Take home message…Professor X gave enough specifics for a life time before many of you knew about the website.
Bodybuilder: “Hey coach, what should I eat? I’m paying you. Tell me.”
Nutritionist/guru/coach: “Can’t say. I don’t know what you’ll need or write a diet because the body is always changing.”
Bodybuilder: “What the hell am I paying you for then?”
Nutritionist/guru/coach: “So I can tell you the body is always changing.”
Ok, I do have a couple questions after reading through that a few times.
- How did you prepare your rice and potatoes? Is that still your preferred source of carbs today? You may have answered this in the steak thread, but I haven’t made it past the first couple pages.
FWIW, Picked up some angus chuck eye steak tonight; $5/lb, 1546 calories/lb, 117g protein/lb. Seemed like a good deal and quite tasty. Seasoned it with peanut oil, sea salt, garlic powder and fresh black ground pepper, then cooked in a cast iron pan over a ~55,000 BTU propane wok burner. I think this might become a regular option. ~$10/day seems pretty reasonable, and I can probably find better prices if I just looked. (This is the first pan-cooked steak that turned out well; not sure why I never thought of using the wok burner until tonight.)
- How did you get to the point where you could eat breakfast? I’m still mostly at the “breakfast makes me nauseous” stage. I can handle milk and coffee, but solid food just doesn’t sit right.
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds.
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yeah, but look how many bags of Doritos you can get for the price of a decent steak.
In all seriousness, you forgot eggs from that list.
Get a 20lb bag of jasmine rice for $7 or so, then buy 5 dozen eggs at a time for about $5. Learn the hundred+ ways you can cook eggs, with nothing more than oil/butter, salt and pepper. Then go spend $20 or so in the spice aisle and spend another few months experimenting with various combinations.
Add in some vegetables, and learn to braise cheap cuts of meats, and that gives you everything from East Asian fried rice dishes, to Central Asian pulow/pilaf/chelows, to Jamaican and Cajun rice and bean dishes.
That’s several months of dishes that are rice + eggs + some other stuff.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yeah, but look how many bags of Doritos you can get for the price of a decent steak.
In all seriousness, you forgot eggs from that list.
Get a 20lb bag of jasmine rice for $7 or so, then buy 5 dozen eggs at a time for about $5. Learn the hundred+ ways you can cook eggs, with nothing more than oil/butter, salt and pepper. Then go spend $20 or so in the spice aisle and spend another few months experimenting with various combinations.
Add in some vegetables, and learn to braise cheap cuts of meats, and that gives you everything from East Asian fried rice dishes, to Central Asian pulow/pilaf/chelows, to Jamaican and Cajun rice and bean dishes.
That’s several months of dishes that are rice + eggs + some other stuff.[/quote]
Right. So resorting to a fast food menu on a regular basis makes no sense to me. I buy 4 lbs of chicken for 10 bucks at a place next to me. Liver is 2 bucks a pound. Potatoes are dirt cheap.
Someone can get big off of five cheap foods.
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yes…so easy…with no kitchen in the freshman dorms…so easy…
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yes…so easy…with no kitchen in the freshman dorms…so easy…[/quote]
That wouldn’t be. But definitely one can use bread, powdered milk, pasteurized egg whites kept in a refrigerator, protein powder, decent dry cereals, tuna, mackerel, whole grain crackers and pretzels, sardines, FRUITS (apples, bananas, and pears keep well unrefrigerated as well as dried fruits like raisins and craisins) and those new packs of pre-cooked, microwavable bags of rice from Trader Joe’s. Then the rest could probably filled in with decent choices at eating areas on college campuses or restaurants.
It would be a pain in the ass though.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yes…so easy…with no kitchen in the freshman dorms…so easy…[/quote]
At least 10 of those things can kept on any shelf and doesn’t require refrigeration. You don’t need a kitchen to eat food out of a can.
Also what’s the deal with beef? Just looking around a bit, the consensus seems to be that beef is essentially the best food when focusing on mass gain, at least when not considering cost. (A few random votes for kangaroo and ostrich, bison and lamb, but the majority seems to say beef.)
Something about being high in saturated fats along with the complete protein. Also a great source for heme iron and B vitamins.
If cost were a non-issue, what protein source would you choose as the cornerstone of your diet? (Obviously X’s answer is obvious.)
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Also what’s the deal with beef? Just looking around a bit, the consensus seems to be that beef is essentially the best food when focusing on mass gain, at least when not considering cost. (A few random votes for kangaroo and ostrich, bison and lamb, but the majority seems to say beef.) [/quote]
It’s not the best, nor is it the worst. And it’s not essential. You can get big off of fish, eggs, poultry, and protein powder.
It has stearic acid, which is beneficial and the other stuff you mention.
Same stuff as if cost is an issue: canned or fresh poultry and fish, eggs, pork, beef, liver, protein powder.
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Liver is 2 bucks a pound.
[/quote]
Where do you find liver? I have always wanted to buy some, but I have no idea where to look. I don’t see it in the Kroger butcher shop or anything.
[quote]csulli wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Liver is 2 bucks a pound.
[/quote]
Where do you find liver? I have always wanted to buy some, but I have no idea where to look. I don’t see it in the Kroger butcher shop or anything.[/quote]
You may want to check some Walmart; they seem to have organ meats available for some reason, at least in the higher-hispanic population areas. For that matter, a Mexican grocery might be worth taking a look.
Of course, you can always just google for local butchers and make a few phone calls.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
LOL.
I wrote this:
What are you even talking about? I think you jumped the shark on this one, my man.
I am sooooo sorry if you think my pool scenario wasn’t good enough to talk about aesthetics.
Actually…I really don’t care.[/quote]
I wrote this:
You missed that, I see. No biggie, bro.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yes…so easy…with no kitchen in the freshman dorms…so easy…[/quote]
College cooking nowadays is pretty easy. I had a microwave, refrigerator, and a griddle. I was able to cook about anything on that griddle.
Professor X, you were in college living in the dorms as a 16 year old, did you know right away that you wanted to be a dentist?
[quote]howie424 wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]BrickHead wrote:
Has anyone ever considered the cost of rice, potatoes, tuna, beans, sardines, mackerel, liver, canned chicken, chicken thighs, milk, and peanut butter?
It amazes me that people believe they must resort to a value menu at McDonald’s because they are low on funds. [/quote]
Yes…so easy…with no kitchen in the freshman dorms…so easy…[/quote]
College cooking nowadays is pretty easy. I had a microwave, refrigerator, and a griddle. I was able to cook about anything on that griddle. [/quote]
Yeah, we had to hide the microwave in the closet.
Plus, my goal was overall calories…thus why I wasn’t eating 100calorie food out of cans but opting for the 1,000calorie value menu.
Raman noodles were a daily regular.
I hate them bitches now. If I ever see another “oriental noodle flavor” I will vomit all over the preacher bench.
No, it was by no means cheaper or easier to buy chicken breasts over what I did at the time.
[quote]LoRez wrote:
Ok, I do have a couple questions after reading through that a few times.
- How did you prepare your rice and potatoes? [/quote]
Microwave and frenchfries in the oven.
Like I tried to explain from the start of the thread, I forced my body to adapt by focusing on making in a regular scheduled activity. It took some time but my body adapted to the eating schedule. Your body has a diurnal rhythm that can be manipulated over time.
Things like this are why you may miss some things when the peanut gallery starts screaming as usual. The IQ falls and we all get head wounds.
[quote]Ripsaw3689 wrote:
[quote]Professor X wrote:
One thing I would tell myself is to avoid “specific macro breakdowns” and have more of a general feel for food and the amounts…because the body is not a calculator and adapts even to the food you feed it and the amounts especially at younger ages. I would tell myself to understand in general how many calories I was taking in and protein and to shoot for a monitored weight increase…but to NOT get caught up in exact numbers to the point that I spend less time paying attention to the progress made.
I knew about how many calories I was taking in but was not counting them daily. I had a very different take on how the body functioned and understood that variability and the body’s ability to adapt. I focused more on the weight increase and strength increase…much like Matty wrote before.
I think that worked best for getting me to build that solid base and is why I made progress as fast as I did.[/quote]
Do you think you could have fine tuned your results more easily follow a macro breakdown? [/quote]
Well, what is your idea of “fine tuned”? Could I have stayed leaner possibly? Yes. That doesn’t mean I would have gained the same amount of muscle mass.
Look, your body gains muscle as a defensive mechanism. It will not just pile on the muscle unless there is good reason for it…like significant training stimulus and ample supply of nutrients.
That is why I am discussing optimal gains in muscle mass…vs any gains at all. It is why guys like matty are the ones who get that big in majority unless steroids are used for most of that gain.
[quote]Professor X wrote:
[quote]LoRez wrote:
In that case, what were you doing early on? What was your diet like back then, that worked for you (of course, now redone with higher quality ingredients)? How often were you eating? Were all your meals the same size, or was it built around primary meals and snacks?[/quote]
Have you read this:
I mean, no offense, but I have gone into all of that in so much detail, rewriting it every time someone asks isn’t going to help me much.
[quote]
Numbers-wise, if you’d bumped your calories to gain ~3lbs of bodyweight a month, that puts an average surplus of ~350 calories a day over maintenance. I didn’t see any numbers protein-wise, but based on your reading of the muscle mags, I’d assume you were getting 200-250 grams of protein in a day at 150, and then went up from there. Is that accurate?[/quote]
No, I was getting about 1gr of protein for every pound of body weight. I have done more than that in the past up to 2gr.
Overall, I spent most of the time getting 1-1.5gr.[/quote]
Thanks. I’ve actually been wondering about this for a time now. Appreciate the sharing.