Thread: Carbs

Originally Posted by leg_press

At the moment I am not gaining any mass at all. I've decided to rethink my diet. What do you guys think about starting off with 40g of carbs per meal and then slowly increasing by 5g week by week?

How many meals do you eat in a day?

six meals a day but the ammount of carbs varies as to wat I can get at work

How many calories are you eating? How many grams of protein?

Age, weight, height, work out schedule?

Dunno about calories or protein, I weight around 135lbs I'm 20 yrs old, around 5 ft 10/11, three day work out split

If you are already lean & trying to gain muscle, make sure you are consuming at least 1 to 1.5g of protein per pound of lean mass, and up your carb intake slowly until you start gaining.

You have to walk a bit of a tightrope. Gaining muscle is difficult unless your glycogen stores are topped up, but fat storage starts when they spill over.

One thing that may be helpful is eating most of your carbs early in the day & cutting them down a bit in the evening. Going to bed with low blood-sugar helps the old growth-hormone secretion & ensures that everything you eat in the morning gets soaked up.

The other alternative (which does work) is to over-eat, which will enable you to gain muscle quicker, but will also result in fat gain. Depends what you are after.

If you are just starting in the game, the best advice is to just gain mass for a few years & accept a bit of fat gain while you are learning the art, then spend a year or so leaning out.

On the other hand, if you are a fat bloater, get lean first then think about adding size.

Give us more data, and we might be able to advise you properly

Originally Posted by leg_press

Dunno about calories or protein, I weight around 135lbs I'm 20 yrs old, around 5 ft 10/11, three day work out split

Beat me to it..

Right - your bf is probably minimal. Can you see your abs & intercostals ?

Ive been working out (albiet not constistantly) since I was 16, but I am new to the nutrition side of things

Originally Posted by leg_press

Dunno about calories or protein, I weight around 135lbs I'm 20 yrs old, around 5 ft 10/11, three day work out split

That is the first thing you need to figure out. You can't gain weight without knowing that you are eating more calories than you are burning. Record everything you eat for a couple weeks and figure out how many calories you are eating and how much protein you are eating. And then if you aren't gaining weight, increase the calories by about 200 a day and keep doing that every two weeks until you start seeing a mass gain.

And make sure you are getting good protein and fats so the weight comes on as muscle and not fat.

putting on muscle is difficult. it's necessary for you to track your macros. IMO you should start about 10% above maintenance and increase your calories (overall...not just carbs) by 10% every two weeks if you're not putting on any weight.

My abs come and go dependin on what I eat but I can general see them. intercostals????

Originally Posted by The13ig13adWolf

putting on muscle is difficult. it's necessary for you to track your macros. IMO you should start about 10% above maintenance and increase your calories (overall...not just carbs) by 10% every two weeks if you're not putting on any weight.

Yep, you've got to tinker with it to find out what makes you gain and lose weight. But once you figure it out, and your disciplined, watch out!