The following article is from our FREE monthly newsletter, The Brutal Truth. If youd like to receive the newsletter via email, contact me at brutalirongym@gmail ________________________________________ Nutrition – Eating to Gain Weight “It’s a matter of choice… simply do whatever it takes” When I was 15 years old I realized I was chubby and I didn’t like it, so for a year I had the goal of doing push ups and sit ups every day, by the end of the year I had only missed 10 days. When I turned 16 I realized I was “skinny-fat” meaning I was small and thin in stature but I didn’t have any muscle tone, I was soft and looked chubby despite being very thin… so, I decided to stop eating. I ate on average only 1-2 meals per day and continued to do that through the age of 17 during which I grew 4 inches but lost 10lb in body weight. I ended that period of time still, in my mind, skinny and fat. It was then upon turning 18 that I decided “To hell with it… if I’m going to be chubby, let me at least be big!” so I embarked on another goal, the goal of drinking one gallon of milk a day, yes “a” day, meaning every single day. I did this for 2 years without missing a single day, how the hell did you do that you ask? Well, it was my freshman and sophomore years of college and I had a lot of free time, yes I should have been doing homework and going to classes, haha, but even with my focus on drinking milk, my grades did alright, haha. After the two years of drinking a gallon of milk a day I realized, “Well, I’ve gained weight, but good lord, I’m fat” haha. So then my goal became eating “clean” and trying to eat as much as I could. I figured with “clean” foods I would be able to lean out but with eating as much as I could I would still stay bigger. I followed this goal with a few minor detours along the way for many years and in the process each year I have gained weight while dropping in body fat. The journey that started as a pudgy 150lb kid at 15 years old has led me to now be 30 years old at 260lb with the same size waist I had at 150lb… in fact I’ve been as heavy as 280lb while still having the same size waist. That’s over 100lb added to my body with none added to my waist. How’d I do it? “It’s a matter of choice… simply do whatever it takes” One of my favorite “eating to grow” stories occurred around the age of 24 during which time I was attending Winthrop University here in South Carolina. At the time I had a goal of consuming 5,000 calories per day and part of that food intake was a protein and oats shake that I would drink 3 times a day. And as an FYI, I HATE drinking protein and oats, it’s lumpy and I feel like I’m going to puke if I don’t chew it up but the consistency is so soft that there’s nothing to actually chew, so basically I would drink and gag, drink and gag, over and over until the shake was finished. And this led to a funny moment one day. By this day in the diet I had set a rule for myself that I had to finish a shake before a particular class in the day, so since I hate the shake I was procrastinating and had to finish the shake with only a minute or two left before class time. Part of the rule was that I couldn’t go to into the building of the class until the shake was finished, so, I was standing in the parking lot trying to drink/chew the shake. With every swallow/bite I could feel myself getting sicker and sicker but I thought “this is the goal, finish the damn shake”… so I kept pouring it in. Well, as you can probably already guess. upon swallowing the last gulp of the shake I violently vomited… right in the middle of the parking lot… with other students all around me. A normal person would have been embarrassed but I was actually mad because I knew that since I had thrown the shake up… it didn’t count… therefore I had to make up the calories later in the day… through yet another damn shake, haha. I tell that story to emphasize this… “It’s a matter of choice… simply do whatever it takes” I hated what I was eating, so much so that I threw up, but yet I still tried to drink it and I still made up the calories later in the day. The option of “not doing it” was, in fact, not an option. I knew what my goal was, I had set a plan and therefore I had no choices. I could not choose to do it or not do it, the choice was already made the day I wrote the plan. I’ve had other similar goals, one was to do 6am cardio every single day during a diet phase and I accomplished that goal for 10 months in a row, no missed days… none… how?... because “not doing it” was never a choice… I knew what my goal was, I had set a plan and therefore I had no choice. And that’s the approach you must take if you wish to gain weight… the right way. And by “the right way” I mean gaining weight while still keeping your waist line in check. It’s easy to gain weight through ice cream and fast food, trust me, I’ve been there done that, it doesn’t lead where you want to go, instead you must eat “clean” and you must eat A LOT! Here’s the basics… • Avoid Sugar. Sugar tastes good but it’ll make you fat faster than anything else. So, keep your sugar intake low throughout the day and I’d even recommend that you do not consume a pure sugar containing food item or if you do make sure you control the amount and pair it with a protein at the time of ingestion. The protein will help blunt the insulin response and the sugars will help take the protein around the body which is an added bonus. • No liquid calories other than protein powder. Liquid calories such as Gatorade and sweet tea will only make you fat, your body cannot use those calories to build muscle or to repair tissues or even to recover from workout to workout, instead you must focus on whole foods, they take more energy from the body to digest and they’re harder to “overeat” meaning your body will burn more calories digesting whole foods compared to liquids and you’ll be less likely to gain body fat. • Stay Clean. When selecting protein, carb and fat sources, select natural unprocessed options when possible. For proteins lean meats work best, in other sources be careful of sugars that may come with the protein such as the case with milk. The sugars in the milk make it more likely to cause body fat storage as compared to the same amount of protein achieved through a source without the sugars, such as with meat. Carb sources I’ve used include rice, potatoes, pasta and beans, there may be a few others you can throw in like Ezekiel bread or P28 Bread but normally I try to stick with the other sources because I feel the energy lasts longer and I feel like my muscles are fuller as compared to breads. As for fats I use whole eggs, oils, avocados, nut butter and red meats. • Additives If Needed – If you’re eating clean options but your weight doesn’t seem to be going up and the thought of adding any more meat or complex carbs make you contemplate suicide, haha, then don’t be afraid to add additives like sauces, oils or other things to make a meal taste better but with minimal “size” to the added calories. I will stress that you MUST maximize your whole food intake before you add additives to the diet, but they do become useful to break through plateaus. One example is adding marinara sauce to a chicken and rice meal. Adding a can of marinara sauce a day can increase your calories by up to 800 per day without the feeling of having to eat more. And it makes the chicken and rice more appealing and moist making it easier to eat and thus you can eat more. • How to Use a Scale. You want to weigh yourself in the mornings and at night. When trying to gain weight without adding too much body fat you want to aim for a body weight increase of 4-8lb per month. This will not be pure muscle and there will be a little fat that comes along with it but following this rate of weight gain will control how much body fat you do gain and then at the end of the gaining period you can do a short diet phase to clean off the added body fat. So, weigh yourself every morning to see what your weight is at, if its low eat more than day, if its too high then eat a little less and track this morning weight every day/week so that you can see your weight gain rate at the end of each month. As for weighing yourself at night, when trying to gain weight you will hall into a pattern of going to bed and waking up around the same weights each day, so if you notice at night you’re 1-2lb lighter than normal eat a big meal before you go to bed to ensure you don’t drop weight for that day, if you’re 1-2lb heavier you may want to eat a lighter meal and see if your weight is going up too fast or right on track. Sample Diet 5 meals a day consisting of a Protein Source with EITHER a Carb or a Fat Source • Protein Source: o Lean Meat (contains 4g Fat or less per 4oz serving) o Egg Whites (don’t be afraid to add a few yolks) o Cottage Cheese o Protein Powder • Carb Source: o Rice (Brown or Jasmine Rice or Quinoa) o White Potato / Sweet Potato o Pasta (Egg, Spinach, Wheat or Brown Rice Pasta) o Beans (black, pinto, white, lima, etc…) o Oats o Ezekiel Bread or P28 Bread • Fat Source: o Fatty Meats (counts as protein as well – just add vegetables to make complete meal) o Oils (Olive, Coconut, Macadamia Nut) o Egg Yolks o Avocado o Nut Butter • Vegetables: (to add volume to meals) o broccoli, cauliflower, asparagus, cucumber, carrots, radish, zucchini, celery, spinach, snow peas (any others, just ask) • Quick Snacks: o Cheese (any kind) o Nuts (any kind) o Peanut Butter & 1 Rice Cake o Trail Mix o Protein Bar (Quest, Power Bar, MetRx Prime) • Liquids: anything no- or low-calorie; want to avoid sweet tea, fruit juices, Gatorade, etc…
Posted on: Tue, 09 Sep 2014 10:00:01 +0000
Trending Topics
Recently Viewed Topics
© 2015