Food, Fitday and FivexFive...

[booroo]

I've always been a fat guy and, after many many months of dieting and exercising (and supplementing), have finally managed to get myself down to 7% bodyfat which I have managed to maintain for the past 3 months. It took a long time but I'm finally into that mindset of eating to live and not living to eat. I also enjoy my exercises and sports.

Anyway, I've decided it's time to bulk back up but obviously want to keep fat gain to a minimum. Now, I'm a small guy and have been working on the 5x5 (followed to the T) and it has been going very well. In three weeks (am starting 4th today) I've put on about 4+kg with no obvious fat gain (still see the eight pack and no love handles at all - they took forever to lose) and my strength is climbing session after session. I'm using creatine and appreciate there's water gain etc as well as glycogen storage which has gone into that 4+kg gain.

I've been using Fitday to track foods and am eating extremely cleanly (I'm lucky in that I seem to love all foods - not just junk!). Diet consists of Potatos, Wholewheat pasta, brown rice, white rice, LOTS of oatmeal, Lentils, Skimmed milk, Fruit, Broccoli, Carrots, Peppers, Mushrooms, Onions, Peppers, Chicken, Lean Lamb, Eggs, Cottage Cheese, fish, Peanut Butter (no additives whatsoever), Olive Oil and Fish oil caps. Few other things too but all very healthy. Nothing fried and Fats from food + caps makes up about 25% of my diet.

As I mentioned, I've been training 5x5 for the past 3 weeks. I've also been doing HIIT 2x a week with 8x100 m sprints. So 2 days a week of no exercise.

Now, the quandry I have is that fitday has calculated my maintenance kcals as 2606 (at 60 kg - my beginning weight. See, told you I was small) which to me seems a tad high. With 5x5 this goes up to about 3000kcals. Now, at the beginning I started eating at 2606-500kcals = 2100kcals (since I'd been cutting for such a long time, I wanted to give my metabolism time to adapt) and then after two weeks at this intake I increased to my calculated maintenance levels. So 3000 kcals on lifting days. Again, this seems a tad high. My weight increase has been good without increasing to above (fitday calculated) maintenance levels.

So...is fitday fairly accurate (give or take the obviously incalculable)? And, if so, should I work towards increasing my intake to 500kcals or so above it's calculated maintenance? Or, as my gains have been good so far, should I keep going until they seem to stall? Or should I just increase my kcals on non-workout days as well? i.e. right now my intake varies day to day depending on whether or not I'm working out; always at fitday calculated maintenance levels for that day. Should I just increase the non-workout day kcals to same as workout for a while?

The thing is I find myself hungry all the time despite the seemingly constant grazing. I think I could quite easily eat a few more bowls of porridge and spoonfuls of Cottage Cheese a day.

So what say you guys? Any suggestions? Thanks in advance.

B

[Beefy]

I would use protein shakes to add extra calories for growth and keep hunger down. I'd buy pure whey isolate and some pure casein protein. Mix 50/50, with water. 50 grams 2-3 times a day will help hunger without risking fat gain.

[booroo]

Thanks for the suggestions Beefy but why not use real food instead of the shakes? e.g. tuna or low fat (1g fat per 100g) cottage cheese? Surely these would control hunger more effectively? Also, the shakes would still provide calories so would probably be just as likely to increase likelihood of fat gain as any other protein source no?

Re: Fitday, do you think it's calculations for my maintenance are accurate? Or does the amount I'm eating seem right to you?

It's weird how I read about people not being able to eat enough when bulking but I feel as though I could happily eat more! And this is after months of eating way less and getting used to it.

[Beefy]

Of course you can use real food. Cottage cheese has 4-7grams of carbs per serving, though. Shakes serve as a change of pace, for me. I eat the same meals and foods day in and day out. So, a "chocolate" flavored protein shake is actually quite a treat (unfortunately).

As far as calculations, I go more on how I look and feel than what the numbers say (as far a counting calories, bodyfat %, body weight, etc.).

Also, the extra 200-600 cals per day from protein would more than likely add to muscle gains if you are training well.

[booroo]

Thanks a lot mate. I'll do that. The cottage cheese I have is very low fat and very low carb (1g and 3g respectively per 100g) so I'll use that to fill up inbetween.

I'm still curious about fitday though...