USC,
I came upon this which does a good job addressing your food consumption issues:
Q: Dr. Berardi, I’m a skinny guy and I’m getting tired
of everyone telling me to just eat more. I eat as much
as I can, four to six times per day. How can I just eat
more if my stomach is about to pop? Any suggestions for
me? Am I genetically screwed or something?
A: So you’re hoping I’ve got some magical supplements
up my sleeve that can help you increase your appetite,
right? Well, I don’t. Despite my searching, I haven’t
been able to find any nutritional supplements that
really work in appetite stimulation.
When I was younger, I thought I too was genetically
cursed. No matter how hard I worked out and how much I
ate I still didn’t get any bigger. So I tried to seek
out any supplemental help I could get to increase my
appetite, my muscle mass, etc. But alas, I never found
anything. Instead, I found the true secret in another
place; and it didn’t take a supplement or a drug bottle
to help me find it.
Now, of course, there are drugs out there for the job
(although we’re all about getting big the natural way,
right?). The two main clinical appetite stimulants
megestral acetate and dronabinol are used in AIDS,
burn, and cancer patients. Unfortunately they cause
mostly fat gain.
Cyproheptadine is an antihistamine and serotonin
antagonist that increases growth hormone secretion and
appetite. This drug works pretty well for weight gain.
Anabolic steroids, of course, do a really nice job of
increasing appetite, body weight and muscle mass but
that’s no surprise.
And there are some new ideas on how to block one of the
body’s big satiety hormones through the use of CCK
(cholecystokinin) antagonists.
However, let’s depart from the drug and supplement
discussion and get down to what I think the true secret
is. It’s the fact that you have a screwed up perception
of what needs to be done to get bigger. It’s written
all over your email. You mention that you eat 4-6 times
per day as if that actually tells me something about
your diet, as if you’re doing everything you need to
but the genetics are conspiring against you. Well, as
long as that attitude persists, you’ll always be
skinny.
Remember, it’s not the strategy but the result that
matters. If 4-6 of your current meals per day were
enough, then you’d be growing. Since you’re not, how
about changing the strategy by eating a lot more food
within those 4-6 meals? If that doesn’t work, how about
trying to eat 6-8 times per day? Perhaps that won’t
work and you’ll have to skip eating distinct meals
altogether and you’ll have to simply eat all day long.
So do whatever it takes!
Sure, I may sound a bit unsympathetic. But trust me in
that I’m not at all unsympathetic to your plight; I’m
just unsympathetic to your excuses. I’ve been exactly
where you are today and can honestly say that I
overcame it with a few simple strategies that I’ll
detail below.
When I was 18 years old I was in the same predicament
you were (as you might recall from the book). I tried
eating 4-6 times per day and simply couldn’t gain
weight no matter what I did. So I sought out the big
guys in the gym to inquire as to what they were doing.
Their advice was to eat all the time. Now, all the time
meant something very different to them than it does to
most people. Most people think that eating all the time
means 3 meals and then some snacks. Well, to these
guys, eating all the time meant literally chewing food
all day long. As a result of their tutelage, here is
the diet I generated:
Breakfast, 8am:
6 whole eggs, 4 slices of whole grain bread, and 4
packets of instant oatmeal
Lunch, 12pm:
1 lb extra lean ground beef, 1-cup cauliflower, and 2
large baked potatoes
Evening Meal, 4pm:
1lb of extra lean ground beef, 1-cup broccoli, and 2
large baked potatoes
Post Workout, 8pm:
0.5 lb of pasta (weighed before cooking), 1-cup green
beans, and 0.5lb extra lean ground chicken
Before Bed:
6 whole eggs, 4 slices of whole grain bread
Also, upon waking each morning I would mix up a 1-
gallon jug of water and somewhere between 5 and 10
scoops of whey protein. In addition, I would open a bag
of 6 cinnamon raisin bagels and put peanut butter in
between each bagel. The protein drink and the bagels
were to be consumed all day long when an actual meal
wasn’t being eaten. The motto was “If I’m not chewing,
I’m not growing.” I’m not lying when I say that as soon
as I would finish each meal, I’d start right away with
my protein shake and bagels and continue on them until
the next meal.
Gluttony? You bet! Did I feel sick 1/2 the time? Check.
Was my food bill expensive. Sure. Did I throw up
occasionally for all that force feeding. Yup.
(I know that it’s politically incorrect these days to
talk about extreme measures like this, but I prefer to
tell it like it is. Those were desperate times.)
But did I grow?
You bet!
On this plan I went from 140lbs at 8% fat to 210lbs at
12% fat in about a year and a half. Yep, you read that right,
I gained 70 lbs in a year and a half by using the principles I’m
teaching you in the S2B course, the S2B book, and the S2B coaching
program.
Of course, in the end, the point of my story is not to give you an
exact diet to follow. Nope, my goal is to illustrate
just how important it is to push the boundaries of your
comfort zone if you’re interested in making gains. Quit
worrying about being full and just eat more. Even if
you feel sick sometimes. Heck, although this isn’t a
pleasant thought, I did throw up a few times during my
early phases of eating big. But I haven’t thrown up in
about 12 years and am still eating big.
As you continue to push yourself in terms of how much
food you can eat, the body will adapt by becoming more
comfortable at these new levels of intake. Just like
with training. Increasing your muscle mass isn’t about
comfort. In the gym we train until we’re uncomfortable.
And likewise, if we’re interested in getting as big as
possible, at the table, we should do the same.
Cheers,
JB
John M Berardi, PhD, CSCS
President - Science Link, Inc.
Author - Scrawny to Brawny
Translating Research into Results ™
Haha! I’m hardly as sore, even after grueling ass workouts, and this is the best gains I’ve made than earlier this year when I thought I was working out hard and eating big. I’m not even close to being muscular, but still, my size and appearance is better in one month than what I remember doing one month before.