Absolute beginner in the fields of nutrition

Hi guys,

as the title implies i'm a total newby when it comes to fittness nutrition.

i am willing to change my eating habits. for now i'm eating pretty much everything.

i drink > 3 l of water a day and pretty much snack all over the day.

my goal is to build up some mass (muscles no fat, should be obvious).

my current weight is 70 kg at a height of 170cm. my bodyfat isn't very high. my first  goal would be to reach 75 kg. it's not that easy for me to gain mass.

like i've said i have zero knowledge in the fields of nutrition and would like to here some suggestions and websites to start gather some information.

i know i need to consume alot of protein. from what i've heard i should consume 2g/kg of protein a day.

how long do you think it would take to gain 5 kg of muscle mass while training foundation and handstand series 5 times a week?

after i've reached my goal i want to switch my nutrition and stop gaining mass but define my body.

nutrition is pretty overwhelming in the beginning, so i hope to get some pointers here.

i really need the basics as well as recipes and a weekly nutrition plan.

thx in advance

p5yx

I am no expert, and others will have more refined answers than me.

Personally I went from 73 to 83 kg over the course of four-five years, and now I'm back down to 78 kg since starting F1 and taking it easier in the eating department. I'm now 37, so a late-ish starter. I tried using whey and creatine a while back, but stopped again, as it did nothing for me - I felt and observed no difference at all whether I used it or not. The periods when I gained the most weight I ate solid and pretty healthy food: lots of dairy, eggs, meat, vegetables, potatoes, pasta, fish etc. Pretty everyday stuff, but relatively few processed goods.

If you avoid drinking softdrinks, eating cake, candy and other sugary stuff, you can gain weight without gaining too much fat by eating a ton of other, more healthy foods.

You hear a lot about gains, and that you need to put on weight, yet I actually found that dropping the weight from 83 to 78 kgs made me look a lot stronger - So obviously a lot of the weight I had gained was fat. I did this relatively simply by backing off from the overeating, switching from whole fat to skimmed milk, starting F1, and going for a weekly 4 km run. I was actually surprised how easy it is to regulate weight, once you have a decent activity level, and a basic understanding of when and what to eat.

Start here: Perfect Workout Nutrition 2013   -  Perfect Pre, Mid, and Post Workout Nutrition

Then read Workout Nutrition 2013: Questions And Answers and use it to post your questions. [but FIRST, read all the posts in these three places, that will keep you busy for a little while, but you'll overcome your "newbiness"]

This week end, check out (read) the other stickies in this forum.

Take some notes, make a plan, start a journal.

Post your goals and results in the boards.

Sorted!

Rachid Tahri said:

 

Like Fred and Ravn already said there's lots of advice regarding nutrition on this forum, but I am curious about your motivation to increase your bodyweight to 75 kg! Why this?  

 

I would argue that you have pretty much an ideal height to weight ratio for GST! I don't know what your exact body fat percentage is, but let's say it's 10%. Then your lean bodyweight equals 63 kg. Why not try to increase your lean mass while staying at the same (=less body fat percentage) weight? You will be really strong and look quite good!

 

hm ok my motivation behind it is just to gain a little more of muscle mass. a little bigger arms, shoulders, ...

i didn't think 5 kg would be too much. i just like the optic.

see that's exactly the thing i was talking about. you suggested to increase the lean mass while staying at the same weight.

i just do have zero knowledge about those things.

i wanted to gain to 75 kg and afterwards working on lean mass. do you think that is a legit goal?

thx for your answers so far. i will read the suggested posts.

P5yx said:

hm ok my motivation behind it is just to gain a little more of muscle mass. a little bigger arms, shoulders, ...

i didn't think 5 kg would be too much. i just like the optic.

 

There's nothing wrong with looking (and feeling) good  . The 5 kg increase in muscle mass really depends on your training maturity. Somebody who trains consistently for 5+ years will have much more trouble adding lean muscle mass to his/her frame than a complete beginner. If you don't have lots of training under your belt then almost any exercise will give you result. If this is the case you will definitely see results by doing F1 and following Joshua's nutritional articles.

Then again you yourself have to make your goals more specific. I mean: how much bf to you want to end up with? How strong do you want to be, etc etc...On the other hand you are here on a ( or: THE ) GST forum, so you already made the decision that do not only want to LOOK like a gymnast but also want to PERFORM like a gymnast. My honest advice would be : focus more one your performance and your physique will follow, since I  never met someone who masters for example all seven foundational exercises (or can deadlift 3x bodyweight, squat 2 times bodyweight) end goals without having a shredded physique! 

To give you some perspective. I have a (competitive) martial arts background (20 + years), I started fitness, for the looks, around 25 years old and discovered GST only 2 years ago, I am 32 years now. I can tell you myself that since I stopped thinking about the looks and more about performance my looks followed in only one year of consistent GST! People in my local gym wanted to know what my secret was and I just told them GST + the basics of nutrition (you cut out all refined stuff and eat more real food) !

I was really enthusiastic to send people to this site and give "free" advice of what I did....you know what....they nodded but few people really followed through because the were only looking to add some "muscle" without changing the way they looked at the training as a whole! Then I concluded that if somebody wanted REAL long lasting result the mindset is equally as or even more important than the specific nutritional/training advice!

Having said that, back to more "concrete" advice. Have you ever considered the leangains approach of intermittend fasting (www.leangains.com)? I started doing this because I always had difficulties with the bulk/cut approach, and wanted a way to add lean mass to my frame without getting too fat. For me this approach worked really well and I am still getting results...I believe in his formula for genetic potential (your height in cm - 100 = (ripped) weight at 5.5% bf), and my long term goals is to reach 78 kg at 6% and stay there ...

Enjoy! 

hm ok first of all thx for your long reply. really appreachiate it.

i really would like to be more specific but i don't have the right questions right now. so i will start out by reading the threads suggested.

Regarding to the reply of Rachid Tahri:

I've done sports all of my life starting at the age of 4 with judo. similiar like you i have a broad martial arts background

(kickboxing, boxing, muay thay, jujutsu, wing chun,....).

i also did tricking for nearly 2 years as well as many ball sports (tennis, soccer, table tennis,...).

i also did some fittness for almost 2 years. I'm 24 now.

so i really like my body just want everything a little bit bigger (especially my arms).

so just for clearification gaining lean mass isn't the same as building mass right? building lean mass is gaining muscle mass while keeping the bodyfat low unlike the second where you also gain bodyfat right?

just to be said. my main goal is to achieve gymnastic skills and not to change my body. but as a sideeffect i would appreachiate it. that's why i want to change my eating habits (besides to eat more healthy).

i'm not in a rush to get bigger though. it should happen over the whole foundation series.

it's really hard to tell you what i really want as i do not know anything in the fields of nutrition. so if you have any questions which would help you and finally me to get a grasp of what i want feel free to ask.

e.g. deciding how much bodyfat i want to have. how should i know?

Gaining mass has less to do with your "training maturity" and more to do with where you are in terms of FFMI.

I am riding the line of 26, which is apparently as big as researchers believe one can get without using steroids. Mass does not come anywhere near as quickly as it used to when I was smaller, but solid muscle mass builds fairly slowly in a natural trainee.

Someone with very little muscle on them can often gain 15-30 lbs of muscle in 6-12 months without changing body fat %, assuming good growth-oriented nutrition, but most of that comes on pretty quick and the rest is much slower. After that, a very good year tends to be 10 lbs of actual muscle. It is much more common to see 5 lbs in a decent training year once you're already pretty muscular. Most people want quick results, but as you can see that isn't exactly the way things work.

Genetics does play a role... I grow much easier than a lot of people do, but even for someone like me (or those much more gifted in this way, they do exist), nutrition plays a large role. Your body cannot make new proteins without energy input and essential amino acids, and it does lose EAA every day due to protein turnover. That's why we have to eat protein... our bodies can't make all of the components they are composed of by themselves. The energy we eat powers our cellular metabolism, which includes everything that keeps you alive AND everything that makes you grow (or shrink). 

P5yx said:

 

 

so i really like my body just want everything a little bit bigger (especially my arms).

so just for clearification gaining lean mass isn't the same as building mass right? building lean mass is gaining muscle mass while keeping the bodyfat low unlike the second where you also gain bodyfat right?

 

 

Your are correct! For example right now you are 70 kg. Let's assume your bf 10% (which is actually pretty lean already). Then your lean mass (every thing in your body without the fat) is 63 kg. In this case your bf is 7 kg. Assume you go for a "dirty bulk" (eating all the crap there is), then you can end up being 75 kg in no (assuming you are not a super ectomorph) time. BUT your lean mass can be say..64 kg (= 1 kg added to your lean mass) and your fat mass can be 11 kg (= 4 kg added to your fat mass) ! Your bf perc. will now be (11/75)*100 = 14.7%.

On the other hand if you gain lean mass, say from 63 kg to 64 kg , while you keep your bw constant at 70 kg it means that your bf percentage has now dropped from 10% to 8.6%! You will have the same weight while changing your physical appearance (the so-called body recomp), i.e seeing definition in your abs, arms etc

P5yx said:

 

 

just to be said. my main goal is to achieve gymnastic skills and not to change my body. but as a sideeffect i would appreachiate it. that's why i want to change my eating habits (besides to eat more healthy).

i'm not in a rush to get bigger though. it should happen over the whole foundation series.

 

it's really hard to tell you what i really want as i do not know anything in the fields of nutrition. so if you have any questions which would help you and finally me to get a grasp of what i want feel free to ask.

e.g. deciding how much bodyfat i want to have. how should i know?

Good to hear that you are not in a rush! And you have also a sports background it could help you a lot! Their are numerous ways to calculate your bodyfat ! One way is skin fold measurement, make sure to always measure at the same spot! Then you can use this site for example. Another way is by a scale that has a bf meter. You just have to give your age, height and it will "show" you your body fat. The principle underlying it is the fact that fat is a good insulator for electricity (has more resistance) than lean mass.

To be honest: use these kind of tests only as an indication since lots of these test are based on models and models are not always accurate. I use these kind of test only to see if I go up or down: the mirror should be the ultimate test! The more you train and compare the "numbers", the more you will develop an intuitive understanding of your own bf. Don't get overly obsesses about the numbers though.

So a good starting point for you is to start follow Joshua's nutrition guide (gradually), keep track of your bf, keep track of your strength gains and most importantly learn about you OWN body, since what works for somebody else doesn't necessarily have to work for you!

This sounds very simple, yet most people do not accomplish the physique they want simply because they do have the patience. Since you are not in a rush it should be no problem for you to reach your potential.

I hope this was helpful. Good luck with journey!  

Joshua Naterman said:

Gaining mass has less to do with your "training maturity" and more to do with where you are in terms of FFMI.

 

 

I stand corrected! I used the term "training maturity" very sloppy. Reading back it seems as if the "time" of training is so important, which is wrong off coarse. What I meant was: the more you reach your (steroid free off coarse) genetic potential (height - 100 = weight @ 5.5 % bf) the harder it is to reach it (I mean an asymptote).

I've just measured my body fat index and it's higher than i thought.

it is 17 % bf and 56 % water. note that this is just a common scale which i don't think measures correctly like all other scales too.

knowing that would you recommend to gain mass to 75 kg and define (reduce bf afterwards) OR reduce bf now while keeping

my weight at 70 kg.

additionally what bf index should i aim for?

I know that my scale has a couple of options like fit 1, fit 2, fit 3. When I choose the option fit 2 I get 15%. Fit x means a "fitness" level . The higher x the more "active" you are supposed to be. If I choose fit 3 then I'm 9%. It seems that the lighter I get the less body fat it shows. Last year I was at my most "ripped" condition of my life and fit 2 gave me 9%, but fit 3 gave me "error", this was really funny. I went to my local gym because I became suspicious of this kind of measurement and my obviously fat looking friend had a body fat of 11% while I had a body fat of 13% according to that scale. Go and drink a couple of glasses of water and you'll see that your "bf" goes "up"......you catch my drift?

I know for myself for example that my bf seems to accumulate only around my waist. How do I know? Well just pinch your belly (go 1 cm to the right of your belly button), just on the surface. You know how bf feels right  ? For example if you do that on your forearms, chances are high that you get less skin than on your belly. So for me, the belly test works well: the less skin I get the leaner I am. When I was really really ripped last year "the belly button" test gave me around 8 mm, while at other places I couldn't barely catch skin! For you it could be a different story since you could store fat at other places as well.

You see it can get pretty complicated to measure your bf really (what about your organ fat?) accurate (you CAN go to places where they have "special" equipment, but I wouldn't go this far if I were you...), but my rule of thumb is if the skin fold measurement goes down, then your bf goes down too! And the mirror is the ultimate bf test. Simple isn't it? For now...enough about the numbers... .

P5yx said:

 

knowing that would you recommend to gain mass to 75 kg and define (reduce bf afterwards) OR reduce bf now while keeping

my weight at 70 kg.

additionally what bf index should i aim for?

There a several strategies. Basically you can go for a bulk, cut or body recomp. Now I arrived at the part that I say: I honestly don't know what approach is optimal for you. Go search the web for the meaning of these terms,  experiment (don't go too far though)! You will learn stuff along your journey and you'll see lot's of contradictory/misleading information, you'll make mistakes, hopefully you'll learn from them and move on etc etc. But I'm convinced that by making mistakes and learning from them, you'll learn much more than a clear cut fully laid out program for you! I myself am still learning stuff in this fashion so I'm also with you in this (life long) journey, but at the same time I'm remembering myself to read less and train more  !

You guys don't know what it takes to get a decent reading off of one of those machines. It's practically impossible, and to do so you have to have a reading that goes from lower body to upper body, in a number of directions, so that the machine can interpolate the signals and give you an estimate. That kind of machine is generally not cheap.

The best home version I have seen is one that Cole Dano owns, and I have no idea if it is available outside of Finland.

Hydration, sodium status, and alcohol (or other diuretic) consumption all make a difference in what you see the machine tell you. Do not trust them.

Good calipers are your best bet. Scooby's body fat page, http://scoobysworkshop.com/body-fat-calculator/

is the best page I know of. There are pages with more measurements, like 7 and 9 site, but you can't do them yourself and they are not any more or less useful for tracking YOUR trends. 

The downside is that Scooby's site is only for guys. I believe that's partly because of the included option to calculate your FFMI, which as far as I know has only been estimated for men.

Thanks for the input Josh! I was thinking of a way to combine FFMI with the height - 100 formula. You just told us that your FFMI is around 26, which is the natural upper limit. Since p5yx is the OP. Let's use him as an example.

Assume that one day p5yx reaches his 26 FFMI, and to simplify matters, let's use the lean mass/(height)^2 (so without the correction). In this case p5yx can have 75,14 kg lean mass. He cannot be ripped at this weight naturally otherwise it would violate the height - 100 = ripped weight formula (lets call this the M.B formula). So his bf % is a number  this is (much) higher than 5.5%. If we reason further and assume that this formula cannot be violated we can find a nice graph for how p5yx's bodycomp. can change, namely:

Assume that p5yx reaches the M.B constraint so 70 kg @ 5.5% bf. His lean mass will be 66,15 kg and his bf will be 3.85 kg. Now his FFMI is 22,9, so he can add lean mass. The consequence  now of the M.B constraint is that he can ONLY add lean mass IF he only adds some body fat because otherwise it would violate the M.B constraint and he would end up being higher then 70 kg with lower bf %.

On the other hand if he reaches the other extreme of 75,14 kg lean mass with the minimum of 4,37 kg bf (again the M.B constraint), so his total body weight is 79,5 kg, the ONLY way he can cut off body fat is by lowering his lean mass (again it would otherwise violate the M.B constraint). 

What do you think of this combination of the two approaches? Using Josh as an example what is your bf? I think the 5.5% lower bound is not attainable once you hit 26 FFMI it has to be much much higher. What do think is the lowest possible body fat (obviously it has to be greater than 5.5%) at an FFMI of 26?

You're not keeping things straight.

FFMI is a measure of how much lean mass a given frame can support. It is theoretical, but there is a bit of evidence to support it. No controlled trials, because this is basically impossible to control. You'd have to make people live in isolation for years, and no one has that kind of money, or subjects that would submit to such procedures. Well, maybe jailbirds in solitary, but  I doubt you'll ever see a case study like this. Too easy to get drugs and throw results off.

That formula you refer to, I know nothing about. That would put me at 86 kg at 5.5%, which I think is too low. I've been 93.6 kg @ 6.93% according to calipers. Where did that thing even come from? Some history on it would be nice. Maybe I missed that.

According to my FFMI estimates I can support about 212 lbs at 5.5-ish%, or 96.2 kg. That's 200 lbs of lean mass, and it doesn't matter what my body fat % is according to the FFMI formula. It's all about lean mass vs height, and it's just an estimate. 86 vs. 93 kg is pretty close to 5% error, so it could reasonable for lean mass at 5.5% for a thinner frame than mine, but I don't think it's reasonable for an actual bodyweight maximum. I think it's way off. 

Thanks for educating me about the fact that the FFMI is theoretical....what an eye opener . 

The other "theoretical" formula is based on this webpage of Martin Berkhan (hence the M.B abbreviation ). 

Good that you gave me some numbers since the 86 kg @ 5.5% (I conclude that you are 1,86 m tall) and 93,6 kg @ 6.93% SEEM to contradict each other but they are NOT! Assuming the (theoretical) constraints I gave you in the previous post can you see why?

Have you (or do you know someone NATURAL with same hight like you) ever gone to 5.5% with body weight SIGNIFICANT higher (naturally) than 86 kg? If so, I would be really surprised! Until then I (still) think that if you try to go from 93.6 @ 6.93 to 5.5% you WILL lose a significant amount of lean mass and you'll not end up very far from 86 @ 5.5%. Before dismissing the idea completely look at work of Martin Berkan and his clients to have an idea of what I'm talking about!

I don't ever want to go to 5.5%. For one thing, my girlfriend would not like it. Two, relatively speaking I will be stronger at 7% with more muscle mass. I do agree with Martin that, particularly for show prep stuff, you lose several more pounds of muscle as you get below 7-8%. 

There is a good reason why people my size only stay there for a short period of time when they are at their maximum muscle mass: It sucks to get there, because you have to be outrageously disciplined with everything that you do. It is not fun the way most people do it. It's called "show ready" not " every day performance ready" for a reason. 

Smaller people have a much easier time maintaining a lower body fat %, at least in my experience, but anyone can do it. I think it is possible to hang onto more muscle mass while dropping down that low, but you have to be very disciplined and eat more often than Martin's guys do. I think they are artificially limiting themselves with the Leangains strategy, but they are all happy so who cares?

I also think that Martin may be under-estimating how much weight is being lost due to dehydration on show day. It's easy to fluctuate 5 lbs just from fluid intake on a normal daily basis, particularly when your upper weight is with ideal hydration status, because that is rarely maintained all day in the normal person's life.

He may be right for "show ready" weight, but not for ideal athletic performance weight. I am never going to try and prove him wrong, because I am not interested in being that lean. I drop down to that 7% without noticeable effort, but I am overall happier where I am right now.

If you are trying to get into a bodybuilding show, there are better forums to ask this question on. If you are looking for performance advice, mine is to forget about your body fat % and focus on good training. good diet, and a performance-based lifestyle. Your ideal body fat % will find you without significant extra effort on your part.

Something else that I haven't pointed out is that when you have a one size fits all formula like Martins, there is going to be some error. There is no way to compensate for larger frames, smaller frames, etc.

Still, if you want a reasonable ball park I don't think it's unreasonable. It suggests that a 5'5 guy could be 143 lbs at 5.5%, which I think is pretty reasonable. 

I think that much more talk than this, on this subject, is just mental masturbation. Run with the cm - 100 formula if you like, it's easy and probably close enough to not matter in real terms.

I can tell you that 5'6" 140 and 4.3% BF is doable.

I put on 20 lbs in a month just by eating more food and food that I knew would be good for me. I'm 5'6" and 130lbs at ~10% bf.

Nic Branson said:

I can tell you that 5'6" 140 and 4.3% BF is doable.

 

Thanks for the numbers Nic! Let's use again the combination of the M.B formula and the FFMI and look what they BOTH say.

This specific person is then 1.65 m, and is 63.5 kg. Note that short guys seem to skew the M.B formula towards being heavier (here you see the limits of the formula) we subtract say 98.5 from the height which gives us 66.5 kg. Conclusion: the M.B says that the particular person Nic is talking about can be 66.5 kg @ 5.5%. This person is at the moment 3 kg below his M.B-potential looking less 'muscular' than at 66.5 kg! Again I would be really surprised (and the M.B formula would be less credible) if his bodyweight is 66.5 kg (or higher) at a bf% equal or lower than 5.5%! 

On the other hand, in order to let  the FFMI be 26 he has to have a lean mass of 70.8 kg. At what body fat??? If it is less or equal than 5.5% then it violates the M.B formula. My whole point now is his bf% should by higher than 5.5% (which is where BOTH models agree). How high? I don't know. That's why I asked the question in the first place!

Guys: just for clarity. I just made a spontaneous, and as far I know, an original observation/proposal for a COMBINATION of the two models (the same thing I would do in a 'normal' conversation b.t.w) since they seem to contradict each other but don't have to. Nothing more nothing less.