Cannot gain muscle/weight, always hungry

[GeoffreyLevens]

And remember, the fat you can see that put on along with the muscle is accompanied by fat clogging your blood vessels and increasing insulin resistance, etc. It just depends on your long term goals. If getting "big" is your only concern then ignore my rants. If you want to be sure you are healthy and live a long life without self-created disease, then maybe getting "big" will need to be put back to second or even third place on your priorities list.

[LifeForce24]

I would take in food at least 5 times a day, meaning meals and snacks combined total 5 times of eating daily. Avoid intense hunger as much as you can. To grow in weight, you may need to get used to even eating when you are not too hungry since many underweight people have a habit of going long hours without eating and "forget" to eat. You need to keep the (mcDougall style) food supply flowing in consistently. Possibly a little beyond your comfort zone if it seems hard for you to gain weight.

With all those elements in tact you should see results.

Seems to me like a ticket for putting on a lot of fat with the muscle. If you don't mind that, and having to "diet" after trying to lose that new fat without also losing your new muscle, then go for it. If you want to minimize fat gain, which is a MUCH healthier way to go, then you need to take your time gaining and just eat when hungry and not worry about it. If you eat when not very hungry you will for sure be overfeeding and putting on the chub. Do you want muscle or fois gras? All you need is a very very small amount of calorie "excess", not a daily force feed, stuff the goose, pig out.

I see where you are going with it but I don't totally agree. If he sticks with the plan and eats Mcdougall closely, he should not be gaining unhealthy levels of fat. And, lets say he does, he can just slow it down. It's not hard to just say "ok, gaining a lot of fat, time to pull back" But, that is unlikely that will happen since it's not too easy to gain large portions of fat on Mcdougall, even with a higher intake of calories.

Thing is, I feel people sometimes need a little more than "go by feel". That is why I follow things up with NUMBERS, so his/her mind can have something to reach towards that is concrete. Going by feel does not work for a lot of people and to them, they need to go beyond comfort zones of calorie intake because they are used to "forgetting to eat" Often people are feeling "satisfied" on 1400 calories and eating 3 times a day and they wonder why they don't gain muscle.

Plus, I never said to eat obnoxious amounts of calories. You can eat 5 times a day and make it total around 2300 calories. For a guy, that's not at all unhealthy, especially on the Mcdougall plan. One of my first posts was suggesting around 2300 calories or so if you scroll back up.

Most people struggling to gain weight/muscle don't do well on "go by appetite" to gain in size, they need something more concrete like times to eat and some idea of caloric needs, even if it's not a perfect science, it still helps. I know people that feel "satisfied" on 1100 calories. That person will not gain size/muscle.

This has been my experience anyway. Maybe you've seen different stuff. And, if we are talking about exceeding 3,700 calories (for a male) then, yes, that is probably too much and not recommended. We are basically saying the same thing but going about it a little differently. I think your advice is great as well.

[veganteen]

First of all thank you for all your suggestions, I've been looking for this type of discussion since I've started lifting more often.

Second, I know this probably isn't the most accurate measurement of how many calories I should be eating, but my BMR is a little over 2,000 calories (I'm 18, 140lbs). So I would imagine that in order to be in a calorie surplus I should be eating at least 2,500 calories a day.

That being said, I'm really prone to overeating at nighttime, which is why I'm tentative about taking on the mindset of eating when I'm not hungry. I'll eat my usual dinner and have another smaller dinner of starches right afterwards and I usually feel pretty stuffed. Now, I know this isn't the worst thing in the world because they're McDougall foods (for the most part). So if I were to tackle the eat-when-not-hungry philosophy to be sure I'm eating enough I would probably severely limit the variety of foods I eat to potatoes, veggies, and other starches to be sure that I'm not taking in too much fat and whatnot.

Another question: What happens if I'm eating, say 2,000 calories a day but my daily energy expenditure is beyond that? Will I be burning glycogen stores and/or fat stores, and how does that affect the ability to build muscle?

Thanks again for all the considerate posts.

Brandon

[LifeForce24]

First of all thank you for all your suggestions, I've been looking for this type of discussion since I've started lifting more often.

Second, I know this probably isn't the most accurate measurement of how many calories I should be eating, but my BMR is a little over 2,000 calories (I'm 18, 140lbs). So I would imagine that in order to be in a calorie surplus I should be eating at least 2,500 calories a day.

That being said, I'm really prone to overeating at nighttime, which is why I'm tentative about taking on the mindset of eating when I'm not hungry. I'll eat my usual dinner and have another smaller dinner of starches right afterwards and I usually feel pretty stuffed. Now, I know this isn't the worst thing in the world because they're McDougall foods (for the most part). So if I were to tackle the eat-when-not-hungry philosophy to be sure I'm eating enough I would probably severely limit the variety of foods I eat to potatoes, veggies, and other starches to be sure that I'm not taking in too much fat and whatnot.

Another question: What happens if I'm eating, say 2,000 calories a day but my daily energy expenditure is beyond that? Will I be burning glycogen stores and/or fat stores, and how does that affect the ability to build muscle?

Thanks again for all the considerate posts.

Brandon

Yes, I agree the numbers of those calculations are not perfect but 2500 calories or so sounds about right for healthy weight gain, or maybe a couple of hundred calories more even. Just get into a flow where you eat around that much spread out throughout the day and see what happens. If in 2 weeks nothing happens, add another 200 calories or so.

[geo]

This is what I learned many years ago when I was into body building, so take it for what its worth...

Lets say you are an above average athlete and can gain 12 lbs of muscle in a year (thats really more than most people can do in practice and usually only newbies will gain that much that quickly and only with intense exercise).

So thats 1 lb/month of muscle tissue.

Now human muscle is about 20% protein (yes its probably closer to 21-22% but 20% is a nice round number to work with and won't really effect the final results much). The rest of muscle is mainly water and a bit of fat with very little carbs.

So to gain 1 lb muscle in a month, you would need to acquire 0.2 lb of protein (20% of 1 lb). That works out to 90.8 grams of protein for that pound of muscle. (Yes I did the converting of lbs to grams using 1 lb = 454 grams and 20% of 454 grams is 90.8 grams)

Now divide that by 30 days (avg # days in a month) and you get approximately 3 grams of protein a day needed to create one pound of muscle in a month. 3 measly grams of protein a day!

That's about 12 calories of protein a day to gain that 1 lb of muscle in a month.

So how much extra food do you think you really need to gain that muscle tissue? Yes of course you will need a few calories to synthesize that protein into those 3 grams of muscle a day but that should be relatively little.

Also, since so few calories from protein are needed for the additional muscle, there is simply no need to use "supplements". You can easily achieve the needed extra protein from the regular food that you might eat a bit more of simply because the effort of exercise may make you hungrier.

So the best diet for gaining muscle is simply the same diet you would normally eat as a McDougaller, just a little bit more for the added protein and added energy expenditure. And that will probably be easily taken care of by the added hunger you may feel from the exercise. So its nothing really you need to focus on deeply.

As to the best way to gain muscle. Short, brief bouts of exercise that overload your muscles. That followed by a slight increase in calories and then, most importantly, rest. You build muscle tissue when you rest not when you exercise. The overloading of your muscles creates the necessary stimulus to tell your body it needs to compensate for these new work loads. Rest is what gives your body the final ingredient necessary to allow that over compensation to occur. Which is done, most noticeably, by increasing muscular size (yes there's other effects taking place as well, as gaining strength isn't completely about gaining muscular size).

So you need three things in the muscle building recipe:

1. Proper Stimulus of the muscles - weight bearing exercise works best
2. Small caloric increase (which is really very minor) to effect the energy needs of the stimulus and the additional small protein increase.
3. Rest. Depending on how intense you exercise, you may need 24-48 or more hours of rest between muscle stimulation sessions for over-compensation (growth) to occur. Counter intuitively, the stronger you get the more rest you need as your bodies capacity to recuperate from the overloads is the limiting factor to future growth.

Of course there are a lot more details in that first step then I would even care to discuss, but I think you get the idea.

Finally, how big you can ultimately get is really dependent on genetics. To get really large muscles (full and round) you need long muscle bellies and short tendon's. The longer the muscle belly the more it will be able to contract into a nice big muscle, think of your bicep. As you contract your arm you contract your bicep and it sort of bunches up into a mound on your arm. The longer that muscle belly is the higher peak you will get and bigger looking bicep. So contract your arm. Look at how much space exists between your inner elbow and the start of your muscle belly. A larger gap means you have longer tendons and won't have the capability to become another Arnold. It doesn't mean you can't develop impressive muscles, they just won't ever be like the body building pros, no matter how much exercise you do. And the shape of your muscle is pretty much entirely genetically determined as well, so don't think that doing all sorts of exercises will change the shape of your muscle it won't.

And finally the best way to show off those muscles is by being lean. The leaner you get the more impressive your muscles will look and the better defined they will be. Thus the constant battle to figure out the best energy balance to both build muscle and lose fat...and that's a whole other discussion

[LifeForce24]

This is what I learned many years ago when I was into body building, so take it for what its worth...

Lets say you are an above average athlete and can gain 12 lbs of muscle in a year (thats really more than most people can do in practice and usually only newbies will gain that much that quickly and only with intense exercise).

So thats 1 lb/month of muscle tissue.

Now human muscle is about 20% protein (yes its probably closer to 21-22% but 20% is a nice round number to work with and won't really effect the final results much). The rest of muscle is mainly water and a bit of fat with very little carbs.

So to gain 1 lb muscle in a month, you would need to acquire 0.2 lb of protein (20% of 1 lb). That works out to 90.8 grams of protein for that pound of muscle. (Yes I did the converting of lbs to grams using 1 lb = 454 grams and 20% of 454 grams is 90.8 grams)

Now divide that by 30 days (avg # days in a month) and you get approximately 3 grams of protein a day needed to create one pound of muscle in a month. 3 measly grams of protein a day!

That's about 12 calories of protein a day to gain that 1 lb of muscle in a month.

So how much extra food do you think you really need to gain that muscle tissue? Yes of course you will need a few calories to synthesize that protein into those 3 grams of muscle a day but that should be relatively little.

Also, since so few calories from protein are needed for the additional muscle, there is simply no need to use "supplements". You can easily achieve the needed extra protein from the regular food that you might eat a bit more of simply because the effort of exercise may make you hungrier.

So the best diet for gaining muscle is simply the same diet you would normally eat as a McDougaller, just a little bit more for the added protein and added energy expenditure. And that will probably be easily taken care of by the added hunger you may feel from the exercise. So its nothing really you need to focus on deeply.

As to the best way to gain muscle. Short, brief bouts of exercise that overload your muscles. That followed by a slight increase in calories and then, most importantly, rest. You build muscle tissue when you rest not when you exercise. The overloading of your muscles creates the necessary stimulus to tell your body it needs to compensate for these new work loads. Rest is what gives your body the final ingredient necessary to allow that over compensation to occur. Which is done, most noticeably, by increasing muscular size (yes there's other effects taking place as well, as gaining strength isn't completely about gaining muscular size).

So you need three things in the muscle building recipe:

1. Proper Stimulus of the muscles - weight bearing exercise works best
2. Small caloric increase (which is really very minor) to effect the energy needs of the stimulus and the additional small protein increase.
3. Rest. Depending on how intense you exercise, you may need 24-48 or more hours of rest between muscle stimulation sessions for over-compensation (growth) to occur. Counter intuitively, the stronger you get the more rest you need as your bodies capacity to recuperate from the overloads is the limiting factor to future growth.

Of course there are a lot more details in that first step then I would even care to discuss, but I think you get the idea.

Finally, how big you can ultimately get is really dependent on genetics. To get really large muscles (full and round) you need long muscle bellies and short tendon's. The longer the muscle belly the more it will be able to contract into a nice big muscle, think of your bicep. As you contract your arm you contract your bicep and it sort of bunches up into a mound on your arm. The longer that muscle belly is the higher peak you will get and bigger looking bicep. So contract your arm. Look at how much space exists between your inner elbow and the start of your muscle belly. A larger gap means you have longer tendons and won't have the capability to become another Arnold. It doesn't mean you can't develop impressive muscles, they just won't ever be like the body building pros, no matter how much exercise you do. And the shape of your muscle is pretty much entirely genetically determined as well, so don't think that doing all sorts of exercises will change the shape of your muscle it won't.

And finally the best way to show off those muscles is by being lean. The leaner you get the more impressive your muscles will look and the better defined they will be. Thus the constant battle to figure out the best energy balance to both build muscle and lose fat...and that's a whole other discussion

Geo,

Amazing info!

Nice job.

[veganteen]

This is what I learned many years ago when I was into body building, so take it for what its worth...

Lets say you are an above average athlete and can gain 12 lbs of muscle in a year (thats really more than most people can do in practice and usually only newbies will gain that much that quickly and only with intense exercise).

So thats 1 lb/month of muscle tissue.

Now human muscle is about 20% protein (yes its probably closer to 21-22% but 20% is a nice round number to work with and won't really effect the final results much). The rest of muscle is mainly water and a bit of fat with very little carbs.

So to gain 1 lb muscle in a month, you would need to acquire 0.2 lb of protein (20% of 1 lb). That works out to 90.8 grams of protein for that pound of muscle. (Yes I did the converting of lbs to grams using 1 lb = 454 grams and 20% of 454 grams is 90.8 grams)

Now divide that by 30 days (avg # days in a month) and you get approximately 3 grams of protein a day needed to create one pound of muscle in a month. 3 measly grams of protein a day!

That's about 12 calories of protein a day to gain that 1 lb of muscle in a month.

So how much extra food do you think you really need to gain that muscle tissue? Yes of course you will need a few calories to synthesize that protein into those 3 grams of muscle a day but that should be relatively little.

Also, since so few calories from protein are needed for the additional muscle, there is simply no need to use "supplements". You can easily achieve the needed extra protein from the regular food that you might eat a bit more of simply because the effort of exercise may make you hungrier.

So the best diet for gaining muscle is simply the same diet you would normally eat as a McDougaller, just a little bit more for the added protein and added energy expenditure. And that will probably be easily taken care of by the added hunger you may feel from the exercise. So its nothing really you need to focus on deeply.

As to the best way to gain muscle. Short, brief bouts of exercise that overload your muscles. That followed by a slight increase in calories and then, most importantly, rest. You build muscle tissue when you rest not when you exercise. The overloading of your muscles creates the necessary stimulus to tell your body it needs to compensate for these new work loads. Rest is what gives your body the final ingredient necessary to allow that over compensation to occur. Which is done, most noticeably, by increasing muscular size (yes there's other effects taking place as well, as gaining strength isn't completely about gaining muscular size).

So you need three things in the muscle building recipe:

1. Proper Stimulus of the muscles - weight bearing exercise works best
2. Small caloric increase (which is really very minor) to effect the energy needs of the stimulus and the additional small protein increase.
3. Rest. Depending on how intense you exercise, you may need 24-48 or more hours of rest between muscle stimulation sessions for over-compensation (growth) to occur. Counter intuitively, the stronger you get the more rest you need as your bodies capacity to recuperate from the overloads is the limiting factor to future growth.

Of course there are a lot more details in that first step then I would even care to discuss, but I think you get the idea.

Finally, how big you can ultimately get is really dependent on genetics. To get really large muscles (full and round) you need long muscle bellies and short tendon's. The longer the muscle belly the more it will be able to contract into a nice big muscle, think of your bicep. As you contract your arm you contract your bicep and it sort of bunches up into a mound on your arm. The longer that muscle belly is the higher peak you will get and bigger looking bicep. So contract your arm. Look at how much space exists between your inner elbow and the start of your muscle belly. A larger gap means you have longer tendons and won't have the capability to become another Arnold. It doesn't mean you can't develop impressive muscles, they just won't ever be like the body building pros, no matter how much exercise you do. And the shape of your muscle is pretty much entirely genetically determined as well, so don't think that doing all sorts of exercises will change the shape of your muscle it won't.

And finally the best way to show off those muscles is by being lean. The leaner you get the more impressive your muscles will look and the better defined they will be. Thus the constant battle to figure out the best energy balance to both build muscle and lose fat...and that's a whole other discussion

Yes, thank you! That was exactly what I was looking for. I appreciate the thoughtful response.
I guess I shouldn't worry too much, since my workout regimen allows 48 hours for muscle groups to recover. I'll just make sure my caloric intake is sufficient, but McDougall friendly.

You've also given me some nice numbers to call out my friends who eat animal protein and use supplements

Thanks again.

Brandon

[misterE]

Maybe I'm overthinking this, but what would you say is more important in terms of diet for building lean muscle: calorie surplus or right ratio of starch:protein:fat?

Both! Calorie surplus is a must, but the ratio determines "where those calories go". It would be very easy to achieve calorie-surplus with dried-fruit and nuts, you would defiantly build muscle, but you would pack on much more fat than muscle, then you would have to lose the fat (while retaining muscle) using calorie-deficit.

With starch overfeeding you build both muscle and fat, but you actually build more muscle than you do fat! Also, protein is not much of issue as long as you are in calorie-surplus, because insulin inhibits muscle-catabolism. Please check the link for further info.

[misterE]

And remember, the fat you can see that put on along with the muscle is accompanied by fat clogging your blood vessels and increasing insulin resistance, etc.

As long as the adipocytes stay insulin-sensitive and the fat is stored subcutaneously, then there is no chance of lipotoxicity (type-2-diabetes). Since staying in positive calorie-balance with starch increases insulin-secretion and since you aren't overstuffing the adipocytes with premade-fat from your diet, your adipocytes will stay insulin-sensitive and store any fat created during the calorie-surplus subcutaneously, preventing any fat from leaking out of the adipocytes and accumulating in ectopic sites within the body (muscle, liver, heart, pancreous, veins, etc).

[GeoffreyLevens]

And remember, the fat you can see that put on along with the muscle is accompanied by fat clogging your blood vessels and increasing insulin resistance, etc.

As long as the adipocytes stay insulin-sensitive and the fat is stored subcutaneously, then there is no chance of lipotoxicity (type-2-diabetes). Since staying in positive calorie-balance with starch increases insulin-secretion and since you aren't overstuffing the adipocytes with premade-fat from your diet, your adipocytes will stay insulin-sensitive and store any fat created during the calorie-surplus subcutaneously, preventing any fat from leaking out of the adipocytes and accumulating in ectopic sites within the body (muscle, liver, heart, pancreous, veins, etc).

Do you have any research you can reference for this? Same question for the idea that macronutrient balance dictates where the body will use the calories...

[Den32]

This is what I learned many years ago when I was into body building, so take it for what its worth...

Lets say you are an above average athlete and can gain 12 lbs of muscle in a year (thats really more than most people can do in practice and usually only newbies will gain that much that quickly and only with intense exercise).

So thats 1 lb/month of muscle tissue.

Now human muscle is about 20% protein (yes its probably closer to 21-22% but 20% is a nice round number to work with and won't really effect the final results much). The rest of muscle is mainly water and a bit of fat with very little carbs.

So to gain 1 lb muscle in a month, you would need to acquire 0.2 lb of protein (20% of 1 lb). That works out to 90.8 grams of protein for that pound of muscle. (Yes I did the converting of lbs to grams using 1 lb = 454 grams and 20% of 454 grams is 90.8 grams)

Now divide that by 30 days (avg # days in a month) and you get approximately 3 grams of protein a day needed to create one pound of muscle in a month. 3 measly grams of protein a day!

That's about 12 calories of protein a day to gain that 1 lb of muscle in a month.

So how much extra food do you think you really need to gain that muscle tissue? Yes of course you will need a few calories to synthesize that protein into those 3 grams of muscle a day but that should be relatively little.

Also, since so few calories from protein are needed for the additional muscle, there is simply no need to use "supplements". You can easily achieve the needed extra protein from the regular food that you might eat a bit more of simply because the effort of exercise may make you hungrier.

So the best diet for gaining muscle is simply the same diet you would normally eat as a McDougaller, just a little bit more for the added protein and added energy expenditure. And that will probably be easily taken care of by the added hunger you may feel from the exercise. So its nothing really you need to focus on deeply.

As to the best way to gain muscle. Short, brief bouts of exercise that overload your muscles. That followed by a slight increase in calories and then, most importantly, rest. You build muscle tissue when you rest not when you exercise. The overloading of your muscles creates the necessary stimulus to tell your body it needs to compensate for these new work loads. Rest is what gives your body the final ingredient necessary to allow that over compensation to occur. Which is done, most noticeably, by increasing muscular size (yes there's other effects taking place as well, as gaining strength isn't completely about gaining muscular size).

So you need three things in the muscle building recipe:

1. Proper Stimulus of the muscles - weight bearing exercise works best
2. Small caloric increase (which is really very minor) to effect the energy needs of the stimulus and the additional small protein increase.
3. Rest. Depending on how intense you exercise, you may need 24-48 or more hours of rest between muscle stimulation sessions for over-compensation (growth) to occur. Counter intuitively, the stronger you get the more rest you need as your bodies capacity to recuperate from the overloads is the limiting factor to future growth.

Of course there are a lot more details in that first step then I would even care to discuss, but I think you get the idea.

Finally, how big you can ultimately get is really dependent on genetics. To get really large muscles (full and round) you need long muscle bellies and short tendon's. The longer the muscle belly the more it will be able to contract into a nice big muscle, think of your bicep. As you contract your arm you contract your bicep and it sort of bunches up into a mound on your arm. The longer that muscle belly is the higher peak you will get and bigger looking bicep. So contract your arm. Look at how much space exists between your inner elbow and the start of your muscle belly. A larger gap means you have longer tendons and won't have the capability to become another Arnold. It doesn't mean you can't develop impressive muscles, they just won't ever be like the body building pros, no matter how much exercise you do. And the shape of your muscle is pretty much entirely genetically determined as well, so don't think that doing all sorts of exercises will change the shape of your muscle it won't.

And finally the best way to show off those muscles is by being lean. The leaner you get the more impressive your muscles will look and the better defined they will be. Thus the constant battle to figure out the best energy balance to both build muscle and lose fat...and that's a whole other discussion

Thanks, very useful information.

I have noticed that on this diet my abdomen muscles look much more solid and even bigger that my brother's muscles who eats totally paleo diet. He cannot believe that I have more muscles than he.
My fat is reduced too, probably because of hunger and increased long duration calisthenics exercise like 600 hindu squats in one set.

Will see how much weight /muscle I gain if increase my calories longer term.

Den

[misterE]

Do you have any research you can reference for this? Same question for the idea that macronutrient balance dictates where the body will use the calories...

Int J Clin Pract Suppl. 2004 Oct;(143):9-21. Dysfunctional fat cells, lipotoxicity and type 2 diabetes. DeFronzo RA.

The (34) studies referring to overfeeding and the macronutrient-balance/ratio are located here: http://veganmaster.blogspot.com/2008/08 ... ected.html

[misterE]

Here is a study I found showing that overfeeding carbohydrate increased insulin-sensitivity, while overfeeding fat reduced insulin-sensitivity:

Nutr Metab (Lond). 2009 Sep 28;6:37.
Early responses of insulin signaling to high-carbohydrate and high-fat overfeeding.
Adochio RL, Leitner JW, Gray K, Draznin B, Cornier MA.



The reason why I believe this is true is becuase overfeeding starch (long-term) would increase more muscle-gain than fat-gain, due to different calorie-partitioning. An increase in the muscle to fat ratio increases insulin-sensitivity [1].





[1] Diabetes Res Clin Pract. 2011 Aug;93(2):285-91. Epub 2011 Jul 14. Skeletal muscle mass to visceral fat area ratio is associated with metabolic syndrome and arterial stiffness: The Korean Sarcopenic Obesity Study (KSOS). Kim TN, Park MS, Lim KI, Yang SJ.

[GeoffreyLevens]

MisterE, you have pretty much converted me! Macronutrient balance rules!!! (Pending some deeper reading into the research. Looking good so far though) Good thing I'm already eating in a way that pretty much accomplishes the goal or I'd be really freaking out about now

[GeoffreyLevens]

...in my opinion the best muscle-building foods are potatoes, flour, white-rice and beans.

In context of wanting a strong insulin response I get the potatoes, flour, and rice, but why beans? They have much less of a glycemic/insulin response than any of the others. The only starches that have less than beans are maybe winter squash though I have not tested them head to head...