New to the site, been doing lot of research, think I’ve got things heading in the right direction. I’m 6ft, 10st 8lbs. Looking to bulk up.
Played around working out my maintenance cals and so I’m aiming on eating 3000 cals, with 140g protein in there. My log is showing my split is 60% carbs, 25% Protein, 15% Fat. My actual fat/protein split isn’t quite what’s recommended (60/15/25). Is it near enough? If not what food would be good to boost the fat and lower the protein at the same time?
I’m logging it all in a spreadsheet (inc salt, which is an eye opener!). Got my photos & measurements taken. Working out with heavy weight every other day. Also ensuring each bodypart gets good rest. Obviously going to fine tune as I go but want to get the basics straight 1st Any tips or suggestions with how it looks so far? Not going to use any shakes of supps, at least not yet.
Hey Fishy Welcome,
There are a lot of mansizers who look at their fitness regime the way you do, so start a thread thats a diary of your goals and for the most part you get useful advice from this community.
in terms of fitness, there are two resident experts; anthony and pj. anthony for fitness advice, pj for healthy eating
but in general, post often; for the most part you get witty and friendly responses, otherwise hit certain buttons before closing the window
:)
they tend to have a mansized challenge every quarter of the year, so keep your data under wraps for the moment, wait till early april before you go revealing stats
Check out Richy23's Mr Mansized Training log for great advice on how to bulk and keep it clean and clean- Richy and all the other guys who have posted on there will not let you put a foot wrong.
You can post any specific training questions at Anthony, the Mansized Fitness Editor.
Good Luck in your goals Dude - train hard,eat well and keep us posted.
Hey mate welcome to Mansized. Believe me you have found a great site!
I am actually in a very similar position to you; 10 stone 6 and 5 11.5''. This is a recent pic of me; click.
Now you may look at me and think hang on, how can this guy tell me about how to bulk up; he isn’t exactly huge! lol I know I know, but when I first found Mansized due to illness and other things I had dropped from my natural weight of almost 11 stone, to 8 stone 5! eek
Since then I have been bulking up and gaining weight gradually; during which I've gained just over 2 stone and added very little bodyfat during this; all though keen attention to diet, calories and working out 3 generally 2-3 times a week.
So then, enough about me; how to start out???….
Well, effective bulking can be broken down into 3 key areas;
1. Diet
2. Workout
3. Rest.
1. Diet
You seem to be on the right track with this. Calories wise there are lots of contradicting information of how much protein / fat you should be getting.
Generally though I’d say aim for about 20-25% fat, 15-20% protein and the rest (around 60% carbs). But it really doesn’t matter all that much if you do not get within these exact limits; as long as you get enough calories and eat healthily you’ll be on te right track.
You need to supply you’re body with fuel (food) constantly throughout the day; so inn general aim to eat 5-6 times a day; 3 meals and 2-3 snacks.
Calorie wise if you are starting out; do you have any idea what number of calories you’re body needs to maintain its current weight??? If not then a good way to find out, is before you start; right down everything you’ve eaten over 3 days and then add up and average the number of calories, to get you’re daily average.
In general adding 300-500 on top of this will see you gaining about 1lb a week, which is what you should be aiming for at first. Most men have the potential to gain 12-15lbs of pretty much lean mass over 3 months if they work hard enough, eat well and get enough sleep and rest.
Alternatively if you have already started, a good way to estimate how many cals you will need is to go for around 18-20x bodyweight in pounds, so for you that’s about 2700-3000 cals a day.
Every week weigh yourself (say on a Monday); without clothes, first thing in the morning, before eating and after going to the loo. Then check each week to see if you are hitting the 1 lb per week target. Digital scales are more accurate and so I’d recommend getting some.
If you gain about 1lb then great;. Add 50-100 cals to you’re diet and that should see you gain another pound the following week.
If you don’t gain much weight or lose weight; add 100-300 cals
If you gain weight, but too much fat (say 3lbs); keep your cals the same or drop them back 50-150.
I would recommend taking the following measurements before you start (and then re-measuring every 4 week to check on progress)…..
Neck; just above adams apple
Chest; take a shallow breath in and measure straight around the nipple line
Waist; at the navel
Thighs; largest part
Calves; largest part
Arms; measure around the largest part with the arm relaxed and down by you’re side, then measure it up and tensed.
Forearms; measure around the largest part
Wrist; just below the wrist bone
Also I’d recommend getting hold of some skinfold callipers so you can check you aren’t gaining too much fat; Accumeasure ones can be bought on line for around £10-£15 and are very good.
Then use an online calculator such as this one; click to work out how much bodyfat you have. Re-measure every 4 weeks and aim to keep any fat gains down to 25% or less. Ie if you gain 10lbs, ideally only about 2 or so should have been fat.
Also take a front back and side photo with you’re top off, so you can look back in 12 weeks time and see how well you have done. And also use the photo as motivation too.
Food! Some of the best food to eat;
Complex carbs such as;
Porridge
Wholemeal bread
Wholemeal pasta or rice
Low sugar Museli
Weetabix or Shreaded Wheat
Ryvieta
Good fats;
Peanut Butter
Salmon / Oily fish
Nuts
Seeds
Olive oil
Fruit and Veg;
Smoothies
Dried fruit
Any fruit and veg really; get lots of it
Have a look through my thread for ideas on diet. But in general mine is something like;
Breaky: 100g Porridge made with ss milk + honey and raisins
Snack 1: 4-6 Weetabix and low fat yogurt + some fruit
Lunch: 2 rounds of wholemeal chicken sandwitches with olive spread and pickle
Snack 2: 50g Mixed nuts and dried fruit
Tea: 150g wholemeal pasta + sliced chicken breast cooked in tsp extra virgin olive oil + home made tomato sauce and a micro veg pack
Snack 3: 2 slices of low fat spread on toast or muesli and ss milk
And no, supplements are not needed; they are only supplements; ie they are meant as a supplememt to a normal diet. If you can get enough cals froom ‘normal’ food then do so. But if you are often in a rush and cannot eat a proper meak for example then a mass gain shake like All-inOne’s Gain can help.
2. Workout
Ideally you need to workout probably 3 times a week, with at least a days rest in-between; so mon, wed, fri for example. You ned to use mainly compound exercises and its best to work you’re whole body each session; not do some silly bodybuilder split routine; just because they do it and they are big does not mean it works for the average person; when you get to their size it’s a lot harder to gain mass so they really need to hit a bodypart hard to make it grow, so they generally do lots for each bodypart but only train each muscle once per week! |For someone like you starting out; you will be better off doing a fullbody routine.
You definitely need to be including most of these exercises;
And some arm work too; curls and tricep extensions for example.
You’re best bet would be to follow a routine designed by someone in the know; Ie Anthony (the on-site Fitness Guru / Personal Trainer). If you can afford it; I’d recommend buying Anthony’s E-book; EMB (Efficient Muscle Building) – click. I used it this time last year; it is excellent and allowed me to gain 13.5 lbs in 12 weeks!
Alternatively there are 2 other great programs designed by Anthony her on-line;
The Daniel Craig Workout – click
Or, from a previous ‘Build Muscle Challenge’; click
Finally;
3. Rest
This is much more important than most people think. When you in the gym on one of your 3 sessions a week say, you need to give it 100% effort and take every exercise to the point where you cannot possibly get another rep in good form no-matter how hard you try (this is what is called muscle failure).
But as soon as you finish the workout; the rest of the time when you are outside the gym you need to rest as much as possible and aim for 8 hours sleep a night. Do not go trying to do numerous sports on your rest days or doing sit-ups and press-ups etc, It is whilst you are outside of the gym that you’re muscles recover from the workout and grow, so you need to let them rest.
Think that is all from me.
Apart from to say good-luck, and keep posting on here mate :-)
they tend to have a mansized challenge every quarter of the year, so keep your data under wraps for the moment, wait till early april before you go revealing stats
no point keeping things secret! Especially when the challenges don't happen that often. The current one hasn't even ended yet.
they tend to have a mansized challenge every quarter of the year, so keep your data under wraps for the moment, wait till early april before you go revealing stats
no point keeping things secret! Especially when the challenges don't happen that often. The current one hasn't even ended yet.
Yeah I thught that was a bit weird too! Billprice is obviously feeling conspiratorial in the wee hours.
Cheers for the responses so far! It's really motivating to know what your doing right and what to improve.
I'm going to try to keep my food 'clean' as possible but find a cheeky pie doesn't half help bumping up the cals! For this week only though I'm clearing (read eating) all the pizzas out of the freezer and bad stuff out of the freezer so there'll be no temptation after next week!
Managed to swap my tuna in brine for one in sunflower oil. Massive difference in cals, bumps up my fat intake and less salt. Bonus! It's like cals for free!
I'm aiming on 3000/day. But i'm fluctuating between 2900 - 3100 depending on day. Should I aim to nail it bang on?
I'm going to try to keep my food 'clean' as possible but find a cheeky pie doesn't half help bumping up the cals! For this week only though I'm clearing (read eating) all the pizzas out of the freezer and bad stuff out of the freezer so there'll be no temptation after next week!
Managed to swap my tuna in brine for one in sunflower oil. Massive difference in cals, bumps up my fat intake and less salt. Bonus! It's like cals for free!
I'm aiming on 3000/day. But i'm fluctuating between 2900 - 3100 depending on day. Should I aim to nail it bang on?
Brine is better tbh, water even better than that. It might not be the best fat choice, it is just a cheap fat to preserve the tuna I'm guessing. I also wouldn't eat all the pizza, you will just be going backwards. Keep them there, bin them, give them to someone else. Don't eat them all though.
Cal wise, you can be 50cals either way no problem. When bulking I guess you can get away with a bit more of a difference. Just monitor progress each week so you know if you are eating enough, or not enough. With bulking, it is trial and error. Keep tracking changes, then make adjustments to match.
Try to aim for a set number of cals; its always easier than having a range to meet I find. Also it is odd how the body reacts to a difference of only 1 hundred cals. On 3800 last week I gained 1 lb. On 3700 I gained nothing! SDo it is very trail and error.
I agree with matt-o. Sunflower oil isnt really the best choice for fat. I'd go with brine and add some olive oil if you like or just get the fats from nuts or naturally oily fish instead.
Did you have alook thru all of my post? Anything at all you are unsure about?
