Eating enough

[CarteringKat]

Good morning SS!

Sooo I'm definitely new here and to the program. Just five weeks in(I know) and I'm feeling great. Just as a measure of performance I took my squat from 155 to 230(still too weak) and I'm up from 165 to ~175. My goal weight is ~190lbs and for a 5'7 23 year old guy that's going to look damn good IMO.

The hardest part is 1. getting under the bar for more weight in the squat every other day and 2. eating enough F-ing calories in a day. I know this has been addressed, but after a quick search I wasn't able to find any post that had any true list of tips for getting enough food. I would love to hit 4500-5000, but I'm struggling to hit 3500 calories with a gallon of whole milk and 2 meals which I know is not enough. I currently don't eat anything before my morning lifting session which is something I'm trying to address(any tips?). I know I need more to fill my day because if I go longer than 4 hours without eating I'm miserable and grouchy especially during the week, but it doesn't actually take much to fill me up and make eating a chore again.

Is there anything I can do with timing that would help out other than adding the small-mediumish meal before the workout??? I've been hesitant to use protein supplementation because I think I'm a grown up and should be able to do this without it, but I'm coming to the realization that maybe I can't.

Any tip and tricks and ideas and face-punches would be great especially if they're constructive!!! Thanks so much for the time.

[Robert Santana]

Good morning SS!

Sooo I'm definitely new here and to the program. Just five weeks in(I know) and I'm feeling great. Just as a measure of performance I took my squat from 155 to 230(still too weak) and I'm up from 165 to ~175. My goal weight is ~190lbs and for a 5'7 23 year old guy that's going to look damn good IMO.

The hardest part is 1. getting under the bar for more weight in the squat every other day and 2. eating enough F-ing calories in a day. I know this has been addressed, but after a quick search I wasn't able to find any post that had any true list of tips for getting enough food. I would love to hit 4500-5000, but I'm struggling to hit 3500 calories with a gallon of whole milk and 2 meals which I know is not enough. I currently don't eat anything before my morning lifting session which is something I'm trying to address(any tips?). I know I need more to fill my day because if I go longer than 4 hours without eating I'm miserable and grouchy especially during the week, but it doesn't actually take much to fill me up and make eating a chore again.

Is there anything I can do with timing that would help out other than adding the small-mediumish meal before the workout??? I've been hesitant to use protein supplementation because I think I'm a grown up and should be able to do this without it, but I'm coming to the realization that maybe I can't.

Any tip and tricks and ideas and face-punches would be great especially if they're constructive!!! Thanks so much for the time.

Thanks for posting!

So a gallon of whole milk is going to give you 192 carbs, 128 protein, and 128 g fat. How large are your meals?

The general recommendation that i like to give young, novice, males is to eat >300 carbs and their body weight in protein or more. That's a good start for most. My guess is that most of your calories are coming from fat and you aren't getting enough carbs and/or protein. Without knowing what else you eat I cannot definitively say that.

[CarteringKat]

Thanks for posting!

So a gallon of whole milk is going to give you 192 carbs, 128 protein, and 128 g fat. How large are your meals?

The general recommendation that i like to give young, novice, males is to eat >300 carbs and their body weight in protein or more. That's a good start for most. My guess is that most of your calories are coming from fat and you aren't getting enough carbs and/or protein. Without knowing what else you eat I cannot definitively say that.

Ok well I'm feeling a little better about my caloric intake now. Sorry for not including my other meals. The other two meals typically consist of a palm-sized portion of meat and a slightly larger amount of a carb typically rice or sweet potato and some form of green. I try to add a banana at some point as well, but I think that needs to get increased as well. I'm hanging out around 35g of protein per meal and 40 grams of carbs and frankly I don't measure the fat because I get enough from the milk. I would be interested in going to 2% or something like that so I can increase my protein and carbs from my meals because even drinking the whole gallon of whole can be a challenge most days.

I've kind of stalled at 175 and I've maintained my BF percentage as well throughout the program which is partly why I'm thinking I need a little more food.

Thank you so much for your reply and all your help!

[Robert Santana]

Ok well I'm feeling a little better about my caloric intake now. Sorry for not including my other meals. The other two meals typically consist of a palm-sized portion of meat and a slightly larger amount of a carb typically rice or sweet potato and some form of green. I try to add a banana at some point as well, but I think that needs to get increased as well. I'm hanging out around 35g of protein per meal and 40 grams of carbs and frankly I don't measure the fat because I get enough from the milk. I would be interested in going to 2% or something like that so I can increase my protein and carbs from my meals because even drinking the whole gallon of whole can be a challenge most days.

I've kind of stalled at 175 and I've maintained my BF percentage as well throughout the program which is partly why I'm thinking I need a little more food.

Thank you so much for your reply and all your help!

You are very welcome man! Don't worry about the weight on the scale so much, worry about the weight on the bar. If you are getting stronger you are going to get bigger. Get your carbs figured out first. if you are making progress continue eating the way you are eating. If progress stalls add more carbs. If carbs get too high beyond a practical level (~i.e. 500-600 carbs) then add more fat.

[MattBraunstein]

Honestly, I’m not sure how you could get a good amount of protein without some sort of sumplementation.

Have you considered creating a smoothie in a blender? Mixing in some oatmeal, protein powder, nuts, milk & whatever else you want is a great way to jam in some calories without the feeling of fullness you get from eating the equivalent solid foods.

[Chris93]

A good tip for your „breakfast“ could be to drink a shake made with whole milk, 1 or 2 scoops of whey and some „instant oats „.
Those oats are very cheap and the shake will give you ~ 700 kcal with some Protein and lots of good carbs.
For me it helps!

[Jbaker91]

"Eating through the sticking points" by Matt Reynolds is a good read on this subject. Like a few other people have said here a smoothie in the morning is a good way to get calories in the morning if you aren't much of a breakfast person. I've used waxy maize in my smoothies in the past to get more carbs and that seemed to help.

I did gomad for about a month and my total calories day to day ranged from 4,000 to 5,000 at 5'9 I drove my body weight from 150 to 180 in that amount of time. Now, to be fair I was working a super flexible schedule with my dad so it wasn't hard for me to stop throughout the day to stuff my face. Eating like that was really tough for me, I was uncomfortably full constantly but it worked. The funny thing is as soon as I hit 180 I ended up taking a job on a farm working 60-70 hours a week with almost no time to stop and eat through the day and my body weight dropped all the way back down to 155 in only two months. I was pretty ripped, but my heart was broken.

I guess my point is if you want to gain more weight you need to go outside your comfort range as far as eating goes. But like Robert said I think the more important thing is the weight on the bar rather than the scale and if that's still going up just keep doing what you're doing.

[CarteringKat]

A good tip for your „breakfast“ could be to drink a shake made with whole milk, 1 or 2 scoops of whey and some „instant oats „.
Those oats are very cheap and the shake will give you ~ 700 kcal with some Protein and lots of good carbs.
For me it helps!

I really like that idea. I'm going to have to play with it because that seems really heavy right in the morning at 6 and working out at 7. Thanks for the input!

[CarteringKat]

"Eating through the sticking points" by Matt Reynolds is a good read on this subject. Like a few other people have said here a smoothie in the morning is a good way to get calories in the morning if you aren't much of a breakfast person. I've used waxy maize in my smoothies in the past to get more carbs and that seemed to help.

I did gomad for about a month and my total calories day to day ranged from 4,000 to 5,000 at 5'9 I drove my body weight from 150 to 180 in that amount of time. Now, to be fair I was working a super flexible schedule with my dad so it wasn't hard for me to stop throughout the day to stuff my face. Eating like that was really tough for me, I was uncomfortably full constantly but it worked. The funny thing is as soon as I hit 180 I ended up taking a job on a farm working 60-70 hours a week with almost no time to stop and eat through the day and my body weight dropped all the way back down to 155 in only two months. I was pretty ripped, but my heart was broken.

I guess my point is if you want to gain more weight you need to go outside your comfort range as far as eating goes. But like Robert said I think the more important thing is the weight on the bar rather than the scale and if that's still going up just keep doing what you're doing.

I'm definitely always uncomfortably full. Working where I work it can be hard to eat all day, but grabbing another cup of milk is pretty easy so I normally get milk most of the time at work.

I'm also definitely going to check that book out. Thank you for the input!! I spent my years in high school running cross country and track and it was impossible to gain weight no matter how much I ate my junior and senior year when I started lifting then. In reality I was in amazing shape, just not very strong, but even that was coming along.