What Do I Call This?

Nutrition
1

Hey everyone,

I have been eating the same for the past year or so and have put on good muscle while still staying fairly lean.

My diet: a ton of Chicken, low fat yogurt, eggs, egg whites, egg beaters, steak once in awhile, salad, whole grain everything, turkery burgers etc.

I basically go the grocery store and if they make something low fat or whole grain as oppossed to normal I will buy that instead. I just try to eat as healthy as possible…not even really trying to lose weight, just stay fit.

I have been on a cut before which consisted of me basically reducing what i eat up above. Just mentioning that because I know some people will look at my diet above and think I am cutting.

I am in really good shape yet I am not sure if I am restricting my muscle gains because I am afraid to eat outside what I think is healthy.

My past: I have always been a very fit individual. However my freshman year of college I went from 185 to 215, didnt work out, drank all the time, and ate taco bell everytime i had the drunk munchies.

Present: Over a year ago I cut all that shit out, started lifting heavy again, cardio, yada yada yada. I now weigh 170…a big drop from my 215 and am much stronger than I have ever been. Like I said before I have a lot of muscle and am in great shape now.

Goals: To get as big as possible (muscle-wise), stay lean, and still feel good about what i eat. I guess i just need to get over the fear of putting on a ton of weight again.

Any suggestions as far as diet or anything?

2

Well add veggies and fruit if you arnt already and to gain muslce just make sure eating ALOT of the stuff you mentioned.

3

If trying to gain lean muscle tissue only, then generally one should eat the same foods while cutting, but simply in larger amounts, so that a moderate caloric surplus is achieved. The trick is finding the right amount and type of calories to allow for the most muscle gains and least fat gains. Of course while gaining, you can generally get away with eating more carbs, but its something that each individual will need to play with in order to find what’s optimal for him or her.

Seeing as how the calorie difference between goals shouldn’t be that drastic, its fairly easy to do.

4

I may mis-read your post, but it looks like you’re woefully deficient in your fat intake. Make sure you’re getting a good balance of mono/poly/saturated fat for vibrant health and positive changes in body composition as well. Best to you!

5

Can you give me examples of what good fats that I should intake are?

6

good fats are avacado, nuts, olive oil, fish oil, flax seed oil. hope this helps

7

Ive been taking fish oil caps…Im probably going to stop though, they have been tearing my stomach apart gas-wise. I have been adding olive oil to my chicken. However the nutrition facts look pretty hefty…how often is one suppossed to use olive oil and does it really help?

8

Remember that terms like low-fat, fat-free arent necessarily good things. The fats you find in something like cottage cheese are a good thing, your body burns them during the night to avoid burning muscle tissue for fuel during an 8 hour fast.

Examples of good fats:

Extra Virgin Olive Oil–pour a ton of this stuff over your green veggies

NATURAL Peanut Butter–again i said
NATURAL. No added sugar or hydranated oils. That shit is crap. The real stuff’s only ingredient is peanuts, maybe a little salt.

Raw nuts–again raw, not coated with salt or sugar, roasted etc.

Avacado–I myself am not a big fan of this, but damn is it nutritional.

Also things like regular cheese and butter are fine in moderation. Again the key here is moderation. a tbsp of butter on your veggies or whole wheat toast aint gonna kill ya once or twice, even three times a week. Its when you smother everything you eat in the shit that bad stuff starts to happen.

As far as eating healthy in general check out this article by mens health Men's Health - Fitness, Nutrition, Health, Sex, Style & Weight Loss Tips for Men
channel=weight.loss&category=abs.diet&conitem=
b72a99edbbbd201099edbbbd2010cfe793cd____

Make these foods a staple part of your diet and you literally cant go wrong.

One last thing that I can’t stress enough. Dietary fats like the examples i gave you dont make you fat. Infact they help you burn fat and are used as energy so all that protein you eat can be used to make your muscles grow.

9

Don’t stress over it, but like proxy said, try to get a balance of fats. How much fat you eat as a portion of your total Calories per day will depend on your individual diet details. Generally, the more carbs you eat, the less fat you should eat, and vice versa. However, regardless of carb intake, you need a healthy amount of fat anyways. Try to get about 1/3 each of polyunsaturated, monounsaturated, and saturated fat.

Monounsaturated Fat - olive oil, natural peanut butter, over half the fat in beef

Polyunsaturated Fat - Fish oil, flax oil, nuts, generally fats found in plant products and fish, etc.

Saturated fat - slightly less than half of the fat in beef, heavy whipping cream, small amounts in olive oil. If eating lean meats and supplementing with fish oil and eating olive oil you may be getting very little saturated fat and may need to look into fattier cuts of meat and using heavy whipping cream in your shakes to balance this out.

10

[quote]Mach10 wrote:
Hey everyone,

I basically go the grocery store and if they make something low fat or whole grain as oppossed to normal I will buy that instead. [/quote]

This makes me think you don’t read labels. Most low fat/non-fat items have more sugar and more calories than the regular full fat version. Read those labels.

Also, it might say whole grain, but you need to check the label to see what they added or what they did with that whole grain. I’ve seen stuff that isn’t much better than white flour that says whole grain on the package. Why? Well, it started out as whole grain, just like white flour did.

Don’t fall for the marketing. Take the time to read the label and learn what is in the item you are buying.

11

[quote]Arioch wrote:
Mach10 wrote:
Hey everyone,

I basically go the grocery store and if they make something low fat or whole grain as oppossed to normal I will buy that instead.

This makes me think you don’t read labels. Most low fat/non-fat items have more sugar and more calories than the regular full fat version. Read those labels.

Also, it might say whole grain, but you need to check the label to see what they added or what they did with that whole grain. I’ve seen stuff that isn’t much better than white flour that says whole grain on the package. Why? Well, it started out as whole grain, just like white flour did.

Don’t fall for the marketing. Take the time to read the label and learn what is in the item you are buying.[/quote]

That’s a good tip. Especially if he decides to still eat bread. I would just cut bread out completely and replace those carbs with potatoes/sweet potatoes. I don’t really think bread has alot of value overall anyway unless you were just wanting to pack on calories.

12

Good tips so far. Just try to keep it simple, look up JB’s 7 habits article,and go through your daily process:

Ask yourself:
(this is from memory, the article may differ some)

  1. are you eating every 2-3 hours?
  2. does every meal contain protein?
  3. does every meal contain veggies (or fruit)?
    .
    .
    .

To add muscle, just slowly increase meal volume, for example if you were eating a piece of meat with 30g of protein, up the serving size to 40g, add a little extra extra virgin olive oil (not regular olive oil), etc…

Other tips:

Drink a protein shake as soon as you wake up (Whey is fine for this) and don’t count it as breakfast, it’s extra.

Eat a slow digesting protein source just before bead, cottage cheese works well, you just need to get used to it or add something you like to it (fruit or peanut butter).

As for the fish oils, you may have a cheap brand. Try another brand. Also don’t eat them on an empty stomach, they should only be taken with a meal.

Good luck

13

[quote]cueball wrote:
Arioch wrote:
Mach10 wrote:
Hey everyone,

I basically go the grocery store and if they make something low fat or whole grain as oppossed to normal I will buy that instead.

This makes me think you don’t read labels. Most low fat/non-fat items have more sugar and more calories than the regular full fat version. Read those labels.

Also, it might say whole grain, but you need to check the label to see what they added or what they did with that whole grain. I’ve seen stuff that isn’t much better than white flour that says whole grain on the package. Why? Well, it started out as whole grain, just like white flour did.

Don’t fall for the marketing. Take the time to read the label and learn what is in the item you are buying.

That’s a good tip. Especially if he decides to still eat bread. I would just cut bread out completely and replace those carbs with potatoes/sweet potatoes. I don’t really think bread has alot of value overall anyway unless you were just wanting to pack on calories.[/quote]

I recently had the experience of finding this out. Gave up bread in all forms for about 1 month. Noticed a world of difference. Now, I only use it on rare instances (cheat meals and such).