An alternative nutritional outlook (or why bulking and cutting sucks)

[Warboss Alex]

A quid is an english pound .. about 0.60USD last time I checked the exchange rate.

US prices are even lower, when I get over there I'm definitely going for the 250lb mark, I can easily eat myself up there affordably.

 

[mrRuckus]

Originally posted by Warboss Alex
Not as much as you'd think really..

6 eggs are about 40p, same for the cheese/quark, three cans of tuna less than a quid, steak mince the priciest at about 1.80 for 500g, veg and carbs are dirt cheap, it's about five quid a day all told?

Exluding whey (I get unflavoured from myprotein), and glutamine (cheap since a 500g or kg tub will last you ages) .. it's really not THAT expensive.

I budget 50 quid for (my own) food every week but rarely spend more than 40..

(that wasn't necessarily what I eat every day though, I actually eat more protein than 400g..)

1 U.S. dollar = 0.575010063 British pounds.



Disgusting chunk light tuna is $0.50 cents a can. Thinking of maybe doing one can crappy tuna and one can albacore a day ($1.10?). I choke down one chunk light a day so far.

Maybe $1.20 for 18 eggs, which i've been having 5 of a day.

I eat a lot of ground turkey which i think i'm getting like 2 lb cartons for $5 if i remember right.

My fish is usually salmon which is pretty cheap given where i live but still expensive. Maybe $3.50-$4 a pound.

I've been making chili a lot. Kidney beans have a lot of protein plus ground turkey as the meat.

damn conversions, but doesn't really sound like the price differs that much.

 

[Visceral]

The body needs a certain number of Calories just to stay alive, even more to fuel activity, and still more to recover from that activity ... only after all that does the body start to grow, which requires yet more Calories.

Wouldn't eating sh!tloads of protein mostly just go towards the first two?

The idea behind high-carb or Atkins-style high-fat diets is to use the carbs or fat for all that fuel, saving the protein for where and when it's really needed.

Unless of course you're eating so much protein that the body has plenty left over after it burns what it needs. This is what you were talking about, right?

 

[semag]

getting fat off eating protein is really hard...

 

[Alpine]

Alex,

Yeah sorry, I don't know where I got the impression you started off a skinny bulker, apologies.

Maybe what I'm saying then is for skinny kids starting out, bulking is great because you need to put on the pounds and if some of it's fat then fine. But when you get to a certain level it does make sense to cycle for LBM and not spend half your time trying to lose a gut.

 

[tj]

Originally posted by semag
getting fat off eating protein is really hard...

not really..that is a falicy...made up within the bodybuilding circles..

protien stores as fat..just like carbs and healthy fats do. actually it really,truelly bad for kidneys as well..so drink lots of water

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by Visceral
The body needs a certain number of Calories just to stay alive, even more to fuel activity, and still more to recover from that activity ... only after all that does the body start to grow, which requires yet more Calories.

Wouldn't eating sh!tloads of protein mostly just go towards the first two?

The idea behind high-carb or Atkins-style high-fat diets is to use the carbs or fat for all that fuel, saving the protein for where and when it's really needed.

Unless of course you're eating so much protein that the body has plenty left over after it burns what it needs. This is what you were talking about, right?

All successful (fad or otherwise) weight-loss diets involve eating lots of protein for metabolic reasons as outlined in my posts.

But those weight-loss diets are for average, sedentary people.

Give a bodybuilder a mega-high protein diet and he'll grow, not get fat. Why? Because he's putting a HUGE demand on his body to grow - training with brutally heavy weights, I'm not talking dumbbell kickbacks and cable crossovers here, that every spare calorie SHOULD be going towards muscle growth, if of course he's training hard enough.

Eating protein first to get the maximum aminos, combined with a carb cutoff and cardio as necessary to deal with excesses, you should grow quite successfully while keeping bodyfat in check or even lowering it.

I do stress HEAVY training, this mega-high protein diet will just make you fat if you work out twice a week and only train arms and chest, because you're not creating enough of a demand on the body to utilise all the aminos you're throwing down your throat - some will go towards repairing those beloved biceps of yours (which won't grow at all until you get in the squat rack and/or start deadlifting) but the excesses are, well, excesses and must be mopped up with cardio or metabolism otherwise they'll go to adipose just like anything else.

But then again, I take slag-iron heavy training for granted.. if you train like a bird though, then eat like one.

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by tj
not really..that is a falicy...made up within the bodybuilding circles..

protien stores as fat..just like carbs and healthy fats do. actually it really,truelly bad for kidneys as well..so drink lots of water

Semag has a point. I can happily throw down lbs of meat and not get fat, but if I boatload the bread/rice/pasta then watch the waistline expand - and I firmly believe that that's mostly true for the majority of athletes/bodybuilders.

The whole point is that by eating protein to raise your metabolism and burn more calories by digesting the stuff means that there's much less of an excess left to go to fat as would have been the case with eating high carbs or high fat.

All successful weight loss diets (fad, crash or whatever) have high and regular protein in them. I don't think that's a coincidence!

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by Alpine
Alex,

Yeah sorry, I don't know where I got the impression you started off a skinny bulker, apologies.

Maybe what I'm saying then is for skinny kids starting out, bulking is great because you need to put on the pounds and if some of it's fat then fine. But when you get to a certain level it does make sense to cycle for LBM and not spend half your time trying to lose a gut.

No worries.

Besides, if a kid is skinny then his metabolism's so fast that he'll have trouble gaining weight anyway, so yes, you have a point.

 

[Visceral]

Originally posted by Warboss Alex
I do stress HEAVY training, this mega-high protein diet will just make you fat if you work out twice a week and only train arms and chest, because you're not creating enough of a demand on the body to utilise all the aminos you're throwing down your throat - some will go towards repairing those beloved biceps of yours (which won't grow at all until you get in the squat rack and/or start deadlifting) but the excesses are, well, excesses and must be mopped up with cardio or metabolism otherwise they'll go to adipose just like anything else.

What exactly do you consider to be heavy training, because I've read in more than one place that training with high volume, high frequency, or God forbid both, won't do a thing for building muscle or strength, at least not for your natural and genetically average trainer, because his natural strength, stimulus response, and recovery abilities aren't good enough to handle extreme training, and bodybuilding's extreme anyway.

 

[Warboss Alex]

What exactly do you consider to be heavy training

Brief, intense workouts - I'm not a fan of volume, didn't get me anywhere and doesn't get anyone else anywhere as far as I can see.

Moderate-to-high frequency, low volume.

Progressively heavier weights. Once your body has adapted to one workload, staying with the same workload won't do squat for you.

 

[Visceral]

Really? Moderate-to-high frequency?

I've read in more than a few places that high frequency can tax the body's ability to recover and grow after a workout, even if you train a different body part the next time.

And when you take into account the genetics of the average trainer, what's called "high frequency" really isn't that high.

 

[MetalFortress]

Originally posted by Visceral
because I've read in more than one place that training with high volume, high frequency, or God forbid both, won't do a thing for building muscle or strength

Don't believe everything you read. That's all I will say. As Warboss would say, "that is complete and utter bollocks".

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by Visceral
Really? Moderate-to-high frequency?

I've read in more than a few places that high frequency can tax the body's ability to recover and grow after a workout, even if you train a different body part the next time.

And when you take into account the genetics of the average trainer, what's called "high frequency" really isn't that high.

With proper nutrition and rest, I'd say that most people can recover perfectly well to train a certain bodypart a little more often than once a week. Twice in eight days, twice in nine days.. something of like that.

This is assuming you don't do 25 sets for the bodypart in question each time.

Low-volume is one intense rest-pause set per bodypart, or one 3x5 or maybe 3x8 if your recovery's up to it - using your maximum weight to really hammer the muscle, and yet not be too much of a strain on the CNS so that you can't train again in a few days' time. I don't like pyramid sets or stuff like that for the same reason, I think training with anything lower than your max weight (note I'm not saying don't do warmups!) is defeating the object.

Work out in this way, adding a tiny bit of weight each time or a couple more reps, means every time you're a tiny bit strong, hence also a tiny bit bigger. Over weeks and months this all adds up to an impressive size.

 

[Warboss Alex]

Originally posted by MetalFortress
Don't believe everything you read. That's all I will say. As Warboss would say, "that is complete and utter bollocks".

Nice one mate.

 

[TedJustAdmitIt]

Alex.....how about a full body workout 3 times a week?

1 set of 1 exercise per body part at max weight for 8-10 reps,total workout time 35-40mins...perhaps changing the exercise with each workout eg:

Mon - BB Curl
Wed - Hammer Curl
Fri - Reverse BB Curl

Is that too much?
How about twice a week...Mon & Thurs with cardio inbetween?

Also is it ok to do squats/deads with every workout or just once a week?

Thanks for your advice mate

 

[Warboss Alex]

Exercise cycling is an excellent thing, it means you won't stagnate in any one exercise too quickly.

However, unless it's for pure conditioning then a full body workout three times a week is going to be too much (if you're interested in serious growth).

Twice a week? It's pushing it but you might just get away with it initially, when your weights are fairly low.

But then your weights shoot up and you won't be able to do it all in a workout, and if you can, there's no way you'll be training at peak efficiency.

When your deadlifts go into the high hundreds they'll knacker you - if you do them first you won't have any strength for the rest of the workout, if you do them last after a full body workout you're not gonna be left with enough energy to do that deadlift (especially not after some heavy leg work, even without squats).

You can get away with training half your body twice a week - eg Mon, Wed, Fri, Sun or Mon, Wed, Fri, Mon .. yes, you'd be able to recover from that I'd say, but a full body routine 3 times a week isn't advisable if you're looking to grow (since we grow when we recover).

You might get away with the Mon - Thu thing but only when your weights are fairly low.. eventually it'll get too taxing and you won't be able to recover in between.

As for squats and deadlifts in the same workout .. umm .. no, for the reasons above.

If for some reason you do back and legs the same day (not what I'd recommend) then do squats and bb rows one day, leg press and deadlifts the other..

There's nothing wrong with a 2- or 3-day split mate, you'll still grow like a weed. Is there any reason you want to do a full body workout 3 times a week?

 

[Jariel]

Good and informative post. I got into a mess with my bulking/cutting cycles in the exact way you described, so once I'm happy with my bf% I'll start using this "clean bulking" to add more muscle mass.

 

[MindOverMatter]

2c about the high frequency training:

sometimes I liked to do a 3day a week compound only routine (bench, squat, deadlift, military press, weighted pullups). 2 sets per exercise. first day (mon) ill do 10-12 reps, 2nd day (wed) ill do 4-6 reps, 3rd day I'll do my 1RMs. this goes on for 8 weeks.

I gain a lot of strength via this routine, but it doesn't do much for me hypertrophy wise. and it's very very very taxing, that last week seems like a year sometimes. this routine does require more carbs then my other routines, and glutamine supplementation is a must.

as for hypertrophy, I find that I grow best on a 5 day split, where each muscle group gets its own day, but that's just my body. I usually do 10 sets / workout on those days, taking me maybe 20 mins? when i want to lose some fat, I do a 3 day split and cardio on my off days.

 

[Heizen]

Originally posted by tj
not really..that is a falicy...made up within the bodybuilding circles..

protien stores as fat..just like carbs and healthy fats do. actually it really,truelly bad for kidneys as well..so drink lots of water

1,000's of bodybuilders are wrong. TJ is the only one with the truth!

Protein does not get turned to fat easily. It's the least easy of the three (Fat, Carbs, and Protein) to turn to fat.