Grow faster? You should always strive to gain muscle as fast as you can.....muscle, not weight. Like I said before, you will be disappointed IF you rely on diet to accomplish that. Your answer lies in my first response.......BUT, I know I preach LBAs all day long but look at the studies on nitrogen retention........now see why hospitals use them now as their protein source?
I will contribute to this. The issue is far too complex to address with a simple answer. All variables aside, does a larger, more muscular physique require more calories than a smaller, less muscular physique to maintain? - generally yes. I agree with Phil here, however specifically with respect to one point he is making:
Lets imagine a 200lb male bodybuilder (recreational) at 10% bodyfat. let's say his maintenance calories are about 3,000 broken down into 40/40/20 macronutrient ratio's (for the sake of conversation).
Scenario 1 - this athlete is not using any anabolics or performance enhancement drugs. The calories and macronutrients that he consumes are being put to their respective physiological uses at say x% efficiency.
Scenario 2- this athlete begins taking 500mg Testosterone Cypionate per week with 4iu HGH per day. The calories and macronutrients that he consumes are now being put to their respective physiological uses at x*y % efficiency.
WHY?
-Simply put, the testosterone and Human Growth Hormone are facilitating increases in protein anabolism, decreases in protein catabolism, increases in nitrogen retention, improvements in training intensity/strength etc etc etc. All of which are causing the individuals 'maintenance' calories to be used more efficiently and thus they become more like 'muscle building' calories.
Why is the issue too complex to sugar coat? a few reasons that I'll touch on:
-When you consume larger quantities of quality food (proteins, complex carbohydrates, healthy fats), you increase the thermic load of your food intake, thus "speeding up" your metabolism to a certain degree. There is of course a point of diminishing returns here.
There is ever only a SLIGHT surplus in raw materials necessary to build lean muscle mass. I do not even like to use the word surplus because in actuality any true surplus over what is needed to grow lean muscle WILL be stored as body-fat or excreted as waste (likely a higher % toward the former option).
The best summarizing advice in my opinion is to achieve the leanest physique possible while maintaining your current LBM (most people will probably find that as they get leaner and learn their body more, thus improving their nutrition, they may gain a few lbs of LBM). Once quite lean, you will have a very good idea of where your "maintenance" calories are. Simply put them to work as efficiently as possible, and as you gain LBM you increase your "maintenance" calories. If you are 205lbs of LBM and you grow to 210lbs LBM you will likely be consuming some additional calories however they never really exceed your "maintenance" calories for that given weight target as (unless gifted with a unique metabolism) any significant surplus will likely be stored as fat.
-Alex