Skinny to Strong

In one of my previous post I wrote that I stopped taking any kind of supplements because I am not really seeing much difference other than some rather expensive pee. There is no good way to put it, but most supplements are just waste of money and the rest are just a convenience rather than being beneficial. I replaced all my protein shakes and bars with lean cuts of meat and fruits and that is working out very well. I don't see any difference and in fact my digestive system is happier digesting natural food. I don't eat as much vegetables because they fill me up very quickly and being an ectomorph I need more calories than what vegetables can offer. Here are a couple more excerpts from the book "Burn the fat, feed the muscle" that reinforce my arguments ... The truth is that as long as you eat a sufficient quantity of whole food proteins at frequent intervals throughout the day, it's not necessary to consume any protein supplements whatsoever to get outstan...

Although I have switched to leaning phase, I still have the very bad habit of eating unhealthy food. I eat anything and everything. I should be more disciplined but it never seems to happen anyway. Most recently I have eaten at least 3 chicken sandwiches with fries. Add to it 3 more desserts and 2 cokes. And a marathon of greasy indian food such as chicken and egg biriyani and you get a bunch of unnecessary calories. It is not even like I have a sweet tooth or something. I just like to eat what I can get. This does not mean I am not eating anything healthy at all. I do eat cottage cheese 5 times a week and yogurt or oatmeals once in a while. I wonder if I keep eating junk like this then if I will ever be able to acheive 7% body fat. I decided to continue the junk as long as I am losing fat. One more important change is that I stopped taking supplements of any kind. Yay! That is a big acheivement. No more protien shakes for me. I really question the use of the supplements in helping ...

I have been wanting to record what I eat and how much I eat for a while now and I was finally able to do it for 1 day. So this is what I ate on Friday, December 18, 2009. Early morning snack I had a glass of 2% milk early in the morning at around 7 am. Calories: 122 Fat: 4.81 gms Carb: 11.42 gms Prot: 8.05 gms Breakfast For breakfast I had a bowl of cereals. The cereals is a mix of raisin bran and cheerios. I ate this around 9 am. Calories: 175 Fat: 2.19 gms Carb: 34.58 gms Prot: 4.95 gms Morning Snack For my morning snack I had a cup of pineapple and a cup of cottage cheese. This was around 11 am. Calories: 272 Fat: 4 gms Carb: 26 gms Prot: 31 gms Lunch Lunch consisted of chicken burger and fries at 1 pm. Calories: 498 Fat: 20 gms Carb: 51 gms Prot: 27 gms Afternoon Snack Chicken tandoori with a glass of 2% milk at 4 pm. Calories: 253 Fat: 11 gms Carb: 13 gms Prot: 23 gms Dinner Chicken dum biriyani at 7 pm. Calories: 410 Fat: 11 gms ...

I always like to eat a well rounded meal right after I workout instead of drinking protein shakes or eating protein bars. That is the reason I workout right before lunch. It works well. Protein bars and drinks should only be supplements to your diet but should not be the raw material for building muscle. The natural way to build body is to eat the natural food that is available. I found this interesting video on the same topic. Makes sense doesn't he? Eat solid natural food and lots of it right after your workout. At the end of the meal drink a glass of orange juice or grape juice. This will give you the insulin spike that you need and also some vitamin C to prevent muscle loss after the heavy bout of weight lifting. Give it a try and see the difference. I support eating a protein bar or drinking protein shake during workout session if it lasts a longer than 45 mins. But don't eat or drink so much that you will not be able to eat the huge amount of food that you will h...

I found this very interesting article: http://www.biologiclabs.com/advice/details.asp?article_id=23 If you read it and take everything to heart then you will never do cardio again! I like how he debunks the claim that cardio reduces fat %. I agree with almost everything he has to say. I like his simple equation which relates food, muscle, weight and fat. Food determines your weight Strength determines your lean mass The difference is fat If you eat more, you will gain weight. Now if you increase strength proportionally then you will keep the same body fat. At the end of the day you have less body fat % yet you weight more and have more strength. Although putting this principle into practice is not easy. Because you cannot exactly measure how much to eat so that you just gain muscle and not fat (with excess calories). Similarly you cannot be eating less than what is required otherwise you will not see the best strength gains and your recovery and metabolism slows down too. Many...

During my strong lifts phase I decided to up my calories by at least 500 calories. But how much am I eating now? To get that number I opened an account in dailyburn and started entering what I usually eat. It came out to be something like 1350 to 1500. Then I made a conscious effort to eat 1750 to 2000 calories. Also decided to eat every 3 hours for a total of 6 meals. So I have to eat about 300 calories per meal. Simple enough. I then increased the amount of food that I ate and logged everything in dailyburn. I was not easily able to eat that much food every 3 hours. I felt very full all the time. Then after reading about another skinny guy in strong lifts I decided to go with a lot of milk instead of solid food. I felt slightly better but still felt like I was over eating. During this time I tried to eat clean, but cheated several times. I weighted about 120 lb with about 12.5% body fat when I started. My goal was to gain 10 lbs while not going beyond 17% body fat. I tracked my bo...