Bulking in College, Impossible?

[quote]sasquatch wrote:
jimmyjames66 wrote:
Well, I would be eating more, but the thing is my meal plan at my college sucks big time. They only give me 900 dollars per semester! I’m already down to 200. On top of that I have a small part time job that gives me enough to spend like 50 a week at the supermarket. Needless to say, money is extremely tight, and is hurting my gains big time.

You have ameal plan and a part time job that allows you to spend 50 a week on food and you can’t figure out how to take advantage of that and add mass?
Come on JJ.
All I see here are excuses. Man up and analyze your goals.
Tuna,eggs,milk,peanut butter,cottage chees are all reasonably cheap-quality sources of protein and mass builders.
If you really want it, make it happen. If you just wanna come on here and play woe-is-me, wrong place dude.[/quote]

Totally agree. Especially with the eggs and milk.

[quote]jimmyjames66 wrote:
Well, I would be eating more, but the thing is my meal plan at my college sucks big time. They only give me 900 dollars per semester! I’m already down to 200. On top of that I have a small part time job that gives me enough to spend like 50 a week at the supermarket. Needless to say, money is extremely tight, and is hurting my gains big time.[/quote]

If this is the case, why are you wasting money on supplements instead of food?

I’m not doubting you are on a limited budget. But having said that, supplements are a waste. Especially if you were unable get gains off of superdrol because of an inadequate diet. That’s just crazy. All of the money being spent on supplements would be MUCH, MUCH better spent on food. Keep the multi though.

$50 a fucking week at the grocery store? How many jars of natural peanut butter and whole milk can that buy?!

More than enough. Get crackin’.

[quote]jimmyjames66 wrote:
Well, I would be eating more, but the thing is my meal plan at my college sucks big time. They only give me 900 dollars per semester! I’m already down to 200. On top of that I have a small part time job that gives me enough to spend like 50 a week at the supermarket. Needless to say, money is extremely tight, and is hurting my gains big time.[/quote]

youre such a pussy. youre an idiot. you dont know crap!!!

ok now thats outta the way.

i asked this same question many moons ago and didnt really get an answer other than ‘quit whining and go make more money to buy food’ that wasnt really a possibility so i figured out something that worked for me (all by myself! which is probably what i should have done in the first place).

heres what i used to do. i went from low 190s to 210 in about a year.

obviously ditch the supplements because they are preventing you from eating (buying) FOOD.

with the extra money you can buy tons of tuna, eggs, oatmeal, rice, steaks!, whatever your fave high protein, high energy foods are.

have you read the CHANKO article. i dont remember what its called but its a good idea for someone like you. do a search for it or maybe someone else will post a link.

i used basic multi-vitamins, fish oil, ZMA,vit c, e, beta carotene. good cheap stuff. you are already doing that and covering those easy bases. no other supplements should be needed. i suppose you could buy some creatine powder if you wanted(dont buy the pre-mixed with sugar in it–its a rip off . just get the pure creatine) 15 bucks worth should last a few months.

with all the money you will be saving on your worthless supplements, buy some protein powder. of course Grow! is the best but i got by fine on 10lb bags of optimum nutrition or designer.

eat whatever meals you can at school and at home or better yet at your girlfriends house!

then

make a JUG of protein powder/water(or milk)/oat meal and some kind of decent fat (i used light tasting olive oil). i used an old milk jug and made marks on it dividing my 2000kcal into 500kcal units.
i made 2000kcal JUGS of protein/oats/oil and sipped on it throughout the day. i made sure it was gone by the end of the night. every night.
i was getting around 4500-5000kcal a day with my JUGS and regular food. this was plenty to maintain a very lean 210lbs (i was lifting and running–sprint work mostly).

50 bucks a week is more than enough to buy decent food to up your calories.

also, do you know how many calories you are currently consuming? what is your macronutrient breakdown of those calories. you probably hate to hear this but its REALLY hard to make good gains if your nutrition is not inline and if youre not recording it daily then you arent taking it seriously in my book.

what are you doing for training. what are you prioritizing? i know a lot of people will say strenght and size come together but when you are eating 5000+kcal a day you can really hammer yourself with some HIGH VOLUME medium wt training that will pack muscle on you quick.

ok, i just reread that entire post. you have a TON of great advice so use it. first off quit telling yourself its impossible. if you really think that you need to reset your priorities or , like others have suggested, quit being a pussy. personally i would use all of the info you just got, quit bitching and start kicking some serious ass.
post back and let us know what you are doing.

train hard,
ryan b.

another thing,

i had a friend who was already a pretty big guy (about 210–not super lean but thick and strong) . i met him in the gym when he was 19. he had a pretty decent bench and lived on the leg press machine. lots of curls and cable cross over too… see where this is going.
he also took every friken supplement i had ever heard of and ive experimented with a LOT of supplements myself.
long story short: he was stuck and not making any gains. i had him keep a nutrition log for a week and we found out he was eating about 3500kcal/ day/average.
i encouraged him to EAT A LOT MORE, A LOT MORE OFTEN AND TO START DOING SOME SERIOUS HEAVY LIFTING.deads,squats,chins,cleans,bench,pushpress etc.
he made decent gains in the following 4 months. the next time i saw him was 2 years later(age 21) and he was a freaking monster! im not kidding. he had about the same body fat as he did at 210 but weighed 250! i asked him what he had been doing and he said “eating a lot more and lifting a lot heavier wt–just like you said”. no supplements . no testosterone boosters. lots of food and lots of iron. dude, if youre serious you can make whatever gains you want.

train hard,
ryan b.

[quote]ryan b. wrote:
youre such a pussy. youre an idiot. you dont know crap!!!

ok now thats outta the way.

i asked this same question many moons ago and didnt really get an answer other than ‘quit whining and go make more money to buy food’ that wasnt really a possibility so i figured out something that worked for me (all by myself! which is probably what i should have done in the first place).

heres what i used to do. i went from low 190s to 210 in about a year.

obviously ditch the supplements because they are preventing you from eating (buying) FOOD.

with the extra money you can buy tons of tuna, eggs, oatmeal, rice, steaks!, whatever your fave high protein, high energy foods are.

have you read the CHANKO article. i dont remember what its called but its a good idea for someone like you. do a search for it or maybe someone else will post a link.

i used basic multi-vitamins, fish oil, zma,vit c, e, beta carotene. good cheap stuff. you are already doing that and covering those easy bases. no other supplements should be needed. i suppose you could buy some creatine powder if you wanted(dont buy the pre-mixed with sugar in it–its a rip off . just get the pure creatine) 15 bucks worth should last a few months.

with all the money you will be saving on your worthless supplements, buy some protein powder. of course Grow! is the best but i got by fine on 10lb bags of optimum nutrition or designer.

eat whatever meals you can at school and at home or better yet at your girlfriends house!

then

make a JUG of protein powder/water(or milk)/oat meal and some kind of decent fat (i used light tasting olive oil). i used an old milk jug and made marks on it dividing my 2000kcal into 500kcal units.
i made 2000kcal JUGS of protein/oats/oil and sipped on it throughout the day. i made sure it was gone by the end of the night. every night.
i was getting around 4500-5000kcal a day with my JUGS and regular food. this was plenty to maintain a very lean 210lbs (i was lifting and running–sprint work mostly).

50 bucks a week is more than enough to buy decent food to up your calories.

also, do you know how many calories you are currently consuming? what is your macronutrient breakdown of those calories. you probably hate to hear this but its REALLY hard to make good gains if your nutrition is not inline and if youre not recording it daily then you arent taking it seriously in my book.

what are you doing for training. what are you prioritizing? i know a lot of people will say strenght and size come together but when you are eating 5000+kcal a day you can really hammer yourself with some HIGH VOLUME medium wt training that will pack muscle on you quick.

ok, i just reread that entire post. you have a TON of great advice so use it. first off quit telling yourself its impossible. if you really think that you need to reset your priorities or , like others have suggested, quit being a pussy. personally i would use all of the info you just got, quit bitching and start kicking some serious ass.
post back and let us know what you are doing.

train hard,
ryan b.[/quote]

Impossible? I put on ridiculous size in college – mostly by eating in the dorms, because it’s all-you-can-eat. Can’t beat that when you’re on a budget! Don’t be too picky about exactly what you eat – just EAT!

Dude, Im in college too, a freshman and constantly studying. I to am trying to gain weight and have been successfully. KEEP EATING, ALL THE TIME. Berardi said something like this while in college. He said, if he wasnt eating, he wasnt growing. JUst eat and eat and eat.

Great posts, Ryan B.!

I believe the food you eat is way more powerful than any supplement you can buy.

[quote]jimmyjames66 wrote:
Am I just fucked up and have no ability to put on mass due to genetics? Because that is the only explanation I can give.[/quote]

WTF?

That is all.

There’s a reason the freshman 15 exists. Man up and ditch the supps and find yourself some ice cream.

http://images.t-nation.com/forum_images/./1/.1129167060799.16.jpg

if you want to bulk, and you don’t have the time the money or the aility to do so then college doesn’t sound like the place for you.

then you need to join the military and go to iraq. nothing else to do but eat all that you can fit in your little tummy, extra money to buy all of the supplements that you could dream of taking and all of the extra time to lift lift lift : )

its not for everybody but it worked for me

FYI most supplements are over rated most people lack the ability to get bigger because of the lack of proteins and carbs. i tried the eating plans and they didn’t work like i thought. it comes down to eating as much as possible. thats my thoughts on it im sure someone will tell me how stupid i am and that i don’t know what im talking about and that i can’t spell. And thats possible but it worked for me
good luck with the weigh gaining
and don’t be a fool stay in school : )

Ok, I got my ass handed to me in here, but that was expected. Thanks for the replies anyways. I am going to pick up a second job. The only reason I was working like eight hours a week was because I was worried about my grades, cause you see I’m not the smartest person in the world and need to keep a 3.0, but I know, just stop bitching, believe me I get it. I definitly will drop all the supps in exchange for the food. However, I think some of you still think I have an all you can eat buffet at college, but that’s not true. They only give us up to 900 dollars for the food plan, and I am down to 99 dollars after a month and a half. Just wanted to clarify that. But thanks for the comments, and I’m gonna do all I can to eat between 5000-6000cal daily.

[quote]jimmyjames66 wrote:
Ok, I got my ass handed to me in here, but that was expected. Thanks for the replies anyways. I am going to pick up a second job. The only reason I was working like eight hours a week was because I was worried about my grades, cause you see I’m not the smartest person in the world and need to keep a 3.0, but I know, just stop bitching, believe me I get it. I definitly will drop all the supps in exchange for the food. However, I think some of you still think I have an all you can eat buffet at college, but that’s not true. They only give us up to 900 dollars for the food plan, and I am down to 99 dollars after a month and a half. Just wanted to clarify that. But thanks for the comments, and I’m gonna do all I can to eat between 5000-6000cal daily.[/quote]

Lack of money and food? That’s what girls are for. You are clearly not using every avenue available. I was flat broke in college and sometimes you can’t have the most scientifically based meal program. You deal with what you can get. There were many nights where McDonald’s 99 cent double cheeseburger would be that extra meal…especially if “she” was paying. That isn’t saying this is the best route, however, I do know I made progress because I made an effort to get the calories down. Because of college, I will never touch another Raman noodle for as long as I live. We would sneak empty containers into the cafeteria for breakfast and fill them up with milk and keep them in the dorm room. When you are poor, you figure out ways around it.

Explain how your meal plan works that you only 900 bucks for an entire semester. You can’t go back for seconds during meals?

Get a job at a restaurant that has healthy and varied food choices, and lose the other job.

amen prof x!
thats what im talking about. i flippin lived off of 99double cheese burgers and my buddy hooked me up at del taco all the time! smuggled the milk too. ha!
it was great because people would always asked me what i ate and what supps i took and i would tell them “mostly double cheeseburgers and del taco 3 times a day, gallon of milk a day, lots of oat meal” --they still thought i was using gear (210 and lean looks pretty big to a lot of people)! thats always a good compliment!

any wayyy…
jimmy james–dont go screwing up your school because you have to get another job so you can get huge. thats assbackwards and if your grades are going to suffer …you once again need to reset your priorities.

its totally doable on 50bucks a week anyway. good for every one who went to college , got a 4.0, worked 70hours a week and dated 3 freshman chicks in exchange for buyin em beer. BUT! if thats not you, dont sweat it. you do jimmy james and youll be just fine!

what the hell kind of cafeteria do you have? can you opt out of your meal plan or do they make you purchase it? if your parents or your loans purchase it then get the cheapest one you are required to and have your parents buy you groceries and send em to you or give you the cash if they trust you not to party it up.
at my school we had a walk through area where you could eat nice sandwhiches and flirt with the hot girls and another caffeteria that had tons of shitty food and desperate fat girls scanning your card. i would go for the desperate girls if its an option.

i dont know how many calories you should be eating because i dont know how many you are eating now. some times big guys dont have to eat much to maintain–sometimes they do. you need to figure out how many calories you are eating now and find out the macronutrient breakdown of those calories. that means at the end of the day you should know how many grams of each, protein,carbs and fat you ate.

how many kcal a day avg? if you dont know, then log your food intake for the next week and figure it out. dont stress to much about anything. just eat how you normally do and see what you are eating. if you eat at the cafeteria, you can still write down the amounts of food you ate (ie 1 cup mashed potatoes. 5 chicken strips. 2 12oz sodas etc.)

this seems like a pain in the ass but i guarantee you after five days you wont even be thinking about it. you train for an hour at a time–it takes about 5 minutes to write down and calculate your nutrition. just consider it part of your training–becaue it is!
this is the first thing you need to figure out.

if you are not gaining any weight–fat or muscle, then obviously you need to eat more.

if you are budgeting dont worry about eating clean. you shouldnt worry about this anyway if you are trying to bulk. obviously you dont want to live off cheese burgers for the rest of your life but you can use them to reach your goals of adding mass. and worry about eating good later. besides your testosterone being through the roof thats another benefit of being under 20!

food: carbs and fat are pretty cheap and easy to come by. you are going to be spending most of your money on protein.

first thing i would do is buy a 10lb bag of optimum or designer whey. its good and its cheap. you should be able to find it online for about 50bucks.

shop at a place like walmart or sams club/costco (you can probably find a friend who has a card if you dont or maybe your parents do).

buy 5-6 containers of generic brand quick oats or rolled oats (the quick oats mix easier in the shake but they are both just simple, basic, oatmeal. dont buy quaker oats brand because its the same stuff for twice the money).
oats are the base carb for your JUG. and they are good for you. if you are eating 4000+ kcal a day plan on doing some serious reading on the shitter!

buy a few bottles of light tasting olive oil. its great for adding calories , its good for you, and it makes your shakes taste better. dont get regular olive or virgin olive because it tastes like absolute shit.

buy a bunch of eggs. buy a bunch of tuna and or canned chicken.
if you can drink milk–then start drinking it all the time.so buy a couple gallons of that too if it doesnt bother your gut. they probably serve it in the cafeteria, so drink the shit out of it there.
buy cottage cheese in as big of a tub as you can find.

ramen noodles are a super cheap easy to eat , source of carbs. so is rice. if you can eat eggs. scramble a dozen of them then mix them in a pot with cooked rice, put the whole thing in the fridge and eat the hell out of it. i used to do this with skinless boneless chicken or cheap ass stew meat–throw in some corn and peas ala the chanko diet. add up all the macros and kcal when you make it and then eyball how much you eat and just do the math–record it in your nutrition log.

buy a tub or 2 of gatorade powder. drink it pre and post workout with some whey. you will also use this in your jug.

use your head and think of other cheap/bulk carbs you can buy. also protein. the only reason i mentioned the steaks is because they are good. if you dont have the cash then screw it (but you should have a little left over since you are ditching the sups). whatever its your choice.

that is a good training program. just bust ass when you are doing it. you might buy a box of generic nodoz/vivarin. it costs about 3 bucks at walmart and the caffeine is a good boost pre workout if you dont have the luxury of buying biotest stuff.

the best bedtime snack you can eat would be some kind of protein and fat along with your ZMA. meat is slow digesting and adding fat makes it even more so. cottage cheese is good but the calcium can block the zma absorbtion.
a good snack is a can of tuna or chicken with your favorite fatty dressing–ranch,mayo, whatever, throw in an extra cap full of olive oil too.

get used to drinking a BUNCH of water–all day long–because when your kcal get way up there its no fun burping up your last meal when your starting on your 6th of the day. im not sure exactly how it works but in my experience drinking water between meals helps a ton with digestion.

so… the training program is good. what are your max lifts? give me as much info as you can–training history. max on any lifts you can think of. deads, squats, curls, chins, db lunges, whatever. they dont have to be 1 rep maxes–if you know you can bench 225 for 4 reps before it pins you then just say “bench 225 4rep max” or something to that effect.

another thing–if you just want to pack on the mass you might consider some other program like a higher volume german volume training 2000 or the like
. dont worry about it now. just someting to think about. you dont want to get caught up in technicalities.
you want to eat a ton. lift 20 tons! sleep and do it again.
if your lifts are all low then probably anything will work for you anyway.

when you get some protein powder and post your lifts i will tell you how to make THE JUG shakes.

mull over this info and post back soon.

when do you lift next/ what is your workout?

im just gonna post this on your thread incase it helps someone else out too.

and i just typed a fricken novel so you had better be down with this you bastard!

peace,
r

you know what else. post a few pics so we can help you out.

ryan b thanks big time for the various info. As far as my lifting history goes, I have actually been lifting for four years, but the first two were with fucking terrible form and mechanics and my coaches never told me any differently, but since I only started out at 150 I gained mass anyway.

For lifts, My best bench was 305, but is no longer anywhere close to that. All I know is that I can bench 225 for eight. I can squat 405 for six(below parallel) and deadlift 375 for eight. As far as posting pictures, no scanner at the moment, but I’m gonna try to use someone elses.

Ok, let my try to thoroughly explain my little meal plan. They gave me 900 dollars per semester, however, it is not buffet style at all. Every food item has an individual price and then if I buy it, that price gets deducted off the 900. (i.e a chicken breats costs 4.50, that’s 4.50 deducted off the 900) It has to be the worst meal plan at any college anywhere, I’m down to 85 god damn dollars. shoplifting may become a possibility.
SO I hope that’s enough for the recipes. Thanks again ryan b. for ALL of the info,

I also wanted to mention my protein powder. I usually but the opitimum 5lber. However I usually go through this thing in 8-10 days. I usually have a “during” workout shake, as suggested by the massive eating program with 3 scoops than a post workout shake with 3 scoops again. I also have two different scoops with other meals throughout the day. Am I totally using this shit wrong, or not?