advice on how to bulk

[pastorfeels]

im 21 years old, 22 in febuary, im currently 6'2 160lbs on good day i have been lifting since late 2011. i have rarely missed a day at gym excpet when i would go on vaxcion for 2-4 weeks, i started off at 6'1 135lbs and i have only put on 25lbs in 2- almost 3 years i have been stuck at 160 for at least 6 months. i did a 5 day brosplit my bodybuilding cousin had used. i did it for a year then switched to starting strength. witch i have been doin for a year an half. i havent been able to get passed these numbers in my lifts cause im weak,

for some reason i just cant eat i have tried so many times but i get full so fast that to me its easier to skip meals then gym. i just want to get to 190-210lbs

how do i eat 3,000-4,000 + calories without feeling sick. i started drinkin two 1,000 calorie shakes one in the morn an one at night but i still struggle to eat 1,500 cals i dont know why i hate eating so or why its so hard. ive tried eating six spaced 500 cal meals but still couldnt do it. how do i stimulate my appetite or how do i get my body an mind used to eating. on side note im able to lift better on days im fasted vs when i have eaten anything before lifting. stopped bicycling everywhere a month an half ago to try an gain

6’2 160lbs Dyel Hungry Skeleton 5x5 Stats:

Squat:200 clean&press:100
Deadlift:280 Bench:145
BBrow:130 cleans:110

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

1) Why are you doing 5x5?

2) I'm not sure if there's anything unique that I can tell you besides that you're going to have to get used to eating to the point of being uncomfortable. Ed Coan, perhaps the G.O.A.T of powerlifting, told me he had to "eat cleaner" to gain weight because all the weight gaining shakes and fast food filled him up too quickly. I would recommend eating single ingredient foods every 3hrs (set your alarm). Have a good hunk of protein, something starchy, and a big glass of whole milk (+/- lactase pill if you don't drink milk regularly). Chicken/beef/steak/rice/oats/eggs/yogurt/milk/peanut butter and jelly sandwiches/pasta/etc.

3) There are no secrets/shortcuts...really.

[Brodie Butland]

Whole milk should become your best friend. Use it. Half a gallon is 1200 calories, which you can easily pack in a day. Ground beef is good and reasonably cheap as well.

For his particularly difficult-to-gain-weight trainees, Vince Gironda used to make a drink of half ginger ale, half cream in an 8 oz. glass...he'd have them drink three a day for bulking. I've done this before...not overly filling, tastes pretty good (like an Italian cream soda), and it's packed with calories. I don't use those anymore because they don't fit my macros...but in your case (correct me if I'm wrong, J...), packing the calories in is a bigger priority for the time being.

[RickBarker]

No matter how many times I see this complaint, I just can't believe it. No offense at all meant to OP, just... for real? You can't eat enough? I love food so much. At one point while trying to gain weight, I was eating 5500 calories a day and I STILL felt hungry after a heavy deadlift session. Why not just add some very calorie dense but not very filling foods? Pasta, rice, and oil come to mind quickly.

I'll ask a question so this isn't just a rant. Jordan, how common is this in your experience? Do you think it has to do with habituation? As in, this guy has just never really eaten that much? Or are there other factors at play?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Jordan, how common is this in your experience? Do you think it has to do with habituation? As in, this guy has just never really eaten that much? Or are there other factors at play?

Yea there are some people who would otherwise not eat. If I had to hazard a guess, there are other things going on like weird sleep habits, lots of caffeine or stims, and a history of undereating overall. It has not been a large part of my experience, however.

[Roman B.]

This has been my problem since about birth. Soviet doctors sometimes prescribed weird things, possibly as experiments, and they didn't allow breast feeding for me. Probably this was the start. As much as I remember myself, it has always been very difficult to eat any significant amount of food beyond the minimum. I also refused to eat meat, followed many recommendations from "literature", like avoiding salt, milk, fats, etc. An interesting point is that some time ago my school teacher said she believes I will love pork lard ("salo" in Ukrainian), especially smoked. After I tried for a few times, I really loved it. In the same way I gradually introduced chicken legs, then pork meat. Only recently I was able to add some other kinds of meat. Due to under-eating I have always had about 125-135 lb body weight. Training hard with a home made 40 kg barbell (for many sets and reps) at high school was when my BW increased to about 140 lb (at 5'7"). It was extremely difficult to put muscle on. I was weak and there were not many weeks in any given year when I wasn't ill.

All that time I was constantly looking for ways to become strong, but they didn't work. Ever. Until last year, when I found Starting Strength, bought a barbell, a squat rack, and other equipment from the USA, and started training in the middle of January at 125 lb BW. GOMAD, Creatine, protein supplementation, dextrose, and some vitamins were all I could consume. No palpable food at all, but still my calorie intake increased and this brought me to about 148 lb in 6 weeks. Then I got injured and spent almost half a year for recovery (in retrospect I was too cautious). Since August I've been training consistently but ate at a slight deficit and didn't check my BW for 1.5 months. In mid-September I was about 143 lb, and now I'm 161 and growing. It is still difficult to force myself to eat, but my guide is scale and I try really hard. Average gain is about 1-2 lb per week. I've put relatively little fat on me and look fantastically better than before. All lifts are increasing slowly but steadily. I've switched to Advanced Novice programming recently.

tl;dr It is sometimes very difficult to eat, but at the end it all comes down to goals and priorities.

[Skel]

for some reason i just cant eat i have tried so many times but i get full so fast that to me its easier to skip meals then gym. i just want to get to 190-210lbs

how do i eat 3,000-4,000 + calories without feeling sick.

I had a similar problem. I'd been a (fashionably, I'll have you know - heh) skinny wretch all my life and just autoregulated my diet to stay that way. My lifts got stuck really early so I picked an arbitrary figure of 3800kCal and hit the food. On day one I felt horribly bloated, and noticed eight hours into day two that I'd been getting by on coffee and fresh air. It's as if your body plays a sneaky trick and thinks 'hey - you ate two days worth of food yesterday so you're having nothing today, and if you DO try to eat I'll make you feel bloated'.

This is the opposite of the problem that fat people have, and you have to deal with it accordingly i.e. with sheer willpower. So count your calories and make yourself eat. And if you do that guess what? The bloated, sick feeling mostly goes away, provided you stick at it every single day. I guess your body just realises that this is how it's going to be from now on and throws in the towel.

If you're feeling really rough a walk helps, and it's a good idea not to stuff your face before trying to sleep. I've found that it's also good idea to avoid coffee - unless accompanied by several doughnuts - as it fills you up and provides caffeine energy that should be coming from food. Also, carry a calorie dense snack around so you don't have an excuse to miss a meal.

I hope this helps. I have to go now because I have an appointment with an entire chocolate and sherry trifle that's lurking in my fridge. The old skinny me really doesn't want to eat that rich custard and thick cream, but eat it I must, even though I can hear everyone on this board who's a little on the fluffy side muttering 'you complete and utter bastard, Skel' under their breath. So heed my words and don't fear the trifle, Pastor, don't fear the trifle.

[Dunk]

Out of curiosity what are you eating to get the 3-4k of calories in a day? I sort of had this problem, although I was trying to eat 6k calories. I found that if i ate fast foods, although I could eat more of them at one sitting I'd be pretty much full all day. I find it a lot easier to get the majority of calories from whole foods when trying to gain weight and keep an eye on fibre.

[Josh K]

Ed Coan, perhaps the G.O.A.T of powerlifting, told me he had to "eat cleaner" to gain weight because all the weight gaining shakes and fast food filled him up too quickly.

I also recently found that switching to cleaner/single ingredient foods made it easier to hit my calories for the day, and I'm fairly sure it's to do with taste. When I'm really full, the thought of eating another slice of hot, cheesy, sweet, salty pizza, or drinking a sickly sweet shake makes me feel nauseous. But I can quite happily keep pecking at cottage cheese/Greek yoghurt, sipping on some milk or munching on plain granola even after I feel full, because they taste of fuck all.

[Skel]

Maybe slowly increasing the daily calories would work for the OP? How about counting them for a week to establish a baseline, then upping that by a hundred or so every few days until they're sufficient? Perhaps this would allow his digestive system to get used to the idea that it's going to have to eat and process MOAR FOOD! whilst keeping the unpleasant side effects to a minimum?