30 pounds of pure muscle in 6 months?!

[vin]

Wow - I'm not sure if this has been mentioned before on here (I searched but couldn't find any mention) - but damn has anybody seen Batman Begins?!
Firstly - the movie was completely amazing, probably moreso on IMAX. Go see it before it leaves theaters for good.
But can you believe Christian Bale's physique?!

In The Machinist, which was probably filmed sometime in 2003, to Batman Begins, which filmed sometime in, I would imagine, 2004:

[Mahler]

Vin,

Impressive changes, but it simply cannot be healthy. I am sure, however, that we all envy the physique in the Batman film. LOL

Mahler

[Terry Monk]

Yep, wish I had the money, time, chef, routines, trainers, $$ motivation, fame motivation and did I mention time??? to train like he did to build his physique.

That said, yes that is quite the turnaround. More impressive if it was an everyday joe like you and me.

[vin]

I gotta say - and I am a pretty big Christian Bale fan - but I don't put it beyond the scope of reality that steroids play a role in many actors' physical changes....

[BRITISHBULLDOG]

i seen the machinist and it made me sick seeing him that thin,he was like 8stone,if anybody has seen the machinist then you will know what i am talking about!he put me off my protein shake

[BobTheKillerGoldfish]

I think it begs the question though, if you knew that by taking 6 months out to do nothing but train, eat and train some more, you'd build a body like Christian Bale's, would you? I mean if you could actually afford to stop working for that period of time and just devote yourself to training, would you?

I've found myself asking this question a lot recently, what're everyone's thoughts?

[I. Kay]

Bob: Yes, I would. No doubt! [img]smile.gif[/img]

[vin]

Unfortunately, I'd probably sit on my ass and get fatter and fatter and lazier and lazier. Truth is, I require structure in my day, and although my current job is completely mundane and tedious, not to mention pointless, it gives me a reason to get up and get going.
Now, if someone told me that they were filming a 150 million dollar movie, and I was starring in it, and they had hired a crew of trainers and nutritionists and chefs and that I was to have a daily schedule, well that might be a different story...
Plus, if I were rich and famous and getting RIDICULOUS tail every night of the week, that might change things too.

[dmw]

I've always been impressed with the transformation these guys make, even if it's all they work on for 6 months. Will Smith was describing what he had to do for "Ali", and it was brutal. Given unlimited time I probably would not go through that even though I'd love to have another 30 pounds of muscle.

[emartin10]

I would. In a second. I wouldn't mind BEING one of the trainers, chefs, or nutritionists either...

[canuckguy]

This was in the Toronto Sun back in June:

Steve Tilly - Sun Media

An actor known for fully inhabiting his role, Bale went from playing a gaunt and haunted 120-pound insomniac in The Machinist to screen testing for the part of the buff Dark Knight in just five months time.

"I did have to put on a great deal of weight in that short amount of time" says Bale, who gained a staggering 100 pounds to tip the scales at 220 for his screen test, then dropping down to a muscular 195 pounds for the start of filming.

"I felt absolutely fine losing the weight, but I think gaining weight fast is really the unhealthy thing. I did feel hideous doing that and that's what I wouldn't repeat again"

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Now let's figure that out:

100 lbs x 3,500 calories/150 days = an extra 2,300+ calories/day. That would be more than double what I eat in a day.

[Anubis]

I think it's amazing what the human body can achieve in such a small time frame. It's good motivation for me. That guy looked like a heroin addict in the before picture.

I would definitely take the 6 months to train if I had the dieticians and trainers to devote their time to me.

[buckeye1]

Wow, those are some seriously impressive gains. I currently eat about 4800-5000 cals/day, and with that I gained about 25lbs in 6 months. I can't imagine gaining 100lbs in that same timeframe.

[RedLefty]

Remember, too, that he was pretty buff before he lost the weight for "The Machinist" -- check out "Reign of Fire".

So you've got some muscle memory and bounceback-type forces at work here; he wasn't always 120 pounds.

[Anubis]

Originally posted by buckeye1:
Wow, those are some seriously impressive gains. I currently eat about 4800-5000 cals/day, and with that I gained about 25lbs in 6 months. I can't imagine gaining 100lbs in that same timeframe.

I'd be interested to see what you eat in a day. Just because I find it hard for me to consume 3500 calories in a day.

[eastcoastsurfer]

So you've got some muscle memory and bounceback-type forces at work here; he wasn't always 120 pounds.

His natural weight is probably much closer to his batman weight than his machinist weight. If someone was a normal 120lbs it would be much harder to put all of that weight on.

He probably starved himself to get to his low weight then once he started eating again his body rebounded. Healthy? Probably not.

[buckeye1]

Originally posted by Anubis:
I'd be interested to see what you eat in a day. Just because I find it hard for me to consume 3500 calories in a day.

Ok, I have all the actual numbers on my computer at home, but here is the quick list. This was inspired by John Berardi's massive eating articles. I'm sure there are better/cleaner ways to do it, so don't use me as a model, this is just how I have been getting by:

Breakfast:
3 egg omelet
2 cups oatmeal with skim milk

Snack:
cottage cheese
almonds

Lunch:
tuna on whole wheat
almonds
cottage cheese
apple

Snack:
tuna on whole wheat
banana

Pre-workout shake:
gatorade powder in water

Post-workout shake:
gatorade powder in water
whey protein powder in skim milk

Dinner 1:
grilled chicken breasts or turkey brats or salmon filets or lean steak
lots of brown rice
bigass salad (mostly spinach)

Dinner 2:
Same as dinner 1, a couple hours later

Snack before bed:
cottage cheese or protein shake

I eat until I am full for both dinners on workout days, which turns out to be a couple chicken breasts and a few cups of rice, I just shove the salad in at the end. On non-workout days I cut it back a little bit on the dinners to try and minimize fat gain. Currently I start dropping weight pretty easily if I cut back too much, my metabolism is sort of freakish. This is what I had to do to go from 179lbs to 204lbs in the past 6 months, but of course that has not been all muscle gain. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[emartin10]

Wow. That's a crap load of food. I struggle with one cup of oatmeal. No wonder you've gained some weight! Good work!!

[Terry Monk]

Originally posted by vin:
Unfortunately, I'd probably sit on my ass and get fatter and fatter and lazier and lazier. Truth is, I require structure in my day, and although my current job is completely mundane and tedious, not to mention pointless, it gives me a reason to get up and get going.
Now, if someone told me that they were filming a 150 million dollar movie, and I was starring in it, and they had hired a crew of trainers and nutritionists and chefs and that I was to have a daily schedule, well that might be a different story...
Plus, if I were rich and famous and getting RIDICULOUS tail every night of the week, that might change things too.

I could not agree more!!! It's like you read my mind and typed it out for me Vin. 100% agree.

[Terry Monk]

Originally posted by buckeye1:

quote:

---

Originally posted by Anubis:
I'd be interested to see what you eat in a day. Just because I find it hard for me to consume 3500 calories in a day.

Ok, I have all the actual numbers on my computer at home, but here is the quick list. This was inspired by John Berardi's massive eating articles. I'm sure there are better/cleaner ways to do it, so don't use me as a model, this is just how I have been getting by:

Breakfast:
3 egg omelet
2 cups oatmeal with skim milk

Snack:
cottage cheese
almonds

Lunch:
tuna on whole wheat
almonds
cottage cheese
apple

Snack:
tuna on whole wheat
banana

Pre-workout shake:
gatorade powder in water

Post-workout shake:
gatorade powder in water
whey protein powder in skim milk

Dinner 1:
grilled chicken breasts or turkey brats or salmon filets or lean steak
lots of brown rice
bigass salad (mostly spinach)

Dinner 2:
Same as dinner 1, a couple hours later

Snack before bed:
cottage cheese or protein shake

I eat until I am full for both dinners on workout days, which turns out to be a couple chicken breasts and a few cups of rice, I just shove the salad in at the end. On non-workout days I cut it back a little bit on the dinners to try and minimize fat gain. Currently I start dropping weight pretty easily if I cut back too much, my metabolism is sort of freakish. This is what I had to do to go from 179lbs to 204lbs in the past 6 months, but of course that has not been all muscle gain. [img]smile.gif[/img] [/quote]That ^^^^ is absolutely insane.Period. You must have some SERIOUS discipline to make that much food everday, let alone take all the time to each that much.
However, Sept. 6th I am going to start bulking til the end of the year and I will be attempting around that quantity in daily intake also. I hope I have as good of luck as you have.
Nice job!!!!

[eastcoastsurfer]

Wow buckeye1, I feel your pain. It was hard for me to hit 200lbs and once there if I cut anything out I start dropping no matter how much/little I workout.

[dos]

I am a big Christian Bale fan myself but you need to remember that he was about 185-190 lbs. before at around 6 ft. tall. He was VERY lean at that weight so to get down to 120 for the machinist (which was an AMAZING physical transformation for those who have not seen it) he needed to lose A LOT of lean body mass. He was probably well under 10% BF at his pre-weight so that only gives him about 10-15 lbs. of TOTAL fat mass to lose, period.

That being said, I wondered about the consequences to losing such a large amount of LBM and how he would bounce back to his pre-weight. Well, we see that he went well over his pre-weight but I find it hard to believe that that was done 'naturally'. All the nutrition, training etc. in the world would be hard pressed to make those types of gains in that amount of time. Remember, that losing all that LBM in the first place must have done some SERIOUS damage to his metabolism.

[buckeye1]

Heh, now you guys know why I was so confused when I started off. My body just needed more of the right food, a lot more. I had never realized how much I really had to eat. I just posted a couple progress pics on page 78 of the fitness photos thread if you want to see the difference having the right diet has made for me (thanks to this forum of course).

It really doesn’t take too long to make the food, and I eat pretty fast too, but it certainly isn’t cheap. My food bill recently has been crazy. I’m pretty hungry all day so it’s not hard to eat most of it, it’s only the big dinners that are sometimes hard to get down (usually when it’s chicken again). I just started ABBH last week as well, so hopefully I see some good lean mass gains on it. If I can end up looking anything like Christian in that second pic, then I will be a pretty happy guy. [img]smile.gif[/img]

[Newlife]

Buck, thats pretty close to my day, but I try to do only 1 serving of Tuna (mercury level concerns) and no gatorade, but do a extra shake. Are you taking anything other than your Protein?

[buckeye1]

Newlife,
The gatorade mix is just an easy way for me to get a high concentration of carbs right around workout time since it contains sucrose and dextrose, which I have read are good sugars to use for that process. Doing the shakes that way to help spike insulin levels right before and right after workouts really seemed to help with my lean mass gains.

I really don’t like tuna very much at all, I can’t stand the smell. So it’s hard for me to eat it twice a day unless I’m pretty hungry. Some days I just do peanut butter for the second sandwich instead of the tuna, I might just keep doing that for a bit now that you reminded me of the whole mercury issue...

I also cycled on creatine for about 2-3 months near the beginning of my bulking stage, I just added 5 grams in the post workout shake. It probably helped some, but I didn’t see any big changes in my gains from taking it, so I haven’t taken any for a few months. I may do another cycle on it in a little while. Otherwise I just do the usual multivitamin in the morning and evening. I’m definitely not interested in taking some of the other things out there like Prohormones, DHEA, etc. That just isn’t something I want to mess with.

[dos]

I don't think there are enough carbs in your gatorade / protein PWO shake. Apples, grape, orange juice would suffice (with protein of course).

[buckeye1]

dos,

I use the gatorage powder mix, not the premixed bottles. I use 3 scoops in each shake, that is 45g of carbs in each shake from just the gatorade. How many carbs would be sufficient?

[laxcdn]

Whoo hoo Dos is back

[dos]

My bad.....I thought you were mixing the bottle stuff with your protein. You're fine!

[Lost Dog]

Originally posted by gymrat:
That ^^^^ is absolutely insane.Period. You must have some SERIOUS discipline to make that much food everday, let alone take all the time to each that much.

It shouldn't take any more time to make more food. It's the number of meals that take the time. If you're eating 6-8 meals a day, already, you're just going to be eating 6-8 larger meals.

Granted some might do 6 now and have to go to 8 to get the calories in. But, by and large, the full feeling aside, bulking's no harder to cook for than cutting.