Newbie Looking To Gain Muscle...
 

Hi all, just joined in an effort to plan a diet around my goal of building muscle, so any tips on doing that would be great as well. First off, tho, I've done the table in an effort to determine my basic calories for a day and found it to be quite high, so I would like some help deciphering it.

for starters I'm a construction worker and work 8 hours a day which gives me a calorie count of: 3,375

I also sleep for 8 hours which gives me: 506

I tend to be lazy around the house so I mostly sit with some movement, which gives me: 919

Overall it says I burn 4,799 calories a day. To bulk up muscle, I've read you must add 500 calories to that and plan your diet accordingly. Is this all correct? Thanks for any help.

Glad to have you aboard!
 

Hopefully in the near future we'll be able to put together a "Best of" thread for weight training and bulking up.

I've asked someone to help with this.

That would be awesome! Gaining weight & bulking up are two areas that seem to come along.

Thanks, I will. :)

I assume you're going to be lifting weights.

The general wisdom is to keep the reps in the 6-10 range, 2-3 minutes between sets.

Lots of protein in the diet.

Start with compound movements (squat, bench press, bent row, etc.) as they use the most muscle per lift.

Thanks. However, any ideas on if the calories estimate is correct? I still think it's rather high. Also, what kind of exercise am I looking to do exactly? Aside from going to the gym (which I intend to do) are there any I can do at home to help me prepare? I've never done any weight lifting before but I do have a barbell (max 55 lbs) :P

No idea on the calories though I would presume construction work is very physical.

You can do bodyweight exercises but a 55 lb barbell won't get you far.

Check out the Weight Training section at ExRx.

There's a wide range of exercises to choose from, loads of advice and a small video illustrating the correct form for each exercise.

ETA: most gyms offer a session with a trainer to new members to help learn proper form and get off on the right foot.

Thanks again for all the help. I'm having a bit of trouble perfecting my diet, however. I want to eat no more than my body weight (in grams) of protein a day while still hitting the 5,000 calorie mark. It seems quite impossible and I was thinking adding some sweet potatoes in the mix, but I'd have to eat quite a lot of them to be efficient. Any denser foods I could go with? I'd like slow-burning (to avoid blood sugar spikes) foods that are high in cals, but low in protein.

Sweet potatoes fit this bill.

It's also my understanding that Fish Oil helps to control blood sugar spikes, and that why it's yet ANOTHER good reason to supplement with FO daily.

Also, look into Chromium (specifically chromium nicotinate glycinate chelate) which helps with insulin sensitivity. It helps in this area as well.