Recently reading David Barr’s ‘Big bulking tips’ article I noticed he states that ‘at least half of your meals should be consumed as liquids’,
Is he talking about standard weightgain shakes or does he mean blended foods/high calorie drinks?
Additionally, In recent months I have made my own weightgain shakes through mixing powdered oats, a protein blend and EVOO. However, oats taste revolting in cold water and milk and mix terribly. I was considering switching to maltodextrin or waxy maize or possibly mix them both, could anyone give me any advice on this?
I like to use two scoops vanilla whey, 3 tablespoons natural peanut butter, 1 cup milk, and a banana. Tastes great and gives you a lot of calories. Measurements are estimated, i just dump stuff in the blender and blend. Also tastes good without the banana if you don’t have them
here’s one I’ve been doing in a bid to cram in more carbs during my off season - 90g oats, 200g banana, 30g honey, 50g raisins, 100g blueberries, 150ml egg whites, 30g WPI and a handful or two of spinach leaves. Delivers about 170c / 55p / 8f … this is just an example, the options are endless and you can add, subtract, divide whatever you want to give you whatever you want from the shake.
IMO try to use as much whole / real food as you can rather than carb powders … for me, that’s the whole point - ie throwing a whole heap of goodies into the blender that would otherwise be a bit of a task to eat. When you’re trying to push your carb capacity way up you need to make things as easy for yourself as possible - one can only tolerate so much rice ect in a day!
Coconut milk
Greek yoghurt (no sugar)
Banana
Flaxseed meal
Blueberry
Peanut butter
Cocoa
Casein x 2 scoops
3 cubes of frozen spinach
Water or milk to dethicken it
Chew on some sauerkraut or carrot while it mixes and down some fish oil
2-3 pieces of fruit
2-3 vegetables
Plus a healthy mix of fats. More nutrients and anti-oxidants (i don’t want to rust) than most people get in a day.
Instead of oats you can try squash & or sweet potato/yam. Pre-cook, chop, and freeze (you can buy them frozen squash in the freezer section too). You can’t really taste them and they add a lot more nutrition than oats/malto/dextrose. Freezing chopped bananas is great too.
I am certainly no professional, but I have recently started a new high protein shake. It sounds bad, but it is actually really good. 1whole chicken breast, 1-2cups spinach, 1 scoop, vanilla protein, 1 banana, and then either {3-4 tbs of peanut butter OR a frozen mixed fruit medley}, using water to thin it out as you blend it. The whole breasts i toss about 8 in a crockpot for a day, shred them and freeze them in individual packets. I live out of a suit case 80% of the time and this has helped alot. 1 of these a day has about 600 cals, 4g fat, and 100g of protein.
steamed sweet potato, banana, pb and whey makes a really great tasting shake packed with good calories. replacing the potato with about 3 handfuls of spinach is a great lower carb option but will up micro nutrients without adding a multi or an expensive greens product.
with the sweet potato option i like a dash of cinnamon. taste good and good for ya.