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Trying to bulk up on 3k calories a day.

I've been trying to gain weight/muscle but have been really limited by my sources of dietary calories.

I'm currently basically meat and dairy only.
I'm gluten free, have to avoid any sweets made with sugars other than cane sugar.
I don't know of any fibers I can tolerate, a little coconut oil is about it. Fruits and veggies typically cause diarrhea.

So for the past few months my diet has looked like this:
3-4oz of meat (fish, chicken, pork) 2 eggs 3 slices of cheese, 1/4 cup cottage cheese 3 times a day. This isn't very calorie dense though, about 450-500 per meal, so 1500ish over the course of a day.

My tolerance for dairy has been good so I started adding more and more milk to my diet, I've reached half a gallon a day but now I'm starting to see increase bowel movement frequency, pale colored stool, not diarrhea but instead of one formed stool it comes out in many grape sized lumps.

I'm thinking this is the result of the high fat in my diet.

I'm probably going to try some Lipase digestive enzyme supplement but wanted to know if anyone had some other ideas first.

Also I'm not sure if this is actually something that should worry me. I mean yes I have as many as 4 BMs a day, however on a no fiber diet, it's sure better than 1 every 2 days. I'm worried I may not be getting all the calories I'm consuming though, so it's not really benefiting me in the long run.

My weight went up a bit when I started and has stabilized. Really could do without another weight plateau.
 

KWalker

Moderator
It would actually be argued that your BM's have became normal. According to doctors, the ideal BM is a 5 on the Bristol Stool chart. Anything bigger/harder indicates that you aren't going enough.

Personally, I don't think 3000 is enough. I was taking in 5-6000 a day back when I was focused on gaining weight, but as I'm sure you know, there are so many factors that influence how each individual gains/loses weight. Are you only eating more or are you lifting as well?

Also, if you're interested you should look into Mutant Mass. Its a weight gainer protein powder which has 1,060 calories in each drink. I used to drink 3 a day and noticed gains pound for pound with usage. It was a 15lb bag and I used about 10-11lbs and gained the same.
 
I'm weightlifting, it's part of how I know I've stalled, I've been benching 50lb. dumbbells with no improvement for a while now, I've gained a few reps per set in the last two months but going from 3 to 8 reps max per set in 2 months at a weight typically considered low is depressing.

I probably can't tolerate the gainer, most gainers contain one of these that I can't have:
-maltodextrin
-vegetable oils
-sucrose/sucralose

I tried Russian Bear 5000 because it had a safe ingredients list, the only one I could find that did, but it was less calories per dollar than milk after I did the math so I stopped buying it.
 

KWalker

Moderator
Don't worry about whether or not others will consider your lifts low. Nobody starts lifting crazy amounts, it takes time. Is 50lbs the max you can bench? And is that 50lbs on top of the 45lb bar? Instead of worrying about reps, I would try increasing the weight. A lot of people that are really focused on gaining will go right to their max weight so they are only able to do 3-5 reps. You want to make sure your heart rate stays normal and ideally don't even want to sweat. That's why the short reps so you don't have time to start sweating.
 
I can just approach this topic from my own experience. Before being diagnosed when I was 18, I weighed between 70 and 72kg. From 1999 to 2003 after I had surgery I normally was only 60 - 65kg, after surgery I was again about 70kg. Then from 2006 to 2012 fluctuating from 60 to about 68 kg. Now I am 77kg.

Principally my weigh has been correlated with a. amount of sport done and b. number of bowel movements per day and whether they are formed or not. I haven't had diarrhea in over half a year now and I am doing sport 3-4 times a week. I am pretty hungry after sport, and that's why I gain weight.

I tried to gain weight before at times I had several BMs per day and/or when I wasn't doing sport that made me sweat for a while. It didn't work.
 
I've been lifting for a long time but limited by diet. Generally know what to do and how my body responds to weight training so when something's not progressing as normal I can tell.

50 lb. dumbbells. It's not that they are light by others standards but that they are light enough that I shouldn't be having trouble moving up after working with the weight and adding a few reps every week.

All my other lifts have been improving though, but my greatest tell is my weight stagnation, sit around 141-143 depending (water weight etc.) and it's like I'll hit 143.6 and think I'm finally making progress and next day I'm 141.5 again.

I mean average person training consistently with a good caloric surplus for about a year should be able to hit roughly bodyweight bench and squat and 1.5-2x bodyweight deadlift. Of course with CD I probably have to make some exception to the 'average' but I'd still like to polish up my diet to help as much as I can.

Right now my limiting factors are money and calorie sources. I could probably do a full gallon of milk a day, it would be tight on my wallet, but I could get by. Idk if my problem might get worse though. I'm already at like 150-200 grams of fat per day.
 

KWalker

Moderator
Unfortunately money is a huge factor when trying to gain weight and is one of the reasons I stopped trying as well. I'm currently at 5'11 and 157-160lbs. Like you said, one day I weigh 160 and the next I weigh 157 without changing anything. I think it's because of the crohns and how we can get bloated so numbers can be inaccurate. Have you thought about adding nuts to your diet? It's controversial whether or not they effect crohns ( I don't have problems with them) and they are high in calories and fat.

Out of curiosity, have you tried doing bench presses sitting up on a machine? I don't have exact numbers for you but I always seemed to do much better benching outwards rather than up.

How often are you working out? It's possible you could be over-exercising too. Our muscles don't grow when we work out, they grow when we rest.
 
Last time I tried peanuts terrible things happened. Don't know if results would vary with other nuts.

No I workout at home just have enough plates to load two 50lb dumbells or my bar up to 190, can do just about whatever free weight exercises I need (except back squats).

I'm certain after much research I'm not at risk of over training. It's sort of something that's been overstated a lot in modern exercise literature. I hit the same muscle group every 3 days on a push/pull/legs split and I've recently done a rest and deload period for recovery to see if that was the issue.
 
Instant, have you tried creatine? It helped me significantly before my last flare. I gained 20 lbs, some of which was water weight, but I did so in 2 1/2 mos. My personal experience with it is positive and I have no digestive issues from using it. I am currently coming back up from the flare and have once again started using it without any negative consequences. Also, my doctor put me on hyoscyamine which has done WONDERS for me personally with slowing down my BMs as well as limiting them. I don't know if it would help you at all but its a thought. Stay strong man.
 
Yes I take 5g of creatine daily with milk and honey post workout and have been for the past few months. I saw an initial increase in weight from about 134 to 140 and higher energy.
 
Along with calories eaten, and lifting till failure, I found the fat soluble vitamins greatly helpful in putting on muscle weight. Over the last couple of years I've put on nearly 50lbs at this point.

I suspect reaching a testing level above 50ng/ml for vitamin D3 helped. Eating foods rich in vitamin K2, found in gouda and other aged cheeses assisted also. The fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin D3 are considered pro-hormones. They tend to raise other hormone levels, which are helpful in building muscles, and bone. The nice thing about vitamin D this time of year is that it can be free. Noon time sunshine exposure, avoid being burnt, will help raise vitamin D3 levels well.

Other items I take are 3mgs of time release melatonin in the evening, fish oil, kelp tablets which helps with thyroid hormones, and 10mgs of pregnenolone.

With lifting, anymore I don't pay all that much attention to how much weight I lift from session to session. What I've found to work is lifting till muscle failure, then do 2 more reps. :ytongue:

Time wise I'll set aside 45 minutes, with short breaks between different exercises. After working out I'll typically eat a packet of lunch meat with coconut oil spread on it, along with an orange or some other fruit.
 
Right on, that's good to hear. I really wish you could use mass gainer man, that would do wonders for you (besides the whole messing up your stomach thing). How much water are you drinking daily?
 
How tall are you? What does your workout look like?

Beach, lifting to failure is useless for a novice lifter, sorry.
 
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How tall are you? What does your workout look like? Also if you're only getting 1500 calories a day I have no idea how you expect to gain weight.

Beach, lifting to failure is useless for a novice lifter, sorry.
Did you read the whole thread? I was eating 1500-2k and getting another 1000 from milk. Still not much progress.

Basically 3 day cycle
Day 1:
Rows (8-12 rep max weight range, 3-5 sets)
Curls (8-12 reps 3 sets)
Shrugs (15-35 rep range 3-5 sets)
Weighted abs (8-12 reps 3-5 sets)

Day 2:
Bench press (5-8 rep max range, variable sets I try to out-do total volume of previous bench day)
Overhead extensions (10-15 rep range 3 sets)
Lateral Raise (10-20 rep range 3 sets)

Day 3:
Squats 8-12 reps 3 sets.
Shrugs (same as day 1)
Ab work
Calf raises

On 6th day I do deadlift instead of squat, usually 5-8 singles adding 10lb.s per until I reach my working weight, then hit that 3 singles.

I don't lift to failure, sometimes on the last set, know about the whole bro science surrounding that.

Probably going to back off the weight and work on my accessory muscles harder (tris, delts) and isolate chest with flys for a few weeks.
 

kiny

Well-known member
Just my 2 cents because I don't know how else to help.

If all you want is mass I would change more to compound and just do it at a slower pace with more rest in between day 2 and 3. There's a lot of isolation stuff in your routine.

-Drop the overhead extension and do dips so you get lower chest workout and triceps.

-Drop the lateral raise and do military press so you exercise your whole deltoid, not just the lateral part.

-Drop the curls and do hammer curls so you train biceps and forearm.

-Add in pullups for your lats and back.


Another thing is, use dumbells wherever you can, for military press, chest press, hammer curls. A dumbell is way better than a bar because it requires you to use stabiliser muscles, with a bar you're locked like in a machine.
 

kiny

Well-known member
50 lb. dumbbells. It's not that they are light by others standards but that they are light enough that I shouldn't be having trouble moving up after working with the weight and adding a few reps every week.
Kind of depends on the exercise too, most people I know, including me, change them out every exercise. For military press I use all my plates, for bent over lateral raise I use 1/4th of my plates.

I never felt that using very heavy weights helped much, lots of rest in between does though. Overexercising is so easy to do. You don't need to be dead beat after an exercise to gain mass, just need reasonable weights and tons of time to let your muscles rest, at least that's how it works for me.
 
My routine's pretty carefully calculated as far as the lifts I've chosen. I've lifted on and off since about 2009 or so, but with constantly getting sick and losing weight with Crohn's this is the first time in a long time I've been able to make some real progress and not puke it all up in a few months when my stomach rejects some new food type.

I'm pretty aware now of what specifically works well for me, and what exercises I am good at, and which I am poor at and will try to replace with alternatives, as well as which ones overlap and create redundant fatigue.

My goal is mostly size and some strength, strength correlates heavily into size though, but more bodybuilding routine than power lifter.

Basic reasoning for choices:

-Overhead extensions target the long head of the tricep better than other positions of the arm, since the bench press already targets the other two heads fairly well, Mark Rippetoe suggests this as the best tricep isolation exercise to improve your bench - from a coach who's not interested particularly in isolations whatsoever.

Also don't have access to a legitimate dip set up, if I did chair dips or something wouldn't hit chest at all. My lower chest also isn't really lacking. I'd mostly be hitting the same heads of my tricep as with benching so I figured it's not important. If I ever come by a dip bench I'd love to add these.

-I would have to put military press on a different day I literally can only do 50% of my normal working weight when I MP the same day as chest and tri's because my triceps become a limiting factor, which is why I chose to do lateral raise instead. Also have trouble targeting medial delt during these, get mostly front delt stimulation which also is worked in bench pressing so seems redundant to me.

-I find hammer curls don't hit the bicep as well, since I already move some pretty heavy weights during shrugs, rows and deadlift didn't find directly targeting the forearms necessary (at this point in time, if at some point I think my forearms lagging I would isolate them more). If I were to do these I would add them as an accessory to normal curls rather than a replacement.

-rows serve the same function as pullups with less bicep involvement so your back is easier to target without biceps becoming a limiting factor. I decided I'd have to make a choice between pull ups and rows so I went with rows because I connect with them much better.

The only thing I use bars for are movements where it's necessary, pretty much dead lift, I often do rows with both but find dumbbell rows put more strain on my shoulder.

I've tried both programs with extreme rest rotations (GST program, lift every other day with one main target area per day, so basically only hitting the same group every 6 days, and traditional 5 day splits) and extreme low rest ones like my current, and full body 3 days a week etc. I find that I make great gains on higher frequency programs, have seen some pretty convincing cases in favor of high frequency not being the demon it's made out to be, but the key is to de-load every so many weeks, typically when you hit a plateau, feel fatigue accumulating and signs of over training, and let your body catch up and recover.

Great video on it, this is part 3/3 which I think is most important.
http://youtu.be/nrUQ80u-qic

I did this just recently, and basically you come back stronger than before.

Just recently did my deload, I took a few days off, came back with a few moderate workouts with extra recovery days and I'm ramping back up to my normal pacing. I'm hoping that maybe I'll continue to see progress now.

But the thing is I'd expect to at least be gaining fat weight if I'm eating in a caloric surplus. Maybe I'm just not eating enough, or it's not working because it's not digesting properly, this is my main concern. It's hard to get a concrete answer since your only real tell is the scale, and not moving up may just mean I'm not eating enough, like KWalker said, some people need to eat 5k or more to see real gains.

As far as the loose BMs with fat, I was reading around and some sources suggested fiber. Normally if I'm already going loose and frequent I'd avoid fiber but they said (specifically in the case of loose stools from high fat / dairy) that it can help firm them up by absorbing extra liquid or something.

So today I through about two tbsp extra of coconut oil into my diet and it seems to have slowed me down for the past 6 hours or so.

Might be what I need.


I don't mean to shoot down all your advice, I appreciate that you're trying but I've been really into this for a while, and as far as my routine is concerned, I cycle what I'm doing often, and have a pretty good grasp of what works well for me, spend a lot of time researching literature and youtube gurus and seeing how I can apply what they teach to me.

What's really hard for me is applying the dietary aspects to my condition and limitations.
 

kiny

Well-known member
Not sure how needed it is to eat so many calories myself. I just can't do more than 3k calories, I don't feel like it, I wouldn't be happy doing it. I stay at 2-3k and I do fine really.

I walk past a construction site lately, and people there have a lot of weight and mass, they're workers. They don't go to the gym, they don't eat more than 3k calories, they don't do super high reps, they use a lot of rest, and they're massive. The only thing I'm scared about is overtraining, and getting sick and losing my calories again.

Also, really cool that you're starting again, I know it sucks that you have to start over again after being sick, and again, and again, but muscles do have memory so it's easier for us in that sense I guess.
 
That is something I learned also, working out less helped me to gain more. I found when I was looking to bulk up, lifting twice a week and having good rest between workout days, generated the most benefit for me.
 
Your routine is horrendous. Take kiny's advice, please. You quote Rippetoe but the routine you've made for yourself is literally the exact opposite of the kind of training he advocates. You're 140 lbs and you want to 'target the long head of the tricep'? Really? Read this article and you will know exactly why you aren't gaining weight.

http://www.t-nation.com/free_online_article/most_recent/rippetoe_throws_down&cr=
Rippetoe is a strength coach, I can take his advice on bio mechanics without taking his entire ideal. I've heard from a lot of various strength and muscle building coaches with years of experience under their belts and everyone claims to have the silver bullet.

My program is not far off, it's core compound + a direct accessory to that compound. Core compounds will not always hit all the muscles someone focused on aesthetic mass would want to.



Not sure how needed it is to eat so many calories myself. I just can't do more than 3k calories, I don't feel like it, I wouldn't be happy doing it. I stay at 2-3k and I do fine really.

I walk past a construction site lately, and people there have a lot of weight and mass, they're workers. They don't go to the gym, they don't eat more than 3k calories, they don't do super high reps, they use a lot of rest, and they're massive. The only thing I'm scared about is overtraining, and getting sick and losing my calories again.

Also, really cool that you're starting again, I know it sucks that you have to start over again after being sick, and again, and again, but muscles do have memory so it's easier for us in that sense I guess.
A lot of genetics, and some of them are eating a lot more calories than you think. My dad's a construction worker, often times they'll get fast food for breakfast, coffee truck comes by, they can get breakfast sandwiches and sweets there, then more fast food for lunch.

They're also lifting heavy loads all day every day, and certainly not over training. They do a lot more than swing hammers, there's a lot of carrying wood/metal/heavy tools etc.
 
Last time I tried peanuts terrible things happened. Don't know if results would vary with other nuts.

No I workout at home just have enough plates to load two 50lb dumbells or my bar up to 190, can do just about whatever free weight exercises I need (except back squats).

I'm certain after much research I'm not at risk of over training. It's sort of something that's been overstated a lot in modern exercise literature. I hit the same muscle group every 3 days on a push/pull/legs split and I've recently done a rest and deload period for recovery to see if that was the issue.

What about a peanut butter? Since its already ground it might not cause the same issues as a whole peanut? And its a good calorie boost for very little actual food.
 
Yeah wouldn't help, whenever something makes me sick it's the chemistry of it, not the consistency.
My stomach doesn't care if my bananas are whole or pureed, still will make me weird.

I think adding a little fiber to my diet with coconut oil has helped counter out the diarrhea from the excess fat, but it's still only been about 12 hours since I tried it so maybe some other influence but my diet is very consistent, so I couldn't figure what.

Hopefully it really is this simple.
 
Let me try this from a different approach. You have been lifting since 2009. You claim that you know what to do best as far as routine goes, so you should have some progress or results to go along with that claim.

What is the strongest you have been (weights used for squat, deadlift, press, bench) and what is the heaviest bodyweight you have had since you started training? What was your bodyweight before you started lifting? (I'm assuming in 2009 you had reached your full adult height already)

Also, how tall are you (I apologize if that has been answered already I really did read through the thread)?
 
Glad to hear you are exercising and trying to gain some weight. I personally wouldn't use you regiment for weight gain, but if it's what you like doing that's more important. Makes no sense to change you workout to something you don't enjoy, that will just lead to you skipping days.

There are gluten free protien powders and bars that would add 100-150ish calories here and there. Oils have a lot of calories on long backpacking trips I will use them on about everything for the extra calories. It's something like 170 Calories a ounce. If you can afford Gluten free high Carb foods you would benefit from them a lot aswell.

If you get some free time look into the conventional mass building exercise's, Deadlift, Squat, Cleans and Press's. Bodybuilding.com has excellent information for people trying to gain weight.
 
Let me try this from a different approach. You have been lifting since 2009. You claim that you know what to do best as far as routine goes, so you should have some progress or results to go along with that claim.

What is the strongest you have been (weights used for squat, deadlift, press, bench) and what is the heaviest bodyweight you have had since you started training? What was your bodyweight before you started lifting? (I'm assuming in 2009 you had reached your full adult height already)

Also, how tall are you (I apologize if that has been answered already I really did read through the thread)?
6', when I started I was about 114, I struggled heavily with my diet and each time I cleaned it up I made some progress. I stalled at 120 and 130 respectively. Recently upon increasing the calorie content of my diet I went up to 140.

My gains have never been as fast as they have on my current program, however I've plateaued again. Since in the past every time I've made progress it's been with calories, typically I assume this is the problem.

Truly I should be in the 'noob gains' phase because of my weight, where assuming I'm eating enough calories, and progressively lifting heavier, I should gain mass to a certain extent regardless of how good my program is.

http://bodyspace.bodybuilding.com/workouts/workout-logs/Tillday

If you're really interested this is my log, I skipped some tracking but from about mid march to the end of April I worked out just about every single day. I missed one or two on family gatherings.

After my last recorded date I took 3 days off then restarted on an extended rest cycle (rest every other day) and I've been recording stuff on paper haven't transferred it into my log yet.

My max lifts, as far as weights I can perform safely with good form for reps would be:
Dumbbell Bench 50 x 8
Barbell Row 130 x 5
Barbell Deadlift 195 x 1
I don't have a rack to do back squat, I put a bunch of plates on one side of the dumbbell handle and hold onto the plate at my side, do close-stance squats. My record is 130 x 8

And my journal, most recent stuff is page 3, covers history going back to 2011 when I was still struggling a lot with sickness and diet
(yes I'm temp banned for a week for an AAS joke)
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=140012233&page=3&highlight=walking+up+the+down

What I noticed is if I missed a day I felt I had less energy the following day. I never felt I was going into the next workout too fatigued to meet the same numbers I did the previous day - often exceeding them.

I also have noticed if I don't continue to try to add weight to my lifts, and just go for reps, I will stall out, and rarely gain reps, I find it easier to progress in weight than to add a lot of reps to my current weight.
Glad to hear you are exercising and trying to gain some weight. I personally wouldn't use you regiment for weight gain, but if it's what you like doing that's more important. Makes no sense to change you workout to something you don't enjoy, that will just lead to you skipping days.

There are gluten free protien powders and bars that would add 100-150ish calories here and there. Oils have a lot of calories on long backpacking trips I will use them on about everything for the extra calories. It's something like 170 Calories a ounce. If you can afford Gluten free high Carb foods you would benefit from them a lot aswell.

If you get some free time look into the conventional mass building exercise's, Deadlift, Squat, Cleans and Press's. Bodybuilding.com has excellent information for people trying to gain weight.

Oils make me very sick they're one of my biggest no-foods.

I spend a lot of time on BB.com as you'll see in this post above ^
I also watch a lot of Youtube guys like elliot hulse, Jason Blaha, and stuff. I try to find people that advise for natural or straight out tell you the difference which is what Jason is good for.
 
I think you're spending too much time on bodybuilding.com.

I didn't mean to sound as harsh in my previous posts as it may seem. I was very thin like you before I started training, I'm 6'3 and at my lowest was 115 or so, post surgery in 2009. I started lifting to gain weight shortly after that. I sympathize with you and understand how frustrating it can be to have set backs over and over, to gain weight only to lose it in a few days of flaring, lose your strength gains etc. A lot of times we cannot control these health issues, even with powerful medication or careful eating.

But one thing we have absolute control over is the way in which we train. And I do not think your program is ever, EVER going to give you the increase in size you are looking for. Many others in this thread agree. Wouldn't you like to be bigger AND stronger? You can actually have both. It just requires hard work - squats, deads, presses, chins, dips etc. Isolation exercises are worthless to you in your current state because you don't have the body mass to warrant it.

I had a nasty flare the summer before last, dropped about 40 lbs in a couple of months. As soon as the prednisone kicked in I hit the gym and got as many calories as I could. I gained 30 lbs in a single month, not shitting. All I did was squat, pull, press, and do chin ups. A few months after that, I pulled 405 for the first time, at a body weight of only 180 lbs. If I can do it you can do it.
 

kiny

Well-known member
completely unscientific proof that compound works the best

natural movements like chin ups, pullups, dips, etc is how this monkey got his amazingly sexy body

isolation is good for bodybuilders who want that extreme definition to see all those muscles, veins and tendons popping out from under their skin, yuck, isolation is horrible if you want mass

only time I would say yes to isolation is to someone who wants to train the forearms / neck / hands, because they do sports or something, I've seen people do it in hospitals for recovery, but to gain mass, compound

even though it's a stupid pic, it shows that you don't need an exercise to hit every single muscle, you do not need to isolate muscles, you do not need extremely precise reps or extremely precise schedules or tons of difficult diets, all you need is calories, rest and compound

I take out a week or more of rest sometimes, it does not stop me from gaining weight at all, overtraining is extremely easy to do.

 
But one thing we have absolute control over is the way in which we train. And I do not think your program is ever, EVER going to give you the increase in size you are looking for. Many others in this thread agree. Wouldn't you like to be bigger AND stronger? You can actually have both. It just requires hard work - squats, deads, presses, chins, dips etc. Isolation exercises are worthless to you in your current state because you don't have the body mass to warrant it.

I had a nasty flare the summer before last, dropped about 40 lbs in a couple of months. As soon as the prednisone kicked in I hit the gym and got as many calories as I could. I gained 30 lbs in a single month, not shitting. All I did was squat, pull, press, and do chin ups. A few months after that, I pulled 405 for the first time, at a body weight of only 180 lbs. If I can do it you can do it.
It's like you've completely ignored the fact I do all the compound lifts.

At what point do you 'warrant it?' After you've spent months training and now have muscles that are lagging behind because of indirect focus?

There is no proof that isolations don't build muscle, they certainly do, the thing is a full isolation routine is not as time effective as a compound routine. In the time it would take to try to hit every muscle you could in a full isolation routine you would most likely gas yourself out, which is why people that do those kind of 'bro split' routines do 1 body part a day 5 days a week and progress slowly.

That's why isolations are considered a supplemental lift and it's easily known which muscles are not well stimulated by the core compounds and how to supplement them in. Frequently these are biceps, lateral deltoid, calves, forearms, and sometimes traps.

isolation is good for bodybuilders who want that extreme definition to see all those muscles, veins and tendons popping out from under their skin, yuck, isolation is horrible if you want mass
Genetics play a huge part in why large apes are stronger and larger than the average human, they are built that way, their body is more prone to mass.

That said I think your very idea of isolations hints that your knowledge of bodybuilding is mislead.

Isolations don't cause the striations and vascularity that people associate with a body builders physique.

These come from 3 main things.
1) (More often than not) steroids
If they are a professional fitness model or bodybuilder, they are using. It doesn't matter if they are in 'tested' competitions, oral anabolics pass through the system in 24 hours and don't show up on urine tests, if they stake their career on their appearance they're shooting up, that includes celebrities that put on huge mass in short time periods for movies. The risks involved with taking steroids under professional medical supervision with a large budget are less than taking OTC pain medications.

2) Low body fat. When they show up to competitions or photo shoots they are on a cut (they're decreasing body fat % while trying to maintain optimal muscle mass to improve physique by eating less calories and doing more cardio.

3) Water retention manipulation. They spend the previous week ingesting as much as 3 gallons of water a day, this causes their body to go into a 'flush' stage where it starts dumping all of its water because it doesn't need it, then the 24 hours before the shoot or competition they 'carb up' and cut liquids, this causes their subcutaneous fluids to drop significantly giving them inhuman definition.

This state cannot be maintained for long, nor can a heavily 'cut' state be maintained year round without the use of anabolic steroids without risk of loss of muscle mass.

This idea that you can spot-reduce belly fat to get ripped abs is a myth put out by the 8 minute ab industry to lead buyers to believe they can do a lot of crunches and get slim without having to eat less. The same premise exists for 'lots of reps for big mass.'

Building mass is about eating a lot and lifting a lot. Cutting to gain definition is about eating slightly less to reduce net calories and burn fat, with a delicate balance to maintain muscle mass. Some people might bulk at 3.5k and cut at 2.5k, others might by way higher or lower.

That said since I cannot increase my calorie intake at this time my best bet is to increase my rest days so my net calorie in vs. out at the end of the week is lower output.

I'm going to follow this
http://forum.bodybuilding.com/showthread.php?t=148036063 program, 3 days a week, basically everything I was already doing but condensed.
 
You do not appear to want our help. Why did you make this thread? Your attitude in every post is that you know far more about this subject than we do (condescending even), so you're obviously not here to get advice.

To Admins and Mods: This deserves a legitimate response.
 
You do not appear to want our help. Why did you make this thread? Your attitude in every post is that you know far more about this subject than we do (condescending even), so you're obviously not here to get advice.

To Admins and Mods: This deserves a legitimate response.
Because you've ignored the original post or something, my question is dietary and you keep going on about my routine.

have a pretty good grasp of what works well for me, spend a lot of time researching literature and youtube gurus and seeing how I can apply what they teach to me.

What's really hard for me is applying the dietary aspects to my condition and limitations.
I've heard a million pieces of routine advice from a million sources and suddenly hearing a few people on a sub forum of a website not even related to general fitness with contradictory opinions to experts in the field is not going to suddenly change my opinions on the topic of training.

Especially when I've seen the same arguments made and refuted by others dozens of times in the past.

Honestly I'm not claiming to be an expert myself, however I have to make the judgment call between whose authority I should take, and on what grounds do you provide that it should be yours?

Things like this are helpful
Along with calories eaten, and lifting till failure, I found the fat soluble vitamins greatly helpful in putting on muscle weight. Over the last couple of years I've put on nearly 50lbs at this point.

I suspect reaching a testing level above 50ng/ml for vitamin D3 helped. Eating foods rich in vitamin K2, found in gouda and other aged cheeses assisted also. The fat soluble vitamins such as vitamin D3 are considered pro-hormones. They tend to raise other hormone levels, which are helpful in building muscles, and bone. The nice thing about vitamin D this time of year is that it can be free. Noon time sunshine exposure, avoid being burnt, will help raise vitamin D3 levels well.

Other items I take are 3mgs of time release melatonin in the evening, fish oil, kelp tablets which helps with thyroid hormones, and 10mgs of pregnenolone.

With lifting, anymore I don't pay all that much attention to how much weight I lift from session to session. What I've found to work is lifting till muscle failure, then do 2 more reps. :ytongue:

Time wise I'll set aside 45 minutes, with short breaks between different exercises. After working out I'll typically eat a packet of lunch meat with coconut oil spread on it, along with an orange or some other fruit.
 
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I've actually cut meat completely out of my diet and that helped with a lot of pain. But anyways you should take CBD pills I've been taking them for a few months and they work great I've gained 10 pounds so far also I'm not sure if you live around one but I've been drinking a hulk from smoothie king without bananas ( hate them) I add peanut butter and frozen yogurt it's a over a thousand calories. So it has butter pecan ice cream, weight gainer ( soy and whey protein blend) super grains (gluten free) non fat milk, sugar, vanilla extra and the bananas if you like them.
 
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