I know you just need a calorie excess to gain muscle (along with exercise) but would there be any downsides to trying to bulk up and gain muscle without gaining too much fat on a 100 percent Huel diet?
For example, would you struggle to get enough protein without overdoing it on the calories (and possibly fat and carbs?
If 400 kcal of Huel is 29g of protein, would you end up having too many calories if you got all of your protein from Huel?
How would you do it? Would it be best to supplement Huel with protein powder?
I believe the recommendation for protein intake while trying to gain muscle is around 1.6g-2.2g per kilo of bodyweight. So for an 80kg person that’s 128g-176g of protein each day. Either Black Edition or v3.0 will help you get there. If you were only consuming Huel Bars, or only the RTD then you wouldn’t quite hit that high-protein number at 2000kcal and you may wish to supplement with protein.
I don’t know much about macro-nutrient ratios, but I believe calorie intake, protein intake and training would be the most important things to consider. @Dan_Huel what do you think?
I’ll jump in on this one! There are a few things to consider with bulking.
Building muscle is energy expensive, so you’ll need to bump up your daily calorie intake for your body to respond to the training stimulus and build muscle. As a male, you’ll need about 2500kcal/day, 2000kcal/d for women just to go about your daily business. So you need to eat more calories to offset the calories you’ll burn by exercise + a bit extra to bulk up. The rough calculation is to add 0.5kg/week you need to eat an extra 500 calories/day. There’s a good calculator linked to help figure out how much you’ll need based on your activity etc (How to gain weight | Huel Guide).
Protein intake should be optimal for muscle gain (~1.6 -2.2g protein/kg body weight) and doses split equally throughout the day. Remember that you’re most likely consuming protein from the other foods in your diet on top of what you’re getting in Huel. Using Tim’s example, if you’re an 80kg male and you need 3200kcal/day (taking into account your training) you will need roughly 160g protein/day. If you have x3 portions of Huel Black Edition (for breakfast, lunch & a post-workout snack), that gives you 120g protein with a cost of 1200kcal. That means you have 2000 calories left to get the remaining 40g protein - i.e. dinner.
Thanks. That sounds very doable when you put it like that.
I’m having 2x Hot and Savoury a day plus 2 to 3 Huel White a day at the moment so could be getting roughly 140 grams of protein and 2000 kcal from that iirc.
I usually eat a load of junk snacks on top of that which I’m trying to cut out.
I’m not going to the gym at the moment obviously but am running for 30 mins a couple of times a week.
If I could eliminate the unhealthy snacks and add a few Huel Blacks I could easily up myprotein and calories without too much effort.