RAPID Weight Gain

Ok, what is going on here? I’m following Massive Eating’s reccomendation on calories, and since Saturday I’ve gone from 196 in the morning to 209 here (night weight so I’ll probably be 205-206 in the morning). I’m also taking creatine so I’m guessing a lot is also just water weight b/c my waist is not increasing, but I definetly don’t look as lean and my abs aren’t showing up too well anymore, and my stomach is JUTTING out. I’m getting a large amount of fiber due to all the flax seeds, fruit and vegetables I"m consuming.
ANY IDEAS?

[quote]Proteinpowda wrote:

ANY IDEAS?
[/quote]

Yes. You’re bloated, and probably also retaining water.

Also consider:

  1. I’m vegetarian, so I’m going to have a higher initial creatine uptake
  2. I was coming off a 2200 calorie a day diet, and am now at 4,000.
  3. I was taking either caffeine or HOT-ROX before which acted as a diurectic,
  4. I had taken the original weight measurement like I always do; first thing in the morning, but I had done a lot of cardio the day before.
    So considering that…my true weight might have been around 200 or so…but it’s still a ton of weight-gain

RIT Jared and other people who have experienced this…how long does it take for the bloating and initial weight game to stop. This is why I never lasted on bulking cycles before…I would immedietly get terrified gaining 10+lbs the first week or two.

If you were “dieting” and then dived into a massive eating protocol you may be putting on more fat than you’d like.

However, keep in mind, that with all the eating, you probably have a good five pounds of fibre working its way through your system as well as a similar amount due to creatine loading.

Interested in seeing what the bulkmasters have to say though…

As Berardi says, increase between 250 and 500 calories a week, don’t go from 2200 to 5000 or so. You are ganing way more fat than you want. You really should decrease back to around 3000 and then weekly work your way up. If you are real impatient (like myself) just do 1000 kcal a week, and you will be gaining less fat than you are now.

I know you really want to bulk NOW, but its better to bulk by slowly raising calories than to jump it up, because it takes that much longer to lose the fat after you bulk.

Also, how much creatine are you taking? Are you taking it with a little salt added? And HOT-ROX is not really a diuretic.

I definitely agree with the previous posts. You jacked your calories up too much too fast. The extra carbs, fiber and creatine are causing a great deal of water retention and bloat. Unless you back off the calories to a significant degree you can expect to remain bloated for the duration. And once all of that fiber and bulk gets thru your system, expect to be spending plenty of time with the porcelin god. Enjoy.

As for creatine, I’m taking between 5 and 6 grams a day. I know we only need 2 or 3, but I’m assuming that since I’m a veggie I need a little bit more than average. I’ll take the advice though and drop my calories back to 3k though. Good idea. And I’m not putting any salt in my creatine, but I do put salt in my white rice in my PWO meal (which is when I take my creatine).

Were you following a low-carb diet prior to this? If so that would explain alot of the sudden weight gain. One week is not enough time for the weight gain to be much in the way of fat mass.

The diet previous to this had between 100 and 200 grams of carbs a day

Well I"ll back them down to 3000 til Monday and up it to 3300 on Monday, and keep going up from there.
Good advice

[quote]Proteinpowda wrote:
Ok, what is going on here? I’m following Massive Eating’s reccomendation on calories, and since Saturday I’ve gone from 196 in the morning to 209 here (night weight so I’ll probably be 205-206 in the morning). I’m also taking creatine so I’m guessing a lot is also just water weight b/c my waist is not increasing, but I definietly don’t look as lean and my abs aren’t showing up too well anymore, and my stomach is JUTTING out. I’m getting a large amount of fiber due to all the flax seeds, fruit and vegetables I"m consuming.
ANY IDEAS?
[/quote]

I agree with the others that you jumped up calories a little too quickly but I do gain quite a bit of weight the first week of bulking as well due to the water retention.

[quote]Proteinpowda wrote:
RIT Jared and other people who have experienced this…how long does it take for the bloating and initial weight game to stop. This is why I never lasted on bulking cycles before…I would immedietly get terrified gaining 10+lbs the first week or two. [/quote]

Maybe you need to throw away your scale for a little while and focus on something else, as it sounds you are really psyching yourself out.

Get a measuring tape and go by that, as well as your mirror appearance, in addition to the scale.

As for the diet-- don’t just move your calories up all willy nilly. Berardi recommends a 250 cal increase over a period of TWO WEEKS, and then re-evaluate your goals. If you are gaining steadily, stick with it. If not, add 250 more. If you go about things systematically you will have a much better chance of dialing in your diet than just shooting in the dark.

RIT Jared

[quote]Lotus wrote:
If you are real impatient (like myself) just do 1000 kcal a week, and you will be gaining less fat than you are now.
[/quote]

I would advise strongly against this. The reason Berardi recommends no more than 250-500cal increase per week is because metabolism chases intake up or down. When you have a “2200 calorie” metabolism, and then you jump directly into a 4000 or even 3000 calorie diet, it doesn’t give your metabolism the chance to catch up with the intake-- the effect is that while you are in that “catching up” period, you will gain a lot of weight, and probably more fat than you’d like.

Drastic caloric changes are almost never the answer, if your goals are a better body composition.

RIT Jared

RIT Jared,
I have to agre with you. I read Massive Eating Reloaded a week or two before I started the diet, and I thought that since i was going on the low side of the calories (I was placed at somewhere between 4000 and 4500) I’d be ok with 4k.
As for the tape measure…it depends on where I measure my waist…if my measure over my umbilicus…still the same 38", if I measure over my actual waist that’s gone from 36 to 36.25

As for appearance…Big difference…my abs definetly don’t show as well when I flex them, and I just look bloated.

But as I said I cut back down to 3k a day and I’ll go up 250 a week (instead of 250-500 every 2 weeks).
Thanks
Jason

I agree with most of what has been said here as well.

Up the intake slowly. Dont just bump it up weekly for the sake of bumping it up. You will be much happier if you change your intake relative to results. If you are gaining 1-2 lbs a week dont moive it. Wait untill you plateau and then bump it up again.

Sure it will take longer to get the weight on but it will; mainly be LBM. Some blurring to your abs and such will happen. Just gotta live with it bro.

Last thing. Check this thread out. Lots off good stuff on here.

Newbie Bulking Tips thread
http://www.t-nation.com/readTopic.do?id=487126

Hope this helps and keep up the progress.

Oh and for Xmass day consider bumping those K/cal #'s through the Fing roof. Eat and be merry it only comes once a year.

Later,
Phill

What RIT Jared said, yes, but in my case, I wasn’t as worried about the fat I packed on and wanted to just start the bulk so got impatient. But yea, if you hvae the time and patience, do 250 to 500 jumps a week.

Well I dropped my calories back down to 3k yesterday and I still gained 1.5lbs. So since I didn’t do an initial creatine loading phase half of it has to be from there I’m guessing b/c I have no idea where the weight went. But for today I think I might break the massive eating protocols and just pig out for xmas which I hate doing (I was good for thanksgiving). But to give a general idea:
Today was a non workout day and I dropped my calories back down to 3k, but I thought I’d post my diet and let you guys get a look at it. If it was a training day…the meal timings would just be a bit different (all the carbs would be consumed 6 hours post workout, and I would have a high glycemic carb meal post workout, generally .5-.75 cups white rice with 2 sccops of protein powder

Meal 1: 3 cups frozen fruit, 1.5 scoops protein powder
Meal 2: 2 baked potatoes, protein powder smoothie with strawberries
Meal 3: Stir Fry with vegetables and olive oil, and 1.5 scoops protein powder
It’s fat and carbs in the same meal but considering I’m using very very low glycemic carbs I feel it’s acceptable for massive eating.
Meal 4: 1/2 cup of flax seeds, 1.5 scoops protein powder
Meal 5: 3 regular eggs, 1 cup egg beaters, 1.5tbps olive oil, cooked in cooking spray, 1/4 cup almonds
Meal 6: 1.5 scoops protein powder, 1/4 cup almonds.

Yes, very heavy reliance on protein powder, but what else can I do as a veggie; it’s better than soy or drinking a ton of milk.
That’s a typical day though…occassionaly I experiment around a bit…I tried making low-carb cookies with flax meal one day…and got stuck eating those for a day or two…or I often make JB’s banana nut bread with flax meal from his Beyond Oatmeal Part 2 article (Flax is great!)
So there’s a peek into my eating habits… anyone saying EAT MEAT will be chuckled at and disregarded.

You eat eggs?! Sweet Jesus!

Egg whites are a very bioavailable source of protein. I don’t know what the experts have to say, but I would venture a suggestion that you should try to get more of your protein from them to balance things out. The best choice is moderation, so if say, you were getting even 1/3 of your protein from eggwhites I think it would be preferrable to getting all of your protein from whey powder.

Make omlettes with 1.5-2 cups eggwhites, 1-1.5 cup spinach, and a little cheese.

If you aren’t into eating that many eggwhites, I might look into buying some egg protein powder.
RIT Jared