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I've hit a roadblock... HELP!

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Posted by: JCBourne

So the first 5 weeks of my cycle I packed 15 pounds, great! However i'm on week 8, and seen no more gains. Strength is through the roof, sex drive good so I know it's my diet.

I've gotten so sick of chicken, beef, steak, tuna. I need some more small meals with 200-300 cals that I can eat many times a day. Planning to buy a few different meats.

Please recommend me some goodies, or even a different meal. Rep will be given.

I want to put on some more weight, however I've gotten so sick of eating those few things that I can't force myself thus less cals = no gains.



Posted by: stronger4ever

Dude if this is not your first cycle and you already gained 15 pounds I would recommend you to try to do anything to keep as much of those 15 lbs. Focus on density. There is no point in increasing the diet and inflating like a baloon. Im telling you by experience try take the 15 lbs and run to the hills haha



Posted by: WallsOfJericho

Try different fish, theres much nicer fish than Tuna. What cycle is this?? change up your rice to red rice, which i prefer anyway.



Posted by: ANIMALHAUS

You could always supplement with a couple shakes... trust me, I know how hard it is to eat the same shit everyday and I will drink a couple shakes throughout the day. I know consuming real food is better for you, but I would say it's better to drink a shake than not to consume anything. Give it a shot.



Posted by: Chino007

Change it up ! Ok like a hamburg ok you buy hamburg meat one pound and get a 1 cup onion , one cup of spainch ,one cup of oatmeal and one egg mix it all up your hands will be the best tool! You will make four pattys trust it's great !! Or try turkey meat!!



Posted by: Hell

Up the dosage or add a compound. Heavyiron has some good threads about these situations that usually come up around week 8.

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/an...eks-cycle.html

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/an...heavyiron.html



Posted by: XYZ

Just add 2-3 tbsps. of ANPB to every meal. that's an additional 1,000 calories plus right there.



Posted by: Digitalash

Quote Originally Posted by ANIMALHOUSE View Post
You could always supplement with a couple shakes... trust me, I know how hard it is to eat the same shit everyday and I will drink a couple shakes throughout the day. I know consuming real food is better for you, but I would say it's better to drink a shake than not to consume anything. Give it a shot.

Agree with this, add some olive oil to your shakes, thats a few hundred easy calories right there and you won't even taste it. Ground up oats work well too. Also go buy a couple big jars of peanut butter and dig in. If I get towards the end of the day and don't feel like I've eaten enough I fill up on peanut butter and milk lol. If you're getting enough protein already then you just need to focus on really calorie dense foods, you could probably fit a whole days worth of cals in your stomach in peanut butter form lol



Posted by: blazeftp

Throw in some extra virgin olive oil to your shakes.
Same with peanut butter.
Drink 2ltr milk a day 1,000 calories right there.

Try get yourself a cook book.
I got one for a present so many different ways to prepare food now.
Can eat same food everyday but taste different.



Posted by: JCBourne

I do add flaxseed oil to my shakes (130 cals)

Ideas are looking good, I'm still wondering about more 200-300 cal small meals. I'm not a fish guy, so tuna is about the only fish I will eat.



Posted by: Chino007

Were my rep points lol jk



Posted by: JCBourne

I did up test to 625mg, I may go up to 750 in 1-2 weeks as the jump hasn't given anymore sides then at 500mg.



Posted by: 240PLUS

Quote Originally Posted by WallsOfJericho View Post
Try different fish, theres much nicer fish than Tuna. What cycle is this?? change up your rice to red rice, which i prefer anyway.
rice gets old. Couscous is my latest crave with sliced beef tips. Yea, switch your fishes around. Swordfish,tilapia, snapper,cat fish is good to.



Posted by: WallsOfJericho

Quote Originally Posted by 240PLUS View Post
rice gets old. Couscous is my latest crave with sliced beef tips. Yea, switch your fishes around. Swordfish,tilapia, snapper,cat fish is good to.
I know you said you dont like Fish, but fish is what its all about, and cous cous is the shit, love that stuff, dont know why i didnt suggest it.



Posted by: hawkcmc

Risotto is amazing you can try that. Also I like to get turkey lunch meat grill it between some bread with some avacodo. MMM MMM Good.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
I do add flaxseed oil to my shakes (130 cals)

Ideas are looking good, I'm still wondering about more 200-300 cal small meals. I'm not a fish guy, so tuna is about the only fish I will eat.
I'd move toward olive oil. Flax can be problematic for a number of reasons - one being the fact that it's a source of polyunsaturated fat. While some poly is good, more is not better. Monos should ideally be your predominant fatty acid.

What calories and macros are you eating? Describe your current diet, tell me what you WON'T eat, and I'll give you some easy suggestions.



Posted by: GMO

Quote Originally Posted by Hell View Post
Up the dosage or add a compound. Heavyiron has some good threads about these situations that usually come up around week 8.

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/an...eks-cycle.html

http://www.ironmagazineforums.com/an...heavyiron.html

^^^This is exactly what I was going to recommend you look at. You can either bump your test dose, or if this is not your first cycle, throw in a fast acting oral like d-bol in there.

...and Built will help you with your diet for sure bro.



Posted by: JCBourne

Quote Originally Posted by Built View Post
I'd move toward olive oil. Flax can be problematic for a number of reasons - one being the fact that it's a source of polyunsaturated fat. While some poly is good, more is not better. Monos should ideally be your predominant fatty acid.

What calories and macros are you eating? Describe your current diet, tell me what you WON'T eat, and I'll give you some easy suggestions.
To be honest, I don't count cals. I can tell you my fat intake isn't high, carbs are when I have pastas, and I do get a ton of protein.

Usually this is a normal day...

3 protein shakes (120 cals)
Mini-wheats with wheat toast and greek yogurt
8-10oz chicken with rice and white bread
Pasta (350 cals) with wheat toast
Peanut butter, usually a total of 200-300 cals a day, however i'm bumping up.
Beef/Bean homemade mix or steak/beef. Usually have rice with corn.
Oatmeal 3-4 times a week


That has worked up until now, and I've slacked off a bit. I may throw in some small snacks during the day (healthy)

What I won't eat as of now:
Eggs, I'm completely burnt out unless I go out to ihop or such (which is never)
Any fish besides tuna
Veggies (I'm picky but I do eat them, so no need to add these)



Posted by: 2B1

I would throw in some broccoli, cauliflower, and/or lettuce. For obvious reasons and it can help to make more room in your stomach. Try tracking your macros online as well. I know for myself, unless I keep an account of what I'm eating, especially if I'm changing it up, I usually don't eat enough, cutting or bulking.



Posted by: JCBourne

I do have a ton of lettuce (salad), i've found that tracking doesn't really do much for me. Maybe now it would, but within 5 weeks I had put on 15 pounds, with very little fat added.

I'm also adding in t-bol with 7 weeks left. I was going to run for 6 weeks, but I think I will do it for 7. Starting at 50mg.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
So the first 5 weeks of my cycle I packed 15 pounds, great! However i'm on week 8, and seen no more gains. Strength is through the roof, sex drive good so I know it's my diet.
Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
To be honest, I don't count cals. I can tell you my fat intake isn't high, carbs are when I have pastas, and I do get a ton of protein.
You're not gaining weight.

There is EXACTLY one reason why you are not gaining weight: you are currently eating at maintenance.

More drugs will not make your food heavier.

You gained weight because you got "improved feed efficiency" (you made more muscle and less fat from the calories you consumed, and it takes fewer calories to build a pound of muscle than a pound of fat) and because the gear stimulated your appetite; in short, you ate more.

Taking more gear MIGHT make you want to eat more. A little more.

Not taking more gear but simply eating more will almost certainly accomplish the same thing - you'll get diminishing returns from cranking up your dose mid-cycle, and an increasing risk of side effects. And no matter what, you're still going to have to eat more.

So eat more. Just eat more now. How much more? Well, tell me how many calories you're averaging daily - how many grams of protein, carb and fat - and we'll give you suggestions on how to crank that up easily.

Meanwhile, why the hell are you eating low fat? You're not gaining! You think more protein will add mass? You're crazy! Protein's too satiating - you're already having trouble getting it all in. Crank up the fats! They're easy, they're low volume, they're cheap and they work. Oh, and they're not hepatoxic and won't give you gyno. Butter your veggies, bread and rice. Toss olive oil into your shakes. Eat whole eggs, full-fat yogurt, toss whipping cream into your shakes and omelettes. It's really easy to get in the extra calories. You're just trying to do it in the most uncomfortable way possible.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by 2B1 View Post
unless I keep an account of what I'm eating, especially if I'm changing it up, I usually don't eat enough, cutting or bulking.
Quoted for truth.



Posted by: ANIMALHAUS

Quote Originally Posted by Built View Post
You're not gaining weight.

There is EXACTLY one reason why you are not gaining weight: you are currently eating at maintenance.

More drugs will not make your food heavier.

You gained weight because you got "improved feed efficiency" (you made more muscle and less fat from the calories you consumed, and it takes fewer calories to build a pound of muscle than a pound of fat) and because the gear stimulated your appetite; in short, you ate more.

Taking more gear MIGHT make you want to eat more. A little more.

Not taking more gear but simply eating more will almost certainly accomplish the same thing - you'll get diminishing returns from cranking up your dose mid-cycle, and an increasing risk of side effects. And no matter what, you're still going to have to eat more.

So eat more. Just eat more now. How much more? Well, tell me how many calories you're averaging daily - how many grams of protein, carb and fat - and we'll give you suggestions on how to crank that up easily.

Meanwhile, why the hell are you eating low fat? You're not gaining! You think more protein will add mass? You're crazy! Protein's too satiating - you're already having trouble getting it all in. Crank up the fats! They're easy, they're low volume, they're cheap and they work. Oh, and they're not hepatoxic and won't give you gyno. Butter your veggies, bread and rice. Toss olive oil into your shakes. Eat whole eggs, full-fat yogurt, toss whipping cream into your shakes and omelettes. It's really easy to get in the extra calories. You're just trying to do it in the most uncomfortable way possible.
I love you. Haha!



Posted by: JCBourne

Well I didn't mean LOW fat, sorry. I ment I eat healthy fats. Bad wording on my part. I do realize I need more, and i'm going to obviously add to my diet.

Can you recommend some goodies? I like the whipped cream, and I should try hard boiled eggs.

Is there a site that I can log my cals? I've used some before, but they didn't have certain items so I gave up on it.



Posted by: Dustdatarse

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
Well I didn't mean LOW fat, sorry. I ment I eat healthy fats. Bad wording on my part. I do realize I need more, and i'm going to obviously add to my diet.

Can you recommend some goodies? I like the whipped cream, and I should try hard boiled eggs.

Is there a site that I can log my cals? I've used some before, but they didn't have certain items so I gave up on it.
Here is where i log all my stuff, someone gave me this when i first started on here, so ill pay it forward...

FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal



Posted by: JCBourne

Quote Originally Posted by Dustdatarse View Post
Here is where i log all my stuff, someone gave me this when i first started on here, so ill pay it forward...

FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal
When it says fat, do you know if its total fat, or cals from fat?



Posted by: Built

When what says fat? Listen, just log your food and report back with two things:
1. The macronutrient breakdown (total calories, and grams protein, carb and fat)
2. Your meal plan - what you eat, meal by meal through the day.

I know you'd rather just take more pills, but I also know you want results.



Posted by: sassy69

If you don't want to track but you tend to eat the same general diet, you can get a baseline of what you're eating every couple weeks by putting a typical day's meal plan into a food counts program like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal. Then you know where you're at and its easier to make quicky changes on the fly and still have a pretty good idea of where you're at. It also gives you a tool to play w/ different diet changes if you need to make some targeted tweaks or want to see what something like adding more EVOO, etc to your diet will do, before you actually do it.



Posted by: JCBourne

For fitday, it asks for fat. I don't know if it wants total fat or cals from fat



Posted by: sassy69

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
For fitday, it asks for fat. I don't know if it wants total fat or cals from fat
Do you mean when you're defining a custom food? That's asking for grams. Not sure where you're looking. Can you do a screen shot?



Posted by: JCBourne

Yeah the custom food.



Posted by: sassy69

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
Yeah the custom food.
Grams of fat - usually the label of whatever food you're looking at, or you can get the macronutrient break out somewhere on Google, and copy it in.



Posted by: JCBourne

So total fat right? I've already passed the 4k mark on calories today and I'm not even done yet.



Posted by: Pulsated Pec

Peanut butter!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!



Posted by: ManInBlack

I completely understand the fact that you are getting tired of eating the same shit over and over. Here is what I have been doing; on the days where I KNOW I just won't be able to get down all that rice or those potatoes, chicken/tuna, and whatever else, I replace a couple meals with a whey/oats shake. I may also add peanut butter or olive oil or something like that. My post probably didn't help because you probably have tried this, but it's just my .02 good luck brotha.



Posted by: JCBourne

Here is yesterdays diet, I know i'm off about 150-200 in the upper range, so I'm closer to 4,300+



Posted by: Built

Gymrat, is this a typical day, or a "good" day?

Also, just copy paste the numbers beside the pie chart

Calories
Grams protein
Grams fat
monos
saturates
polys
Grams carb
Grams fibre



Posted by: JCBourne

That would be a pretty typical day, I wouldn't even consider that a good day to be honest.



Posted by: Glycomann

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
So the first 5 weeks of my cycle I packed 15 pounds, great! However i'm on week 8, and seen no more gains. Strength is through the roof, sex drive good so I know it's my diet.

I've gotten so sick of chicken, beef, steak, tuna. I need some more small meals with 200-300 cals that I can eat many times a day. Planning to buy a few different meats.

Please recommend me some goodies, or even a different meal. Rep will be given.

I want to put on some more weight, however I've gotten so sick of eating those few things that I can't force myself thus less cals = no gains.
Add an oral. You're at the stalling point. That's what orals are for.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
That would be a pretty typical day, I wouldn't even consider that a good day to be honest.
Okay. Start buttering your veggies and your rice, bread etc.

Full fat yogurt, milk.

You're having what, one protein shake a day? I see 40g of protein there. Two shakes? If it's two shakes, toss an ounce (two tablespoons) of olive oil into each shake. Two ounces of olive oil will give you nearly 500 calories. Let's see what happenes when you do this.

Track your intake every single day for a month while you do this.

Also track your weight. I want to see 5000 calories a day going in every single day.



Posted by: JCBourne

Whoa, those protein shakes are way off. I'm making a custom one. Each shake has 23g protein. I have 3 a day, 4 on workout days. 1 upon wakeup, 1 pre and post workout, and 1 before bed.

Heres a more accurate table for yesterday



Posted by: ManInBlack

Those macros seem kinda funky to me bro. It looks like your fat intake is too high in relation to carbs/protein.



Posted by: ManInBlack

What about trying a 40/40/20 split for your macros? (carbs/protein/fat)



Posted by: JCBourne

Due to my extremely busy workload, I'm not able to exactly split it up like that. I just try to eat as healthy as I can. For me to do an exact split would be nearly impossible, plus it's only my first day logging it may change.



Posted by: ManInBlack

I am not doubting that you have a busy workload so don't think that for a second...But there for a while I was working two very labor intensive jobs that left me very little time to prepare food and things like that but I made it work.

If that meant getting home from long day of the first job and cooking up chicken and rice and putting food in tupperware containers and putting them in the fridge so all I had to do was grab them, then that was what i did. OR if it meant that I had to stay up really late to do the same thing then I would do that also.

I still work one very hard job so I have much more time on my hands but I am just saying, where there is a will there is a way brother.



Posted by: JCBourne

I'm looking at the log, and I may be doing fat incorrectly, still trying to get used to the program. Thanks for the input man, I'm trying to target the 5k cals and see where that takes me, once I get there then I can manage what I need to cook ahead of time, as I usually do anyway.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by ManInBlack View Post
Those macros seem kinda funky to me bro. It looks like your fat intake is too high in relation to carbs/protein.
There is no such thing as fats being "too high" in relation to carbs/protein.

Quote Originally Posted by ManInBlack View Post
What about trying a 40/40/20 split for your macros? (carbs/protein/fat)
Because he's having a hard time gaining, and because percentage-based macronutient splits are really meaningless, especially for a hardgainer on a bulk.
Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
I'm looking at the log, and I may be doing fat incorrectly, still trying to get used to the program. Thanks for the input man, I'm trying to target the 5k cals and see where that takes me, once I get there then I can manage what I need to cook ahead of time, as I usually do anyway.
Crank the olive oil, it'll make you grow and it won't fill you up like protein.

For carbs, stick to white EVERYTHING. Fibre will fill you up too much. Don't take in any more protein. You're getting plenty of protein now; any more will just make you feel too full.



Posted by: ManInBlack

I stand corrected, learn somethin new every day around here.

Built's gotcha covered bro.



Posted by: JCBourne

I don't think I'll reach much over 4k today, I wasn't feeling too hot this morning/afternoon. However I may with a few more tbs of olive oil. In about a week i'm going to avg my cals and then let you know. I'm hoping with the logging it will help me eat more when I know i'm not hitting the # I need to.



Posted by: Built

Quote Originally Posted by GymRat707 View Post
I don't think I'll reach much over 4k today, I wasn't feeling too hot this morning/afternoon. However I may with a few more tbs of olive oil. In about a week i'm going to avg my cals and then let you know. I'm hoping with the logging it will help me eat more when I know i'm not hitting the # I need to.
If you can do what you want to do without tracking, you should.

When that stops working, you track. It works 100% of the time.



Posted by: JCBourne

Quote Originally Posted by Built View Post
If you can do what you want to do without tracking, you should.

When that stops working, you track. It works 100% of the time.
I agree, only 2 days of logging and i'm starting to see the weight go up, let's hope it continues.



Posted by: Built

I can maintain by feel. For me, it's cutting that requires tracking. When I want it to work, I preplan my days.

I'll be interested to see what your intake actually has to be in order to continue with the gains.

Most dieters think they eat WAY less than they are - and most hardgainers think they eat way MORE than they are.

It's the uncoupling of appetite and metabolism that's such a nuisance in both cases. Comfort yourself in the knowledge that you're not the first to make this discovery.



Posted by: JCBourne

I knew for sure I wasn't eating enough which is why I started the thread, but thanks to your help I have gotten back on track.



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I've hit a roadblock... HELP!


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