Currently 175lbs, want to be 190-200lbs....Help please:

[Adamr]

Hi All,

I started training 3-4 times per week about 2 years ago, I am (5ft11) currently 175lbs (12.5 stone) 10-12% body fat according to the callipers. I would now like to get up to 190-200lbs without putting on much fat.

I know that to get large muscle gains there will be fat gains too. what I need to know is how do put on this weight cleanly, calories per day & guideline daily meals. I struggle to get the calories in at the moment but I have heard thet high calorie shakes may be the way to go? are these better to make up yourself?

My current routine is a full body 3-4- days per week:

Day 1:
Squat
Incline Bench
Bent Over Rows
Skull Crushers
Barbell curls
Shrugs
Leg raises
Plank

Day 2
Leg Curl
Flat Bench
Pull Ups
V-Bar Pushdowns
Incline Hammer Curl
Overhead Press
Decline sit up
Plank

Day 3
Squat
Incline Press
Dumbbell rows
Close grip Bench press
Chin Ups
Seated rear delt
Hang leg Raise
Plank

Day 4
Squat
Cable crossover
Pull ups
Tri Rope ext
Preacher curl
Cable Lat Raise
Cable crunch
Plank
The routine above i have been on for about 4 weeks so is due a change. Again any advice welcome for a 3-4 day.

My general diet is as follows (I know I'm not eating enough):

I travel a lot by car (in it most of the day)

Breakfast:
Protein shake
bowl of Oats

10am ish:
Hand full of mixed nuts

11:30 ish:
Banana

12-1pm:
Tuna Salad
or
Peanut butter wholemeal sandwich or chicken sandwich
large raw carrot

3pm -
hand full of mixed nuts
Apple

Tea:
chicken breast, sweet potato roasted, broccoli or grreen beans
or
Tuna steak & the above
or Omlette (cheese 3 eggs milk, ham etc)

Orange, apple, rice cakes, glass of milk

this does vary a lot but thats the general gist of it.


Any help appreciated....

Cheers Adam
Here's a recent pic:

 

[brundel]

Dont take this the wrong way. I am just making a point but my cat eats that much food.
Your basically eating 3 tiny meals and some nuts or a banana. Your never gonna grow eating like this. Never. Eat like this instead and youll start growing pretty quickly. Get a cooler and take food with you. Take protein shakes with you. Nuts and fruit is not food unless its included as a portion of a larger meal. You can pre cook chicken and steak and take it with you. Take rice with you.





Breakfast:
Protein shake
bowl of Oats

10am ish:
Chicken 8oz and rice1 cup

11:30 ish:


12-1pm:
Tuna Salad or
chicken sandwich


3pm -
chicken 80z rice 1 cup

6pm 8oz chicken or steak + 2 cups rice+ veggis

8pm no carbs. tuna or chicken or steak or eg whites or ground lean turkey.

before bed. protein shake with 80g protein no carbs and 1 tbsp Udos oil.

Try this for a month and youll gain.

 

[Adamr]

Thanks for the reply Brundel. Looks good, I will definately take that on board.

The only problem with that is down to the price of Chicken here in the UK....

 

[brundel]

canned tuna works.
Lean beef works
ground turkey.
hard boiled eggs work. (remove the yolk)

 

[sassy69]

^^ Good input.

I also suggest you put your meal plan into a food counts program like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal. This will give you a better idea of what you are eating and how the calories and grams of macronutrients break down into protein, fats & carbs. Generally you need more protein to provide the stuff for muscle growth and more carbs to fuel the work to grow.

Here's some comparison for me: I'm 5'7", I compete at 150 lb for women's bodybuilding.

I cut on 1700-1800 calories (i.e. what I need to minimize muscle loss while allowing me to dump bodyfat for competition and have the energy for all the lifting & cardio)

When I bulk, a major bulk can be on the order of 3000 - 3500 cals. I've doubled my lifts going from a cutting cycle to a bulker based on the food intake.

For you, you might be best set at a clean bulk - the muscle growth will be slower, but IMO you'll be more likely to maintain what you do grow because it takes longer, and you'll keep the bodyfat gain to a lower level - enough to allow muscle growth, but not so much that you have to go thru a big cut to get rid of it to see the muscle you grew.

 

[SuperLift]

Im not a huge fan of the full body workouts. I prefer more time for your muscle to recover. But, weight gain comes from the diet. If you want to weigh 200lbs then you have to eat like you weigh 200lbs. Start eating more.

 

[Mrs.V.]

A little different from the standard "bodybuilding" approach. But it works, it works very well for real people. For the elite who have gone far beyond the level that regular folks, no they need very specific macros, more protein than you or any other "normal" person needs, and of course more isolation work and specific exercises to target specific body parts in a particular way.

The rest of us? We don't need that and I think over-thinking and over-training is actually counterproductive.

Try this. a basic 5x5 routine.

Monday: Squat, Bench, Row
Wednesday: Squat, Bench, Dead
Friday: Squat, Bench, Overhead press (or clean and jerk)

Tuesday and Thursday do some chin-ups and some dips (push-ups if you can't dip)...or put your feet on a bench behind you while you are dipping and make your dip close enough to a push-up that you are able to do it. Three sets to failure or 5x5 with body-weight should be sufficient for a while.

Cardio: Do it even though it will burn calories. It's needed for good health and general fitness...it sucks to be out of breath under the squat bar. Sprint 8 or a tabata routine on Tuesday and Thursday is enough.

Diet: Start with 2500 or 2600 calories a day and if you aren't gaining, bump it up to 3000... then 3250 ... then 3500 and so on until you are.

Keep it simple too. Here is one you can probably live with.

Meal 1: Omelette (whole eggs, cheese, meat), 1 medium potato
Meal 2: 1/2 pound beef, 1 medium potato, some kind of green vegetable.
Meal 3: 1/2 pound beef, 1 medium potato, some kind of green vegetable.

These are every 6 hours. At three hours between meals, drink a 16 ounce glass of whole milk.

This will help you build muscle. The fat in this diet is not going to hurt you and will likely be helpful in reaching your goals. I know it's not "standard" but it's very much like what old time bodybuilders who built great physiques on three squares a day and gallons of whole milk ate for years. And guess what... it still works.

 

[Built]

Excellent posts here from Sassy, Mrs V and brundel - although I disagree with brundel's suggestion to toss the yolks. Eat the yolks, they'll help you grow and are loaded with nutrition, including healthy fats and calories.

To the OP, FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal will help you plan your diet. Weigh yourself daily and track your gains. If your trendline is going up and your tummy isn't getting squishy, keep everything the same. If your weight doesn't increase, up your calories. If you find yourself getting too squishy in the middle, drop the calories by 500 and wait until your bodyfat goes down a bit, then increase your calories by a few hundred and resume.

 

[seanjohn]

I am about 175lbs myself and about 5.7 and about 8-10percent bf. Jumping that much without extra chemical enhancements probably can never happen. the break down in the gym has to be super high, but without the right recovery signal you risk over training. that is mostly the major setback in gaining that much muscle/very little fat in less than 2-4yrs. A determined person can train very very hard and eat as much calories as it would take, but the missing link is always recovery part.

 

[brundel]

It is true that the yolks are good for anabolism and make the egg better all around.
For me, however, I want to keep my cholesterol levels in check. After years of AAS abuse my ldl is 50 and my hdl is 40. I want to keep it that way

 

[Built]

brundel, the cholesterol you eat has so little impact upon your blood levels it's laughable. You'd be better off ditching fructose.

 

[brundel]

I understand we manufacture most of it and some are genetically worse off than most.
Explain why to ditch fructose.


I dont eat anything with sugar in or on it anyways.

 

[CowPimp]

Indeed your overall calorie intake is very low. The exact number of calories you need to consume to gain weight requires trial and error, and it will need to be experimented with regularly.

Total up your calorie intake for a current average day. See what it amounts to. Try increasing calorie intake by 10-20%. If weight gain occurs, then stay there until it stagnates, then make the same increase. If weight gain doesn't occur, then increase by 10-20% again. This should help keep fat gains minimal.

 

[Built]

I understand we manufacture most of it and some are genetically worse off than most.
Explain why to ditch fructose.


I dont eat anything with sugar in or on it anyways.

I had "genetically high" cholesterol, believe me I'm not unaware. High cholesterol "runs in my family", so I was tested when I was 33 years old and it was already high enough to medicate.

It dropped to enviable levels after losing weight on the (high-saturated-fat) Atkins diet, where more than two thirds of my calories came from fat and I ate eggs fried in butter every day.

Just do a quick google search - it's everywhere: fructose cholesterol - Google Search

Also, a very low dose of T3 (read: no more than 25 mcg, split into at least two doses) can do wonders for your lipid levels. Excellent during a bulk, too.

 

[ebn2002]

You don't eat enough and you train too much, IMO.

The more I read, the less I workout lol. I am down to hitting each body part only once every 7 days. I have read many studies that show it takes 3-5 days to flush the damaged muscle tissue and then some time to solidify the new muscle.

I feel better and look much better, and I'm making way more progress this way. And I'm barely in the gym so go figure

 

[youth]

Thanks for the reply Brundel. Looks good, I will definately take that on board.

The only problem with that is down to the price of Chicken here in the UK....

to find your way round this little problen you've just got to search out the bargins. Sainburys lean turkey mince packs a good 28g protien per 100g and its only £2 for 500g. i slam two packs of that down a day.
Also sainsburys and morrisons both do bags of basics frozen white fish nothing added just fish, 17'5g of protien per 100g. again £2 for 500g.
Basics tuna from sainsburys 45-55p a tin 26g protein per 100g, morrisons do it the same price slightly lower protien content though.
2.5 Kg bag of class a chicken on the bone from sainsburys is about £3.80, defrost it, rip the skin off an ban half a bag or more in the oven with some jerk seasoning or whatever, goes down a treat.

 

[GFR]

Eat twice as much and train half as much and you will grow,

 

[zoco]

Where is the meat man? Throw in some more beef,chicken and fish and also some more eggs.

When I'm trying to bulk up I eat about 1.5 - 2 lbs of meat from various sources a day

 

[USMC]

before bed. protein shake with 80g protein no carbs and 1 tbsp Udos oil.

Try this for a month and youll gain.

???? Protein shake with 80g? I'm assuming a typo. A: Where are you finding that, and B: your body can't synthesize that and you're gonna piss most of it out in the morning.

BUT the rest was spot on, and dittoing everyone else you just need to eat more, ALOT more. Meat and Rice are you're best friends. Everything else is just a addon to change up flavors.

 

[Built]

before bed. protein shake with 80g protein no carbs and 1 tbsp Udos oil.

Try this for a month and youll gain.

???? Protein shake with 80g? I'm assuming a typo. A: Where are you finding that, and B: your body can't synthesize that and you're gonna piss most of it out in the morning.

You want to explain how you can piss out protein?

BUT the rest was spot on, and dittoing everyone else you just need to eat more, ALOT more. Meat and Rice are you're best friends. Everything else is just a addon to change up flavors.

Like the others are all saying - eat more and train less. You'll grow.

To the OP - a bedtime protein shake with a couple tablespoons of olive oil will do you good. I'd avoid the udo's - it's not the right kind of omega 3 and not worth the money. Olive oil will do you a lot of good, boost your testosterone, add healthy calories, and it's cheap.

 

[sofargone561]

^^ Good input.

I also suggest you put your meal plan into a food counts program like FitDay - Free Weight Loss and Diet Journal. This will give you a better idea of what you are eating and how the calories and grams of macronutrients break down into protein, fats & carbs. Generally you need more protein to provide the stuff for muscle growth and more carbs to fuel the work to grow.

Here's some comparison for me: I'm 5'7", I compete at 150 lb for women's bodybuilding.

I cut on 1700-1800 calories (i.e. what I need to minimize muscle loss while allowing me to dump bodyfat for competition and have the energy for all the lifting & cardio)

When I bulk, a major bulk can be on the order of 3000 - 3500 cals. I've doubled my lifts going from a cutting cycle to a bulker based on the food intake.

For you, you might be best set at a clean bulk - the muscle growth will be slower, but IMO you'll be more likely to maintain what you do grow because it takes longer, and you'll keep the bodyfat gain to a lower level - enough to allow muscle growth, but not so much that you have to go thru a big cut to get rid of it to see the muscle you grew.

the link posted here is gold. i thought i was eating enough till hopped on that site and logged everything... boy was i rong

 

[USMC]

You want to explain how you can piss out protein?

.

Umm, not to be an ass, but where do you think it goes? Your kidneys break down protein and are the primary function of this. Excess gets dumped, through Urine. Also solid waste the good ol #2, however primary excess protein comes through your urine. Wife's a nurse, only reason I know lol.

 

[ecot3c inside]

Umm, not to be an ass, but where do you think it goes? Your kidneys break down protein and are the primary function of this. Excess gets dumped, through Urine. Also solid waste the good ol #2, however primary excess protein comes through your urine. Wife's a nurse, only reason I know lol.

partially correct. but if you indeed piss out protein it might sting a little, or have a burning sensation. and an 80g shake is hardly enough to "piss out"

 

[Built]

I'm no health professional, but I'm pretty sure if you've got protein in your urine, you're in some level of kidney failure.

Do you really think you get no food value from an 80g serving of protein? I only eat three meals a day - I get in 60-80g of protein at each of them. Are you saying that if I eat 80g of protein in a meal, I only get 30g of protein out of it? What happens to the calories from the other 50g of protein?

 

[sofargone561]

how old are you? if your old enough are you interesed in AAS? i was 189lbs and when i started my last weigh in was 4 days ago and i was 215lbs and still getting bigger and stronger everyday