bulking for the first time...

daos

New member
Hello all. I am new here at anabolic minds but I have been around the block on the body building forums for quite some time.

I have always read about bulking up but I never thought it applied to me because I have such a hard time gaining weight. You see, up until about 2 years ago I was plagued with Crohn's disease and could not gain weight for the life of me. I lived with this from the time I was 15 till I was 28. I got on a medicine and I believe that it broke the vicious cycle I was in and allowed my stomach to heal, therefore allowing my body to absorb nutrients and protein as it is supposed to.

Now fast forward two years later and I have been back in the gym for about a year, but never made any changes to my diet. I had a regular diet of about 3 square meals a day...maybe 2000 calories/day. The gym made me feel good about myself, but the only thing that was happening appearence wise was leaning out. Im already about 5% BF and thats the last thing I wanted to do.

So here I am bulking up for the first time. Over the past month or so I have been averaging about 4000-5000 calories daily, 200G Protein, 500G Carbs, and 160G Fat. I am putting on weight quickly and it is starting to scare me a bit. I went from 160 to 171 in a month. I am just under 6'1" so I am still under my ideal weight.

Do you guys think this is my body playing catch up? Is this normal? What changes should I make to my diet and how should my fat/protein/carb ratio pan out?

Sorry for the long post, just trying to get informed on this new bulking process.

DIET:

7:00AM
Bagel with cream cheese
Protein shake

11:00AM
8oz Baked chicken breast with skin
Green beans w/ sesame seeds
White rice pilaf
32oz The Hulk with extra whey from Smoothie King

5:00PM
The Hulk shake (before workout)
Protein shake post workout

8:00PM
Hungry Man chicken dinner
 
how qualitative is the weight?... is it in the form of muscle, fat , water... ?

if you're eating 4000 - 5000 calories over just 3 - 4 meals... it's basically coming to let's just say 1500 calories per meal. I don't know about others, but I got DAMN FAT by eating like that, despite my workouts.

I say the most important thing for now is to have 6 meals a day. Spread them over 2 - 3 hours. The whole point of more frequent meals is to keep insulin in control and metabolism steady.

excess carbs in one instant of time -> excess insulin produced -> increased fat storage


About the macro ratios (p c f ), it's best someone else answers that.
 
Ok great. It seems the weight is mainly fat and water. Thats basically what I was cocnerned about. I need to keep my carb count in check which I believe is a bit on the high side right now. My metabolism is through the roof so I guess that would be the positive side of that. maybe my diet could go like this.

7:00AM
Bagel cream cheese
Protein shake

11:00AM
8oz Chicken
green beans
White rice Pilaf

2:00PM
32oz The Hulk shake

5:00PM
The hulk pre workout
Protein w/ 0carb post workout

8:00PM
HungryMan chicken dinner
 
breakfast needs eggs. hungry man dinners are too heavily processed. post workout carbs are good for you. you need a snack between breakfast and lunch - 4 hours is a long time. there's also no healthy fat i'm seeing. monounsaturated fat (one of the building blocks of muscle and testosterone) is found in nuts, olive/canola oil, etc and i don't see them anywhere in your diet.

that's all i got. bedtime for me. i'll answer any questions when i wake up :)
http://anabolicminds.com/forum/training-forum/99607-gaining-mass-nutshell.html
http://anabolicminds.com/forum/training-forum/86088-neoborn-s-where.html
 
First off, congratulations on getting better. Sunnys advice looks spot on, 6-8 meals a day, lots of protein. hope all goes well for you!
 
Thanks guys. Ill try and add some good fats and spread my meals out a bit. Also, Ill try and add eggs. Most likely microwave them cause I dont have time to cook. Atleast, I am not ready to wake up earlier, and get my daughter off to school just yet. Any suggestions on the fats? What do you guys do for a snack meal in between breakfast and lunch? Maybe a couple bags of peanuts?
 
Whole milk, natural peanut butter is where most of my extra fat comes from. But I (and you) could probably start snacking on some other nuts or add them in somewhere.

Between breakfast and lunch snack is whatever you want. Just as always get some form of protein in there.
 
Actually I went out and purchased Power Butter by the carton. This stuff rocks. Its easy to eat, portable, and friggin tastes better than peanut butter. Good stuff.

Now I have the butter before workout in between my breakfast and meal post workout, and then one rright before my third meal. Works great.
 
Yeah i would definitely say spread out the meals. I would also stick to the healthy fats like others were saying and stay away from the saturated fats and especially the hungry man meals. They tend to have a lot of sodium and aren't very clean. Try to make your meals consist of whole foods(rice, chicken breast, tuna, whole grains, rice, sweet potatoes, broccoli, etc). Hulk shakes are great but they shouldn't be one of your main sources of calories or replace a meal.
 
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