Impossible task?

Atola

Zillah wrote: »

3-4 sessions of weights for an hour every week is a hell of a lot more than most people do, and would probably account for 300 calories per session, which if you look at the numbers, is enough to undo any of the 'excess' you are eating.

You're not magic, you're not a special snow flake; you're not eating enough. You have a warped view of what a 'lot' of food is. Eat more.

Why are you planning for your cut before you've even successfully bulked at all? Talk about putting the horse before the cart. You should stretch your stomach a bit, by the sounds of it is has been sorely understretched so far. You won't do yourself any harm, eat more. It doesn't have to be all at once.

There's nothing wrong with bread, either. Especially for someone struggling to gain weight. Carbs are your friend, they're easy calories.

Haha! No im not a snow flake, but I probably weigh the same!

Plan is to get fit for a holiday coming up so I thought mini bulk and cut would be good. Im happy with the results so far, just wondering why the scales aren't showing the same.

I haven't starved myself by any means and my weight sessions are including warmup and rest periods in between.

Ill try eating more and see how we go

Useful.Idiot

As a "hard-gainer" myself I find milk and nuts are a very easy way to boost the calories. I aim for about 3000 cals myself and on some days where I'm tight for time I'd make a smoothie with milk, a banana, peanut butter, oats and protein powder. An easy 1000 calories!

Atola

Useful.Idiot wrote: »

As a "hard-gainer" myself I find milk and nuts are a very easy way to boost the calories. I aim for about 3000 cals myself and on some days where I'm tight for time I'd make a smoothie with milk, a banana, peanut butter, oats and protein powder. An easy 1000 calories!

Yes that sounds the same as my flapjacks. I add 1 tablespoon of butter with 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 1tblspoon honey and 100 mils water with a crushed banana and 100g oats with mixed nuts and 2 scoops of banana flavour protein whey. Usually eat 2 of these a day and theyre yummy.

I take it u drink whole milk?

Useful.Idiot

Atola wrote: »

Yes that sounds the same as my flapjacks. I add 1 tablespoon of butter with 2 tablespoons peanut butter, 1tblspoon honey and 100 mils water with a crushed banana and 100g oats with mixed nuts and 2 scoops of banana flavour protein whey. Usually eat 2 of these a day and theyre yummy.

I take it u drink whole milk?

Nice! sounds like a tasty way to get the cals in. Yep whole milk is the only way forward. I wouldn't trust any kind of reduced fat milk as it has less nutrients and to reduce the fat you have to have an increase in something else such as lactose (sugar). Plus it tastes the best!

Zillah

Useful.Idiot wrote: »

Nice! sounds like a tasty way to get the cals in. Yep whole milk is the only way forward. I wouldn't trust any kind of reduced fat milk as it has less nutrients and to reduce the fat you have to have an increase in something else such as lactose (sugar). Plus it tastes the best!

Nothing wrong with lactose! It is technically a sugar but if you look at the glycemic index it is at 46, which makes it a very good, slow-release carb.

Full fat is the way to go but lactose is just one more reason for milk being fantastic.

mcbobbyb

If you're not gaining weight your not eating enough. Up your calories until you're gaining 0.5-1 pound a week and do this for 6 months at least. You said you looked more muscular after eating more but it was only 5 days after your post. 5 days is nothing to add muscle. You need to look long term. Or just be happy with how you are. Otherwise your wasting money/time/energy.

Mellor

Atola wrote: »

Im eating 200 cals a day over myfitnesspals recommended of 2200!

An extra 200 cals a day is nothing. and as above, you have to account for exercise and then your surplus to add mass on top.
You do 3 weights and 1 cardio sessions per week, lets say its 300 cals a session for an hour of weights. And 400 for the cardio. 1300 cals a week.
Over 7 days, thats almost 200 cals a day. So you were only just covering the exercise. You want to be eating about 500 calories more than this again. Which is 2900 a day.

Atola wrote: »

I can track them now by way of what I used to eat on a Friday.

Friday - big bowl of frosties for breakfast,
then tea, 4 biscuits and packet of crisps for a break,
chippie for lunch,
indian chicken tikka masala with chips and one nan to myself for dinner
2 bottles of wine to wash that down and chocolate bars/ sugary sweets after

1 day a week means nothing. Your whole week needs to be dedicated to eating.
I know loads of guys who struggle to but on weight despite claim to be always eating take aways and pub dinners. But when they listed their diet mon-fri, then skipped breakfast everyday and lunch was a snickers and a smoke.

Useful.Idiot wrote: »

I wouldn't trust any kind of reduced fat milk as it has less nutrients and to reduce the fat you have to have an increase in something else such as lactose (sugar). Plus it tastes the best!

They don't add anything to reduce the fat.
Low fat milk is simply whole mil with some fat removed.

Whole fat is the best choice for bulking for calories alone, but this idea that they add sugar to reduced fat milk isn't true.
The minor increase on the label is due to the reduction in volume (from removing fat)

Yer Aul One

Mellor wrote: »

They don't add anything to reduce the fat.
Low fat milk is simply whole mil with some fat removed.

Whole fat is the best choice for bulking for calories alone, but this idea that they add sugar to reduced fat milk isn't true.
The minor increase on the label is due to the reduction in volume (from removing fat)

This is interesting. Low Fat is getting a lot of heat at the moment. Are you just referring to milk or most low fat items?

MightyMandarin

Yer Aul One wrote: »

This is interesting. Low Fat is getting a lot of heat at the moment. Are you just referring to milk or most low fat items?

Anything can be 'low fat'. Low fat is a totally subjective term which can be applied to any food without it being much lower than the regular versions at all.

If they make something low fat, they just remove some of the fat content from it. But this doesn't necessarily mean that 'low fat = low calorie' as the food might have a high amount of carbs which could keep the calories up.

The 'low fat' fad is the same with the 'high in protein' craze; high in protein is terribly subjective and something which might have 5g of protein per 100cals could be advertised as a high protein source, when in comparison with actual high protein foods it's not that great at all.

The only real way to know how good a food is, is to read the nutritional info and compare it with other items.

Yer Aul One

I had been hearing that the low fat items had added sugars for taste in milks/yogurts/cheeses. I believed this willingly

MightyMandarin

Yer Aul One wrote: »

I had been hearing that the low fat items had added sugars for taste in milks/yogurts/cheeses. I believed this willingly

They probably have, but what the poster above said that they have to add sugar in order to reduce the fat content is nonsense. You can remove the fat content without adding anything to it.

Alf Veedersane

Yer Aul One wrote: »

I had been hearing that the low fat items had added sugars for taste in milks/yogurts/cheeses. I believed this willingly

"Low fat = added sugar" doesn't apply to everything as a rule.

And with milk, for example, there's the difference between having a marginally higher proportion of sugar after for at removal and having added sugar.

That said, a lot of products marketed as low fat do have added sugar.

If in doubt, read the label.

Yer Aul One

You don't know who to trust any more. Need to be vigilant against these illuminati

Mellor

Yer Aul One wrote: »

This is interesting. Low Fat is getting a lot of heat at the moment. Are you just referring to milk or most low fat items?

I was talking specifically about milk. I don't think sugar would ever be added there. Unless is was a low-fat favoured milk.

As for yogurts and stuff. The often add sugar, but not always. It depends on the brand/type. The way people refer to this added sugar you could be forgiven for thinking was always there. They sometimes add protein too to improve texture too.

But, back on topic, full fat all the way for gains. Milky milky gains.

Zillah

Mellor wrote: »

I was talking specifically about milk. I don't think sugar would ever be added there. Unless is was a low-fat favoured milk.

As for yogurts and stuff. The often add sugar, but not always. It depends on the brand/type. The way people refer to this added sugar you could be forgiven for thinking was always there. They sometimes add protein too to improve texture too.

But, back on topic, full fat all the way for gains. Milky milky gains.

I don't think he was implying that they added sugar, just that, as you said, by removing one thing the other things are increasing in direct proportion, so there's more lactose per unit volume in low-fat milk than full-fat. Interestingly, there's a tiny bit more protein in low-fat milk too.