I'm new at this. Help would be greatly appreciated

[justinTPF]

I am actually not a body builder at all. I am an amateur mixed martial arts fighter who is looking to gain a little bit more muscle. I figured you guys have it down to a science so, you could probably help me if you are willing. I am currently 5'10 and weigh 155lbs. I am not in bad shape. The problem though is that I used to be at 170 (a little chubby) and I would cut weight to get to 155 which is my fighting weight. The last time I had to cut weight, I just never went back up. So now I am hoping to gain at least a little more muscle so that I can get back up to about 165 at least and have to cut to get to 155. I would love to have nice abs (who wouldn't), but right now it's just a flat stomach with no definition. Same with my arms, descent size but could be bigger. I work out about twice a week, tuesday and thursday usually, and mainly do circuit training. But I dont see a difference. So I figured it must be my diet. So...today (tuesday) I decided to start a new diet. I had 170g of protein, 1500 calories, low sodium, and my only carbs were in my pre and post workout shake (which I just started today). On days that I dont workout, I figured I'll probably just try to eat healthy, but not as extreme. Do you think that this diet will help me to reach my goal or do I need to alter it in some way? Like I said, I'm new to this, so you guys know a lot more about it than me?

I know that's a lot of info there, so thanks for taking the time to read it all.

[seniorhobo]

Hey m8, Your into mma so im assuming you want to make leanest gains as possible. You would want to start by working out your BMR, there are posts in the fat loss forum that will tell you how to do this. General rule of thumb is to add about 300-500 calories to this to start your bulk. This figure is just a general one and is different for everyone genearlly, best way to find what will work the best for you is trial and error. If you notice you are losing weight then you probably need to up your calories and if you are gaining more fat that you would like reduce them a bit. As far as your abs, what bf% are you? if your pretty low bf (~10-12%) and you dont see your abs you probably need to train them more so they are defined. Make sure you get at least 1g of proten per lb of body mass as a minimum. Get your diet in check and lift heavy and hopefully you will start to see some gains. Good luck, and 1500 calories is too low.

[justinTPF]

Thanks for the advice man. 1500 is about average for me in a day, so I guess I need to up it by 500 or so? As you said, I will just have to expirement and find out.