Eating to gain strength but not size

Valmont

I've been on my own slightly adapted version of strong lifts for about ten months now and I'm slowly getting stronger. The thing is I'm tired of shelling out for protein powders and having to eat a high protein diet. Considering I just want to be fit and strong and don't care really about gaining muscle mass, can I just eat a normal healthy diet and still get stronger or do I need to take protein supplements and worry about consuming ungodly amounts of food? Thanks.

Hanley

No. You need to hit approximately 1g of protein per lb of bodyweight, and eat enough to recover from training.

How much that is, could be anyones guess.

If the scale weight isn't going up currently, you're probably at about the right level.

MightyMandarin

Have you gained any weight during those 10 months? If so, how much?

I also don't understand why you think that a high protein diet is terribly expensive. Personally I eat about 1-2 chicken breasts a day; that works out at €1 each as I get the 25 for €25 bags at the butchers. Other things like eggs don't break the bank either.

Supplements aren't needed to have a high protein diet, but they're a cheap and easy way to up the intake, assuming your not buying ON Protein or Ronnie Coleman's signature series of course. BulkPowders or MyProtein do 5kg bags for 50-ish euro. That does me for about a year.

Perhaps you could tell us what you're eating and where you're getting it from because I don't understand how a high protein diet is a lot more expensive than a 'normal one'.

Valmont

MightyMandarin wrote: »

Perhaps you could tell us what you're eating and where you're getting it from because I don't understand how a high protein diet is a lot more expensive than a 'normal one'.

Over the passed year I've probably lost three kilos but probably a fair bit more in fat that was replaced by muscle. Without getting into a dieting debate (which I'm sure you'd win!), improving my diet and eating healthier for me involved eating less meat but buying it from an organic/free range butcher which is a bit more expensive than usual. I suppose I could easily eat more eggs though, I just wondered whether I could get stronger without worrying about eating too much protein. All in all though, I do eat bacon and eggs for breakfast three or four times a week and snack on mixed nuts most of the time and have a meat based evening meal three or four times a week. One thing my experience tells me though is that 1g of protein for lb of bodyweight rule is nonsense. I haven't come even close this last year and while I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger I've made improvements on all my lifts and gained muscle.

MightyMandarin

Valmont wrote: »

Over the passed year I've probably lost three kilos but probably a fair bit more in fat that was replaced by muscle. Without getting into a dieting debate (which I'm sure you'd win!), improving my diet and eating healthier for me involved eating less meat but buying it from an organic/free range butcher which is a bit more expensive than usual. I suppose I could easily eat more eggs though, I just wondered whether I could get stronger without worrying about eating too much protein. All in all though, I do eat bacon and eggs for breakfast three or four times a week and snack on mixed nuts most of the time and have a meat based evening meal three or four times a week. One thing my experience tells me though is that 1g of protein for lb of bodyweight rule is nonsense. I haven't come even close this last year and while I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger I've made improvements on all my lifts and gained muscle.

With all due respect, I'm going to have to say that you're wrong here. You've made gains, yes, but I think if you'd have ate enough protein you'd be lifting more. You're also still in that newb gains stage so anyone with consistent training could've made those gains in 10months, no offence.

I also think you should try to gain a bit of weight in the next few months. It doesn't have to be extreme like 1kg a week or anything like that, but try to hit 80kg by march or something along those lines. The reason I think you should bulk is to maximise strength gains, put on some muscle (it's very, very hard to do this without a surplus) which will also make it a lot easier to lose fat when you cut.

I just think you're missing out on a lot of progress by restricting your protein and caloric intake.

Tar.Aldarion

Valmont wrote: »

I've been on my own slightly adapted version of strong lifts for about ten months now and I'm slowly getting stronger. The thing is I'm tired of shelling out for protein powders and having to eat a high protein diet. Considering I just want to be fit and strong and don't care really about gaining muscle mass, can I just eat a normal healthy diet and still get stronger or do I need to take protein supplements and worry about consuming ungodly amounts of food? Thanks.

I think for what you want, not building muscle mass, you do not need as much protein as people would think. Simply, you need one amount of protein for sustenance and on top of that more to build muscle. Some figures from places:

The academy of Nutrition and Dietetics reports that bodybuilders require 0.63 to 0.77 grams of protein per pound

http://bayesianbodybuilding.com/the-myth-of-1glb-optimal-protein-intake-for-bodybuilders/

There is normally no advantage to consuming more than 0.82g/lb (1.8g/kg) of protein per day to preserve or build muscle once you’re past the novice level as a natural trainee. This already includes a mark-up, since most research finds no more benefits after 0.64 g/lb.
• Optimal protein intake decreases with training age, because your body becomes more efficient at preventing protein breakdown resulting from training and less protein is needed for the increasingly smaller amount of muscle that is built after each training session.

examine.com:

If you are an athlete or highly active person, or you are attempting to lose body fat while preserving lean mass, then a daily intake of 1.0-1.5g/kg bodyweight (0.45-0.68g/lb bodyweight) would be a good target.

El Horseboxo

The 1 gram per lb of lean bodyweight isn't entirely accurate and most likely suffers from rounding up to a whole number. Especially because exceeding that amount isn't harmful and doesn't have any real negative effects. It's just not doing anything beyond what the body can process other than you adding to your calorie intake.

When I'm looking to get stronger or bigger I don't refer to myself being on a high protein diet. I'm on a diet that is eating above maintenance. I subscribe to flexible eating and if it fits into my macros I'll eat it. With that said I'll probably eat 90% "clean". Even the term clean is a bit of a term thrown around without much without much accuracy. Anyways my point being that only around 10% over the course of a week would come from food that people consider traditionally bad for you. I'm eating 3324 calories on work out days which is about 15% above my maintenance. And I don't find it expensive at all. Not more than any other diets I've been on. I buy meat in bulk and freeze it. Hit the reduced sections in supermarkets to supplement the cost or the better quality meat from the butchers. Tins of tuna, eggs, cottage cheese, etc are all cheap foods that help my calorie requirement. Rice, pasta, breads, noodles, sweet potatoes, regular potatoes, oats, some cereals etc also feature quite frequently. As do nuts, avocados, fruit and a lot of veg. These are all things that can be got cheap enough. It just takes planning and learning to cook a bit to get the most out of them.

As for getting stronger without increasing size. I think it can work to a limit. I've stayed at maintenance for a period before after a long cut and I made some gains in strength. I gained some muscle but I ultimately hit a wall. I only continued with the strength gain once I began eating more to allow further muscle growth. I'd equate the process to expecting my car to go faster without changing the engine capacity.

Alf Veedersane

The reason the 1 g/lb figure is used is because it's an easy rule of thumb so so that people don't need to get the calculator/calculator app out to work out what they should be aiming for.

It's not exact but it doesn't need to be.

Transform

Valmont wrote: »

I've been on my own slightly adapted version of strong lifts for about ten months now and I'm slowly getting stronger. The thing is I'm tired of shelling out for protein powders and having to eat a high protein diet. Considering I just want to be fit and strong and don't care really about gaining muscle mass, can I just eat a normal healthy diet and still get stronger or do I need to take protein supplements and worry about consuming ungodly amounts of food? Thanks.

calculate what maintenance calories are for you, hit an adequate amount of protein for your needs and take the rest from carbs and fats.

the macro breakdown really only makes a big difference if you said you wanted to drop a bit more body fat or knew you didnt run well on a large chunk of your macros coming from carbs daily (there are days where mine is 60% of my total intake and protein is as low as 15% but thats quite rare and more often than not 50% carbs, 25% protein 25% fat).

overall most people just think too short term, i think in 6 month cycles and years

Mellor

Valmont wrote: »

can I just eat a normal healthy diet

In what way do you think a normal healthy diet is different from recommendations for diet when training?

Valmont

Mellor wrote: »

In what way do you think a normal healthy diet is different from recommendations for diet when training?

Good question. I hadn't thought of it like that! I suppose a normal healthy diet to me would involve consuming much fewer calories per day and less protein and definitely less carbohydrates than any of the weight-lifting diets I've seen recommend.

Alf Veedersane

Do you know what your maintenance calorie level is?

Tar.Aldarion

Valmont wrote: »

Good question. I hadn't thought of it like that! I suppose a normal healthy diet to me would involve consuming much fewer calories per day and less protein and definitely less carbohydrates than any of the weight-lifting diets I've seen recommend.

Low/Moderate calorie intake is associated with greater lifespan I believe? That sounds healthy to me

Valmont

Alf Veedersane wrote: »

Do you know what your maintenance calorie level is?

Absolutely no idea. To be honest, I've tried calorie counting before and it was way too much effort.

desertcircus

Valmont wrote: »

Over the passed year I've probably lost three kilos but probably a fair bit more in fat that was replaced by muscle. Without getting into a dieting debate (which I'm sure you'd win!), improving my diet and eating healthier for me involved eating less meat but buying it from an organic/free range butcher which is a bit more expensive than usual. I suppose I could easily eat more eggs though, I just wondered whether I could get stronger without worrying about eating too much protein. All in all though, I do eat bacon and eggs for breakfast three or four times a week and snack on mixed nuts most of the time and have a meat based evening meal three or four times a week. One thing my experience tells me though is that 1g of protein for lb of bodyweight rule is nonsense. I haven't come even close this last year and while I'm no Arnold Schwarzenegger I've made improvements on all my lifts and gained muscle.

Buying organic free-range meat is always going to be expensive. The protein you get from it isn't going to be somehow superior to the protein you'd get from a cheap cut of supermarket meat.

nice_guy80

surely you get stronger by the type of training you do, not the type of foods you eat?

A proper balanced diet will allow you to get all the protein you need, but you also need all the other essential stuff - carbs, vitamines, minerals, oils etc to keep you healthy

lean meat
eggs
nuts
hemp seed

protein from any source is still protein

Alf Veedersane

Valmont wrote: »

Absolutely no idea. To be honest, I've tried calorie counting before and it was way too much effort.

You don't have to calorie count but if you don't want to eat to gain strength but not size then you need to have some sort of appreciation of what you're getting in and what you need. That doesn't necessarily mean tracking daily long term. Even a week would help.