Diet Critique For Scrawny Guy Please

[Mykl]

Stats:
Height: 5'10
Weight: 165lbs
Chest: 42"
Arms: 14"
Calfs 14.75"
Thighs: 23"
Waist: 30"
Bodyfat: 13%
Age: 38
Training length: 23 years. Yes, really. 23 years and I only weigh 165lbs. I know, I'm scrawny. That's why I joined.
Resting Metabolic Rate = 1,922 cal
Cost of Activity = 3,075 cal
Exercise expenditure = 376 cal
Thermic Effect of Food = 192 cal
total energy on weight days = 3,644 calories

Here is my proposed diet to gain lean mass on weight training days (3 per week). Meals are either protein plus carbs or protein plus fats. Ratio: 50% carb, 25% protein, 15% fat. It's about 100o calories more than what I was eating before, and a lot more protein.

Meal 1
300g milk 10.2g protein 15g carbs
33g whey 30g protein
80g shredded wheat 54g carbs
18g raisins 14g carbs

Meal 2
100g tuna 25g protein
20g whey 18g protein
1 banana 23g carbs
1 slice bread 18.5g carb
25g honey 20g carb
50g cucumber 15g carbs
50g broccoli 3.5g carbs

Meal 3
4 eggs 32g protein, 35g fat
56g mackerel 11g protein, 12g fat

Meal 4
14g whey 13g protein
100g chicken breast 30g protein
1 slice bread 18.5g carb
25g honey 20g carb
50g tomato 18g carbs
50g cucumber 15g carbs
50g carrot 5g carbs
50g broccoli 3.5g carbs

Meal 5
50g chicken thigh 13g protein, 5.5g fat
33g whey 30g protein
25g peanut butter 11.5g fat
39g almonds 21.7g fat

Meal 6
48g Whey 43g protein
100g Carb 85g carbs
add vegetables

Meal 7
2 eggs 16g protein, 17.5g fat
30g whey 27g protein
38g almonds 21g fat

I can stick to this diet, so please don't tell me to keep it simple! :-) The hardest part for me will be fitting it all in my little belly!

So, please give me the benefit of your experience and tell me if this is a good start.

[Jesusbrah]

Glad to see you came to your senses

Diet looks good. A mistake people do when they start dieting, is eating TOO clean. It takes alot of willpower to force that much lean food down, and as you say yourself, "The hardest part for me will be fitting it all in my little belly". I have seen alot of people just focusing on just getting the calories down with junk food with good results, at least in the start just to get used to eating large amounts of food. But if youre able to eat clean like this, then thats great!

Good luck!

[Mykl]

Thanks, it's nice to know I'm not totally ignorant!
I didn't manage to eat as much as planned today, but I still got more good stuff in than normal. Tomorrow my supplements will arrive so it'll be easier, though I think I'll cut the bread out and replace it with carb powder so I can eat more veg. Veg is so low in carbs but I know I need the vits/mins to keep my immune system working well enough.

[Mr.BB]

Why so litle carbs if you are bulking?

[Khazima]

Don't worry about a fancy diet plan, just eat more and you'll gain weight, if you're not gaining weight then continue to increase the caloric intake.

I had a lot of trouble eating enough at first as well (at about 130lb 12-13%bf) until i just started to count my macros and eat the required calories whether it was from whole foods (red meat is easy calories, steak etc), mass gainers or just plain crap. Fattened myself up nicely to 165 at about 18% bf now i'm at 160 at about 13-14%.

Planning on being about 180 by the end of the year, gotta stop worrying about the abs and the cuts for a while, think about the bigger picture.

[zempey]

Looks good, in time try and move away from the whey at meals and replace with food, it is hard to eat that much solids now, but in time it will become easier. I have to eat a ton at 270+, it does take some getting used to, but the more solid food the better. I am a big fruit and veggie guy, I believe the phyto nutrients are important for growth as well as health. Keep at it and keep us updated, I bet you will start to gain once your body gets better at processing all the extra food.

[Mykl]

Why so litle carbs if you are bulking?

Are you familiar with Berardi's article 'Massive Eating'? bodybuilding.com/fun/berardi41.htm
I'm just following his advice. B*ll*cks, I've just realised that 50% carb, 25% protein, 15% doesn't add up to 100%! Stop laughing at me - you didn't point it out! :-) His article says it's supposed to be 35% protein. Also, I don't know my insulin sensitivity. Anyway, point taken Mr. BB, when I feel I need it I shall increase my carbs. For the moment my li'll belly can't take the strain! Whatever my split is, it's still about 1000 calories more than before so it's got to have some effect, right?

gotta stop worrying about the abs and the cuts for a while, think about the bigger picture.

Trouble is I do modelling from time to time... I'll doing caloric cycling so I have bulk days and cut days.

Looks good, in time try and move away from the whey at meals and replace with food, it is hard to eat that much solids now, but in time it will become easier. I have to eat a ton at 270+, it does take some getting used to, but the more solid food the better. I am a big fruit and veggie guy, I believe the phyto nutrients are important for growth as well as health. Keep at it and keep us updated, I bet you will start to gain once your body gets better at processing all the extra food.

I couldn't actually eat enough yesterday but I did my best. I figured I'd gradually stretch my stomach. I'd rather get everything from natural sources but I just can't do it at the moment. The reason I've ordered carb powder is so I can eat less bread and increase my veg intake. I know from experience that my immune system will crash if I don't get plenty of that.

Thank you all for your input and interest. I've said it before but I'll say it again: it's very reassuring that people on a forum of this name are encouraging me not to take them, or pro hormones, or anything of that sort.

[Bicep321]

Speaking from my experience, which I am a pretty lean and dry dude myself, I don't think that diet is gonna help you out much. Personally, the number one and most important nutrient is carbohydrates. I say you keep it simple by eating 6 meals a day. They don't have to be huge but make sure you don't go more than 2 hours without taking some food down. Now the base for every meal should be carbs. The carbs you posted are not the carbs you should be consuming. You want to get your carbs from rice, potatoes and pasta. So every meal, get a lot of carbs from one of those 3 options. Along with that, also have a source of protein. Chicken, beef, fish or eggs. Mix and match and you'll gain more weight that way.

I see a lot of people making the mistake of upping their protein in hopes to gain weight and they fail miserably. That's because protein is like fuel is to a car. Fuel is necessary for it to function but just because there is more fuel doesn't mean it will function better. You can eat 300, 400, 500g of protein per day but if the carbs aren't there, you won't gain weight. What feeds the muscles are carbs. What you want to do is keep the muscle fed with nutrients all day and make sure they are not underfed.

I started to gain weight once I realized that. I stopped worrying so much about protein and started to put the focus around carbs and that really made a huge difference. I pretty much carb load all day every day. Sometimes I'll even eat a meal of just carbs if I'm in a hurry and don't have the time to cook. That's the standard I hold carbs at.

A guy with your stats will definitely benefit from a high carb diet and make sure you're drinking plenty of water too!

[Mr.BB]

^^^^ Completely agree with Bicep321

Muscles need carbs to grow. In terms of macros your should use % of calories, not % of grams. Each gram of carb and protein has 4 calories, each gram of fat has 9 calories, so you have to much fat IMO.

Also agree that you are relying to much on powders, real food is way better, if organic even better.

You say you have a small stomach, on meal 5 you eat 50gr of chicken thigh, whey powder, a spoon of peanut butter and a hand of almonds... My 10 year old kid can eat triple of that come on...

Attached tonights dinner pic. 200gr pasta (dry), 150 grilled chicken breast, steamed green veggies, spoon of olive oil. Thats over 1000cals, plus while preparing ate bolied egg and big raw carrrot. Im on a bulking cycle. My aim is 3600 cals (minimum). This is what I need to grow.

[Jesusbrah]

^^^^ Completely agree with Bicep321

Muscles need carbs to grow. In terms of macros your should use % of calories, not % of grams. Each gram of carb and protein has 4 calories, each gram of fat has 9 calories, so you have to much fat IMO.

Also agree that you are relying to much on powders, real food is way better, if organic even better.

You say you have a small stomach, on meal 5 you eat 50gr of chicken thigh, whey powder, a spoon of peanut butter and a hand of almonds... My 10 year old kid can eat triple of that come on...

Attached tonights dinner pic. 200gr pasta (dry), 150 grilled chicken breast, steamed green veggies, spoon of olive oil. Thats over 1000cals, plus while preparing ate bolied egg and big raw carrrot. Im on a bulking cycle. My aim is 3600 cals (minimum). This is what I need to grow.

I would disagree, i get about 100 g of protein through powder and it works for me.

[Khazima]

Trouble is I do modelling from time to time... I'll doing caloric cycling so I have bulk days and cut days.

You can't have two goals at once and get the best of both, the closest thing to that is recomping (eating at maintenance, slowly building muscle and slowly losing fat).

Your body is constantly building and breaking down. If it takes you 3 days to recover from a heavy leg session and the day after the leg session you've had a rest day or two and not eaten enough, how can you expect it to supercompensate and grow without the required nutrients to do so?

At your size after so long training (+ height), if your goal is to get bigger you need to completely drop the dream of gaining a lot of mass while staying lean. The best you could do is slowly gain mass while gaining minimal bodyfat (clean bulking) and doing so for a 8-12 months maybe even more. While doing that you can also get ready to model or shoot within weeks, since you don't have to be contest ripped for that it'll only take 4-6 max to get ready from a clean bulk.

[kelkel]

Glad you decided to visit this forum Mykl. I'm out of my league here but these guys will keep you straight.

[Bicep321]

Glad you decided to visit this forum Mykl. I'm out of my league here but these guys will keep you straight.

Every time I come across you on a post I just stop and fall in love with your avatar lol

[Mykl]

A guy with your stats will definitely benefit from a high carb diet and make sure you're drinking plenty of water too!

I have the water thing covered. Swamped, in fact.
Right, decrease the fat, increase the carbs. Back to the calculator for me!
I know, I know, keep it simple. Once I've done some maths it WILL be simple.

Also agree that you are relying to much on powders, real food is way better, if organic even better.
You say you have a small stomach, on meal 5 you eat 50gr of chicken thigh, whey powder, a spoon of peanut butter and a hand of almonds...

I know real food is best, except that whey is better quality than egg, and egg protein (although great) is in very low quantities. Anyway, it turns out that the eating isn't as hard as I thought (the fat meals are easy, it's the carb meals that are big but day two was easy) so I'll rely on powders when I have limited time, which isn't often.

At your size after so long training (+ height), if your goal is to get bigger you need to completely drop the dream of gaining a lot of mass while staying lean. The best you could do is slowly gain mass while gaining minimal bodyfat (clean bulking) and doing so for a 8-12 months maybe even more. While doing that you can also get ready to model or shoot within weeks, since you don't have to be contest ripped for that it'll only take 4-6 max to get ready from a clean bulk.

That's what I'm doing.

Glad you decided to visit this forum Mykl. I'm out of my league here but these guys will keep you straight.

I'll do almost anything to achieve what I want!

Every time I come across you on a post I just stop and fall in love with your avatar lol

Does this post still hold true?

[Mr.BB]

I'll do almost anything to achieve what I want!

Thats the spirit, congratz!!

lol on your next sentence