Female Novice Bulking Advice

[Nicky]

Age: 33
Height: 5 foot 2
Weight: 111lbs
Sex: Female

Training: General bodybuilding/fitness background until starting 531. Now on fourth cycle of 531 training four days per week. However, need to focus more on technique and big 3 lifts so changing to Starting Strength over three days.

Diet: Training days 2305kcals, Non training days 1850kcals
On training days:
1.6g per lb for protein
1.4g per lb for carbs
0.8g per lb for fat

Question: Wanting to gain muscle and mass to push weights up but struggling despite taking in above the recommended quantities for a novice female (taken from To Be A Beast). Not sure how to alter diet to achieve this. Any advice or suggestions would be fantastic!!!

Typical training day diet:
Meal 1: 6 eggs (4 whole and 2 whites) + 1 banana
Meal 2 (Pre workout): 150g chicken breast, 30g peanut butter
Meal 3 (Post workout): 3 whole eggs + 1 bottle of Lucazade
Meal 4: 120g chicken breast, 5 oat cakes or 80g pineapple and 1 banana
Meal 5: 150g salmon, 20g mixed seeds + 1 pear
Meal 6: 40g mixed nuts (walnuts, almonds, brazils)

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Question: Wanting to gain muscle and mass to push weights up but struggling despite taking in above the recommended quantities for a novice female (taken from To Be A Beast). Not sure how to alter diet to achieve this. Any advice or suggestions would be fantastic!!!

I'd move the peanut butter to breakfast, but add 1.5C cooked white rice to your pre workout meal. I'd also dropkick the lucazade because it's 50kCal of worthlessness :-) I'd swap this out for 2C of oatmeal. Meal 6 I'd just combine with meal 5 as I'm thinking your meal timing could use some tweaking (3-5hours between meals min and max). If not, I'd just add 1 scoop of whey to meal 6.

[Nicky]

LOL...the English version of Lucazade must be different to the US one! The one I have has 266kcals!!! I'm more than happy to ditch it though as I prefer a natural, wholefood diet and it fills me up too much. The other suggestions I will implement straight away. Would you stick with the lower calories on non training days? It's just that I do cycle on my off days for pleasure and I'm wondering if I should be replacing the lost kcals as at present I don't.

Also, how often would you review such a dietary change? I only weigh in once per week. Should I give it a few weeks before checking the scales?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Would you stick with the lower calories on non training days?

Depends on what your weight is doing every 1-2 weeks, which is how I would go about changing intake.

[mariawolters]

Nicky, I'm in Scotland - the diet version on Lucozade is 50 kcal.