All right, so you want to get strong and go to the gym to work. You may think that pumping weights is all you have to do, but it is not that simple.

An important aspect of both repair and growth is nutrition. Bodybuiding diest are always changing for the simple reason muscle mass increases, putting muscle on means eating more, losing muscle means you will need to eat less. How do you stay on top of what is going on inside the body?

Watching your weight daily is important if you are trying to increase your mass. If your weight is going down or staying the same, you may need to consider eating more. If you find yourself gaining a lot of weight you need to take a closer look at what you're eating. Be careful, while you can expect to gain fat while attempting to gain muscle, you should keep an eye on it to ensure you don't gain too much fat.

Using body fat calipers is a great technique to assess whether muscle or fat is increasing. You can use the calipers every other week. If muscle seems to be going down according to your calipers, that is the evidence that you are not eating enough good nutrition. If the calipers reflect that the percent of bodyfat is increasing then you will have to consume less.

Every good gym will have a set of calipers and assuming it is the same person doing the measurments each time you will get a honest reading as for what is going on. After you have figured out the amount of millimeters and your bodyweights, it is then that the chart which comes with calipers will determine what bodyfat percentage you are.

If you get yor bodyweight in pound and then multiply it by the percentage of bodyfat, that will give you your total bodyfat. Total bodyweight less the resulting figure will equal one's fat free mass. Although the figure has organs and muscle we use the entire model for the calculations including organs and bones.

The two figures you have just worked out, the total bodyfat and fat free mass, should be written down and kept. Then next time you have the measurements done you will see if the bodyfat percentage has gone up. You will find that if your food intake is right then with your exercise and nutrition the fat free mass will go up and the total bodyfat will go down. But if your not eating enough then you will find that the fat free mass, muscle, is going down and the bodyfat will go up.