If you want to increase your strength significantly, you’ll need to eat.
For many people who are overweight, this presents a bit of a conundrum.
To increase your strength, the body needs to build muscle and improve its bone density.
This is the adaptation it makes to the stress that strength training places upon it.
In general, you have to consume more calories than you are expending as energy.
This is why strongman athletes consume massive quantities of food.
Most of those calories are turned into muscle, some goes toward increasing bone density, and then the rest can turn into body fat.
Some golfers may be underweight, so this is ok.
However, the last thing some people want is to increase their body fat.
Therefore, it is necessary to pay closer attention to your macros.
Eating for strength
While many strongman athletes simply consume a ton of food without much concern for the macros, they are getting enough protein in their diet to build muscle.
However, if you are a golfer who is already overweight, and you actually want to lose fat in the process of getting stronger, you’ve got to really pay attention to your diet.
In particular, you need to consume enough protein each day, because that is the macronutrient most responsible for building muscle.
The research available is somewhat inconsistent in regard to how much protein you actually need to consume to build muscle.
Body builders insist on at least one gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
Thus, if you are 200 pounds, they suggest you need to eat 200 grams of protein.
Depending on the source, 8 ounces of cooked chicken breast equates to 40 to 50 grams of protein.
Therefore, you’d need to eat four to 5 chicken breasts per day to get your 200 grams.
As I write this, I weigh about 195 pounds. I can assure you that there is no way I could eat that much protein in a day, no matter the source.
Other sources suggest that you only need about 1.2 to 1.8 grams of protein per kilo of body weight to build muscle. My 195 pounds is about 88 kilos.
As such, I would need to eat a more palatable 106 to 158 grams of protein per day while training to build muscle and strength.
How many calories per day?
Now that you have a general idea of how much protein you need to eat, you can then determine how many calories to consume.
If you are overweight and you want to lose body fat, you will need to consume fewer calories than you burn each day.
Some of your fat can be used as energy needed to conduct your strength training workouts.
However, if you eat too little, you’ll stop making strength gains quickly. You absolutely need energy to build strength, and food is the number one source of energy.
With that said, you need to consume calories at a very slight deficit to the energy you are using each day.
Go to this Calorie Calculator to get an idea of how many calories you should consume, based on your age, weight, sex and activity level.
Using me as an example, I am 58, 6 feet tall, 195 pounds, male.
I generally workout 5 days per week, but since this is mostly lifting, I would categorize my activity as 3-4 days of intense activity.
Therefore, to maintain my weight, I need to consume about 2,700 calories per day.
Macro Breakdown
Now, let’s say I am targeting 150 grams of protein per day.
For me, my protein choices are chicken, beef, pork, salmon, shrimp and milk.
I’ve found that overall, for each gram of protein I consume, I am also consuming 10-12 calories.
With that in mind, my calorie consumption from my protein sources is going to be 1,500 to 1,800 calories.
Keep in mind that when you eat protein bars and packaged meals that purportedly have a good amount of protein, you are not going to get that same ratio.
A prepackaged meal containing 20 grams of protein will often have 400 calories or more. So pay attention!
Given that if I just want to maintain my weight, I can only eat 2,700 calories, the majority of my macros will come from protein.
Some of that protein will also include some fat as well.
For instance, 8 ounces of chicken breast will contain about 10 grams of fat to go with the 40 to 50 grams of protein, and there will be zero carbs.
Therefore, you’ll want to avoid adding additional fat to your diet if you want to keep the calories down.
If you’re goal is to lose some body fat during this process, you’ll actually need to eat less than 2,700 calories per day.
My suggestion would be to target 2,300 to 2,500 calories per day, or increase your overall activity.
The total calorie count from that 8 ounce chicken breast is about 275.
However, keep in mind, salmon, beef and pork will tend to have higher amounts of calories, due to a higher fat content.
You WILL also need to consume carbohydrates, particularly ahead of a workout, so you have the energy to complete the workout without coming up short on your performance.
Ultimately, you are probably looking at a breakdown of about 40% protein, 40% carbs and 20% fat if you are trying to lose fat while building strength.
Final thoughts
The primary reason most people struggle to meet their fitness goals is that they really don’t pay much attention to the details in their diet.
Now you know going forward that this is a critical piece of the puzzle, particularly if you have the dual goal of building muscle and losing fat.
In that regard, you really have to thread the needle, but it is possible.
The bottom line is that, once you get to a certain age, you can’t just eat what you want any more to meet performance goals.
Your diet is every bit as important as your time spent in the gym.
With this in mind, I highly recommend keeping a journal and writing down everything you eat, so you know what adjustments you may have to make to get your desired results.
If this is a bit of a struggle, consider one of my training options.
Now, get to work!
