Way too much veggies imo. They should supplement your meals, not be the largest contributor to weight & volume.
When I was in college, with a limited budget, I would literally do all my grocery shopping to maximize calories/$. Oats, bread, pasta, mixed nuts, 2% milk, ground beef, eggs, potatoes, bananas, etc.
I can’t even imagine consuming 2+ pounds of veggies in a day and I’m more than double your size.
Edit: Also, someone as active as you shouldn’t need any portion control. Worry about that after you reach a reasonable body weight.
I’ve gone back to doing this to drive down my expenses - it’s a great exercise in both budgeting and eating to gain. Very similar shopping list to yours there just ground turkey instead of beef!
How so? How does it unnerve you? The replies from the others basically cover what I’d say. Being hungry and trying to buffer just goes hand in hand with being a living organism. If I had to venture a guess it’d be that what you fear is losing control as per
But in my experience this particular hunger subsides after a while when you’ve been on a long sustained surplus/maintenance and you’ll be in control
I spend a good amount of time on another site dedicated to helping dudes who perpetually UNDEREAT put on muscle. Lack of hunger holds these dudes back an immense amount, and many of them try anything in their power (legal or otherwise) to increase their appetite so that they’ll be inclined to eat the amount necessary to actually support growth.
Hunger and appetite is SUCH a boon for a person looking to be muscular and strong. Having zero issues eating the amount of food necessary to grow puts you AHEAD of the game. The only time that’d be unnerving is if being muscular and strong WASN’T your goal.
Trying to force yourself to eat when you’re not hungry is miserable.
I should make an effort to write in a less general tone and emphasise that whatever I share is essentially limited to my own trial-and-error approach. Not too long ago had I read your post that sounds like a community that I could very well have been a member of. I wasn’t hungry after 1800 calories.
Do they also cater to members that simply have a trouble eating enough? I have a friend who isn’t concerned with gaining muscle but struggles to eat out of a fear of vomiting and is woefully underweight.
I get if you don’t want to share publicly the name, and I respect if you don’t want to share it at all. I have an email on my bio if you do though.
Oh yeah, all types of folks wanting to gain are there: the focus just tends to revolve around training, so that the weight gained can primarily be muscle.
It’s a subreddit: r/gainit Great group there. If your friend joins up, just ensure they read through the wiki and post with a high degree of effort. The moderation team prizes signal to noise.
legs finally felt decent, breathing still felt strangely restricted, like someone put a weight on my chest?? Sprints and pistols felt pretty good- the 1x4 at 45 still felt considerably harder than a few weeks ago , shoulders royally pissed
really wanted to run… turns out my conditioning has suffered quite considerably. Chest burned, but the weird part was that my heart rate wasn’t that high, breathing wasn’t that hard and I didn’t really feel like stopping either??
I’m on the water retention part of my hrt and didn’t really watch sodium the past couple of days so looking a bit swollen- was 95.2lbs yesterday and the day before, digestion also quite blocked up, got a bit of digestive relief today
FWIW, when I was deepest into my self-starvation my heart rate wouldn’t go over 40 despite physical exertion. I managed to repeat a climbing route I did during that state at a better, healthier, weight and ran a HR of 80.
That’s extremely low, even for a very in-shape person. Do think it was a protection mechanism of your body trying to hold onto whatever energy it could?
Not judging - the statement sparked my curiosity.
Typical sense- making processes (ie examining digestion, salt, etc)
I know that gaining fat/muscle over a day is physically impossible unless I at > 3500 OVER my maintenance (objectively did not happen), so I didn’t freak out
My body was doing it’s best to survive. At this stage my heart had started skipping beats. Ended up at the cardiologist and they were like So many medical professionals missed entirely that I had an eating disorder. I was a bit… disillusioned about it myself and only realised far later how bad it was. I thought I was just trying to get lean(er).
As a guy, I am not really qualified to speak on this, but as others have said you are focusing on minutiae and not the larger picture. 1 or 2 lbs up or down per day is nothing. Anecdotally, my wife sometimes “gains” 5-6 lbs during her cycle - it goes away at the end of the week - it’s not real gain or loss. This is why daily weight check-ins are horrible unless you are trying to make weight for a competition. Many of the fitness/weight loss apps/programs out there don’t allow weigh-ins to be recorded more than once a week for this very reason. Weight fluctuates a bit - it’s normal.
Maybe take a small step and only weigh yourself once every 4 days to start backing off that dangerous cycle?
Also, what is the tolerance on your scale? it may be +/- 1lb or more - making virtually all your “weight changes” non-existent.
I weigh daily, but track a 5-day and 7-day moving average.
I can easily do myself a lot of damage in a week if I don’t do this. It’s also not healthy to continue doing this but at the moment it is the lesser evil.
Maybe T-nation should have an eating disorder subforum…
Another good way to do it as long as your focus is on the average.
And i agree, definitely a good step. It’s like the stock market - daily, even weekly fluctuations are of close to zero importance - got to play the long game.
That may be a good forum. I know I have never had an eating disorder, but for a long time as teen I had an emotional relationship with food (was definitely a fat kid until i was about 16).
, shoulders royally pissed
So many medical professionals missed entirely that I had an eating disorder. I was a bit… disillusioned about it myself and only realised far later how bad it was. I thought I was just trying to get lean(er).