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Thread: Diet advice

  1. #1
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    Default Diet advice

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    Hey guys, i need help on some diet issues and am not sure if this diet is acceptable. I'm currently doing the novice program in Practical Programming.

    My goal: Gain strength but hopefully can maintain BW, or rather slow down it's increase of fat.(so the ''just eat lots'' diet is out for me.)

    I'm always under the impression that you need to eat 5-6 meals a day with protein intake spread out evenly, but due to my timetable in school, i may not be able to do that.

    What i'm thinking of doing is having 3 main meals a day, and drink 1 litre of milk in between.

    For example:

    Meal 1: Oats+5 eggs+1 fruit
    Meal 2: 1 liter of milk
    Meal 3: Chicken + Green veggies+ some oils
    Meal 4: 1 liter of milk
    Meal 5: Grass fed beef + veggies
    And maybe will eat some almonds before bed.

    Basically, i will try to squeeze all the nutritious foods into the 3 main meals and add 1 liter milk in between.

    Do you guys think this kind of diet is acceptable and can be used to make recovery gains during strength training?

    Thanks.

  2. #2
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    Quote Originally Posted by zendefone View Post
    Hey guys, i need help on some diet issues and am not sure if this diet is acceptable. I'm currently doing the novice program in Practical Programming.

    My goal: Gain strength but hopefully can maintain BW, or rather slow down it's increase of fat.(so the ''just eat lots'' diet is out for me.)

    I'm always under the impression that you need to eat 5-6 meals a day with protein intake spread out evenly, but due to my timetable in school, i may not be able to do that.

    What i'm thinking of doing is having 3 main meals a day, and drink 1 litre of milk in between.

    For example:

    Meal 1: Oats+5 eggs+1 fruit
    Meal 2: 1 liter of milk
    Meal 3: Chicken + Green veggies+ some oils
    Meal 4: 1 liter of milk
    Meal 5: Grass fed beef + veggies
    And maybe will eat some almonds before bed.

    Basically, i will try to squeeze all the nutritious foods into the 3 main meals and add 1 liter milk in between.

    Do you guys think this kind of diet is acceptable and can be used to make recovery gains during strength training?

    Thanks.
    It's difficult to maintain bodyweight and make solid gains at the same time if you're a novice. This diet will certainly have you maintaining bodyweight because you won't be eating enough to have a caloric surplus. How much do you currently weigh?

  3. #3
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    There is no point in you spelling out the minutae of 5 meals for us. There are only 2 things that matter for you:

    -Total Calories
    -Protein

    The merits of eating 5 meals per day verus 3 meals are nil. If that's a good system for you to control appetite, fine, but there is no advantage as far as building muscle goes.

    If you are a true novice in all your lifts, but the first month you could get away with eating at maintenence and still get quite a big stronger. But you will sacrifice some gains that would be possible with eating propery.

    Eating an excess of 500cal above maintenance sounds like a better approach for your situation. You will gain about a pound per weak on this diet, but with the muscle you build, you will not look any fatter.

  4. #4
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    Thanks for the replies guys.

    Quote Originally Posted by Nauticus View Post
    It's difficult to maintain bodyweight and make solid gains at the same time if you're a novice. This diet will certainly have you maintaining bodyweight because you won't be eating enough to have a caloric surplus. How much do you currently weigh?
    I'm 154 lb and 5ft 8 in. yeah by now you'll be shouting at me for me to gain weight, i know i'm damn skinny. But i have another problem, chin ups, i can only do 2 chin ups(yeah damn pathetic). And i'm pretty certain/fear that when i gain weight, my chin up numbers will turn to 0(probably because my legs gets bigger way faster than my upper body) and i wanna be able to do chin/pull ups. I don't mind gaining BW, just not too much of fat.

    Quote Originally Posted by Bloodninja666 View Post
    There is no point in you spelling out the minutae of 5 meals for us. There are only 2 things that matter for you:

    -Total Calories
    -Protein

    The merits of eating 5 meals per day verus 3 meals are nil. If that's a good system for you to control appetite, fine, but there is no advantage as far as building muscle goes.

    If you are a true novice in all your lifts, but the first month you could get away with eating at maintenence and still get quite a big stronger. But you will sacrifice some gains that would be possible with eating propery.

    Eating an excess of 500cal above maintenance sounds like a better approach for your situation. You will gain about a pound per weak on this diet, but with the muscle you build, you will not look any fatter.
    Thanks for the info of 3 meals vs 5 meals.

    Only total calories and protein matters? But what if you're eating junk food? Like ice cream and all that? I always thought you'll need healthy, nutritious, whole foods and enough veggies for being lean and strong?
    Last edited by zendefone; 12-28-2009 at 09:09 PM.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by zendefone View Post
    Like ice cream and all that?
    Eating nothing but ice cream to get to 200 pounds is a much better diet than what those 160 pound guys eat to not get strong.

    Re-evaluate what you've decided to label as "junk food". Protip: if it has many or most of its components composed of Real Food then it ________

  6. #6
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    Quote Originally Posted by zendefone View Post
    Thanks for the replies guys.


    I'm 154 lb and 5ft 8 in. yeah by now you'll be shouting at me for me to gain weight, i know i'm damn skinny. But i have another problem, chin ups, i can only do 2 chin ups(yeah damn pathetic). And i'm pretty certain/fear that when i gain weight, my chin up numbers will turn to 0(probably because my legs gets bigger way faster than my upper body) and i wanna be able to do chin/pull ups. I don't mind gaining BW, just not too much of fat.


    Thanks for the info of 3 meals vs 5 meals.

    Only total calories and protein matters? But what if you're eating junk food? Like ice cream and all that? I always thought you'll need healthy, nutritious, whole foods and enough veggies for being lean and strong?
    1. Eat the food. If you train the chin-up while gaining body weight, you'll notice that the number of chins up will remain the same.

    2. When it comes to weight gain, your body does not care what food you eat; if you're eating on a calorie surplus, you will gain weight.

    3. You're going to gain some body fat. Nothing horrible but when you gain weight, you'll be putting on both muscle mass and fat.

  7. #7
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    Quote Originally Posted by zendefone View Post
    Only total calories and protein matters? But what if you're eating junk food? Like ice cream and all that? I always thought you'll need healthy, nutritious, whole foods and enough veggies for being lean and strong?
    At a basic level, muscle is made out of your response to training induced stress, protein and calories. So, as long as you're getting enough protein, enough calories, and enough stress you'll be growing.
    So, why eat healthy? Well, you want to get a full complement of vitamins and minerals and amino acids, you want to get a good ratio of omega-3 and 6 fatty acids, maybe you're afraid of the adverse health effects of eating "bad food."
    BUT, in the short term, your goal should be making it through the novice program, which means eating 5k calories a day, making linear progression on the lifts, and getting about a gram of protein per pound of bodyweight.
    During that time, you can play around with replacing "junk" calories with more nutritious calories, but make sure you're not coming down in calories as you eat healthier. What you'll probably eventually find, is that it's incredibly difficult to eat 5000 clean calories, but it'll be good practice for eating clean if you decide you need to make eating clean a priority later.

  8. #8
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    Muscle is a lot harder to gain than fat, thats for sure. If you're serious about getting strong, then you gotta accept that you're gonna gain some fat, you're gonna have an increase in BF%. once you're where you wanna be strength wise, you can then worry about getting rid of that excess fat and hopefully you wont lose your LBW(Lean Body Weight.) Like you, I worry about that, but I'm more focused on getting to my 500 deadlift/400 squat/300 bench/200 press right now than I am on looking cut for beach season, y'know?

  9. #9
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    Quote Originally Posted by mcsquared View Post
    Like you, I worry about that, but I'm more focused on getting to my 500 deadlift/400 squat/300 bench/200 press right now than I am on looking cut for beach season, y'know?
    Let's all give thanks for winter and the bulky clothing it entails.

  10. #10
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    Alright thanks people, i get the idea now. I will just jack my calories up then, but try to add veggies in too. I'll try to eat alot mainly in my 3 main meals, then add milk in between.

    And thanks trackjunkie for the clear explanation.

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