Very Basic Dietary Question

I've decided to stop fucking around with my diet. I take my training seriously enough that my diet should have the same focus. So starting tomorrow I'm going to start eating 5000 calories a day everyday, no fucking around.

The main thing getting in the way of further growth the past 9 months has been lack of protein and cals and not because of anything other than laziness. I'm too lazy to cook/shop for quality food and I gotta get on top of that.

I'm going to split it into 6 meals:
6am - 625 cals
9am - 625 cals
noon - 625 cals
3pm - 625 cals
workout
5pm postworkout - 1875 cals (basically 3 meals in one)
8pm - 625 cals

Each 625 calorie meal is essentially:
90 grams of protein
10 grams of fat
45 grams of carbs

Yep I'm gonna be eating 720 grams of protein per day. Chicken holocaust here we come.
 
AfterGlow said:
Allow me to ask an even more basic question... wouldn't you want to consume mostly carbs before a workout to provide fuel for energy and mostly protein after a workout to sustain muscle building?
Click to expand...

If you have just woken and are deciding to do a workout that morning yes you should consume a low GI carb/pro meal to give your body the energy it needs to get in a decent workout. If training in the afternoon however for myself at least (everybody and their diets are different) i eat enough carbs through the day so i dont need to eat a carb meal before the gym i just have a can of tuna and a pro shake then have a mix of carbs/pro shake immeadiatly after lifting...

And as everyone else has already stated you should consume protein in every meal thoughout the day

Hope this helps :)
 
aanallein said:
I've decided to stop fucking around with my diet. I take my training seriously enough that my diet should have the same focus. So starting tomorrow I'm going to start eating 5000 calories a day everyday, no fucking around.

The main thing getting in the way of further growth the past 9 months has been lack of protein and cals and not because of anything other than laziness. I'm too lazy to cook/shop for quality food and I gotta get on top of that.

I'm going to split it into 6 meals:
6am - 625 cals
9am - 625 cals
noon - 625 cals
3pm - 625 cals
workout
5pm postworkout - 1875 cals (basically 3 meals in one)
8pm - 625 cals

Each 625 calorie meal is essentially:
90 grams of protein
10 grams of fat
45 grams of carbs

Yep I'm gonna be eating 720 grams of protein per day. Chicken holocaust here we come.
Click to expand...
Congrats, can't wait to see the pics after a while!!

Fuck missing cals/protein goals based on missing meals or not having food cooked up, that's what the weightgainer bucket is for, insurance against not eating enough!! Eventually the liquid shits will convince you to eat a higher % of normal food with the weightgainer, but this way you still hit macro/cal goals.

If the protein is at that level because you just like eating that much chicken, go for it. If not, swap that out for fats and/or carbs. Protein has the highest metabolic cost to digest (lose about a third of a calorie for each calorie you digest) and can give the worst friggin cramping, I have a feeling that protein value is gonna just be a major inconvenience, and there's zero benefit to consuming more than you need (but you don't know *exactly* how much you do need, so you overshoot, but that's like triple overshot!!).

Damn I can't wait to see how fast you can gain weight, and strength, once you dial that diet in!! Heh, if you started in with some speed training for your big 3 lifts, wow you'd be a friggin beast in like a year!!
 
3/4 of a kilo of protein/day sounds like a huge amount (to me). What percentage of that is derived from shakes?
 
I don't like shakes so as little as possible.

I'm hypoglycemic so carbs make me feel terrible. My diet has always been very protein heavy.
 
Im currently finding it pretty hard to hit my carb targets so my pre and post work out shakes are pretty carb intensive. All high GI carbs. Usually about 60g Malto, 20g Dextrose, 30g Protein Preworkout and 10g Malto, 10g Sucrose, 30g Dextrose, 30g Protein Postworkout.

To compensate for all that sugar I try and restrict my sugar intake for the rest of the day. Gotta love those yams!
 
"carb targets"? Heard of protein, fat, and calorie targets, never ever a carb target tho..
 
Well... its more like my calorie target than my carb target... My problem is I find it much easier eating huge ammounts of protein and fat than eating heavy slow digesting carbs... I could up my protein intake but that already costs me enough in fish and steak... Im not a huge fan of cheaper protein sources.
 
Why not just up your fat intake? It's so much easier since it's more calorie dense (9cal/gram, as opposed to 4cal/g on protein and carbs), tastes great generally, etc. Protein is the worst thing to use to make the difference between what you consumed and the calories you needed, as far too much is burnt up due to the high metabolic cost of protein digestion. Hit your protein goals (well, overshoot to be sure, but you know what I mean), hit your fat goals, and use carbs and/or fat to fill the remaining gap up til your calorie mark for that day ;).
 
But you must need a certain amount of carbohydrates to promote anabolism and to shuttle the free aminos in the blood. This is actually why I asked the question, because i was unaware of the proper ratio, and am having trouble getting in all these carbs myself (my protein supplements have no carbs; goat whey). So in that sense I suppose there could certainly be a "carb target"...
 
negro, iirc you were talking about carbs in their specific pre-workout role - the posts I made in response to p-mo were in regard to his seeming to think he *needs* a certain amount of carbs in his day. Aside from postworkout, carbs are generally unneeded (well, not completely, but you get the picture), it's calorie total, fat total, and protein totals that are imporant, and he seemed concerned about his daily carb intake, not pre/post workout carb consumption.
 
I wasn't really wanting to push my fat intake too high as I was worried about insulin response given my sugar intake was so high. I guess the way to do it would be to drop my sugar intake and up my fat intake. I've always eaten a lot of sugar so high sugar-low fat was closer to how i'd eat 'normally'.

At the moment though Im gaining pretty quickly. After 2 years of travelling and dropping 20lbs Ive managed to put back on about 10lbs in about 7-weeks. Also looks like Ive lost a couple of bf%. Im sure once I get back to where I was gaining more will become a lot harder.

My fat intake is of fairly high quality at the moment- lots of udo's, lots of fresh fish (and a fair ammount of tinned!), lots of olive oil, whole egg, etc. Im not going on a crazy bulk with burgers and pizzas, etc. My gfs trying to lose weight at the moment so we try to keep a pretty healthy looking fridge. Don't want to rub her face in all that high-cal food.

I should probably buy some calipers and keep checking my bf. Up my fat and try and reduce sugar (apart from around workout time). If a start to notice my bf creeping up I'll start to reduce fat intake/sugar intake (even further) and up slower digesting carbs.

Just out of interest what kind of difference in bf% do you guys have between the last day of your bulk and the last day of your cut? Do you do 1 bulk and 1 cut a year or do you do more dictated by your bf? Or do you just clean bulk the whole year round and just make it even cleaner and up cardio when you notice some excess flab (or want to get trim for the beach)?
 
No cuts over here, super fast metabolism doesn't really put on weight, I haven't cut since wrestling, and those figures would be irrelevant to bulk/cut (and scary as well lol). I see people do anything between like 5-10% as a rough norm if I had to guess, although most don't caliper due to inaccuracies so it's usually based on comparisons to known bf% levels.
 
Props on 9k! Dont think I could EVER eat that much!

I'm also in the fast metabolism boat so shouldn't really be so concerned. Just trying to get a diet down that I can stick to.

I can guess at bf% but Ive never had a reading so its hard for me to know. I am super skinny (I sometimes have to wear a belt on my 28" jeans...) but from defenition and vascularity I would guess I'm at about 11 or 12% at the mo.
 
I've increased my calories per day from 3,500 average to 6,000 average (with the occasional 8k+ day) and I am getting leaner.. I woke up this morning with damn near a full on 6 pack. WTF.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Top