Body Beast Calorie Intake
On a gentle March day in San Diego a storm erupted. The BEAST was unleashed again! Now, let’s talk a bit about Body Beast calorie intake.
Some of you know of my affinity for this awesome strength training program. My first round of Body Beast began just after Thanksgiving of 2012, and it was a little unfocused [to say the least]. I really just set out to do the program for 30 days so I could become familiar enough with it to answer questions. I kept going—but, I did not focus on the Nutrition Guide. I was very wary about gaining weight. I began my Beachbody journey by losing 30 pounds—and then lost another 10 thanks to Shakeology and a steady dose of triathlon and cycling. Gaining weight sounded like a bad dream to me.
Body Beast Nutrition Guide
As I began this second round, I decided I would follow the Nutrition Guide. I also decided to get my body fat tested to establish some good baseline numbers. If I’m going to gain weight, it has got to be muscle, not fat.
I didn’t expect stellar results on the body fat test after a week at Disney World with Beachbody. Not surprisingly, I had gained three pounds since my last test. To my joy, the weight was nearly all muscle and I can report that more than just a few people commented at Disney that they noticed.
This really reaffirmed my desire to follow Body Beast nutrition. My goal was to pack on 8 to 10 pounds of muscle and drop my body fat from 13.41% to about 10%. That means I’d be about 179 pounds, a weight I have not seen for many, many moons. Weighing in between 170 and 160 since 2007, this means I’m going to need to EAT!
Body Beast Calories Calculation
I started where everyone should start with a program like this – calorie intake. If you want to gain weight, you have to eat more calories than you burn. If those calories are McDonald’s and you combine that with a steady stream of couch time, you’ll primarily gain fat. But, if those calories come from good quality whole foods AND you do Body Beast, you’ll gain primarily muscle.
If you’ve seen the Body Beast calories calculation, you might have gone cross-eyed. Fear not! We’ve got you covered. Click the button below for our Google spreadsheet. Just save the document as a copy and enter your body fat percentage and your total weight. The spreadsheet will do the rest.
Body Beast Nutrition
If you, like me, are someone who has lost weight this whole gaining weight mentality might scare you a little bit. Unlike most of Beachbody’s fitness programs, Body Beast is NOT about losing weight. Typically, people struggle because they don’t lose weight fast enough. What a change to be gaining weight if you follow the Nutrition Guide!
I’m prescribed a daily does of 2,900 calories, which is truly a lot. You gotta be prepared for this! The program requires some mental fortitude.
If you are sensitive about your weight, I have some suggestions:
- Put away the scale. If you want to gain weight, but you know it’s going to mess with your head, don’t look at the scale until the measurement and assessment points.
- Understand that muscle is three times as dense as fat. So, five pounds of muscle takes up three times less space than five pounds of fat. In short, if you gain five pounds of muscle, it’s not going to make your pants much tighter.
- Trust the process. This is going to require faith. I highly recommend you get into a support group or take me up on one-on-one coaching [see below].
What if you don’t want to gain weight while you do Body Beast? Simple…don’t eat all the calories, but do all the workouts. The Body Beast calorie calculator is designed to give you the amount of calories you need to gain weight. So, simply make some simple adjustments. Feel free to contact me if you want help with this. If weight loss is your goal, check out this post where Monica talks about weight loss and calorie burn.
Free Body Beast Coaching
If you don’t already have a Beachbody Coach, and you’re not one yourself, click below to sign up to get coached by me for free. Seriously, FREE. This will be a HUGE benefit for you and save you a lot of grief. Let’s do it!
