Gaining Mass / Fixing My Diet

Hi all,

I decided to fix my diet to gain some mass. I´m doing F1 4 times a week and H1 2 times since February. And really see some improvment. I´m more defined, but I struggle to put on weight.

I checked out alot of topics about nutrition and based my approach upon all this information:

1. Eat enough calories( ca. 2200 kcal) and protein( ca.120g )!

2. Eat whole foods and a crapton of vegetabels and fruits!

3. Getting breakfast!

4. Slow digisting meal before I go to bed!

I don´t want to lose my self into details so this is just a basic approach.

While changing my diet I also want to fix my sleeping habits and start doing some kind of cardio / HIIT !

Some Imformation about myself:

I´m 18 years old. My weight is 64kg(141 lbs) and I´m 185cm tall.

I was always underweight, but I had never problems with it( My doc said it was okay as long as I feel good). Never really active at doing sports, till I started some weight training 1,5 half year ago and F1/H1 since February.

Never done some sort of cardio/HIIT....

And never eat breakfast or eat a lot of fruits and vegetabels...

I´m getting pre / post  workout nutrition inspired by this thread https://www.gymnasticbodies.com/forum/topic/9580-perfect-workout-nutrition-2013/ ( it´s really helps me. Thanks for this great post )

What do you think about my approach? Maybe someone has some tips about the cardio aspect aswell.

(I will to have change a lot, but it´s really time to do it.)

Looking forward to every answer and thanks for your help ! =)

Yours sincerely, Phil

( English is not my native, but I hope its okay^^)

Well, I'll keep it simple, you're going the right way about it, but if you're wanting to gain 'mass' you're going to need more than 2200 kcal a day! The RDA for an adult is 2500, and obviously as you're a rather tall chap it might be advisable to start breaking the 3000 kcal barrier. But to be sure, use some websites to calculate your basal metabolic rate, and how many calories you expend each day during your usual routine from waking up to going to bed. 

With regard to the cardiovascular exercise, don't. Research tells us that cardiovascular exercise/steady-state can lower testosterone and even somewhat reverse the anabolic effect of resistance training and putting your body in a catabolic state. Stick with High intensity training. If you want to raise testosterone, rest for about double your work interval but give 95% effort!

Apart from that, your approach definitely sounds realistic and doable. Good luck pal

Jake Lawrance said:

Well, I'll keep it simple, you're going the right way about it, but if you're wanting to gain 'mass' you're going to need more than 2200 kcal a day! The RDA for an adult is 2500, and obviously as you're a rather tall chap it might be advisable to start breaking the 3000 kcal barrier. But to be sure, use some websites to calculate your basal metabolic rate, and how many calories you expend each day during your usual routine from waking up to going to bed. 

 

With regard to the cardiovascular exercise, don't. Research tells us that cardiovascular exercise/steady-state can lower testosterone and even somewhat reverse the anabolic effect of resistance training and putting your body in a catabolic state. Stick with High intensity training. If you want to raise testosterone, rest for about double your work interval but give 95% effort!

 

Apart from that, your approach definitely sounds realistic and doable. Good luck pal

well, i'm 1.81m, and weight 74.5 kg

I train 4-6 times a week, main work is about 60-70 minutes, and 30-45 minutes for mobility, prehab and stretching.

I've been incorporating F1, weights and movement in my work.

I'm getting 3600 cal daily.

You DO NEED more than 2200 cal.

Don't be afraid of putting mass on.  Just eat more, track your intakes for a week, and readjust for gaining 300-500 gr per week.

Keep going that progress!

First of all thanks for every answer !

Okay so my goal will be to eat more than 3000kcal a day!

But this gonna be very hard sometimes I even have problems to go over 2000kcal a day... 

So any tips how I could increase my daily intake?

I think this will even harder if I try to eat clean or is it okay to eat some crap, as example choclate?

I read that oatmeals and milk are not that good, but these both would help me alot getting enough kcal.

Are oatmeals really that bad? Or it is just the case if you are gluten intolerant?

And is milk okay as long as I don´t drink like 1 liter a day?

And with the HIIT training i will open another thread in the right forum

Thanks again

This forum is really great

You should probably try to calculate your daily calories burned and not just aim for 3000+. If you end up with too much then you will gain more fat along with muscle. Of course, a little bit of fat will still make you look buff if there is muscle underneath but I see no reason to have to much fat.

Thats exactly my problem I want to gain mass but not to much fat.

I think it will be better for me when I reach normal weight at my height. So I have to gain like 5-10 kg this would be enough my doc said.

I think it would be good for my overall health and performance, if I wouldnt have underweight any longer.

I don´t really want to look buffy or anything, my main drive is my performance.

But it´s okay for me to gain some fat, because later I can try to lose it again.

So will it will be a good idea, if i just eat 3000 kcal a day till i reach 70kg and after that I start watching my daily intake?

Yeah I guess up to 70kg you could do that, once you get there you will know if you put on too much fat or not and go from there.

Okay thanks for your help!

Someone can help me with the oatmeal problem too?

Or what do you guys eat to reach 3000kcal a day? =)

Again, track your intake for a week, get 3000 daily, then check how much weigh you gained in that week.  More than 500 gr, readjust and lower to 2800, less than 300 gr, readjust and increase to 3200

Keep hard work and don't be agraid of gaining mass.

You will never get anywhere if you are afraid of gaining fat.

Take that fear away, train hard, eat well, sleep and rest good, don't overthink things and don't stress too much...

Greetings

PhilTaylor said:

First of all thanks for every answer !

 

Okay so my goal will be to eat more than 3000kcal a day!

But this gonna be very hard sometimes I even have problems to go over 2000kcal a day... 

 

So any tips how I could increase my daily intake?

I think this will even harder if I try to eat clean or is it okay to eat some crap, as example choclate?

 

I read that oatmeals and milk are not that good, but these both would help me alot getting enough kcal.

Are oatmeals really that bad? Or it is just the case if you are gluten intolerant?

And is milk okay as long as I don´t drink like 1 liter a day?

 

And with the HIIT training i will open another thread in the right forum

 

Thanks again

This forum is really great

Eating often makes it easier to hit higher calorie goals, and does so in a way that optimizes your hormone levels for a lean composition.

Trying to get 200-300 calorie snacks every two hours, with a mix of protein, fat and carbs ( don't get too into this breakdown, just spread your protein out across the day), is the easiest thing to do. After workouts you may prefer eating a few of these every 30 minutes or so, based on how you feel.

You are doing a good job of keep it simple and smart, rock on man!

Okay thanks for all your help and your tips

I will follow your guide till I reached 70kg then I will see

If you're a tad concerned about increasing your body fat percentage you *could* switch to the ketogenic based diet which cuts out all starchy carbohydrates and you receive 80% of your calories from fats (REAL fats only), this should make it relatively easy to get the calories in too as for every gram of fat you will consume 9 kcal unlike carbs or protein as they're only 4kcal per gram. Although don't expect to muscle mass on too fast, I'm currently using it myself everyday, it seems to be working for burning the fat away but not much muscle mass gain, but there is some. Here's the lecture so there can be no silly 'oh my god fat!'

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/07/30/ketogenic-diet/?utm_content=buffer249e8&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer Just watch the first 30 minutes, it's relatively interesting!

Oh and as for oatmeal and milk, no I greatly oppose to grains and dairy, unless they are 100% whole and organic with no additives/preservatives, which is rare or non-existent If you can't resist milk, opt for whole milk. If you can't resist oatmeal then opt for chia seeds soaked in water (google it), I heard they work as an oatmeal replacement nicely too without the gluten and phytic acid  

I will give it a try after i reached my goal, but thanks for taking your time and share your opinion

Jake Lawrance said:

If you're a tad concerned about increasing your body fat percentage you *could* switch to the ketogenic based diet which cuts out all starchy carbohydrates and you receive 80% of your calories from fats (REAL fats only), this should make it relatively easy to get the calories in too as for every gram of fat you will consume 9 kcal unlike carbs or protein as they're only 4kcal per gram. Although don't expect to muscle mass on too fast, I'm currently using it myself everyday, it seems to be working for burning the fat away but not much muscle mass gain, but there is some. Here's the lecture so there can be no silly 'oh my god fat!'

 

http://www.fourhourworkweek.com/blog/2013/07/30/ketogenic-diet/?utm_content=buffer249e8&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer Just watch the first 30 minutes, it's relatively interesting!

I've had experimented with ketogenic and low carb diets before.

And my conclussion is that when you are skinny, working out and recovery needs more from carbs than from fats.

you can manage to get muscle, yes.  But he needs more carbs.

Fibrous, starchy, healthy fats   (green veggies, unskinned potatoes and sweet potatoes, white rice, avocados, coconut, butter, nuts, olive oil)  will do their work =)

I'm not saying keto doesn't work.  I think that in this (specifically in this) case, he needs more carbs.

Greetings

Keep going man!!

We want to know your pogress!!!

For sure ! I will give you some feedback about my progress in a few weeks!

Keto has zero advantages, and many disadvantages, compared to an actual healthy diet.

Don't get sucked into stupidity. People can try and justify things all they like, but there are numerous flaws in their explanations. They neglect to tell you what happens to genetic markers of inflammation when you have a high fat diet, how this contributes to insulin resistance, and so on. Too many issues to waste time writing about.

Joshua Naterman said:

Keto has zero advantages, and many disadvantages, compared to an actual healthy diet.

 

Don't get sucked into stupidity. People can try and justify things all they like, but there are numerous flaws in their explanations. They neglect to tell you what happens to genetic markers of inflammation when you have a high fat diet, how this contributes to insulin resistance, and so on. Too many issues to waste time writing about.

Well I knew something about high fat can cause inflammation and so on, but any other form of diet doesn't seem to work for me in the slightest, I can eat up to 1 kilo of vegetables a day if that makes a difference? Again, I do consume carbohydrates, but simple carbohydrates from fruits post workout, again, is it still bad? 

Jake Lawrance said:

Well I knew something about high fat can cause inflammation and so on, but any other form of diet doesn't seem to work for me in the slightest, I can eat up to 1 kilo of vegetables a day if that makes a difference? Again, I do consume carbohydrates, but simple carbohydrates from fruits post workout, again, is it still bad? 

there's nothing bad about getting simple carbs pwo.

if you are watching it from a paleo way, then, it's gonna be hard for him to get a nice bulk (monetary talking), some people just doen't have enough $$ for aiming for an organic nutrition.

My personal reccomendations:

protein: eggs, meats (beef, pork, fish, chicken), cheese

carbs: veggies, white rice, sweet potatoes, even gluten free oats, some fruit (berries, apples, bananas, kiwis).

fats: coconut oil, avocado oil, almonds, avocados, olive oil, butter.

Everyone can have a great bulking without worrying about inflammation.

If we're speaking about what our antecesors didn't use to do, then, turn of your computer, they hadn't computers.

There's no problem consumig a lot of different food sources, the problem is the excessive consumption.

Sorry, I meant I DO get simple carbs post workout, I realized I worded that wrong  

Hmm, I will re-think this keto diet. Please ignore me!

3D Guy said:

(...) the problem is the excessive consumption.

That's just one minor aspect of a worldwide food problem... the larger picture shows 968,000,000 (2009 figure per FAO) underfed humans...

Not to sound harsh, but if we were all well-fed, we wouldn't have a place to walk on anymore. There are quite a few people saying we have already surpassed the earths natural ability to hold an x amount of population. More people = more food = more agriculture = more chemicals in soil = a polluted earth = unhealthy people. Somebody more educated than me could probably give a better explanation as I just threw this off my head without researching.

I wonder what this is going to lead us to. I kind of expect a massive holocaust

Edgaron said:

Not to sound harsh, but if we were all well-fed, we wouldn't have a place to walk on anymore. There are quite a few people saying we have already surpassed the earths natural ability to hold an x amount of population. More people = more food = more agriculture = more chemicals in soil = a polluted earth = unhealthy people. Somebody more educated than me could probably give a better explanation as I just threw this off my head without researching.

 

I wonder what this is going to lead us to. I kind of expect a massive holocaust

hehehe... you somewhat put your finger right on the node of a problem that sooner or later humanity will have to contend with; at this moment, we appear quite satisfied to kick the can down the road...

...it seems that this is all what the fat and happy generation of boomers is able to do anyway! History won't be kind on them.

If you are interested, you can learn more: do a youtube search on Alan Bartlet's "arithmetics, population and energy", and watch the whole lecture.

FredInChina said:

hehehe... you somewhat put your finger right on the node of a problem that sooner or later humanity will have to contend with; at this moment, we appear quite satisfied to kick the can down the road...

...it seems that this is all what the fat and happy generation of boomers is able to do anyway! History won't be kind on them.

 

If you are interested, you can learn more: do a youtube search on Alan Bartlet's "arithmetics, population and energy", and watch the whole lecture.

How far down the road will it be I wonder? 

Thanks Fred - I have a long car journey ahead so I'll download that lecture and watch it then (I'm not the driver )

Hercules said:

How far down the road will it be I wonder? 

Thanks Fred - I have a long car journey ahead so I'll download that lecture and watch it then (I'm not the driver )

Very welcome - it should not be too long now, I think it is already past 11:56

I'll be glad to hear your reactions to this lecture Hercules.