How important is nutrition for gainz?

[DoctorTaco]

basically, I eat like an asshole because I have a really active job and a high metabolism. We’re talking 3200-3500 calories a day and I’m not gaining weight.

I’m pretty active overall but recently have started lifting more to try and put some muscle on so this job stops tearing my body apart. Both trainers I’ve talked to have been big on nutrition- clean eating and all that.

Can’t I continue eating pizza and pad Thai and Chinese food and lift heavy things to get bigger, or do I actually have to eat healthy AND a lot of it while lifting?

 

[ChickenBrother]

basically, I eat like an asshole because I have a really active job and a high metabolism. We’re talking 3200-3500 calories a day and I’m not gaining weight.

I’m pretty active overall but recently have started lifting more to try and put some muscle on so this job stops tearing my body apart. Both trainers I’ve talked to have been big on nutrition- clean eating and all that.

Can’t I continue eating pizza and pad Thai and Chinese food and lift heavy things to get bigger, or do I actually have to eat healthy AND a lot of it while lifting?

IME clean eating is helpful for incremental health but it's DEFINITELY possible to make gains on pad Thai and Chinese take out, as long as you are getting enough calories and protein. If you have a fast metabolism as I do/did, key is lifting heavy and getting enough recovery time. Make sure you're including squats and deadlifts in your routine and do them more than once/week. A gains program that worked great for me is Stronglifts 5x5:

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

 

[DoctorTaco]

IME clean eating is helpful for incremental health but it's DEFINITELY possible to make gains on pad Thai and Chinese take out, as long as you are getting enough calories and protein. If you have a fast metabolism as I do/did, key is lifting heavy and getting enough recovery time. Make sure you're including squats and deadlifts in your routine and do them more than once/week. A gains program that worked great for me is Stronglifts 5x5:

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

hell ya, I’ll check this out.

I don’t eat fast food and I don’t eat junk food, but I live and die in that grey area of take out and quick/easy stuff you make at home

 

[ChickenBrother]

hell ya, I’ll check this out.

I don’t eat fast food and I don’t eat junk food, but I live and die in that grey area of take out and quick/easy stuff you make at home

The beauty of 5x5 is it's a simple program that forces you to get stronger and IT WORKS. The mistake I made for years was making bench and pull-ups my main lifts with infrequent squats and deads as accessory lifts. This is completely backwards if you want to make gains. If you follow the program exactly as stated, I guarantee you will make gains if you're not already doing squats more than once/week.

My first few weeks doing the routine my body was like WTF and I was massively hungry. Ended up buying like 3 or 4 pounds of beef, boiling it in a pot and eating it as leftovers with either leftover pasta in tupperware or rice (in rice cooker/warmer). Also recommend keeping gallons of whole milk in the fridge and chugging whenever. Great for extra calories and packed with protein. I went from 160 to 180 in 3 months - obviously some was fat but my shoulders were wider and I was stronger than I'd ever been in 20+ years of lifting.

 

[DoctorTaco]

The beauty of 5x5 is it's a simple program that forces you to get stronger and IT WORKS. The mistake I made for years was making bench and pull-ups my main lifts with infrequent squats and deads as accessory lifts. This is completely backwards if you want to make gains. If you follow the program exactly as stated, I guarantee you will make gains if you're not already doing squats more than once/week.

My first few weeks doing the routine my body was like WTF and I was massively hungry. Ended up buying like 3 or 4 pounds of beef, boiling it in a pot and eating it as leftovers with either leftover pasta in tupperware or rice (in rice cooker/warmer). Also recommend keeping gallons of whole milk in the fridge and chugging whenever. Great for extra calories and packed with protein. I went from 160 to 180 in 3 months - obviously some was fat but my shoulders were wider and I was stronger than I'd ever been in 20+ years of lifting.

seems pretty simple and straight forward. I like the program

 

[ocean size]

Hell nah, eating not-so clean isn't going to stop gains.

Getting enough sleep will be huge though - at least 8 hours of actual sleep, not being in bed on your phone and stuff.

If you aren't counting calories, do it. you might be surprised

I will edit this two week later and point out... that's for skinny cunts that need mass no matter what. If you are tubby you should not be doing shit food uncontrolled binging and calling it 'bulking'.

 

[LatFlare]

I sleep and recover better when i eat better quality food. But i also eatva lot of shit

 

[AlanGregson]

basically, I eat like an asshole because I have a really active job and a high metabolism. We’re talking 3200-3500 calories a day and I’m not gaining weight.

I’m pretty active overall but recently have started lifting more to try and put some muscle on so this job stops tearing my body apart. Both trainers I’ve talked to have been big on nutrition- clean eating and all that.

Can’t I continue eating pizza and pad Thai and Chinese food and lift heavy things to get bigger, or do I actually have to eat healthy AND a lot of it while lifting?

Whey protein. Never used any supplements till recently. I also have a high metabolism and when working out its basically impossible for me to eat enough food. 2 scoops of protein after a workout made a ton of differance for me.

 

[DoctorTaco]

Hell nah, eating not-so clean isn't going to stop gains.

Getting enough sleep will be huge though - at least 8 hours of actual sleep, not being in bed on your phone and stuff.

If you aren't counting calories, do it. you might be surprised

I ran MFP for a few days to check and was at or around 3k calories. Sleep is super important to me, I get 8 hours a night consistently. Helps with the aches and pains significantly.

I sleep and recover better when i eat better quality food. But i also eatva lot of shit

Preach

Whey protein. Never used any supplements till recently. I also have a high metabolism and when working out its basically impossible for me to eat enough food. 2 scoops of protein after a workout made a ton of differance for me.

ive added a protein shake to my post work out, but it’s 30g for 1 scoop. Would 2 scoops end up being more than my body could progress and thus a waste?

 

[AlanGregson]

I ran MFP for a few days to check and was at or around 3k calories. Sleep is super important to me, I get 8 hours a night consistently. Helps with the aches and pains significantly.


Preach
ive added a protein shake to my post work out, but it’s 30g for 1 scoop. Would 2 scoops end up being more than my body could progress and thus a waste?

Nope, you can get away with 3 scoops, the only reason i dont do it is because i can't afford drinking that much.

 

[ocean size]

I ran MFP for a few days to check and was at or around 3k calories. Sleep is super important to me, I get 8 hours a night consistently. Helps with the aches and pains significantly.


Preach
ive added a protein shake to my post work out, but it’s 30g for 1 scoop. Would 2 scoops end up being more than my body could progress and thus a waste?

Maybe you wouldn't get extra benefit from the protein in terms of direct synthesis of muscles but even if that's the case it's just more food and more food is what you need for gains.

If that much gives you fucked up farts or costs a lot though, consider a weight gainer sort of powder with more rounded out macros or adding in other less processed ingredients if you have a blender.

 

[Halge]

For strength training exclusively?

I mostly use my general well-being as a guideline when it comes to nutrition.

If I feel good, sleep good, don't get the runs or feel weak et cetera, then I'm eating good enough.

What I need to eat to feel good varies depending on how much I train. Most of it has to do with psychology (harder training equals more ice cream because ice cream makes me feel happy, basically), but I've come to realize the psychological aspects are pretty important too. Even during periods when I train really hard, it only amounts to minor conscious thought about my diet though.

I just don't think nutrition matters all that much, when it comes to weight training. Your general wellbeing autoregulates your macros (because you simply won't feel good if you live off of mcdonalds hamburgers and noodles), and beyond that you're just micromanaging at a level that's only important to really advanced lifters.

Obviously if you aspire to get a six pack however, you need another guideline.

 

[JinKazama]

Weird flex but ok

 

[DoctorTaco]

For strength training exclusively?

I mostly use my general well-being as a guideline when it comes to nutrition.

If I feel good, sleep good, don't get the runs or feel weak et cetera, then I'm eating good enough.

What I need to eat to feel good varies depending on how much I train. Most of it has to do with psychology (harder training equals more ice cream because ice cream makes me feel happy, basically), but I've come to realize the psychological aspects are pretty important too. Even during periods when I train really hard, it only amounts to minor conscious thought about my diet though.

I just don't think nutrition matters all that much, when it comes to weight training. Your general wellbeing autoregulates your macros (because you simply won't feel good if you live off of mcdonalds hamburgers and noodles), and beyond that you're just micromanaging at a level that's only important to really advanced lifters.

Obviously if you aspire to get a six pack however, you need another guideline.

I’ve got the 8 pack, the rest of that all makes good sense. I’ll be eating healthier to give myself the extra energy and recovery from extra exercising, It sounds like I don’t need to worry as much about clean eating as I need to focus on calories and protein

 

[AlanGregson]

I’ve got the 8 pack, the rest of that all makes good sense. I’ll be eating healthier to give myself the extra energy and recovery from extra exercising, It sounds like I don’t need to worry as much about clean eating as I need to focus on calories and protein

In terms of weight gain, healthy or unhealthy calories make no differance. You can eat mcdonalds every day but if you burn more calories than you eat, you will not gain weight. Now it might affect more important things like cholesteral levels and blood sugar but as far as weight gain, not so much.

 

[LatFlare]

Preach

Wat

 

[ROcknrollracing]

optimal nutrition and optimal gains go hand and hand of course

the flip side of that is everybody pretty much knows how to eat healthy and you dont have to eat perfect macro proportions every day for gains. Your programming should always reflect your diet though. If you dont have perfect nutrition you need to have programming that adjusts for that. If you are extremely serious though nutrition is vitally important

 

[aus101]

IME clean eating is helpful for incremental health but it's DEFINITELY possible to make gains on pad Thai and Chinese take out, as long as you are getting enough calories and protein. If you have a fast metabolism as I do/did, key is lifting heavy and getting enough recovery time. Make sure you're including squats and deadlifts in your routine and do them more than once/week. A gains program that worked great for me is Stronglifts 5x5:

https://stronglifts.com/5x5/

Yep calories in vs calories out will dictate weight gain/loss. Amount of protein/resistance training sessions will dictate the percentage that goes to muscle (or comes from fat).

If you have a high metabolism (3500+ on active days for example) then you will likely need “dense” calories to eat enough to remain in a surplus (with three 1000 calorie meals plus a 500 cal snack only being maintenance for such caloric demands).

 

[JauntyAngle]

You are getting an incomplete story here.

"Clean"/healthy food often equates to food which is lower in fat and which is "nutrient dense"- has lots of micro-nutrients and often a lot of fiber. Lean meats, fish, salads with a protein source and lots pulses and superfoods etc etc. Often high in fiber. There's no doubt that that this is a great way to eat for health. And if you can meet all your nurtritional needs like that, that's great.

The only thing about that is that foods like that tend to be highly satiating. Often they can be physically quite large for the amount of nutrients you need, compared to less 'clean' food. Go make yourself a bowl of salad with quinoa, poached chicken, carrot, walnuts and avocado or something like that, with 2000 calories. My guess is that it fills half a bucket. And eating it will take ages, you will feel full well before you have finished. Now order a large dominos pizza... that's probably 2000 calories right there. And you can eat it in a flash.

A lot of processed food is 'calorie dense' rather than 'nutrient dense'. So there's just a lot of calories in it. And typically it will have things to make it more palatable- extra salt and sugar etc. That's wjy you eat it so fast and easily. Sure you don't get much out of it other than a calorie bomb, but you sure do get a calorie bomb.

Now for most people 'calorie dense but not nutrient dense' is a bad thing. Most people are probably at least a bit overweight and are missing out on some micro-nutrients. So they really need to drop the pizza and have that healthy salad. Of if not, stuff like a huge serving of pasta with a load of cheese sauce.

But if you are exercising a lot, also have an active job, finding it hard to find the time to ear, feeling full too easily and not gaining weight when you want to... then you need those calorie dense foods. Hit yourself with that calorie bomb.

tl;dr- if you are struggling to gain weight, eating some junk might help, "eating clean" may be holding you back.

 

[NurseKnuckles]

There's no better guide to eating for gainz than this right here:

https://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=137831493&page=1

Read it, digest it and excrete its greatness!