Discouraged: Not Growing Like I Should

Just take more to work? As in, just take the same stuff but you know, double the portions?

Do you have a lunch break - eat more there, maybe don’t eat so “clean” if that’s how you can get extra calories in?

Maybe eat more just before you go to bed? If your last meal is too close, maybe eat more at dinner or drink a shake if you’re on a full stomach?

I’m just confused because I feel like I’m saying stuff that a 12 year old would say but then that seems to be the answer to your question. At some point when I was working, I took a protein shake to work. A few days later I realized it wasn’t enough, so the next day I took 2 protein shakes. And I’m being dead serious, I’m guessing this would be a real-life idea.

2 more whole eggs with your 7:40 meal would be an easy and cost effective way to get some more protein, could think about adding some egg white too.

It looks like you are fairly low on calories in the early AM, if I was in your position I would do something about that first and see where that takes you.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I figured it was a food issue. I just find it hard to eat more all day… not sure what else to eat. I already use fitday to monitor my intake.

I already add olive oil and flaxseed oil to everything, but I will switch to whole milk - didnt think of that.

Ballpark daily schedule:
5:45AM - Protein and water on my way to the gym at 5:30AM
7AM - Protein with fat free milk, frozen berries, oatmeal, and flaxseed meal after workout
7:40AM - 2 eggs, some cheese, 3 1200mg fish oil pills, OJ
9AM - Coffee
11:30AM - Whey w milk, oatmeal, flaxseed oil and peanut butter, and a fruit
2PM - rice, home-made guacamole (just avocado, onions, cilantro, tomato, and a little salt) and either a double serving of canned tuna or canned chicken
4PM - 4 slices of turkey and some cheese
7PM - whatever the wife makes. Usually rice, meat of her choice and veggies, with 3 more fish oil pills

Thoughts? What else do you guys bring to work to eat? Maybe if I had some real-life ideas, I’d pack them.
[/quote]

1.Stop counting your macros and calories obssessively. Just eat more.

2.Have some carbs before you work out in the morning, even if it’s fucking liquid carbs–protein powder aint gonna get you through.

3.After you train, have a nice big dose of sugar (I like grape juice and sweet tarts)with a little protein, then a little while after that have a big meal with alot of protein and carbs (preferably something you can eat alot of) and eat like it’s the last time you’ll be eating.

4.Drink whole milk, not fat free, and eat red meat.

[quote]Itchy wrote:
eat red meat.[/quote]

Thanks for the advice, guys. I’ll start eating more.

Viets, thanks for drilling into some specifics - I can work from that.

X, I don’t mean to upset you, but I was hoping you could drill into some of the things you eat throughout the day. I know I’m doing something wrong - thats why I’m posting here. You started to do that in the post you wrote while I wrote my last one, and I appreciate that. A lot of people come on here to hear themselves talk… I was just waiting for you to drill deeper.

In terms of the shorter than usualy workouts, do any of you think it’s a factor? Or are you all convinced I just need to eat more?

-I

For the pre-workout shake, what do you suggest? Gym opens at 6. I’m up at 5:30 and drink the protein and water while I drive to the gym. Should I substitute the water for juice?

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:

No offense to you, X, but you have posted twice and not given me a useful piece of information or advice… and no offense taken.[/quote]

He didn’t give you advice, but he did make the most important points.

If you aren’t growing, you aren’t eating enough. That’s it.

You need to stop micromanaging your diet and just get more FOOD down. More food means red meat instead of tuna, whole milk instead of skim, etc. I only outweigh you by like 10 lbs (I think you were 198 right?), but if I ate the diet you posted I would probably start losing about 2 lbs. per week.

When I initially gained the weight, I wasnt eating more food in terms of calories, but I was eating a lot of ground beef and steaks for lunch. I switched to the canned stuff because it was a little easier.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
Thanks for the advice, guys. I’ll start eating more.

Viets, thanks for drilling into some specifics - I can work from that.

X, I don’t mean to upset you, but I was hoping you could drill into some of the things you eat throughout the day. I know I’m doing something wrong - thats why I’m posting here. You started to do that in the post you wrote while I wrote my last one, and I appreciate that. A lot of people come on here to hear themselves talk… I was just waiting for you to drill deeper.

In terms of the shorter than usualy workouts, do any of you think it’s a factor? Or are you all convinced I just need to eat more?

-I[/quote]

Double your calories.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
For the pre-workout shake, what do you suggest? Gym opens at 6. I’m up at 5:30 and drink the protein and water while I drive to the gym. Should I substitute the water for juice? [/quote]

Personally I would eat solid food, but some people have trouble training after eating, which is why I suggested liquid carbs. Anyway, if that’s the only way you can get it down then yeah, have a little juice. People might chime in to say it will raise your blood sugar and blah blah blah but the fact is if you don’t have some fuel before you train then your session isn’t going to be very productive.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
When I initially gained the weight, I wasnt eating more food in terms of calories, but I was eating a lot of ground beef and steaks for lunch. I switched to the canned stuff because it was a little easier. [/quote]

Ground beef can be a lifesaver if you’re trying to gain weight. It’s cheap and it tastes good–you can mix stuff with it. And it has a shitload of calories.

But anyway, like I said before, stop worrying so much about calories because it will drive you mad. Eat more of the stuff we listed and then eat more of it and more of it until the scale starts to move again. You should basically be full all the time.

I’ve made a lot of mistakes with training/diet, but I could never understand people that know they want to gain weight, and somehow can’t make it happen.

Eat until the scale moves. Get some whole milk in your shakes, and have handfuls of almonds and walnuts while you drink them.

Have something with simple carbs in it while working out.

How does one have trouble GAINING weight at below 250 lb? I just never understood that one.

[quote]Mr.Purple wrote:
I’ve made a lot of mistakes with training/diet, but I could never understand people that know they want to gain weight, and somehow can’t make it happen.

Eat until the scale moves. Get some whole milk in your shakes, and have handfuls of almonds and walnuts while you drink them.

Have something with simple carbs in it while working out.

How does one have trouble GAINING weight at below 250 lb? I just never understood that one.[/quote]

I’m at the opposite end–I have trouble NOT eating. I have to really be careful to keep from gaining too much fat because it’s nothing for me to down 3000 calories in one sitting if I want to.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
Thanks for the feedback, guys.

I figured it was a food issue. I just find it hard to eat more all day… not sure what else to eat. I already use fitday to monitor my intake.

I already add olive oil and flaxseed oil to everything, but I will switch to whole milk - didnt think of that.

Ballpark daily schedule:
5:45AM - Protein and water on my way to the gym at 5:30AM
7AM - Protein with fat free milk, frozen berries, oatmeal, and flaxseed meal after workout
7:40AM - 2 eggs, some cheese, 3 1200mg fish oil pills, OJ
9AM - Coffee
11:30AM - Whey w milk, oatmeal, flaxseed oil and peanut butter, and a fruit
2PM - rice, home-made guacamole (just avocado, onions, cilantro, tomato, and a little salt) and either a double serving of canned tuna or canned chicken
4PM - 4 slices of turkey and some cheese
7PM - whatever the wife makes. Usually rice, meat of her choice and veggies, with 3 more fish oil pills

Thoughts? What else do you guys bring to work to eat? Maybe if I had some real-life ideas, I’d pack them.
[/quote]

Hang on to that routine-someday when you are cutting it will come in handy(I’m serious).
Now build one that for growing…whole milk - ground beef -6-10 whole eggs - 4,500 - 5,000 calories…maybe more!!!

Eat meat at breakfast. Instead of just 2 eggs and some cheese. 2 eggs are like a total of 140-150 calories. Seriously.

Buy 2 lbs of ground beef and cook it with some taco seasoning or whatever. Put it in a container. In the morning, spoon out about 1/4 of what you have in your container into a skillet and heat it up. after it’s hot move it to the side, scramble your 2 eggs you would have eaten anyways and cook it next to the meat.

After it’s done, wrap that shit up with some of the cheese you would have eaten in two large tortillas. You can also chop onions and peppers to add a little extra flavor. Eat with a glass of OJ and now you have an 800-1000 cal breakfast instead of the what, 300-400 cal? you usually have. Now your over a third of the way to what you’ve been eating in one meal.

cueball

Ground beef seems like an easy fix. How do you guys feel about jerky? Is the ridiculous amount of sodium worth the few calories?

So aside from the “overall eat more” message, here are some specifics I’ve gathered:

Add more sugars/carbs to my pre-workout meal. Since time is an issue, the easiest way to do this is by adding juice to my shake instead of water.

Eat more beef throughout the day. Add some beef to my breakfast AND lunch. Should I sweat the 80% lean beef, or do you suggest buying the 90+% lean stuff?

Lose the fat-free milk and get the whole stuff!

eat more carbs, jesus only 150g a day?

I have almost that much with my workout and PWO shake.

[quote]IvanTheTerrible wrote:
Ground beef seems like an easy fix. How do you guys feel about jerky? Is the ridiculous amount of sodium worth the few calories?

So aside from the “overall eat more” message, here are some specifics I’ve gathered:

Add more sugars/carbs to my pre-workout meal. Since time is an issue, the easiest way to do this is by adding juice to my shake instead of water.

Eat more beef throughout the day. Add some beef to my breakfast AND lunch. Should I sweat the 80% lean beef, or do you suggest buying the 90+% lean stuff?

Lose the fat-free milk and get the whole stuff![/quote]

Plain old ground beef. Not the lean kind.

As for sodium, I don’t worry too much about it, but I also eat hardly any processed food and use very little salt.

Ivan,

I’m a newbie here, but take the advice of the people who are trying to help and don’t get bummed out by those who are rude.

I understand your predicament. I was an obese 260# (6’ 2"; 40 y.o.) and lost 75# with lots of cardio and better eating. About a year ago I started lifting on my own and increased my calories, and didn’t see any progress (still scrawny but ~17% BF - “skinny-fat” as people around here would say). I started with a trainer, and he and a nutritionist sat down with me to figure out why I wasn’t making progress. Part of it was that I wasn’t lifting hard enough, but we also figured out that even when I “increased” my calories I was getting like 2000-2200/day! They were like “DUH”! I was scared of getting fat again, but I promised to up that to 3000/day, doing 1 hr of hard lifting 4x/wk and ~40 min/day of light cardio the other days. 3 weeks later, I’m down 2 lbs from when I started with the trainer! Up go the calories!

It’s hard though, because compared to what I was doing before, it feels like I’m stuffing food down my throat all the time just to get in the 3000/day. Every time I turn around another 3 hours has passed and it’s time to get in >600 calories more! I’m already getting 300 g/day of protein, which seems to be in the range of recommended (>1.5 gm/lb), but I’ll have to take the carbs and fats up. Luckily, as someone else said, you can’t walk 5 feet without running into a pile of carbs and fats in this country.

I think you and I will be trying to find the same thing: calorie dense foods that aren’t entirely unhealthy but that you can eat a lot of and not feel so stuffed you think you’re going to puke. I’ll be switching from my regular protein shakes (really low carb) to something more like a gainer, and try to get in at least 2 of those a day. Thanks to others for the suggestion of ground beef. I’m obviously not getting enough carbs pre-workout and will change that immediately.

For those out there giving advice to the two of us: we can get lots of calories fast with crap like donuts, pizza, etc. (that’s how I got to 260# in the first place). Should we use some food like this to increase the calories?

[quote]tbartman wrote:
Ivan,

For those out there giving advice to the two of us: we can get lots of calories fast with crap like donuts, pizza, etc. (that’s how I got to 260# in the first place). Should we use some food like this to increase the calories? [/quote]

In general, I think it’s best to keep to clean foods most of the time. However, if you haven’t eaten in 3 hours and all that is available is left-over frito casserole and a jelly donut, then by god eat it.

Fast food is fine in moderation if it helps you get your calories in.

Basically, it is better to eat ANYTHING than it is to eat nothing.