Welcome to the fourth installment of our glute training guide. Make sure you check out the last 3 weeks if you missed them here, here, and here.
By now you should have a good understanding of the glutes! We’ve talked about why glutes are so important, how you must make sure they are working properly, and then most importantly, the best way to train your glutes.
Role of Nutrition in Glute Training
Today we’re going to talk about the nutrition piece of the pie. Doing the exercises is crucial to having great glutes, but what determines how your butt looks will be almost all nutrition!
Before getting into a plan of action with your nutrition, let’s discuss a few popular mistakes people make. Try to avoid these.
1) Not eating enough protein.
So here’s the deal. You need to fuel muscle with both carbohydrates and protein. To simplify things a bit, protein provides the building block for muscle while carbs provide the right hormonal environment for growth. Most people have no problem eating enough carbs. Carbs for breakfast, carbs for lunch, carbs for dinner. Let’s throw in a carbtastic snack and you have carbs all day long! But getting sufficient protein is a much more difficult task.
I’ve found this to be the case with almost all my female clients. Even if you’re eating few eggs for breakfast, a salad with protein for lunch and eat a serving of chicken or fish at dinner – that’s still only about 50-60 grams of protein which is not enough. I like to target about about 1 gram of protein per lb. of target bodyweight.
If you’re not consuming enough protein from your diet, your body will not be able to repair and grow new muscle tissues. And even more damaging is what happens when you eat a calorie deficit with insufficient protein — your body could start breaking down muscle tissue for energy. This is not good.
What to do — Target 1 gram of protein per lb. of target bodyweight.
2) Not eating enough calories.
Calorie restriction, juice cleanses, detoxes – these all work in the short term because you are severely restricting calories. This is basic physiology. But this will wreak havoc on your metabolism in the long run. Your metabolism will eventually slow down and most likely you’ll gain the weight back once you return to a normal eating pattern.
If fat loss is your primary goal, it is true that you will have to eat at a slight calorie deficit, but the key word here is SLIGHT deficit.
What to do — See below plan#1 for more details.
3) Focus on the scale, not on how your clothes fit
The scale might not change, or worse yet the scale might go up. But try this, after a month or two of strength training and good nutrition, go try on that dress or pair of jeans. I bet it fits differently even if the scale hasn’t changed.
Muscle is much denser than fat which means it takes up less space in your body. The scale might not change (mass), but you’ll look much better and your clothes will fit better. See for yourself here.
What to do — Be patience and don’t worry about the scale. Better yet, throw it out.
Pick Your Plan – What To Do Now
So now that we have what not to do out of the way, let’s talk about a plan of action. First things first, let’s do some quick math. Yay for math! Just kidding, but I promise this will be easy.
We need to determine your maintenance calories in order to move forward.
Choose an activity multiplier, between 10-14 depending on how active you are.
Multiply that by your current bodyweight. Select 10-12 if you are more sedentary and 13-14 if you are more active. This will give you a general range of calories to aim for.
Let’s use a female example of 130lb with 3 different activity levels.
- Not active at all, use 10: (10*130) = 1,300 calories.
- Moderately active, use 12: (12*130) =1,560 calories
- Very active, use 14: (14*130) = 1,820 calories
As you can see, there is quite a bite of range. There is no hard, concrete number that will be exact for you. This is just an estimate. You’ll have to experiment a bit to see what works the best for you.
Determine what you want. What are your glute goals?
Here are 3 different nutrition plans you can take to achieve 3 separate goals. Remember, all 3 plans assume a consistent glute strength training workouts at least 2-3 times per week.
Plan 1 will be a slight calorie deficit to drop body fat and maintain shape in your glutes. This is a good plan for someone with some curves, but wants to shed some fat to see all that beauty.
Plan 2 will be a slight calorie surplus which will add some good curves and size to your backside. This is a good plan if you are naturally lean and less curvy.
Plan 3 will have you eating at maintenance calories. This will help you build glutes and most likely drop a few inches in your waist. This is the plan I recommend for most people.
Plan #1
If you have some decent glute muscles, but you want to drop body fat, this plan makes the most sense.
What to do – Eat a calorie deficit. Find your target range based on the above calculation. Follow a good glute training program and eat on the lower end of that range.
For our 130lb female example, that would be around 1300-1400 calories and 130 grams of protein.
Plan #2
If you are naturally lean and want to get some curves down below, then I would focus on building glutes by eating a calorie surplus.
What to do – Eat a calorie surplus. Find your target range based on the above calculation. Follow a good glute training program and eat on the higher end of that range.
For our 130lb female example, that would be around 1600-1800 calories and 130 grams of protein.
Plan #3
If you are happy with your bodyweight, but want better shape in your butt and some inches lost in your waist and thighs, eat at maintenance calories to achieve this goal.
What to do – Eat at caloric maintenance. Find your target range based on the above calculation. Follow a good glute training program and eat in the middle of that range.
For our 130lb female example, that would be around 1400-1600 calories and 130 grams of protein.
The time is now!
We are launching the Better Bikini Bum Program in 4 days on July 13, 2015. This is a beautifully designed comprehensive plan that will give you exactly what you need in order to create your best backside ever.
Here’s a sample from the Better Bikini Bum Program
Click here to get on the pre-launch list. This is your chance to get 40% off before we open the program up on Monday, July 13th.
Enjoy the rest of your day,
Nick
