Ever since I switched from strength training to muscle mass gain, I have had trouble gaining weight. Unfortunately I cannot blame the new program. There are a variety of reasons that are responsible. First let me start off by showing the chart that shows my weight gain progress in the last 3 months.
Observe how the curve looks like when I am healthy and gaining weight. This is represented by the slopes from 4/10/2010 to 5/8/2010 and from 5/15/2010 to 6/5/2010. Right around 6/5/2010 I switched to mass gain program. And then I lost weight the first week, then started to gain very little if any after that. Now for the breakdown by week.
6/5 to 6/12
During this week I probably lost weight because I was over-training. When I switched out of strength training I miscalculated that I would not require as many days to recover while on mass gain program. I was probably wrong. I went from 2 workouts per week to 4 workouts. With the new schedule, I saw a dip in my weight while I maintained every other variable pretty constant. I ate the same amount and type of food. I was well rested and slept well too. The following week I decided to reduce the number of workouts and went from 4 to 3 workouts per week.
6/12 to 6/19
With 3 workouts a week, I was recovering better. But I was struck with an unfortunate event. My car broke down and as a result I had a couple of days when I could not get enough calories as I was taking care of the car repairs. The day my car broke down (well the engine started smoking due to a coolant leak, fortunately it did not go into flames) I was left stranded for an hour on the road while I was waiting for a tow truck and then I had to go to the car repair center and then walked a mile on empty stomach. I was already a couple of hours late for my next meal. All the while I could hear the growing rumbling noises in my stomach. I knew I am quickly losing muscle. I ate what I could, but without a car I am pretty much out of options for a good meal. And the weekend saw the scale not moving much farther from the previous weekend.
6/19 to 6/26
This was a week when I had trouble finding nutritious meal at the right time due to a variety of reasons. So I had to mostly live on milk. And that caused a lot of problems. I started having trouble digesting milk. Not sure if I am becoming more lactose intolerant or just the excess dairy products are causing problems. I had stomach pain throughout the day almost everyday of the week. I have been eating too much dairy including a ton of milk, cottage cheese, butter and yogurt. I did not recognize that dairy was the problem. I kept on thinking it was some other issue like an ulcer or something. I kept drinking lot of water and waited for the pain to go away. But that never happened. And with the pain I could not eat as much as I should have and what I ate probably did not get absorbed into my body. Again the scale did not go up by much.
That has been the story for the last 3 weeks in June. But the troubles did not stop there. More in my next post...
Observe how the curve looks like when I am healthy and gaining weight. This is represented by the slopes from 4/10/2010 to 5/8/2010 and from 5/15/2010 to 6/5/2010. Right around 6/5/2010 I switched to mass gain program. And then I lost weight the first week, then started to gain very little if any after that. Now for the breakdown by week.
6/5 to 6/12
During this week I probably lost weight because I was over-training. When I switched out of strength training I miscalculated that I would not require as many days to recover while on mass gain program. I was probably wrong. I went from 2 workouts per week to 4 workouts. With the new schedule, I saw a dip in my weight while I maintained every other variable pretty constant. I ate the same amount and type of food. I was well rested and slept well too. The following week I decided to reduce the number of workouts and went from 4 to 3 workouts per week.
6/12 to 6/19
With 3 workouts a week, I was recovering better. But I was struck with an unfortunate event. My car broke down and as a result I had a couple of days when I could not get enough calories as I was taking care of the car repairs. The day my car broke down (well the engine started smoking due to a coolant leak, fortunately it did not go into flames) I was left stranded for an hour on the road while I was waiting for a tow truck and then I had to go to the car repair center and then walked a mile on empty stomach. I was already a couple of hours late for my next meal. All the while I could hear the growing rumbling noises in my stomach. I knew I am quickly losing muscle. I ate what I could, but without a car I am pretty much out of options for a good meal. And the weekend saw the scale not moving much farther from the previous weekend.
6/19 to 6/26
This was a week when I had trouble finding nutritious meal at the right time due to a variety of reasons. So I had to mostly live on milk. And that caused a lot of problems. I started having trouble digesting milk. Not sure if I am becoming more lactose intolerant or just the excess dairy products are causing problems. I had stomach pain throughout the day almost everyday of the week. I have been eating too much dairy including a ton of milk, cottage cheese, butter and yogurt. I did not recognize that dairy was the problem. I kept on thinking it was some other issue like an ulcer or something. I kept drinking lot of water and waited for the pain to go away. But that never happened. And with the pain I could not eat as much as I should have and what I ate probably did not get absorbed into my body. Again the scale did not go up by much.
That has been the story for the last 3 weeks in June. But the troubles did not stop there. More in my next post...
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