To roid or not to roid? [New Guy]

[Honkey_Kong]

I will austwest and nice back stpete.. thats like twice as mine. Ok so I'm looking over gbrice75 nutrition Diet 101 thread and the question that pops up in my head is how do you measure the food? His sample preworkout meal for example
5am (preworkout): 45g protein, 85g carbs, 8g fat
How do I figure out whats 8grams of fat? 45g of protein? and 85 grams of carbs?
I mean this is food right?

Edit:
So I looked up a weight gain goal calculator and entered my stats
It says I'll need 2644 calories per day to reach my 40lbs goal in 8 months.
So that I have this down how do I count calories? to know what to eat? plus I don't want this weight
gain to be just fat.

You can get a dietary scale and use measuring cups. Usually, when you buy a pound of chicken breasts from the butcher, you're getting a pound of chicken. you can google nutritional information of various whole foods.

Basically first thing you should do is figure out what you're eating RIGHT NOW to figure out what your normal is. That is take a log of everything you eat throughout the day and write down the times and portion sizes. Include any drink other than water as well. I find it's better to make modifications to what you're currently doing rather than just jump in to a new diet all together. And for a newbie, little steps make big differences in gains.

What's your current bodyfat percentage?

Next thing Runner, you need to make up realistic goals. What do you want to accomplish in the next year? 6 months? 3 months? month? next two weeks? Setting up small goals that build in to bigger goals is really the best way to maximize progress.

[TheRunner]

You can get a dietary scale and use measuring cups. Usually, when you buy a pound of chicken breasts from the butcher, you're getting a pound of chicken. you can google nutritional information of various whole foods.

Basically first thing you should do is figure out what you're eating RIGHT NOW to figure out what your normal is. That is take a log of everything you eat throughout the day and write down the times and portion sizes. Include any drink other than water as well. I find it's better to make modifications to what you're currently doing rather than just jump in to a new diet all together. And for a newbie, little steps make big differences in gains.

What's your current bodyfat percentage?

Next thing Runner, you need to make up realistic goals. What do you want to accomplish in the next year? 6 months? 3 months? month? next two weeks? Setting up small goals that build in to bigger goals is really the best way to maximize progress.

Thanks for the reply Honkey_Kong I'm at 14 percent body fat right now.. I can barely see my abs (just 4 pack). What do you mean by realistic goals? My year end goal for this year is to gain 40lbs. Next year I'll work on becoming more lean since I'll have obtained my goal. I have a calendar on my room wall where I've written down my bi weekly goals. Since I have 8 months to reach my goal I've set my monthly goal at 5lbs and bi weekly goal at 2.5lbs so I'll need to gain 1.25lbs a week. That seems doable doesn't it? The only drinks I drink other than water(starting today) is whole milk. My meals consist of eggs and sausage for breakfast, lunch microwaved food like burritos or pizza(I know not healthy) and dinner I usually eat chicken wings, pork chops and rice, or beef stew and potatoes. I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop and measure everything I eat every morning so I take it I should prepare my meals days in advance?

Edit:
So I looked up dietary scales and it looks interesting, they measure the nutritional value of what food you place on the scale.
Do body builders actually use this though? If so which would you recommend? I found this Nutri-Weigh Dietary Computer Scale Model 1450

[Honkey_Kong]

Thanks for the reply Honkey_Kong I'm at 14 percent body fat right now.. I can barely see my abs (just 4 pack). What do you mean by realistic goals? My year end goal for this year is to gain 40lbs. Next year I'll work on becoming more lean since I'll have obtained my goal. I have a calendar on my room wall where I've written down my bi weekly goals. Since I have 8 months to reach my goal I've set my monthly goal at 5lbs and bi weekly goal at 2.5lbs so I'll need to gain 1.25lbs a week. That seems doable doesn't it? The only drinks I drink other than water(starting today) is whole milk. My meals consist of eggs and sausage for breakfast, lunch microwaved food like burritos or pizza(I know not healthy) and dinner I usually eat chicken wings, pork chops and rice, or beef stew and potatoes. I'm not sure if I'll be able to stop and measure everything I eat every morning so I take it I should prepare my meals days in advance?

Edit:
So I looked up dietary scales and it looks interesting, they measure the nutritional value of what food you place on the scale.
Do body builders actually use this though? If so which would you recommend? I found this Nutri-Weigh Dietary Computer Scale Model 1450

40lbs in a single year is a lot of muscle to put on. I'd even say it's nearly impossible to put on naturally. I read an article on livestrong.com that said you can only put 1oz of muscle on per day supposing diet is perfect, training is perfect and you have good genetics. That only comes out to being 23lbs a year and that's already supposing everything is perfect.

At your weight and training experience, you got a few years before you should even consider running a cycle. So, I would aim for 15-20lbs of gains this year. It doesn't sound like a lot, but trust me if you put 20lbs of muscle on in a year, you had a great year.

As far as your meals go, write down the size of each item you consume and the times you consume it at. And try to use google to look up the macros for anything that you cant tell offhand the nutritional facts of.

http://www.livestrong.com/article/38...ain-naturally/