Thoughts/Advice

[ryanbCXG]

Been lurking here for a bit and read a ton. This seems like a great forum for people who want to get pretty huge. Since that is my goal (put on as much lean mass as I can onto my frame) I was hoping to get some thoughts from the many big guys that have gotten to the point of being huge and lean. I have gone from 155 to 200 at 6', since getting serious about mass and training in Jan 11. I start medical school in Aug so this summer i was ignoring fat gain for the most part (or at least trying to but i have this terrible aversion to any fat gain) and gain as much mass as possible. I have always done some sort of cardio as it always seemed smart to me and was flamed at other sites for doing that will gaining. Now here its advocated and reccomened. So i do at least 40min of cardio (LISS) everyday.

I eat all my carbs post workout in about 4hrs the rest of the meals are pro/fats. Calories are very high 6-7k and pro is aroudn 400g. Just looking for some opinons on BF and if I should keep pushing on. THis is the most BF i have had on me (also the most muscle and strength) I am terrible at judging BF/leanness and progress and have no one in real life that is big and knows how to gain weight and strength. I have a terrible time seeing the difference in fat or water or a bit of extra food left in the stomach. Eating as much as i am there is always soem water retentnion and bloat but i feel that i have the time in the day where i can be active enough to warrant that many cals. I coudl lay around all day and gain with 3000-3500 but i would rather do more in the day and eat a ton more. I love to eat. Life in a very small town so my gym is populated with no one who lifts over the 30lb dumb bells and talk on their cell pohones while doing leg extensions and call it a day. Any advice is welcome and Thank you ahead of time and if you need/want more information i will be happy to share pretty much anything.

Edit: I will leave this here as I feel if people want the extra info it is there. But my main ? is am I lean enough to continue gaining weight until medical school...I am a terrible judge at BF and am not really sure how to judge when to start looking at damage control> my Goals are listed above but basically i want to get as big as i can and lean. I have been gaining weight and strenght consistently so for now my diet and training are doing what they should be doing. Until they are not I wont really change things unless that is people think that I am putting on too much fat then macros/timing will be manipulated or if strength gains/ not beating my log book starts to drop off routine will be manipulated. I hope this clears up my rambling non consise and confusing OP

[mentalflex]

Welcome to IM!

Congratulations of the massive gains! Great work.

Before we get into too much detail, lets look at your overall goals. It seems you really want to get big, and have done a good job thus far packing on size according to what you indicated. From your pictures, you do not look fat AT ALL! Based on how much food you say you are eating you must have a very fast metabolism. Now if you want to be more precise, you can use this tool: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Healt.../dp/B000NN9SDO so you know how much weight is muscle versus fat.

Personally, I like doing cardio throughout the year. I feel it allows me stay lean while still gaining weight and I feel overall healthier when I do cardio. Cardio does help with oxygen and blood flow, which helps with transporting nutrients and with recovery. You just have to make sure you are eating enough to make up for the cardio. So IMO, it is good idea to keep the cardio in your program, but you may want to do it less frequently of experiment with HIIT 3 or 4 days per week and see if that works better for you. Both types of cardio work fine, it just depends on what works best with schedule and how your body responds to each.

Also, what kinds of training programs have you used and what has worked best for you?

How are you meals structured throughout the day? How many grams of fats and carbs are you eating?

You may be able to eat more carbs by spreading them out over the day on your training days and cutting them off after your second meal after your training session. Then on non-workout days (cardio only days) drop the carbs down and increase your protein and fats.

[ryanbCXG]

Welcome to IM!

Congratulations of the massive gains! Great work.

Before we get into too much detail, lets look at your overall goals. It seems you really want to get big, and have done a good job thus far packing on size according to what you indicated. From your pictures, you do not look fat AT ALL! Based on how much food you say you are eating you must have a very fast metabolism. Now if you want to be more precise, you can use this tool: http://www.amazon.com/Creative-Healt.../dp/B000NN9SDO so you know how much weight is muscle versus fat.

Personally, I like doing cardio throughout the year. I feel it allows me stay lean while still gaining weight and I feel overall healthier when I do cardio. Cardio does help with oxygen and blood flow, which helps with transporting nutrients and with recovery. You just have to make sure you are eating enough to make up for the cardio. So IMO, it is good idea to keep the cardio in your program, but you may want to do it less frequently of experiment with HIIT 3 or 4 days per week and see if that works better for you. Both types of cardio work fine, it just depends on what works best with schedule and how your body responds to each.

Also, what kinds of training programs have you used and what has worked best for you?

How are you meals structured throughout the day? How many grams of fats and carbs are you eating?

You may be able to eat more carbs by spreading them out over the day on your training days and cutting them off after your second meal after your training session. Then on non-workout days (cardio only days) drop the carbs down and increase your protein and fats.

Appreciate the feed back and the welcome.I am liking the straight shooting on this board. Lots of good stuff to read from Dante pertaining to gaining as I feel like his quoates really hit home.

I certainly feel fatter but again i am not sure how to really judge.

No problems for me with eating enough to make up for the cardio. Even at 6k-7k I still can eat more if I want. I beleive i have a bit of a defect when it comes to hunger and fullness sensation. My brain never recieves the signal that i am full. So i can eat pretty much indefintetly. Its a bit outrageous and sucks for cutting.

My training basically goes agaist everything that is DC but i enjoy it and expereince gains. I am a volume monster and do lots of volume. But i do share the beat the log book mentality. I dont go in the gym and just do shit to do shit. I wave my volume in a 4 week cylcle Week 1-3 worksets increase. Week 4 drops in work sets and i go for PRs. Even though work set volume increass on those weeks i still try to increase reps and or weight where ever possible. The reason i like this type of training with high volume and high weight is just phsycologically it suits me. I have done lower volume (not DC) and experience the same results in terms of bw and strength gain.

Pro is 450 or moreg carbs are 600-800 and fat are where they fall. I dont add a ton of fats and mostly get them from my other foods but around 120g. Calories will be higher because i am not counting the incidental pro and fats from my carb sources. I just run better on high carb and high pro. I dont much like lots of fats. Doesnt agree with me

[Sammich]

Post an example of your daily 6-7000 kcal diet, please.

[RageBlanket]

Post an example of your daily 6-7000 kcal diet, please.

No kidding. I doubt I hit that on a refeed.

[ryanbCXG]

2kg cooked rice. 10oz dry oatmeal. 2.5lbs of meat. 2-6slices of bread (or 3/4 loaf of french bread). 2-4tbs PB.1lb of non fat greek yogurt. 8 scoops of pro. 30g of ground flax seed. 2 PB finibars. 10oz of potatoes. 4 oz of havarti cheese. 4 oz of non fat cream cheese. Then some handfuls of dried fruit and nuts. And 8 oz of grapes.

[Sammich]

No, no, no. Precise amounts PER MEAL. Are you weighing your servings? What about pre/post-cooked amounts? What sorts of foods? If you are not meticulous about measuring amounts and types of foods, then estimating your calories is fantastically inaccurate, especially for beginners. Trust me, you are NOT eating 6-7000 calories a day.

[ryanbCXG]

No, no, no. Precise amounts PER MEAL. Are you weighing your servings? What about pre/post-cooked amounts? What sorts of foods? If you are not meticulous about measuring amounts and types of foods, then estimating your calories is fantastically inaccurate, especially for beginners. Trust me, you are NOT eating 6-7000 calories a day.

I wrote out the weights for the food. I weigh everything other than the hand fuls of nuts/dried fruit. That is just for snacking purposes.

Also I know its hard to fathom some one eating that much day in and out and you have no reason to trust me which is fine but I do eat that much. I have logged and weighed the amount I eat since I got serious in Jan 11. THere are days where i dont log everything but i do weigh it to make sure i am eating enough.

For giggles i have done eating challenges and have documented those. 3lb steak plus side salad plus 4 dinner rolls plus loaded mash. Finished it 23min got the meal for free then went home and ate 26 oatmeal cookies, and this is when i weighed 170. Another challenge I ate 4lb burger with 1lb of fries finished in 25min and then topped it off wiht a cold stone gotta have it cake batter with peanute butter and peanut butter cups. Also done when i was 175 almost exaclty 1year ago. Recently I did a 4lb steak with a 12oz side of hash browsn 2 slices of texas toast and a side salad in 30min went home and ate 1 quart of ice cream. I have a very large capacity for food. Beleive it or dont its up to you. I can try and dig some pics up all though they are scattered

[moco]

No, no, no. Precise amounts PER MEAL. Are you weighing your servings? What about pre/post-cooked amounts? What sorts of foods? If you are not meticulous about measuring amounts and types of foods, then estimating your calories is fantastically inaccurate, especially for beginners. Trust me, you are NOT eating 6-7000 calories a day.

Thank you

[RageBlanket]

I hear "Jeapordy" music in my head...someone is calculating...

[ryanbCXG]

Couple pics of those food eats.

1st one is the burger and fries and the after pic.

2cd is the 3lb steak from texas roadhouse. No after pic had to run back to school right after.

3rd is the 4lb steak already going on it. I started before any pics taken. And the after shot with the chef. He kept checking on me. Not many customers there and they all basically watched and cheered me on. Kinda funny

[Sammich]

Anyone still wonder why experienced people stop responding to threads?

[Sammich]

If you are eating 6000 calories a day and you still weigh 200 and you are not regularly running ultramarathons, you need to get your ass to an endocrinologist NOW because you have some serious medical issues.

[ryanbCXG]

Alright i guess this forum is quite what i thought. No need to get angry at me. There are ways in which the body can dispose of extra energy and some are better at it than others. Thermogensis, decoupling the electron transport chain, just a large amount of activity, ect. But we dont need to discuss that.

Istead of coming off like an ass you could ask if I have any medical conditions. Sorry for politely asking for advice. I dont feel I am forcing anyone to reply or read this. And if you dont beleive I eat what I do and do not want to help in anyway then dont read or post. Just looking for some help in a nice manner and willing to discuss and divulge anythign that might be needed. But i dont want to argue about trust issues. Its hard to dicuss anythign over the internet because of that. Anways rambling sorry.

I do indeed have medical issues and again you could of asked. I have secondary HYPOthyroidism so tehcnically my metabolism is actually slow. Slowly but surely treatment for that is getting better. T3 levels are just at the low end of the range. And T4 is on the low end as well. After 1.5 years of treatment they are finally coming up from rock bottom the last 4 months. Also have hypogonadism> i was diagnosed with both of these Nov 10'. Test levels finally got to higher end of normal range in July '11. They have been steady since

[Sammich]

Alright i guess this forum is quite what i thought.

That, I am certain, is true. If you're getting this defensive and argumentative already, you're not long for this place.

And I'm still waiting for your detailed meal list.