TABLE OF CONTENTS Intro 3 Philosophy of the Nerd Fitness Diet 6 How many calories should I eat? 12 What’s in a good diet? 17 What’s your plan of attack? 23 -Eat anything 24 -Healthy bulk up 28 -GOMAD 31 -Paleo + GOMAD 36 -Paleo 42 -Veggie/Vegan 43 Tips and tricks for eating more 44 Recipe resources 49 What happens when I’m big enough? 50
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INTRO I have been skinny all of my life. I spent three years in high school trying to bulk up, and then four years in college DESPERATELY trying to bulk up...all while working out in a gym, doing tons of heavy lifting, and drinking protein shakes. I certainly got stronger, but I never got any bigger. I just assumed I was doomed for a life of being “that skinny guy.” Turns out, I was just not eating properly! Once I got to San Diego after college and made a few key changes to my diet, I put on 18 pounds in one month. Since that 4 week stretch, I have become fascinated with building muscle and strength. I’ve tried every bulking diet known to man (okay, maybe not ALL of them, but enough), and in this guide I present my findings along with insight from Vic on what works and what doesn’t. Whether you’re interested in just getting bigger in any way necessary, or you want to do so while still eating high quality food, we’ll give you the lowdown.
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Even if you’re a vegetarian or a vegan, you can still build plenty of high quality muscle...you’re just going to have to get more creative with your nutrition. Jason Ferruggia, one of the internet’s foremost authorities on building athletic strength and muscle, is a vegan. If he can do it, so can you. You can find out how Jason does it later on in this book. Now, the decisions you make on what to eat and how much will depend on many factors: If you are already strong and need to put on just a little bit of weight, I’d recommend eating just enough to promote growth and muscle and not put on a lot of fat (look at the Paleo, Paleo + GOMAD, or Healthy Bulking options). If you are SUPER skinny and need to put on a LOT of weight, I’d look at the Eat Anything, GOMAD, or Paleo + Gomad options). You’re going to put on some fat along with some muscle, but it will be minimal, and probably make you look even healthier.
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If you’re “skinny fat”, meaning you have skinny arms and legs but you also have a gut, I’d probably focus on a Paleo, Healthy Bulking, or Paleo + GOMAD option – we need to build up some muscle (and in doing so your gut will start to go away), and then once the muscle is built, switch over to the Operation: Slim Down diet and get rid of the rest of the belly fat. Read through the whole guide, decide what will work best for your situation, and go from there. And don’t worry, you can certainly make adjustments on the fly – as long as you’re keeping track of your stats, what and how much you eat, it’ll be easy to go back and make adjustments to get you the results you want. Are ya still with us!? Good. Let’s do this thing. -Steve and Vic
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THE NERD FITNESS BULK UP EATING PHILOSOPHY If you want to build size and strength, this book that you’re reading right now is the key to your success. You could spend two hours a day in the gym, every single day, doing heavy lifting, but unless you’re properly providing your body with the right amount of the right kind of fuel, you might not look any different. I have a good friend who goes to Crossfit three times a week: he was certainly getting stronger and very slowly over the course of a year his body composition slightly changed, but not much. Why? Because he would leave the Crossfit gym and go eat donuts! He had the workout part down, but the other 80% of his life, his diet, was so unhealthy that even strenuous training for many days a week for a whole year weren’t enough to change him.
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This is the example I always use: it’s like putting crappy gasoline in a Ferrari or a Delorian (the non-time traveling kind). Yeah, it’ll run, but think of how much better it could run if you put some high-quality fuel in that sucker! Your body is a finely tuned machine - it’s time to start treating it as such. Okay, let’s go over some ground rules here: Your diet will become a full-time job. It’s true. Depending on how skinny you are, and how big you want to be, you could be eating six, seven, or eight meals a day. If you’re really skinny, you’re going to have to eat meals when you’re not hungry, you’re going to have to force an extra meal down your throat when you just want to watch a movie and go to sleep, and you’re going to be spending more money on food than you ever have in the past.
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You need to train your stomach. Back when I started bulking up for the first time, I was never hungry and always full. It took a few weeks of force-feeding myself, even when not hungry, for my stomach to expand and get used to all of the excess food. Just like training your muscles to get bigger, you need to train your body to get used to the excess calories. Your diet is THE most important thing. When trying to get bigger, you cannot be skipping meals. Missing a workout here and there won’t mess you up too much, because your muscles get rebuilt stronger on your off days. However, once you start missing meals and not hitting your calorie goals, your growth will slow to a crawl. You’re probably overestimating how much you eat. I spent four years in college thinking I was eating enough - I drank protein shakes and ate chicken and thought I was doing all of the right things. It turns out if I had eaten another 500-1000 calories per day I would have seen incredible results. Your diet rules all.
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Start by tracking your calories with a program like DailyBurn.com, keep track of every little thing you eat, and make sure you get your portions correct. And don’t overestimate either – if you only drank 5/6ths of a gallon milk, put down 5/6ths, not a full serving. You need to decide what kind of diet will work for you. Some people want to just get big, as quickly as possible. Others want to get bigger and stronger, but doing so while eating a healthy diet. I’ve done both, and I can tell you what kind of results I got with both. My advice is to read over all of the different diets and decide which one will work best for you. You will not get too bulky. I promise. It’s funny, but everybody that tells me they’re afraid of getting too bulky is usually fifty pounds underweight. It’s going to take time to build muscle, and you already have no problem being skinny...so if you ever start to think you’re too bulky, you can simply scale back your daily calorie intake and your body will adjust itself really quickly.
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You’ll put on some muscle along with fat. Back when I put on 18 pounds in 28 days, I’d imagine that probably 6 pounds of it was muscle. Unfortunately I didn’t have body fat calipers at the time, but it’s a foregone conclusion that when you build muscle and overload your system with calories, you’ll tend to put on some fat along with some muscle. THAT’S OKAY. You’re doing what’s called a “bulk and cut.” You want to eat enough calories to overload your system and promote muscle growth – you can fine tune it so that you’re mostly putting on muscle and a little bit of fat (by experimenting with different amounts of calories over a few weeks and testing your body fat percentage compared to your weight gain). Once you get to a point where you are at a weight that’s probably 1015 pounds heavier than the weight you’d like to be, you should switch over to the “Operation: Slim Down” while still maintaining the same workouts. You won’t get bigger, but you can certainly get stronger, keep the muscle you have, and drop off the fat...which means you’ll be super strong and have a low body fat percentage. Charlie Sheen would call this “winning.” 10
Remember that the scale is just a number. Muscle weighs more than fat, which means that you can weigh the same amount and have two completely different body compositions. Here I am in two pictures, taken approximately four years apart.
I weigh the exact same amount in both pictures. I obviously have a lot more muscle on the right, which means I not only packed on muscle, but I also got rid of fat that I had – which wasn’t much. 11
HOW MANY CALORIES SHOULD I EAT? Ah, the age old question…how many calories to eat. The easy answer is “enough calories to promote growth, but not too many that you pack on too much fat.” Personally, I know that because I’m a skinny guy, packing on too much fat isn’t an issue for me, as I can always lose it pretty quickly by going back to the way I used to eat. For that reason, I always try to err on the side of MORE to guarantee that I’m building muscle. For most people, the amount of calories you’ll need to inhibit a growth response from your muscles is going to be in the 3000-3500 range I would guess, but possibly even 4000 calories or more. Guys like Jason Ferruggia advocate taking your current weight in pounds and multiplying it by 18 to determine how many calories you should eat.
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If you’re a metric kind of guy/girl, take your weight in kilos and multiply it by 39.6 (or 40 if you want to keep the math simple) to get your minimum number of calories to build muscle. Again, because we’re trying to get bigger, I always try to aim higher than they say to be absolutely sure I’m not wasting my time in the gym. If after two weeks you’re not getting bigger, EAT MORE. You’re tracking your calories….right? Simply add in 250-500 more calories per day and see if you’re getting results then.
Want to try and do it mathematically? When calculating how many calories you need to eat daily, we need to figure out a few things first. Our bodies burn a ridiculous amount of calories every day just EXISTING. We are quite complex, which means our bodies will burn all kinds of fuel just making sure things are working right. They call this number your Basal Metabolic Rate (BMR). It’s the calories you would burn daily if you spent all day playing Halo: Reach and watching Arrested Development 13
If you’re a math nerd, the equations are on the next page. If you don’t care about the numbers, visit this link to calculate your BMR. For you international folks, make sure you click metric. This number is based on your height, weight, and age. As you age, your metabolism slows down, hence your BMR will start to decrease. So, as you get older, it’s tougher to eat the same things you used to and remain the same weight. Makes sense, right?
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BMR EQUATIONS English BMR Formula Men: BMR = 66 + ( 6.23 x weight in pounds ) + ( 12.7 x height in inches ) - ( 6.8 x age in years ) Women: BMR = 655 + ( 4.35 x weight in pounds ) + ( 4.7 x height in inches ) - ( 4.7 x age in years )
Metric BMR Formula Men: BMR = 66 + ( 13.7 x weight in kilos ) + ( 5 x height in cm ) - ( 6.8 x age in years ) Women: BMR = 655 + ( 9.6 x weight in kilos ) + ( 1.8 x height in cm ) - ( 4.7 x age in years ) Here’s the link again to calculate your BMR quickly online.
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Once you’ve calculated your BMR (mine is 1881.23 cal/day for example), you have a starting point for how many calories you burn while lying around. To determine roughly how many calories you’ll burn with activity, you multiply your BMR by a certain number based on how active you are. They call this the Harris Benedict Equation, and here are the two equations you’re going to look at most closely: - Light exercise/sports 1-3 days/week: Cal. Calculation = BMR x 1.375 - Moderate exercise/sports 3-5 days/week: Cal. Calculation = BMR x 1.55 Take your BMR and multiply it by the appropriate number to determine how many calories you burn per day while being active. Take that number, and add 500 calories to it as a minimum amount of calories you need to eat in order to build muscle and size, and then adjust accordingly after a week to see if your weight has gone up.
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WHAT’S IN A GOOD DIET? I’m going to assume you know absolutely NOTHING about nutrition here, so feel free to skip this step if you already know this stuff. First and foremost, we will always choose to eat NATURAL foods over processed foods. If it came out of the ground, flew through the sky, grazed on a plain, swam in an ocean, or grew on a tree, we’ll most likely eat it. Conversely, if it came out of a box, bag, wrapper, through a drivethrough window, or from a delivery boy, we’ll try to avoid it. This way of thinking is generally referred to as the Paleo Diet, and it’s the optimal way of eating in my opinion. Unfortunately, it’s also very tough to gain weight on the Paleo Diet, as it thins you right out (which is perfect for the “get ripped” diet).
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Protein Protein plays a big role in your muscle development. When you exercise, your muscles get broken down and then use protein to rebuild stronger during your off-days. Protein absolutely NEEDS to be a main component of your daily diet. If you’re looking to build muscle, aim for at least 1 gram of protein per pound of lean body mass (or 2.22 - 3.3 g per kg) per day. If you have 10% body fat, and weigh 150 pounds, then you need to be eating 135 grams of protein or more per day. This is one of those situations where I tend to err on the side of “more” than less whenever it’s a question. Quality protein comes from things like chicken, eggs, steak, pork, ham, lamb, duck, bison, hamburger, fish, and nuts like almonds.
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CARBOHYDRATES Carbohydrates provide the fuel that keeps your body going. Now, there are good carbs and bad carbs. Good carbs come mostly from vegetables and fruits. When you eat carbohydrates, they get converted to sugar in our system, which is used to provide energy and allows your brain, muscles, and body to function. Excess glucose in your system will be converted to glycogen and stored in the liver and muscles as an energy “reserve”. This glycogen is your body’s preferred source of energy over stored fat. So as long as you have a big supply of glycogen, your body will not use body fat for energy. Your mom was just trying to look out for you when she made you eat vegetables as a kid: they’re loaded with nutrients and low in calories, providing you with a steady boost of energy throughout the day rather than spiked energy (and fast withdrawals) from the sugar packed into most carb-heavy meals.
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For this reason, eat as many vegetables as you want, whenever you want. Yeah, I know veggies are low in calories (and thus not optimal for weight gain), but they’re so damn good for you, and so loaded with great nutrients like fiber…and because you’re eating probably twice the number of calories as before…your body will thank you for making things easier on your overloaded digestive system. Trust me on this one. Even if you don’t like veggies, I’ll teach you some tricks to get them into your diet that are absolutely painless and don’t even require you to like the vegetables you’re eating. Trust me! Quality sources of carbohydrates: almost all vegetables out there (no, corn is not a vegetable), and most fruits will be good sources of carbs. We’ll talk more about carbs later in this guide.
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Fats We want the good fats! As long as we’re eating the good stuff, this nutrient will absolutely help you get to your calorie goal. Things like avocados, almonds, olive oil, walnuts, and almond butter are great sources of healthy fats. These foods are high in polyunsaturatured and monounsaturated fats (the good kind). Depending on your stance on saturated fat, things like whole milk and coconut oil are sources of quality fat as well. Personally, I think saturated fat is important to our diets and it’s okay to consume. I’m a huge fan of Mark Sisson at Mark’s Daily Apple – I tend to agree with his stance on Saturated Fats.
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What’s in a bad diet? Sugar. Sugar sucks, plain and simple. Most people don’t realize this, but when you eat things like bread and pasta, they all get converted to sugar in your system which leads to fat storage if they’re not burned as fuel immediately. Bad carbs. Most grains are considered bad carbs. The only time I’ll advocate eating grains is immediately following a workout …unless you have a lot of weight to put on and a long way to go to get big, in which case I’ll have some different advice for you later on. Bad liquid calories. If you’re mixing your own protein shakes, liquid calories can be great for you. However, if you’re pounding things like orange juice (might as well be sugar water), store-bought protein shakes (protein in sugar water), or Gatorade/VitaminWater (sugar water), you’re adding really empty calories to your system. Sorry to say, but the same goes for alcohol. Try to keep the drinking to a minimum…as it’s just bad, empty calories. Not only that, but hangovers are a GREAT way to derail your efforts – when you’re feeling like crap all day you’re not exercising or eating right. I’m not telling you to stop drinking, but be reasonable. 22
WHATS YOUR PLAN OF ATTACK? At this point, you need to decide what kind of diet you’d like to follow. Here are the most common diets you’ll come across in the “bulking community”: -EAT ANYTHING -“HEALTHY BULK UP” -GOMAD -PALEO -PALEO + GOMAD -VEGGIE/VEGAN My advice is to read EVERY one of these diets (they’re quick reads), especially the tips at the end of each – you can combine tips from multiple diets to put together an eating plan that works for your budget and plans for getting bigger. The overall theme of each diet is EAT MORE. For example, you can do the Eat Anything Diet, but throw in lots of whole milk and shots of olive oil (not joking) to get to your calorie intake. 23
EAT ANYTHING Clearly the easiest of the diets to follow, as you don’t really have to think about much. Your focus is on two things: total calories and grams of protein. As long as you get enough calories per day, and enough grams of protein, you’re a happy camper. This is the type of diet that can get results quickly as far as putting on mass goes, but it also has the highest likelihood of putting on fat as well. Back when I gained my 18 pounds in 30 days, I was pretty much following an “eat anything” diet, and it worked. Here was a typical day for me: · · · · · · ·
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6AM – Muscle Milk shake mixed with 16 oz of OJ (holy sugar!) 9AM – Big 100 Protein bar (also loaded with sugar) Noon – Chicken Parm sub from Subway 3PM – Two peanut butter sandwiches 5PM – Muscle Milk Shake with 16 oz OJ (post – workout) 8PM – Two hamburgers on rolls with ketchup 10PM – Muscle Milk Shake with 16 oz OJ
Yikes. I don’t even want to calculate the calories, grams of sugar, and carbs I consumed over those 28 days. My Muscle Milk shakes gave me 700-800 calories per serving, the sub from Subway was at least 1000 calories, and then the Protein Bar was extra strength (so it had 400 calories along with 30 grams of sugar)…I’d guess that I was probably eating between 4000-4500 calories per day. Also, not one vegetable! I was young and naïve back then, okay? No wonder I gained 18 pounds in 30 days. Fortunately, I only kept up this type of eating for the month, then started doing research and discovered better types of diets. I won’t give this diet a Steve Kamb stamp of approval as it’s highly unhealthy, but if you’re a poor college kid who’s horribly skinny and desperately needs to put on weight (and there’s no shame in that), this might be your only bet. As long as you’re not doing it for a long period of time (more than a few months), you won’t be doing too much damage. If you’re doing the “eat anything diet,” here are some tips:
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Spaghetti and meatsauce are your friend - A ton of pasta, a big jar of pasta sauce, and a whole lot of ground beef. Tons of carbs, tons of protein, tons of calories. Make a massive batch of this stuff and have it for lunch/dinner all week long. Cheap too! Blender baby - Make your own cheap heavy calorie shake. Finding a good mix of calories, carbs, and protein…I aim for around 800 calories per shake, with fruit and frozen veggies – add oats or sunflower seeds if you want. Here’s a link to my big-ass shake. Rice and Bread – carbs, calories, cheap. Jump on it. Peanut butter sandwiches – a loaf of bread, a jar of peanut butter…2+ sandwiches a day for snacks will add up calories big time Subway – hit up that foot long meatball sub. Tons of calories, tons of protein…tons of carbs, gulp. Cheap at $5 USD. Whole milk – rather than discuss this here, I’ll discuss this in a better diet below. But whole milk is a great way to get lots of calories, good fats, and protein into your system. It’s also relatively inexpensive. 26
Peanut butter goes with anything – put it on apples, just eat it by the spoonful. Calories, protein, fats. Win. Muscle Milk works – I had the kind with creatine in it. It’s pricey at 40+ bucks a tub (when ordered online), but you get something like 16-18 servings in a container. It comes out to less than $2 per serving, and when you’re in desperate need of cheap calories with lots of protein… that’s pretty good amount for 800+ calories with tons of protein. Alright, enough about this diet, because it’s making me sick! Attempt this one at your own risk, if you have no other options…don’t worry, I won’t think any less of you, because we’ve all been there. And it’s only for a month or two while you bulk up. If you want another resource on eating and bulking up, check out this great resource from “Starting Strength.” Let’s move onto something better.
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THE HEALTHY BULK UP Okay, now we’re starting to get a little bit more serious. You know all of that sugar from above is bad, and you want to start eating better, but you’re still trying to keep costs down and aren’t ready to make too many changes to your diet. I’ve done the healthy bulk up, and I’ve had some decent success with it, putting on about 8 pounds in a month in the fall of 2009. To me, this is what the “healthy bulk up” diet is composed of: Good protein – protein shakes, grilled chicken, steak, ground beef, hamburger, almond butter, whole milk “Good carbs” (though Paleo enthusiasts will tell you that no good carbs come from grains) – old fashioned or steel cut oats, sweet potatoes, potatoes, legumes, and maybe some quinoa or brown rice. Vegetables and fruit – veggies or fruit with every meal.
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In this diet, you do your best to eat healthy, and mix in some high calorie carbohydrates to help you get to your calorie goal for the day. Your protein comes from good food like grilled chicken, fish, steak, ham, or ground beef. When I did this diet, this is how my meals would play out: · 7AM – Breakfast shake: 8oz Whole milk, frozen strawberries, frozen blueberries, frozen spinach (trust me on this, you can’t taste it), 1.5 cups of oats, 30g of whey protein (one scoop). · 11AM – Almond butter on apples for snack · 2PM – Grilled chicken with brown rice and asparagus · 4PM – 2 almond butter sandwiches on flaxseed bread · 6PM – Another shake – same as breakfast (post workout) · 8PM – steak, salad, and brown rice · 10PM – optional third shake for the day. When Ryan Reynolds bulked up for Blade 3, he talked about how much oatmeal and brown rice he ate…looks like he turned out okay, and you will too. This diet requires more thought than the Eat Anything diet, as you have to make your own meal replacement shake instead of just buying a tub of Muscle Milk, but you get to control the ingredients this way. 29
Some tips: Buy a blender. Finding a good mix of calories, carbs, and protein…I aim for around 800 calories per shake, with fruit and frozen veggies (the frozen spinach in the above shake goes untasted, I promise). If you’re struggling with calories, add more almond/peanut butter sandwiches or just almonds for snacking, or add another shake at the end of the day (3 total). If you don’t like milk, I used to make the above shake with half-calorie OJ – half the sugar, all of the taste. Get good at preparing a few high calorie meals. For me, it was chicken, brown rice, and asparagus. I would eat this 5 nights a week, and sometimes at lunch too (no joke). If you don’t like oatmeal...I’m not a fan of oatmeal, so I found a way to hide it by adding it to my high-calorie blender drinks. It made it taste a little chalky, but it was a lot of cheap calories.
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GOMAD What the hell is GOMAD you ask? Why it’s simple: Gallon of Milk a Day. Yup. Your goal on this diet is to drink a Gallon of Whole Milk per day. It has to be whole milk too…none of this skim, 1%, or 2% crap. Why does this diet work? Because a gallon of whole milk is loaded with protein, nutrients, and calories: 2400 calories, 130 g of protein, and 180 g of carbs. If you drink an entire gallon of milk, that means you only need to find a way to eat another 1000 calories to get up to the mid 3000’s for calories for the day. The first time I heard about GOMAD, I was terrified…I mean, I figured that CAN’T be healthy for you!
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However, being the guy that I am, I tried it for about two weeks. Unfortunately, it was the two weeks that I was moving out of my apartment and booking my trip around the world, so I often didn’t finish my gallons of milk. After two weeks, I definitely put on some weight and felt stronger, and really didn’t have any bad side effects…other than some unfortunate stomach issues for a few days while my stomach adjusted to dealing with all of that lactose. I’ve been following a variation of this diet while traveling (I go to a store each morning and buy 3 liters of milk and make sure to finish it before the end of the day) – and after a month and a half I’m up about 15 pounds. It works.
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In principle, I love this diet, and here’s why: -It’s stupidly simple. You have a gallon of milk in your fridge – it needs to be gone by the end of the day. Do that, eat your other meals like normal, and don’t worry about nothing else. You will gain weight. -If you can follow through with it, it works. It’s a ton of calories and protein in liquid form, which means it’s not as tough to hit your calorie mark. -It can be cheap. Unless you live in New Zealand where the Mob runs the milk industry (which is what I’m dealing with at the moment), a gallon of whole milk can be pretty cheap (unless you want organic). A few things about this diet make it tough: -If you’re traveling, it’s tough to get access to a gallon of milk a day and a place to store it, and you can’t really carry it around with you. -If you work in an office, you don’t want to fill up the office fridge with 7 gallons of milk every week…people might start to ask questions. 33
-It does a number on your stomach. That’s a lot of lactose to tolerate, even if you’re completely lactose-tolerant (is that a term? It should be.) -You can feel sluggish. Not gonna lie, I felt kind of sluggish after a few days with all of this milk in my system – it works for muscle growth but you feel kind of bloated/weighed down while you’re doing it. Now, because I haven’t completed a full month of this, I wanted to link to some great articles that discuss GOMAD, it’s benefits and precautions. I’ll tell you that Mark Rippetoe, the world’s foremost authority on power lifting, advocates GOMAD, as do many powerlifters. Folks have been doing it for decades. Here are the articles that talk about GOMAD: Strong Lifts - GOMAD Intro Starting Strength – do ctrl+F “GOMAD” on this article. Strong Lifts - 8 GOMAD Mistakes to Avoid
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Here are some tips if you’re going to try GOMAD: Get started early- the first second you wake up, head downstairs and get started on that milk. The earlier you start drinking your milk, the sooner you can be done with it. There’s nothing worse than when it’s 11PM and you realize you still have half a gallon to go. That 4AM bathroom run isn’t fun, I promise. Buy your milk in bulk – yeah you’ll get funny looks at the register, but buy your milk in bulk. You’re going to drink all 7 gallons in a week, why not buy them all at once? As long as you have space in your fridge, it’ll be a reminder that you need to drink all of it before it goes bad. Look for milk that’s about to expire and thus cheaper - who cares if it goes bad in two days? You’re going to drink the whole damn thing tomorrow – if it’s cheaper, the store gets rid of their about to expire milk, and you get your milk for less money. Win! If you work in an office – bring a gallon of milk to work, leave one at home. Just remember that both gallons have to be consumed by the end of tomorrow – 2 gallons, 2 days. Done! 35
THE PALEO DIET I won’t explain the ENTIRE diet here (you can read my 4000 word Beginner’s Guide to the Paleo Diet), but here’s the gist: eat natural foods, and avoid grains and dairy. That means you get to eat: Meat, fowl, fish, eggs, vegetables, fruits, nuts, paleo-friendly starches (sweet potatoes and yams) The things you don’t get to eat: Grains, rice, dairy, anything processed, breaded, or fried.
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Yup. It can be quite a drastic change for some people, but this is the optimal way we’re supposed to eat as a species in my opinion. Read my “beginner’s post,” follow the links, and do the research - it just makes sense. This diet works, and is so successful for people because it’s INCREDIBLY DIFFICULT to overeat while only eating these foods. Seriously. I spent a month TRYING to overeat and gain weight on the Paleo Diet, and I lost 8 pounds. Of course, it was 6 pounds of fat I didn’t know I had, so I ended the month with an extremely low body fat percentage and I looked damn good. But that’s the point: I spent a month trying everything in my power to gain weight and I failed. That being said, I didn’t have the dedication that I did back when I gained 18 pounds in 30 days, and due to my job, travel, and life (not excuses, just saying) I wasn’t completely diligent with my diet, so I can’t say for certain it’s not possible, because it certainly is.
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Benefits of the Paleo Diet: You feel amazing – after you get your body off your sugar kick and carb dependencies, your body starts to function better. I haven’t felt the “omg amazing” feelings that everybody else has who switched cold-turkey to Paleo, but I sort of eased into it over a number of months and was already quite active, so I can see why. You’re healthier – you’re eating natural foods, and not processed crap. This sets you up for a long life of healthy habits and clean living. You’ll be packing on mostly muscle – you’ll be gaining weight more slowly with this method (if at all), so you’ll be mostly putting on muscle instead of fat. It’ll be a slower process for weight gain, but perhaps better results in the long run.
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Drawbacks of the Paleo Diet: It’s almost impossible to over eat on this diet. Because you’re not eating any high-calorie foods like with bread, rice, oats, etc…those extra calories have to come from fats or protein, both of which can fill you up. It can be expensive. Eating vegetables, grassfed beef, organic free range chicken, organic fruits, etc. can get very expensive very quickly when you need to eat twice the number of calories per day as a normal person. When I went Paleo, here’s how a day would go for me: 8AM – Big ass Paleo shake – 8 oz almond milk, frozen strawberries, blueberries, frozen spinach, 1.5 scoops of whey protein (note: whey protein is not completely Paleo, but that’s splitting hairs) 3/4ths of a cup of sunflower seeds, 1 tbsp of olive oil 10AM – Almond butter and apples, shot of olive oil 2PM – Shot of olive oil, green tea, 2 big handfuls of almonds 4PM - Big ass Paleo shake #2 – post workout 6PM – Chicken-veggie stir-fry with sweet potato fries and olive oil 8pm – almond butter and apples, shot of olive oil 1oPM – Big ass Paleo shake #3 39
Not a lot of variety, but I was on a tight food budget, I’m a picky eater (though working on it), and I didn’t know how to cook much then. Not that I know how to cook much now, but I didn’t know how to cook much then either. Here are the best tips I can give you for trying to bulk up on the Paleo Diet: Liquid calories are still your friend - you have to substitute out the OJ or milk for almond milk or coconut milk, and you can’t up the calories with things like oats…but you can still use high-calorie items like sunflower seeds, almonds, and almond butter! Olive oil – learn to shoot it - Seriously. One tablespoon of olive oil is 120 calories. 6 of those a day = 720 calories. Bam. Pinch your nose and then drink the tablespoon – it goes down kind of slimey, but it works. Another tip – buy little dixie plastic cups to drink from or just take pulls straight from the bottle. Olive oil is really tough to get out of glasses, cups, and your measuring spoons.
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Put avocado on everything – Avocado is great for you and very high in calories. Put it on everything. Raw almonds! Carry them everywhere – Keep a bag on your office desk, your home desk, next to your xbox, everywhere. A handful of almonds is almost 200 calories. Try DEOD – “A Dozen Eggs a Day” Lots of calories, lots of protein, lots of fats. If you must eat things like rice and oats to hit your calorie marks, do so ONLY in the meal directly after an intense workout, when they can be used to restore your muscles’ glycogen stores. It takes work, but it can be done. Personally, I like saving the Paleo diet for when I need to slim down – it works incredibly well, which is why it’s the cornerstone of the “Operation: Slim Down” book. Here’s some more advice on bulking up on the Paleo Diet.
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PALEO + GOMAD A full Paleo Diet, but with a gallon of milk thrown in. If you have the money, make the milk organic. So, does it work? Yes. The owners and members of Crossfit Football (meaning these dudes are some serious athletes and train serious athletes) are huge supporters and fans of the PALEO + GOMAD approach. Rather than rewrite both and take up more pages, go back and read those two sections. Here it is summed up: Gallon of Milk a Day, plus meat, fish, fowl, eggs, veggies, nuts, and fruit. Stick with a big shake for breakfast, another after your workout, maybe another before bed. Use 16oz of milk in the shake, and you’ll have less to to drink during the day!
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VEGGIES AND VEGANS Jason Ferruggia is built like a friggin tank, and he’s a vegan. You can do it too. It’s going to be funky, it’s going to be expensive, and it will require supplementation. The tough parts will be getting enough protein, and enough calories without totally loading up on just grain sources. Jason Ferruggia recommends SunWarrior Protein, which is vegan approved. Beyond that, I see LOTS and LOTS of apples, almond butter, olive oil, and avocado in your future. Get that calorie count up, use supplementation to get enough protein. Admittedly, I’ve never attempted a veggie/vegan diet for bulking up, so I’d rather leave this to the experts who HAVE done it. Vegan Muscle Building A day in the life of a veggie muscle builder
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TIPS AND TRICK FOR EATING MORE CALORIES Liquid calories are your friend. I’m writing this book while out traveling around the world, and I feel naked. Why is that? Because I don’t have my precious blender! I’ve been drinking my breakfast for the past five years now, along with other high calorie shakes throughout the day and after my workouts. Eating 3500-4000 calories (what I need to eat to build muscle) per day in solid food gets expensive and difficult. However, by making a high quality shake that has tons of nutrients...and 800 calories...I can get a lot of calories quickly without filling myself up. If you don’t have a blender yet, I cannot advocate enough driving to a local Target and picking up a $30 blender ASAP. Take shots of olive oil. Not kidding. 6 tablespoons of olive oil a day gives you an extra 720 calories per day. And that’s just one shot per meal. If you want to get nuts, you can do two per meal to get your calories in there. I’m at the point now where I just grab a bottle and take a few big gulps before each meal. MMMMMMMMMMM 44
Buy your protein in bulk. Don’t buy your protein from GNC. Stop it. Go to an online vendor, pick out a good product, and order the big 5 pound tub. You’ll use it. I usually order my stuff from Vitacost; they have cheap shipping and have always been reliable. Add a starch to each meal. Yams, grilled sweet potato slices, baked sweet potato, sweet potato fries…add sweet potatoes to your meal. All of them. Get used to eating funky meals for breakfast, lunch, and dinner. Get up earlier. When you wake up at 10AM, it’s tougher to get all of your meals in. If you get up at 7AM however and immediately start eating, you can get two meals in before lunchtime, which will make the rest of your day to eat excess calories even easier. However, this also means you need to go to bed early so that you get enough sleep. Stop playig WoW! Set a timer or calendar update. I’m not kidding. I’m one of those people that gets so engrossed in a story/game/book/assignment that I will skip meals because I’m too focused. When trying to bulk up, I have to literally remind myself to eat. When you’re eating every 2-3 hours, a 2 hour delay is enough to miss an entire meal by the end of the day…which we can’t have! 45
Keep a food journal - non-negotiable - and NO CHEATING! I’ve done it, and it doesn’t do you any good. If you skipped a meal or only ate half of that sandwich, keep track of your calories properly. When you’re not seeing results, the first thing I would look at is your food journal. If you’re not seeing results, eat more. Obviously a 150-pound 18-year old will have different caloric requirements than a 150-pound 55-year old so no calorie counting formula will work universally for everybody. Eat more, check results, and then eat more than that if necessary. You’re going to need to experiment. If you’re keeping track of everything you eat and you’re not getting bigger, then you need to eat more calories (and possibly sleep more). Try adding in an additional 250-500 calories per day, which can be done with an extra handful of almonds, two more shots of olive oil, and/or a big glass of whole milk.
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Always be eating. When I’m in a “bulk up” phase, I feel like I’m always eating...and it’s probably because I am. I keep a bag of almonds on my desk and munch away all day long, I’m always going to the fridge for a tall glass of whole milk or for an apple and almond butter. When you eat six, seven, or eight times a day, the meals happen every 2-3 hours. This means that you can’t slack and miss two meals because you were playing Angry Birds on your iPhone. All of a sudden it’s 11PM and you’re 1000 calories behind for the day. Others find it easier to eat four 1000 calorie meals per day – for me it’s easier to break it up into lots of smaller meals. When in doubt, eat. Just keep eating. If you’re ever worried about a meal, or don’t know if you should have that extra shake, or add that extra bit of whatever for more calories…do it. Just trust me on this one. Who cares if you put on a few pounds of fat; your abs aren’t impressive hanging off skin and bones anyway! Work on building the muscle, THEN make a few small dietary adjustments and you’ll not only have your six pack back, but plenty of other muscle to be proud of too.
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Eat within 30 minutes of your workout. After a good strength building workout, you can help kick start the recovery process by eating a high calorie meal with a ratio of protein to carbs of 1:2 or 1:3. This means 30 grams of protein with 60-90 grams of carbs. Your body will use the protein to start rebuilding, and the carbs to refill their glycogen stores full of energy. Depending on your budget, situation, and circumstances, this meal can either be: A true meal - can of Tuna and carrots, chicken and rice, chicken and sweet potato, big sub from Subway (if options are limited). Or liquid calories - protein powder mixed with whole milk, one of my big ass shakes listed above in the meals sections. This is the most important meal of the day, so always have a plan ready for that crucial period RIGHT after you work out.
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RECIPE RESOURCES I won’t double up on the recipes here, as I already have pages of them in the “Operation: Slim Down” guide book. Head on over there for links to hundreds and hundreds of recipes if you’re interested in cooking your own meals. All you have to do to turn those healthy meals into healthy bulk up meals is add more calories! You can do that in a number of ways: Eat more. If you normally eat one plateful, start eating two. The last few bites will be tough to get down until your stomach gets used to the excess calories, but you can do it. Add milk. Add a tall glass or two of whole milk to each meal and you’ll add a few hundred calories. Olive oil. Take a big swig (or three) of olive oil before each meal, and you’ll guarantee you’ll get enough calories.
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WHAT HAPPENS WHEN I’M BIG ENOUGH? Ultimately, you want to aim for a size that’s 15 pounds or so bigger than the weight you want to be. Why 15 pounds MORE? Because depending on how quickly you put on the weight to get up there, you’ve probably put on some fat as well, and it’s time to get rid of that fat and get you ripped. When you get to that point, my advice would be to go full Paleo diet (or as much as possible), keep your calorie counts high, and continue to lift heavy weights. If you’re eating enough calories, lifting weights (make sure you do the Finishing moves with each workout along with some cardio and maybe one day of sprints per week), and getting your rest…you’ll maintain all of that muscle you’ve worked so hard to keep and just get rid of the fat on top.
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For more tips on how to thin out while not losing muscle, check out the “Operation: Slim Down” Diet Book. Once you spend a month or so of following the Paleo Diet and you’ve dropped some weight, look in the mirror, compare pictures, and decide if you want to maintain that weight, lose more, or pack on more muscle and then slim down again. It’s a constant battle, but it’s a fun one.
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GOOD LUCK I have now officially done all that I can for you when it comes to eating to build muscle and strength. It’s up to you now – do you have the determination to eat enough food on a daily basis to promote muscle growth? Can you say no to TV or video games on some nights to make sure you get enough sleep? It’s tough, but it’s doable. I ask for 6 weeks of your complete attention. I know that if you pick a diet and stick with it with militant discipline over the next few weeks you’ll see results you’ve never seen before and stick with it for even longer. I am excited for you, because I know how quickly a great couple of weeks can get the ball rolling when it comes building strength and muscle. Now go eat something.
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