18yo Mass plan for "hardgainer"

[fattymcbutterpants]

Ok first off I am 18, 6'5", and 190lbs. I have a high metabolism, without about 3500calories a day I will lose weight very quickly. So it takes around the 4500 area for me to really make much gains. I tend to get stronger (almost over 300 on bench) and get a little bigger just dont add much mass as time goes on which obviously means I need some diet help. Also I am anywhere from 7-8% bf I would estimate, my abs are very defined and I am lean all over.

So any suggestions on some very high calorie meals for me to add into my daily diet?

I am in highschool and work a part time job so I cant be perfect on diet timing but I do my best.

8:00 a.m. I attempt to get 8 eggs and 8-12oz of milk for breakfast or a Monster mass shake when I am in a rush.

11:00Then I will eat a normal school lunch plus a 12oz can of tuna to top it off 2-3 hours later.

2-3:00p.m I will either eat like a protein bar or come home and make a chicken breast and a bagel or something or just eat a bunch of random food and try to pack in lot of carbs and protein before I workout

4:00pm I go workout for an hour or two
5-6:00pm I drink a weight gainer protein shake for my after workout shake.

then once I get home I will normally eat a few more times but normally just one more good solid meal and then lots of smaller things after with the occassional midnight chicken breast lol.

Now today I bought a tub of Mass XXX, some plain creatine Monohydrate Powder, and some casein protein to try before bed.

I am pretty much shooting for strength and size. I naturally hang on to my abs pretty well so not a major concern.

Any input?

Thanks guys

[americanoak]

here is a thread for hard gainers, the stickeys have good info

http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=167282

anyway i would say have a good amount of carbs with your eggs in the morning.. 2 slices of wheat toast along with your milk or have some oatmeal 1-2 cups

as for your can of tuna meal have like a hand full of almonds or cashews and maybe try to have some wheat toast with that too if possible.. or have your can of tuna and a protein bar.. even though they arent that great in my opinion they are usually very high cals and Supreme bars make bars in the 380-400 cal range.

About an hour after your pwo shake have a solid meal.. a sweet potatoe or 2 with some type of meat.. chicken, steak, w.e maybe even buy some chop meat (prolly high fat % if u wanna gain weight ) and grill up some mega burgers.

As for your shakes if you wanna add in some cals try adding some flax oil.. dont rly taste it and pretty high in calories. If you dont like that add in a large scoop of peanut butter, taste pretty damn good.

Before you go to bed have some cottage cheese or a casien protein shake
and your school lunch i would start packing. When i was in highschool i used to bring containers of chicken with me. You can make a pretty good tasting sandwich with 2 slices wheat toast, good amount of grlled chicken, and maybe even have some cheese on there toow/ lettuce n tomatoe.

Others will proll have good advice, but this is just what i thnk. If you add in everything that i just said you will def be adding atleast 500-1000 cals

[fattymcbutterpants]

oh and on the creatine monohydrate its just straight creatine so how do you think i should take it? Like 5g before and after workout with water or what?

[americanoak]

you can take creatine 5g a day, about an hour before workout (i usually just take it in the morning but both are prolly fine). Or for the first week you can do a creatine load where you take in 20g a day and then for the rest of the time on it you do 5g a day. Some people say this is a waste of money, but I like the load IMO, might be mental but I deff feel stronger. My Dumbbell chest press goes up atleast 10lbs for pretty much same reps as the lower weight in that week.

If your gonna load the creatine what I did was take 10g in the morning 5g pre workout 5g pwo, but im sure there are other varitations. You might want to take the 10 g postWO because you are usually ingesting alot of carbs there and that helps the transport of the creatne, But i like it better in the morning because I havent eaten anything for hours and I usually have 40-60 carbs for breakfast.

[fattymcbutterpants]

Yea im taking alot of creatine since i got the pure unflavored kind i took about 10grams this morning and didnt get a chance to after my workout or before but I'll take some with my casein shake before bed too

[_CrossroadS_]

OT, but how do you bench 300+ at 6'5, 190lbs, at 18 yo?

And at that height and weight, you just need to eat man. Every couple hours, you need to eat. Force yourself to eat. Eat in between classes. Eat on the way to and from school. Eat before and after your workout. Eat before you go to bed. If you are having to come in here to ask this, you aren't eating enough. I'm not preaching, I was the same way. I thought I was eating alot. When you really break down what 4000 cals of REAL, GOOD, FOOD is, it is a lot. Getting your body used to eating that much is the first step. Staying committed to it is just as hard. Weightgainers don't hurt since you are so skinny, but they need to be in addition to the silly amount of food you are going to be eating. You can search the bulking threads here to see what types of foods to eat. But it's pretty simple. EAT.

[Damienm05]

It sounds like you probably eat a ton of empty calories. For example, school lunch may be as much as 700 cals but I guarantee there's 10-15g of protein at most. Eating is pointless if it's tater-tots and pudding; they won't help you grow. You need to eat a ton of the following foods:

Carbs:
wheat bread, wheat pasta/couscous, brown rice, sweet potatoes, quinoua, oats, barley, popcorn, the list goes on. COMPLEX CARBS will yield quality mass gains.

protein:
RED MEAT - the leaner the better. Ground beef, flank steak, bison are great for bulking. Stay away from fatty meats since you're young and don't wanna develop shitty e*ting habits. Other good sources are fish/shellfish of any kind, turkey/chicken breast, and more.

Fats:
Eat good sources of fat throughout the day with most meals. A tbspn. of natural peanut butter, some extra virgin olive oil on your veggies/chicken, an oz. of almonds will go a long way towards quality gains.

Eat every 2 hours! I know you're in school and when I was in HS, despite being an athlete, I didn't even eat every 5 hours - but you're clearly dedicated enough to pull it off. Remember, 4000-5000 cals of school lunch and other snack foods is not the same as 4000 cals of the above foods - there's no such thing as a hardgainer imo.

[fattymcbutterpants]

crossroads trust me, I know it seems odd but thats how i've always been built im alot stronger than i seem to be capable of. Like i had a huge dude spot me on bench the other day and when i walked in friday he pointed to me and said to the guy next to him you see that skinny kid, he is strong as hell. I'm guessing its partially genetics who knows but I'm not over 300 yet just 10lbs away right now. But basically all I was asking for was a few suggestions on some foods packing a high calorie carb and protein count. Not asking how much to eat i understand where I need to be on the calorie and protein and carb area just working on getting it all in is the problem.

Damien, I agree school lunch is shitty, i just eat it to give me a few extra calories. I eat a 12oz can of tuna or 2 chicken breasts with it tho everyday so im not relying on junk food. The only time of the day I ever eat unhealthy food really is that school lunch but i still normally will get whatever they are serving and they have nutrition requirements to keep us from getting too skinny or too fat haha.

Thanks for the advice on those food items. Ive been cooking 4 chicken breasts and eating them throughout the day now lately at school.

Oh and I put "hardgainer" in quotes for a reason damien lol i know most people agree there isnt such thing i was just implying I have high caloric demands for my body to grow whatsoever.

thanks for the help guys

[Damienm05]

crossroads trust me, I know it seems odd but thats how i've always been built im alot stronger than i seem to be capable of. Like i had a huge dude spot me on bench the other day and when i walked in friday he pointed to me and said to the guy next to him you see that skinny kid, he is strong as hell. I'm guessing its partially genetics who knows but I'm not over 300 yet just 10lbs away right now. But basically all I was asking for was a few suggestions on some foods packing a high calorie carb and protein count. Not asking how much to eat i understand where I need to be on the calorie and protein and carb area just working on getting it all in is the problem.

Damien, I agree school lunch is shitty, i just eat it to give me a few extra calories. I eat a 12oz can of tuna or 2 chicken breasts with it tho everyday so im not relying on junk food. The only time of the day I ever eat unhealthy food really is that school lunch but i still normally will get whatever they are serving and they have nutrition requirements to keep us from getting too skinny or too fat haha.

Thanks for the advice on those food items. Ive been cooking 4 chicken breasts and eating them throughout the day now lately at school.

Oh and I put "hardgainer" in quotes for a reason damien lol i know most people agree there isnt such thing i was just implying I have high caloric demands for my body to grow whatsoever.

thanks for the help guys

Fair enough! Might I ask what your training looks like? No need to be too detailed, just wanna see what your week looks like.

[fattymcbutterpants]

lately ive been changing it up a little trying to see if i can help with gains some,
but I was doing
mon/thurs- chest and triceps
tues/fri-shoulders legs and traps
wed/sat-back biceps and forearms

but now I just started doing 1-2 bodyparts a day instead so like mon i will do chest with just a little tricep work then tues shoulder
Monday- Chest w/ some tricep work
Tues- Shoulders
Wed-Back or legs
Thurs-Legs or back
Fri-Either Chest again with alot of heavy bicep and tricep work too or just arms
and occasionally saturday I will do something but normally 5 days a week im in the gym.

And I do mainly heavy lower rep work on bench thats how I got it to where it is, plus I used some chain and band work, that got me from 235 or so on bench to about 275 in 2 or 3 months if i'm not mistaken. It was crazy I lost 4lbs in weight and went up 40 on bench and I am just now about to start using rack presses to break 300 because I am at about 285-290 right now best guess

[fattymcbutterpants]

oh and just to let you all know lol I still go very hard on everything else I just really enjoy bench pressing

[Damienm05]

That's impressive on bench. Here's what I would do to help with gains, aside from fixing your diet.

Try training each body part once per week, allowing 5 days of rest per. If this mean only doing 1 part per day, that's fine. Also, Compound movements will yield nice overall mass gains. A lot of deadlifting and squatting for sure! Also, try incorporating negatives where possible. Switch it up a bit with chest, work all insertion points and try using dumbells for bench press and see what happens.

[_CrossroadS_]

8 eggs - 48g protein, 195 cals , i don't know about milk, 30g protein, 120 cals?

4 chicken breasts - 120g protein, 480 cals

12 0z. tuna - 85g protein, 340 cals

1150 cals from just these things that you eat.

Let's say your meal after you work out has 50g of protein in it, thats another 200cals.

This is 335g protein. I'd think plenty for someone your size and supposed build. But it's only 1400 cals at most. For a typical 40/40/20 split of pro, carbs, fat, you've got some ground to make up in carbs and fat.

For example, One slice of wheat bread has 20g of carbs. Are you eating the equivalent of 18 pieces of bread everyday? Obviously you want to change up your carb sources, just trying to get the point across. You could literally eat a loaf of wheat bread everyday.

You need to be taking in 75g of fat everyday as well. Good fat. Nuts, Fish, flax oil, olive oil, etc... 1oz of almonds has 15g. Same with a spoonful of flax.

That's to eat 3500 cals everyday. My point is that if you are eating that much, you should be gaining weight. Especially if you are eating 4500 cals...even if they are crappy foods, you would at least be putting on fat. That's a lot of food.

My guess is that if you are not gaining weight, you aren't even eating close to this. If you are really dedicated, and want to get it right, I'd start keeping a food journal with what foods you eat, how much, and at what time. Do this for a week or two, then post your average diet EXACTLY, with Macros, in the diet forum. Give your stats, and the guys in there will help you tweak it to get it right. But if you are eating as much as you say you do, and working out the way you say you do (it does sound like you know what you are doing) you should be putting on weight.

[fattymcbutterpants]

crossroads I appreciate the advice hadnt really paid attention to the fact I had been getting plenty of protein just not as many carbs as i need, I have bumped up the carbs coming from bagels, broccoli, bananas, pastas and bread and all sorts of thing however I have been closer to the 4000cal mark lately. actually I am up a few pounds so I have started making some progress again. I will try this out and see if I can keep up the weight gaining