New to the boards! Need assistance ;)

[Lennox]

Hey guys,
I have being a long time reader of the boards and finally decided to join. I hope I will be able to contribute positively to the boards and get some assistance myself while I am at it.

Alright, so I came back from university in November of '06 ( I dropped out). I decided since I was going to have a lot of extra time why not try to lose some weight. I had being lifting for about 3 years but never really focused on diet. I eat what I wanted, I usually had seconds at most meals but I never really ate unhealthy foods.

I also came back from university at about 230. I wanted to lose some weight so I did various programs that were giant supersets and I stopped having seconds at meals and started to eat a tad more conservatively.

To make a long story short, I am almost coming up to 1 year since I weighed that much, I now sit at about 167. I am a lot leaner and definitely more cut. I have one week left in fat loss 3 for NROL before I move on to Hypertrophy but figure I will use the last week as a transition week and just eat and lift heavy.

Now, I would like to put size back on in a healthy proportionate amount. I used the calculation from NROL and to build muscle mass I need approx. 3200 calories. I have heard to eat this much one should eat 6 MEALS a day. How spaced out should these meals be? One poster Ripstone posted one of his 3000 calorie days. If anyone else could post what it takes to get to 3000 that would be greatly appreciated. I know about fitday but I am more interested to visually see what people have done to consume this much.

Also, I never kept track of my calories while on the fat loss diets from NROL, I eat regularly throughout the day and made sure it was all clean. Since I am dropping the last week of the program to start to build up my tolerance for eating how do you all suggest I increase my intake levels?

Lastly, I work out first thing in the morning before school. I usually eat breakfast and then a shake and hit the gym, is this alright? I don't feel sick when I work out but I am not sure if I could have a 500 calorie dense meal for the purpose of bulking what do you all do?

I know this is a lot of questions for a first post but as you can see I am serious about lifting and eating properly.

Thanks

[JoshDunn]

Meal frequency isn't actually as popular as it was some time ago.

Essentially there is no difference overall when comparing 3 large meals a day of x amount of calories, compared to 6 meals a day of the same calories.

The key is consistency. You aren't going to do your body any favors if you chop and change between heaps of little meals and days of a few big ones.

[JoshDunn]

Originally Posted by Lennox

Lastly, I work out first thing in the morning before school. I usually eat breakfast and then a shake and hit the gym, is this alright? I don't feel sick when I work out but I am not sure if I could have a 500 calorie dense meal for the purpose of bulking what do you all do?

As long as you have something to eat in the few hours before training you will be fine.

By the way 500calories isn't a real big meal. An omelet or even a wholegrain cereal will be getting those calories up there.

Better off doing a slow bulk and still staying leanish compared to "fulking" (a term stolen from Alan Aragon) which is what bodybuilders typically do in the off season when they build muscle but also look like fat slobs.

[Lennox]

Thanks for the replies.

How would you suggest about going for a slow bulk?

[JoshDunn]

Watch the calorie intake. Maybe not actually calculate it if thats what you want to avoid but trying adding say 250calories to what your eating now. Reassess every 2 weeks rather then each week. If weight hasn't gone up then up it again with another 250calories. You want to find a point in which your weight goes up slowly but your body fat doesn't. Ie measure the smallest point around waist and use that as a measure of fat accumulated. Weight goes up, waist stays the same, then everything working perfectly.

Think terms of months rather then weeks for an overall bulk. It all depends on what you want to look like. You could eat anything not nailed down but then you'd look like crap and your relative strength (weight lifted V's your bodyweight) will decrease as well. You've most likely seen the fat slob in the gym that noone would be able to tell he works out, compare that to the mens fitness or mens health cover model. Bodyfat low, bodyweight also low when compared to a powerlifter or similar.

There are many forumulae's out there for gaining mass. However I've found that very few actually get my maintainence requirements right but I tend to know what that point is. Not in actual numbers but in terms of food quantity or overall fullness.

Hope that ramblings answered at least one question you asked.

[Lennox]

Thanks a lot Josh. You have really helped me out. I did just have one question. When I used the NROL equation to find I needed approx. 3200 calories for size gain, does this take in effect my calorie expediture, ie. working out. Do I need to consume even more on these days?

[JoshDunn]

The "activity factor" that is part of the equation accounts for energy expenditure.

Now all thats left is to get training and eating.