confusedBuilder

Hi guys -

First to give a brief intro abt myself ....
Age:23, Ht:5-6, Wt: 148 lbs, BF%: 15%,
BMR: 1700 (Got this measured at the gym ... they said this is how many calories my body wud need if it was at rest).
And also I have a sedentary job. Sit at my desk for abt 8hrs a day. So not much activity there. I've been working out regularly for the past year and a half, and now I've realized after all these yrs abt the importance of nutrition to gain lean mass.

My goal is to put on abt 10-15lbs of muscle (at least for now :-) ..... and then after that cut down my body fat.

Below I've posted the diet plan I've come up with for the bulking phase. If you guys can please look at it and comment, it would greatly help

9AM - 1 whole egg + 3 egg whites
- 1 Packet oatmeal
- 1 Banana

11AM - 2 scoops weight gainer(305 cal - 168c,108p,17.5f)
- 8 Oz Orange Juice
- 10 Almonds + small pack of carrots

1PM - 2 Slices Whole wheat bread
- 1 small chicken breast
- 1 Tbsp Mayo, Onions, Tomatoes
- 1 Cup cantaloupe

4:15PM - 1/2 Plate pasta + 1 Tbsp olive oil + Pasta Sauce
- 1/2 Chicken breast
- 1 Banana

6:30PM - Workout

7:45PM - 3 scoops weight gainer(458cal -252c,162p,26.5f)
- 12Oz orange juice

8:45PM - 1 cup rice
- 1/2 chicken breast
- Some veggies

10:30PM - 10 almonds (late night snack

Total ~ 3047 calories
Carbs ~ 1711 cal (56%)
Prot ~ 856 cal (28%)
Fat ~ 550 cal (18%)

Also I plan to include a couple of multivitamins. Can you please suggest what the best time to take them wud be (pre/post workout).

My workout schedule currently include 4 days of weight training for abt 1hr.
Is it advisable to do low intensity cardio (2 days for abt 30min - on NON weight training days) right now so that I can also reduce my body fat, or is it going to hinder with my muscle gain???

Any advice would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks in advance....
confusedBuilder

BulkMeUp

I'm no big expert on diets .. yet , but i feel those are waaayy too many cals (20X bw) to start out with. For your weight, you could start out with ~2400 cals and monitor your weight. You should be putting on 1 or 2 lbs a week. If not, then increase cals by 10% or 200-300 cals and check again. repeat until you began to gain weight and stick to those cals.

For the weight gainer, you could try make your own. Ground oats+protein powder+natty PB.

For your last meal of the day, you copuld use a slow digesting protein like Cottage Cheese + walnuts (a better choice than almonds). For a hard gainer, some carbs here would not be amiss here.

Some do a bit of cardio on a bulk, but most state that you could cut down/remove it to let your body grow. But if you must do cardio, then you will have to increase cals to see your weight increase.

If you havent already, read the sticky 'guide to...' plenty of great info there to help as well.

leg_press

confused bodybuilder... dude, read through some of the thread on here man, weight gainers are a bunch or rubbish! I used to use N Large 2 it is was crap with a capital C, the guys in here reckon you should have oats with your shake instead, but any sort of carb is good. I personally would go for plain rice cakes and 2tbsp honey. As for post workout just stick to a whey protein shake. But if you only have weight gainer use it up first of course.

That's me done

"Lift big, eat big, rest big"
"Rome wasnt built in a day"
"Go heavy or go home."

confusedBuilder

The reason I thought I needed 3000 calories was because, my BMR=1700
And I read somewhere that for a person with moderate to hard activity, we should multiply the BMR by 1.5
So my body needs 1700*1.5 = 2550 calories to get thru the day.
And now I needed to eat more than this so my muscles can grow gain mass. So I throw in an extra 500 calories for this and now my daily intake totals upto 3000 calories.

Is my calculation incorrect?? or should I not rely on these calculations and just monitor my body's reaction to the food intake.
And also I was eating close to 2500 calories per day for a month(sometime ago) without gaining any mass.

ReelBigFish

If you know that you weren't gaining at 2500 cals then go to 3000 but if it's based on a calculation from a website then i would rethink since those things are usually off. they are more an estimate. but testing and adjusting accordingly is the best route to go.

BulkMeUp

Considering you said this:
I wouldnt go by that BMR calc. Also did you follow the criteria for measuring BMR?

Did you count your cals/macros to know you were eating 2500 cals? If not i suggest you count them carefully (you could use www.fitday.com). I am 6'/160# and bulking on 2700 cals. But then again, you could have a fast metab. If you did count them carefully and still didnt put on weight then yes, you would need to increase cals. Else count your cals for the next 5-7 days to find out your baseline and slowly increase them until you began to gain.