Advertisement
Help Keep Boards Alive. Support us by going ad free today. See here: https://subscriptions.boards.ie/.
If we do not hit our goal we will be forced to close the site.
Current status: https://keepboardsalive.com/
Annual subs are best for most impact. If you are still undecided on going Ad Free - you can also donate using the Paypal Donate option. All contribution helps. Thank you.
If we do not hit our goal we will be forced to close the site.
Current status: https://keepboardsalive.com/
Annual subs are best for most impact. If you are still undecided on going Ad Free - you can also donate using the Paypal Donate option. All contribution helps. Thank you.
https://www.boards.ie/group/1878-subscribers-forum
Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
Private Group for paid up members of Boards.ie. Join the club.
question on bulking and fat.
Comments
-
hardtrainer wrote: »This might just be the most interesting thread ever.
I just want to make it clear that I am not advocating a real 'seefood' diet. I was just saying that thats kinda what its like when you're really eating to get big and I'm sure somewhere back in the earlier posts I said something to the effect of 'all jokes aside re: seefood".
Anyway, just in case its not obvious, I wouldn't advise eating everything you see. The quality of food is important, but its not SO important that you should try get all your calories from organic handpicked broccoli and goji berries. But lets be clear on one thing, eating jars and jars of peanut butter is no more natural than eating bread made from bleached wheat flour.
Getting bigger (which was what this thread was about, was it not?) requires that you eat a lot of food. Far more food than most people think (which is even more evident by the posts from some people here).
Yes there are exceptions to this. Some people can grow big without too much hassle in terms of diet as below.
I hate these people! (pure jealousy really)
The rest of us have to eat. Eat when we're hungry (that lasts a couple of days) and then just eat when your watch tells you to eat. Eat more. Feeling full? Tough sh*t. Eat a little more than that. Still not enough. Hmm, ok, that will do. See you back in the kitchen in a couple of hours.
I have a few issues WRT protein. The idea that everyone needs more protein is another fallacy put forward by the likes of menshealth , maximuscle etc. We absolutely do not need 1g protein per pound bodyweight. Thats way more than you need every day even with very serious training. The real requirement for protein is about half to 1 gram per kg (and the low end of that is perfectly sufficient) and thats for someone who IS training seriously. It is true that increasing protein intake (by about 20%) leads to increase in lean muscle mass (i.e. anabolism) but this was in sedentary people eating average amount of protein (which is a hell of a lot less protein than most people on this forum). Like everything else there is a limit to this and when you're getting plenty of protein already adding more and more will not mean more and more muscle growth. BUT (a big but!!) that doesn't mean adding more protein isn't a safe bet. Not so much because it will mean more muscle growth, but simply that protein has less calories than fats and carbs (i'll come back to this in a minute). Also, protein (especially meat) tastes nice
And we shouldn't forget that while yes, dietary protein = amino acids = building blocks for muscle....but we can synthesize some amino acids ourselves (less than half are essential in the diet) and we generally recycle a lot of the stuff thats in our bodies already. Building muscle of course requires protein, but the amount needed is less than many of us would think.
Back to the comment about calories in protein. We all know the whole protein/carbs = 4 cals per g and fats = 8 cals per g. While its technically true, it's based on a very crude measurement using a bomb calorimeter to burn food as fuel and see how much heat that generates. Well as nice as that is, it's really nothing like the situation in our biology. We don't burn food in our stomachs. Proteins contain a lot of chemical bonds between their constituent amino acids that need energy to be broken down. So for protein it really isn't 4 cals per g, it can be quite a bit less. As for fats. Yes, you can get 8cals per g, but we don't digest all of the fats we consume and some fats (milk fat especially) is bound to calcium in our gut and passes through us (another reason drinking milk is good...the calcium mops up not just the fat from the milk but other fats in your meal).
Lean protein, veg and fruit are great for your diet. I would advocate them for every balanced diet. Similarly complex carbohydrates are preferable to simple sugars and poly/monounsaturated fats are better than saturated fats for the average person. But reducing your fat intake too low is not good for you. You need fats. They're just as important for your diet as protein and complex carbs. If you're training lots and want to get bigger, then a little saturated fat isn't gonna hurt too much. But this seems to be where this thread is going around in circles. If you want to get bigger (bulking..as in the title) you need to eat a lot and what you need to eat a lot of is carbohydrate because that provides the energy that you body needs to cope with all the heavy lifting you'll be doing (the squats, the deadlifts etc) and if you're getting enough food into you to help yourself grow I'd be very very surprised if you weren't getting enough protein. Remember there is protein in bread, pasta, beans, nuts, meat, eggs, milk...all of which you'll be shoving in your mouth at every given opportunity. But (again) you just try to get 4-5000cals into your mouth every day by eating lean meat, veg and a small amount of carbs. Even having plenty of carbs. You need to add some fats in there to help bulk it out with calories.
Whats my experience? Well I am now about 102Kg at 6'2". I pretty much stay above 100Kg year round (but dropped to 98kg at start of september from flu), but can get up to 106/107kg in december (before christmas...I always lose weight over the christmas break
) Come spring time I try to drop some fat from about 15% back to 11-12% and it's possible with a little diet change, more salads etc and adding cardio to my workouts. Otherwise its heavy lifting 4-5 days a week, every week (bar the odd break). It's cooking every night making enough for 4 people and eating half for dinner and keeping half for lunch. Big breakfasts, big snacks, milk, brown bread, plenty of eggs, veg, fruit, ice cream, yogurts, drink (too much of this) and all the other delicious things that I can get my hands on incuding enough meat to keep the average family of six going. It's expensive but thats the price you gotta pay to get big and stay big.
Excellent post, IMO it sums up all you need to know to get big ... You need protein, but there is a point of dimenishing return .. also there is a limit to how much LEAN weigh i.e. muscle that can be added every week ... defo if you lift heavy several days per week then you probably wont get fat unless diet is very bad ..0 -
-
-
-
Just one question though, just how far over maintenance do you think is needed, or does that depend on the individual, and should it just be a case of monitoring?
To be perfectly honest I have no idea. What is maintenance anyway? I don't really think it's too easy to figure out what maintenance is for any one individual. I know some people use complex maths to figure out what they're using up in terms of kcals and they can estimate what the baseline is in terms of general cell cycle stuff and so on but they're all just estimates. I think thats part of the reason why people have a tough time gaining on a very 'clean' diet. It doesn't take much to put yourself in a calorie deficit if you're treading very close to what you estimate is your maintenance.
As we all know the calories we burn in the gym are nothing compared to the calories we burn afterwards if we managed to get our metabolic rate up nice and high (especially with intervals or something...which you could argue that heavy lifting and volume in squats or deads are...I know I feel absolutely f*cked after 5 or 6 sets of heavy squats or deads done with not too much rest). Its easy to see how people could be burning through their calories without even realising it.
I guess if I was to hazard a guess I would say I aim for at least 20-30% above my estimated maintenance but I honestly don't count the calories if I am trying to add weight. I just keep shoving my food in (and anyone elses who's sitting nearby.....trick to makes things cheaper...always go to restaurants with female friends then you get to finish their meal too!). The other reason I would always tend to throw caution to the wind and eat extra just in case is because of the reality of calories that I pointed out before. Just because the absolute calorie level (in chemcial terms) of your food is 3000cals doesn't mean your body actually gets that amount of calories from it.d'Oracle wrote:Whats wrong with offal?
Liver, Kidneys etc.
Exactly! I for one hate chicken and tuna. They're SO boring now. I have to add sauce to everything to make it palatable although I can eat a whole chicken right out of the oven. If I let it go cold for the next day I may as well be eating sawdust. Fish is cheap if you know what to buy. Stay well away from expensive (and overfished and thus ethically dubious) cod and look for Pollock (same family as cod, often called rock cod...also can't be overfished) which is cheaper and tastes very similar. And Gurnard...possibly the meatiest of all fish. Sadly we catch it and send it over to France and Spain where people eat it more. If you can get you hands on it (directly from fishermen who'll be delighted to make hard cash...or from a decent fish monger) it's usually much cheaper, it's ugly as sin but believe me it'll be one of the best fish you ever have...grilled skin side up with a little butter to help the skin get crispy, served on a bed of peas with a side of chunky chips..Mmmmmm the joys of eating EVERYTHING 0 -
Advertisement
-
![[Deleted User]](/applications/dashboard/design/images/defaulticon.png)
Advertisement