Believe it or not, not everyone out there is interested in losing weight. Here at Fit-Tip-of-the-Day we’ve been getting a lot of questions similar to the following: "I’m thin and would like to gain muscle without gaining too much fat. How many calories should I eat?"

There’s probably no universal easy answer to this question. A lot depends on your age, metabolism, level of activity, etc.

Overall, I’m not an advocate of extremely high calorie diets for natural trainers—this usually results in the addition of too much bodyfat.

Assuming that you’re training and supplementing intelligently, here’s some general guidelines that should get you heading in the right direction:

* Consume approximately 15-18 times your bodyweight in daily calories. So at a weight of 150 lbs you want to target approximately 2250-2700 calories total per day.

* While different people respond differently to certain types of food, in general the best calorie breakdown for serious muscle-building is approximately 50% carbohydrates, 30% protein, and 20% fat.

* Break up your calorie consumption into 5 or 6 relatively equal sized meals.

* Feed your body high quality protein throughout the day, at least every 3 hours, to help support muscle growth. You’ll want to take in at least 1-2 grams of protein per pound of bodyweight.

* If after 2-3 weeks you find you’re not gaining mass, up your calories by 250-300 per day.

* You don’t need to overeat, but you do need to get your meals and your PROTEIN in.