make this mistake all the time (myself included): just because you have a little stomach fat does not mean you have weight to lose.

The solution is to build muscle, not lose weight.

So pay close attention.

Setting Your Calories

Again, I would recommend using my free calorie calculator HERE.

This time I want you to aim for around maintenance.

But aim for a range instead of the singular number.

So if it tells you to eat 1800 calories, aim for between 1600-2000.

The reason you want to be right around maintenance is that this will prime you for body recomposition (the quality of building muscle and losing fat at the same time).

By eating at around maintenance, this will allow you to optimize muscle growth which will do more for your body composition than losing fat because you don’t have that much body fat to lose.

However, even without being in a deficit, you will still lose body fat because as your amount of lean muscle mass goes up, your calorie expenditure will go up putting you in a slight deficit and muscle mass actually gives your body shape versus fat mass.

With this in mind, you may go into a slight calorie deficit, but it won’t be anything too steep to hinder fat loss. So if you do want to be in an intentional I deficit, I wouldn’t recommend anything beyond 100-300 calories below maintenance.

Setting Your Protein

For protein, I recommend following the same guidelines as above.

Set your intake for 0.8 to 1.0g per lb of goal bodyweight.

I would also recommend aiming closer to the 1g end.

The increased protein will help you optimize muscle building as that is the primary goal here.

If you are interested in my more in-depth take on dealing with “skinny fat”, then check out my other article HERE.

If You Are Skinny

If you are just straight-up skinny, then I recommend going into a calorie surplus right away.

This means that you’ll be eating above your maintenance calories (eating more calories than your body burns consistently) which is going to be the most optimal for muscle growth.

However, if you are skinny then you are also relatively lean and can benefit from the surplus of calories to pack on a ton of lean muscle and completely change your physique.

Setting Your Calories

Again, my free calculator, HERE, has got it all. 🙂

Follow the suggestion that says calorie surplus to gain lean muscle.

If you want the formula, it’s basically +10% of your maintenance calories.

We use a percentage because everyone’s calorie intakes can vary drastically so a percentage equalizes it.

For most people, this can be anywhere between +100-400 calories above maintenance.

This will allow you to maximize muscle growth without slapping on too much body fat.

Setting Your Protein

As someone who is skinny and is relatively lean, you’ll need more protein because your body simply has less excess fat (energy) which means it’ll require more protein to retain and build muscle.

In this case, I would recommend between 1.0-1.2g per lb of current bodyweight.

So if you’re currently 150 lbs, then aim for 150-180g of protein.

However, I know that 180g of protein is also a lot so it’s not the end of the world if you “only” hit 150, but if you’re able to get 180g then that’s fine too!

Intermediate + Advanced Methods To Build Lean Muscle

Now, as I said, things are way easier when you are a beginner or newer to lifting.

This is because the stimulus of weight training is so new to your body that you can get a ton of results without having to optimize everything (which is why we focused on just calories and protein).

However, as you accrue more and more training experience, it becomes harder to make progress (thanks to the law of diminishing returns) so you’re going to have to fine-tune your approach if you want to continue making significant progress.

I also do want to mention that I am going to be giving you recommendations based on the characteristics of most of the intermediate to advanced clients that I’ve worked with.

The one thing they all have in common is their body fat percentage because people who have been doing this for a while generally have things dialed in and have a solid foundation of leanness and lean body mass.

So in this section, I’m going to be giving recommendations if you have a relatively low body fat percentage (around 8-12% for males and 18-20% for females).

If you are an intermediate + advanced lifter and you do not have a lower body fat percentage, I would suggest following instructions that I have laid out in my other article HERE.

Also, recall that training age isn’t your actual age or how long you’ve been working out. It’s how long you have been following a real training program.

So if you are 40 years old and have been doing group fitness classes and P90X for the last 15 years, your training age will still fall into the “beginner” stage.

But that’s not necessarily a bad thing because this means you can build muscle and lose fat at the same time to a significant degree!

Now, let’s talk about what you should do if you are an intermediate + advanced trainee and are also relatively lean with a lower body fat percentage.

Incorporating Macros For Building Lean Muscle

This is where the game changes when you are intermediate + advanced. You need to start dialing in your macros along with calories.

What’s the difference? Keep reading, all will be explained 😉

Setting Your Calories

Alright, so as explained before, muscle building is going to be optimized when we’re in a calorie surplus because muscle building is an energy-intensive process.

With that said, when you are an intermediate + advanced lifter, if you want to continue to make good progress, we need to optimize our approach as well because our body doesn’t respond quite the same to strength training as it did when we were a beginner.

So again, I suggest using my calorie calculator HERE and following the “calorie surplus to build lean muscle” guidelines.

The calculator is set to whatever your maintenance calories are and then adding 10% of those calories on top.

So if you are an intermediate + advanced lifter, you likely already have a good idea of your maintenance calories so just multiply your maintenance calories by 1.1 to find your new calorie intake to build lean muscle.

For example, if your maintenance calories are 2500 calories, your surplus intake would be 2500 x 1.1 = 2750 calories.

Again, this is because when you are already relatively lean and have some experience under your belt your body can’t keep making adaptations without a surplus of calories (energy) from external sources (more food).

It’s got more important stuff to do like keeping your organs, brain, and other bodily functions and processes running to keep you ALIVE.

Quite frankly, you wanting to build lean muscle just isn’t that important to your body when it comes down to it.

So this is why you need to above maintenance. Your body is like, “oh, we have everything we need to be alive and functioning properly, now let’s build some muscle!”

It’s the same thing as budgeting your money. You need to make sure that you’ve paid off your bills first, then you can go shop on Amazon Prime.

Now, we’re going to be getting some more specifics that will further optimize your muscle-building journey as an intermediate + advanced lifter.

So for this article, we’re going to stick the example of your calorie target being 2750 because we’ll need this later on.

Setting Your Macros

Now, let’s talk about the “surprise tool”: macros.

Macros are short for macronutrients. Macronutrients consist of protein, carbs, and fats.

As you previously read, you noticed I only recommended tracking calories and protein and we didn’t have to worry about carbs or fats.

Why do we need to now?

That’s because as your training age and experience go up, the more dialed in everything needs to be to continue seeing progress.

When you go into a calorie surplus (combined with the law of diminishing returns), you’re going to gain some fat. It’s inevitable.

This doesn’t mean you will automatically get sloppy and put on a ton of fat, but it does mean that you likely won’t be able to maintain the leanness you want while adding pure muscle mass.

I wish there was another way, but that’s just the name of the game if you want to keep playing.

This is why macros become especially important.

Now, as a general recommendation, if you want a diet that optimizes building lean muscle, we want our intake to be moderate to high protein, high carb, and moderate to low fat.

The reason for this is because, when in a calorie surplus, fat is going to be the macro that most readily available to be converted to fat.

Dietary fat and body fat have similar molecular makeup – and because your body loves efficiency – so dietary fat will be easier to convert to and be stored as body fat versus carbs and protein.

So if we want to maximize building lean muscle while minimizing fat gain, we need to be a bit more intentional with our macros.

Setting Your Protein

So protein is going to be up first because it’s the most constant macro regardless of whether you decide to build muscle or lose fat.

For protein, we are going to multiply your current body weight (in lbs) by 0.8-1.0.

So for example, if you weigh 170 lbs, 170 x 0.8 = 136 and 170 x 1 = 170.

This means your protein intake will be 136-170g of protein.

We will also need to know how much this protein is in terms of calories.

Protein is equal to 4 calories per gram so let’s say your protein intake is going to be 170g.

170 x 4 = 680 calories from protein.

Remember this number because we’ll need it later.

Setting Your Fat

Next up, dietary fat.

For your fat intake, we want to multiply your current body weight (in lbs) by 0.3-0.4.

So following the same example above, if you weigh 170 lbs, 170 x 0.3 = 51 and 170 x 0.4 = 68.

This means your fat intake will be 51-68g.

Again, we need to know the calorie value of our fat intake.

Fat is equal to 9 calories per gram so let’s say your fat intake is 68g.

68 x 9 = 612 calories from fat.

So far, we have 680 cals from protein + 612 cals from fat = 1292 cals total from protein and fat.

Just a reminder because we’ll need this for the next section: our fictional version of you is aiming for 2750 calories.

Setting Your Carbs

Lastly (for good reason), we have carbs.

We figured out protein and fat first because carbs are going to be where the rest of our calories go to.

So putting everything together, our total calorie intake is 2750 calories and the calories we’ve figured out so far from protein and fat are 1292 calories.

This means that 2750 – 1292 = 1458 calories will come from carbs.

Carbs are going to contain 4 calories per gram.

So, 1458 / 4 = 364.5 (which we can round off to 365, no big deal).

And that’s it!

Now you have everything you need to know for your intake.

Your (example) calorie and macro targets would be:

2750 calories

170g of protein

68g of fat

365g of carbs

This is one of the major keys to the best diet plan to build lean muscle as an intermediate + advanced lifter.

Now, that we know how much to eat, what about what to eat?

Food Choices – What To Eat To Build Lean Muscle

Alright, so here’s the thing.

There are no special foods that going to magically help you build lean muscle.

The bottom line is going to be nailing those macros and calorie goals I’ve outlined above no matter if you are a beginner all the way to advanced.

You can seriously eat whatever you want and as long as you hit those macro and calorie guidelines, you will see results.

However, does this mean this is what I recommend? Nope.

Because I’m sure that along with your goals of building lean muscle, you also want to feel healthy.

You don’t just want to look the part.

You also want to feel the part. You want to feel comfortable, confident and energized in your body.

So here’s what I suggest:

Following the 80/20 guidelines for food choices.

80% of your foods are going to come from nutrient-dense sources (which I will list in a bit).

20% of your foods are going to come “treat” foods or other less nutrient-dense foods.

With that said, here’s the list of food sources recommended by Precision Nutrition.

Setting Realistic Expectations To Build Lean Muscle

After all this, the most frequently asked question I get is, “how fast should I be gaining muscle?”

Well, this is going to depend on person to person because of genetics which will determine: how much muscle your body frame can support, how much of a muscle base you have, how much muscle you can build onto your frame, your responsiveness to weight training, and many other factors.

And just like with fat loss and everything else in life, don’t rush the process.

When you rush the process, you tend to do more outlandish things that are less effective and end up yielding worse results.

Case in point, when people try to “rush” the muscle-building process, they end up “dirty bulking” or eating way too many calories above maintenance and end up putting on a bunch of fat in the process (commonly known as the SEE-food diet: the one where you see food, you eat it).

They then think they put on a bunch of muscle because the scale rises quickly, but instead, months go by and they end up not liking what they see in the mirror and go back into a deficit (which as we know doesn’t optimize muscle building).

This leads to a constant hopping back and forth between “bulking” (surplus) and “cutting” (deficit) which is inefficient and ineffective.

The most efficient and effective thing to do is to dedicate at least 6-12+ months to actually dialing your nutrition and training hard to maximize building lean muscle.

When you’re doing things right, here’s what rate of weight gain should approximately look like:

Final Thoughts On How To Build Lean Muscle

Alright! And that is it.

That about covers everything you need to know about the best diet plan to build lean muscle.

I hope you learned a lot and now know enough to be well on your way to building lean muscle!

I tried to make this as simple and as easy to understand as possible.

However, I still do understand that the journey itself is not easy at all.

So if after reading all of this and you still have some questions or need help troubleshooting any problems you run into, feel free to reach out. I would love to help.

Talk soon,

-Aus

Coaching Opportunity

I am currently taking on new clients for online coaching.

A few benefits of this program include:

• Customized nutrition plan tailored to your individual needs and goals
• Customized training plan to help you build muscle, lose fat, and get fit
• Daily accountability and support to ensure that you never feel “alone” or “stuck” on your journey to bettering yourself.

The best part: you can do this from anywhere in the world.

You can apply here for more info.