# Bulking Calorie Struggle lately



## mrmichael (Apr 11, 2017)

I Finished a cut about 6 weeks ago, been bulking since. It's been easy for the first weeks 1-3.5, but lately it's becoming a issue again. I end up staying late at night around 3am still trying to get the calories down and it ruins my sleep pattern big time reducing a potential 8 hours into 6 poor hours....so it needs to be fixed and all food eaten before midnight to say the least...

I intake about 4400-4500 calories per day. It just seems like the food isn't digesting very good anymore and it puts me hours behind the eating schedule and I feel like throwing up. 

It's a fairly clean diet with dense food (usual foods as you would assume).

I've tried the dirty bulk  or to say last cycle and it didn't go so well for me. I ate a lot of fast food to fill in a extra 1000ish calories and it gave me weight, but it didn't seem to be muscle mass and thats why I ended up doing a 4 month long cut.

To be honest with you, it seems the problem is calorie to volume ratio. For example, I eat 600 calories in sheer pasta ONLY. Thats basically a damn near lb of pasta straight out the box. For that to digest it takes forever, while something like a handful of walnuts or 2 can equal the calories, but take no volume and allows more room for other stuff. The issue with these types of food is that they are high in dietary fats.

I try to keep dietary fats low as possible as I've heard they store very quickly into fat after being eaten and I've always worked with carbs. Can anyone shed some truth on ditary fat? I prob get in around 70-90g of it per day indirectly, but if i were to raise it to 150, would it be not optimal and make me gain unwanted fat even if I'm trying to hit my surplus?


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## Dex (Apr 11, 2017)

When I go to 4k calories, I need to blend some stuff. It is much easier to get down. My jaw gets exhausted from chewing and same problem with the digestion. It just seems slow sometimes. It will look and seem gross to blend your food, but it really helps when you can't get it down as whole food.


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## BRICKS (Apr 11, 2017)

Nblsavage posted an excellent video, scroll down a few in this subforum to "Dr. Mike Israetel...."

Eating a sh*road can get tedious, but gotta be done if you want to get big.


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## PillarofBalance (Apr 11, 2017)

Bump your fats. That idea that eating fat is gonna get stored quickly as fat - no.

Edit:

Eating clean isn't required especially since it's a bullshit concept and doesn't actually exist. Your eating fast food isn't why your last bulk didn't go well.  You just ate too much food in general when you added in the fast food.  You lost sight of how many calories you were eating.

Try eating just SOME "junk."


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## Seeker (Apr 11, 2017)

I'm perplexed here. You weigh 178 lbs and you're consuming 4500 calories? Why?  I'm currently 250 lbs and I'm eating at a 110% surplus which takes me to around 4800 calories. A small meal more than yours and I weigh much more. Ughh. I don't get it. You should be blowing the hell up


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## mrmichael (Apr 11, 2017)

Dex said:


> When I go to 4k calories, I need to blend some stuff. It is much easier to get down. My jaw gets exhausted from chewing and same problem with the digestion. It just seems slow sometimes. It will look and seem gross to blend your food, but it really helps when you can't get it down as whole food.



I had to do that last night using olive oil, whey..
it does work, but the mixture has to be mostly fats or loose easy to eat protein (yogurt, whey, milk ect..) once u start adding in thick carbs like oats it becomes no better than a bowl of pasta IMO



BRICKS said:


> Nblsavage posted an excellent video, scroll down a few in this subforum to "Dr. Mike Israetel...."
> 
> Eating a sh*road can get tedious, but gotta be done if you want to get big.





PillarofBalance said:


> Bump your fats. That idea that eating fat is gonna get stored quickly as fat - no.
> 
> Edit:
> 
> ...



are u saying that if I eat mostly fats as a base in the bulk VS one who eats mostly carbs will yield similar results? I've been doing this on the side eating things like eggs rolls, TV dinners, high cal protein bars. (mostly high sodium stuff) to help me bulk up. But I always aim to keep the fats per serving low. I don't know if I will ever stoop to eating fast food again though...



Seeker said:


> I'm perplexed here. You weigh 178 lbs and you're consuming 4500 calories? Why?  I'm currently 250 lbs and I'm eating at a 110% surplus which takes me to around 4800 calories. A small meal more than yours and I weigh much more. Ughh. I don't get it. You should be blowing the hell up



I'm 201lbs at 5'8. 
I am indeed gaining weight each week. Basically every week i've gained about 2-3 lbs. The problem is I weight once a week and more toward the weekend my gym closes early at 8, so I have to rush my day and typical diet gets messed up and I jam pack a lot of sodium products or other times I eat less sodium and I'm assuming this is causing a shift in water weight giving me wrong numbers on the scale.

I also train quite intense for about 1.5ish hours on a PPL split twice per week and I'm on a lot of stuff and heated and sweaty like crazy. 

I'm not saying that I'm NOT blowing up like u say, the issue is that it's taking a toll on me to power that shit down evey day and I wake up like I'm still digesting my meal I ate the prev night and I have to wait hours to eat again and then it gets delayed and then my personal life is being ****ed up too with me staying up super late to scarf this stuff down. This is the problem. I need to get my food in between the hours 8am-midnight and not go past that mark. it's also taking a toll on my sleep big time.

I'm not too worried about getting TOO fat. I've expecting a lot from a DNP cycle. i invested toward 4 months of the stuff at 250mg each caps from a solid lab with good rep from others. Hoping the stuff lives up to it's reputation being the best fat burner. I don't know how many more cycles I got left in me, so I'm really aiming to get the MOST out of this one.


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## PillarofBalance (Apr 11, 2017)

mrmichael said:


> are u saying that if I eat mostly fats as a base in the bulk VS one who eats mostly carbs will yield similar results? I've been doing this on the side eating things like eggs rolls, TV dinners, high cal protein bars. (mostly high sodium stuff) to help me bulk up. But I always aim to keep the fats per serving low. I don't know if I will ever stoop to eating fast food again though...



No not saying eat most fats. I am saying stop avoiding them.  If you have to bump your cals leave the others where they are at and just bump the fats.

Fast food like mcd's isn't a must. But a pizza or big ass burrito wouldn't kill ya.


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## jennerrator (Apr 11, 2017)

oh zilla....................................................................


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## ECKSRATED (Apr 11, 2017)

Blend up a cup of oats and add it to two scoops of protein and peanut butter. With water its about 900 calories. With milk its 1200

This is my go to shit right here when I need to add some weight. The oats are great


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## MrRippedZilla (Apr 11, 2017)

I think this issue stems from the fact that your gaining 2-3lbs per week.
To put this in perspective, even my clients on high doses of gear aim for a max of 2.5-4lbs per MONTH (0.6-1lb per week) because any higher and it just becomes an inefficient process. A larger caloric surplus does NOT automatically equal more gains. Dose-response curve. You need to find that sweet spot, hit it, and no more. 

So my suggestion is simply reduce the size of surplus and your expected weight gain per week. You'll still make good gains, your personal life will improve, your sleep quality will improve and your body will thank you for it


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## Seeker (Apr 11, 2017)

Ok dude sorry for the mixup. I was going off your log thread when you were 178.  I still feel you don't need that many calories even at your current weight. I do understand the difficulty of pounding down the cals day by day, every damn day.  It is not fuking easy at all. What I've done to make it easier is I make sure that 4 of my meals are a minimum of 1000 cals each. And those 4 meals are in before 8 pm. Whatever cals I have left over I'll get them in before bed.


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## BigSwolePump (Apr 11, 2017)

Taking in 4500 calories is a breeze. I feel like some people just don't know what to eat/drink. When I need extra calories and cant get them, I use the oldest go to food...MILK. Dude, 1 gallon of whole milk is 2300 calories(128g protein, 180g carbs, 128g fat). You can snack on nuts all day. There are tons of ways to get calories without much bloat at all. Now when you up them to 6 or 7k calories, then it gets difficult.

You should easily get 2300 more calories in 3 meals.


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## Seeker (Apr 11, 2017)

^^^^ it's a breeze if you have the appetite to do so. In my 20's and 30's yeah no problem.  Not so much now.


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## PillarofBalance (Apr 11, 2017)

MrRippedZilla said:


> So my suggestion is simply reduce the size of surplus and your expected weight gain per week.



Like what I said above. Eat surplus not a mega shit load surplus.  You wouldn't cut at 50% below maintenance so why bulk that way?

Totally foreign to me the concept of it being hard to gain weight.  That was the only thing that came easy for me though.


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## MrRippedZilla (Apr 12, 2017)

PillarofBalance said:


> Like what I said above. Eat surplus not a mega shit load surplus.  You wouldn't cut at 50% below maintenance so why bulk that way?
> 
> Totally foreign to me the concept of it being hard to gain weight.  That was the only thing that came easy for me though.



The comparison to deficit % isn't really suitable here since the bigger the deficit = the more fat you lose. Whereas the bigger the surplus does not equal the more muscle you gain. One works, the other doesn't, due to partitioning differences that come from energy status. 

I have an interesting theory to explain the "hard to gain" crowd that's based on a subconscious increase in energy expenditure (NEAT). 
My theory stems from a pretty cool paper I read years ago (link below) where they fed these dudes a 1,000cal surplus over 8 weeks expecting a 16lb weight gain and yet it was only 10.34lbs. They further discovered that of the 1,000cals over maintenance, 531 was burnt off with 65-70% of that coming in the form of NEAT. 
They found that the increase in NEAT was huge, in some cases like burning off an extra 690 cals of that surplus, and that kind of explains why some people struggle to gain weight despite apparently increasing their caloric intake substantially. So the whole "hard gainer" thing isn't entirely bullshit.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/9880251


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## BigSwolePump (Apr 12, 2017)

Seeker said:


> ^^^^ it's a breeze if you have the appetite to do so. In my 20's and 30's yeah no problem.  Not so much now.


 Thats why I suggested milk. Another easy way to get calories in is making shakes and throwing in some oats. Drinking calories always seems to help on days that I don't have an appetite. I am 40 now so I totally get the decreased appetite compared to when I was younger. The decreased appetite also comes with a slower metabolism which is why I don't need the calories that used to consume back then.


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## jennerrator (Apr 12, 2017)

BigSwolePump said:


> Drinking calories always seems to help on days that I don't have an appetite.



yep, I deal with this on a weekly basis...at least 2 days a week...just can' eat so have to drink...fuuuk it, it works


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## PillarofBalance (Apr 12, 2017)

MrRippedZilla said:


> The comparison to deficit % isn't really suitable here since the bigger the deficit = the more fat you lose. Whereas the bigger the surplus does not equal the more muscle you gain. One works, the other doesn't, due to partitioning differences that come from energy status.
> 
> I have an interesting theory to explain the "hard to gain" crowd that's based on a subconscious increase in energy expenditure (NEAT).
> My theory stems from a pretty cool paper I read years ago (link below) where they fed these dudes a 1,000cal surplus over 8 weeks expecting a 16lb weight gain and yet it was only 10.34lbs. They further discovered that of the 1,000cals over maintenance, 531 was burnt off with 65-70% of that coming in the form of NEAT.
> ...



You run a 50% caloric deficit you are gonna lose much more than fat. You run a huge surplus you will gain much more than muscle was my point.

Being a hard gainer certainly isn't bullshit at all. I just don't have sympathy. I ****ing love food


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## mrmichael (Apr 12, 2017)

MrRippedZilla said:


> I think this issue stems from the fact that your gaining 2-3lbs per week.
> To put this in perspective, even my clients on high doses of gear aim for a max of 2.5-4lbs per MONTH (0.6-1lb per week) because any higher and it just becomes an inefficient process. A larger caloric surplus does NOT automatically equal more gains. Dose-response curve. You need to find that sweet spot, hit it, and no more.
> 
> So my suggestion is simply reduce the size of surplus and your expected weight gain per week. You'll still make good gains, your personal life will improve, your sleep quality will improve and your body will thank you for it



I'm not sure if it's 2-3 lbs accurate per week. What happens is my food changes often, especially during the weekend. I weight myself on monday once to track. For example I'll eat low sodium as much as possible during week days with longer hours for me (gym open later), then weekend I kind of rush it with more salt based foods and it causes me bloats and other day I can't hit my calories and it's a diff of 1500 or 1000 and my weight changes dramatically with bloat. I can't confirm, but I do notice when I eat less than my 4400, I tend to wake up hungry..

PS: I've always bulked on the road of 4000ish calories too. I even found my weight to become stable around there....


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## ToolSteel (Apr 12, 2017)

I think you don't count your calories nearly as well as you believe


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## mrmichael (Apr 12, 2017)

I do count them well. 

EDIT: I forgot to add Mrrip that It's my sodium and carbs that fluct often.. Some days I'm intaking 100-200g more, others I fill it in with fats or more protein.. I'm not sure about the accurate weight tbh..


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## Gibsonator (Apr 12, 2017)

Like those guys said shakes help a lot for sure when you breach the 4k range, good luck bro


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## Maintenance Man (Apr 12, 2017)

Shakes always worked for me but I never had a hard time eating. I was always fat so that came easy. 
You can make a shake containing milk, whey, PB, oats, banana, greek yogurt, and ice that will be well in excess of 2k cals. I used to put eqq whites in there too but not sure of the bioavailbility from not being cooked. I think Zilla put an article on that awhile ago. If the blender is full, prob 3k. Try running that in the morning instead of whole foods. I would split that up into breakfast and 1st snack. After that it was really easy to add the cals from other whole foods to meet my mark.


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## Milo (Apr 12, 2017)

I run into the same problems as you. By the time another meal rolls around, Im still full. It sounds gross as ****, but I will blend up chicken, beans, rice, pineapple, water and drink it. It gets digested very quickly and I can eat again sooner. I love eating fatty, carbed up meals like fast food but I wont be hungry for like 5 hours after that. My blended shakes are easily digested which means Im hungry again in a couple hours.


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## jennerrator (Apr 12, 2017)

Maintenance Man said:


> I would split that up into breakfast and 1st snack. After that it was really easy to add the cals from other whole foods to meet my mark.



funny how you split for your first two meals as the meal I ALWAYS have an issue with, when I have an issue.. is my 3rd meal!!


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## PillarofBalance (Apr 12, 2017)

MrRippedZilla said:


> The comparison to deficit % isn't really suitable here since the bigger the deficit = the more fat you lose. Whereas the bigger the surplus does not equal the more muscle you gain. One works, the other doesn't, due to partitioning differences that come from energy status.
> 
> I have an interesting theory to explain the "hard to gain" crowd that's based on a subconscious increase in energy expenditure (NEAT).
> My theory stems from a pretty cool paper I read years ago (link below) where they fed these dudes a 1,000cal surplus over 8 weeks expecting a 16lb weight gain and yet it was only 10.34lbs. They further discovered that of the 1,000cals over maintenance, 531 was burnt off with 65-70% of that coming in the form of NEAT.
> ...



That link just blew my ****ing mind.


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## Milo (Apr 12, 2017)

Next person that tells me "just eat. I wish I was in your shoes" will get choke slammed.


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## Youngblood1984 (Apr 12, 2017)

What helped me was I got a shake ( high cal ) it has like 1,480 calories per shake and that helped me get the rest of it in but like said before I had to be careful cause it was spilling over in to my stomach so I was putting fat on so I tuned it down a notch and I'm back on track , i get the trying to get so many calories in a day in it ant easy at all , just helps me out and it's got tons of other things in it as well


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## MrRippedZilla (Apr 12, 2017)

PillarofBalance said:


> That link just blew my ****ing mind.



My links have that effect on people.


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## BigSwolePump (Apr 13, 2017)

Milo said:


> I run into the same problems as you. By the time another meal rolls around, Im still full. It sounds gross as ****, but I will blend up chicken, beans, rice, pineapple, water and drink it. It gets digested very quickly and I can eat again sooner. I love eating fatty, carbed up meals like fast food but I wont be hungry for like 5 hours after that. My blended shakes are easily digested which means Im hungry again in a couple hours.


 That sounds disgusting. I don't know how I get that shit down when I do it too lol


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## Milo (Apr 13, 2017)

BigSwolePump said:


> That sounds disgusting. I don't know how I get that shit down when I do it too lol



Its gross. If you use rice its a thick, grits-like consistency. With beans instead you can drink it. The main reason for the pineapple is to kill the gross taste but also because the bromelain in pineapple helps protein disgestion.


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## BigSwolePump (Apr 13, 2017)

Milo said:


> Its gross. If you use rice its a thick, grits-like consistency. With beans instead you can drink it. The main reason for the pineapple is to kill the gross taste but also because the bromelain in pineapple helps protein disgestion.


 I haven't tried it with pinapple but I have thrown chicken, rice and broccoli in the blender a few times. Its not awful but it does look like vomit.


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## ToolSteel (Apr 13, 2017)

I blended pizza once


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## Dex (Apr 13, 2017)

ToolSteel said:


> I blended pizza once



What? Who the fukk can't slam down a large pizza? No need to ever blend a pizza. In fact, I think it might be illegal.


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## MrRippedZilla (Apr 13, 2017)

Maintenance Man said:


> You can make a shake containing milk, whey, PB, oats, banana, greek yogurt, and ice that will be well in excess of 2k cals. I used to put eqq whites in there too but not sure of the bioavailbility from not being cooked. I think Zilla put an article on that awhile ago.


Copy & paste of the post that I think your referring to:

http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full

- 24hr digestibility of cooked egg protein = 91%
- 24hr digestibility of raw egg protein = 51%

"The higher digestibility of cooked egg protein presumably results from structural changes in the protein molecule induced by heating, thereby enabling the digestive enzymes to gain broader access to the peptide bonds. It has been suggested that the reduced digestibility of raw egg white is at least partially related to the presence of trypsin inhibitors in raw egg whites."

Pasteurization helps side step most of this but considering there is more than one protease inhibitor in raw egg whites I'd be hesitant to say it solves all of the bioavailability issues without some data to back that up. Plus is it really THAT difficult to cook the damn things?


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## Seeker (Apr 13, 2017)

I ate 3 big macs yesterday


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## ToolSteel (Apr 13, 2017)

Dex said:


> What? Who the fukk can't slam down a large pizza? No need to ever blend a pizza. In fact, I think it might be illegal.


I didn't say it was a wise decision


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## Maintenance Man (Apr 13, 2017)

Jenner said:


> funny how you split for your first two meals as the meal I ALWAYS have an issue with, when I have an issue.. is my 3rd meal!!



But you dont smoke hippie lettuce like i do


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## Maintenance Man (Apr 13, 2017)

MrRippedZilla said:


> Copy & paste of the post that I think your referring to:
> 
> http://jn.nutrition.org/content/128/10/1716.full
> 
> ...



That's the one!! No its not that difficult to cook them but this was the only instance in which I would drink them. I didnt particularly enjoy it but it was FAST lol. I cook my eggs now


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