It is time for me to get serious about weight gain. I weigh 155 pounds, which puts my basic calorie maintenence at 2,200 calories yeah? By lifting weights am I burning calories mainly through the act of actually lifting or by raising the way my metabolism works around the clock? How about with soccer?

If I go to the gym seems like maybe I'll have to eat 600 more calories? Then I figure with a soccer game maybe I'll burn 900 calories, with a practice 600, and with a light skill work 300. Assuming I go to the gym four days a week and do another two hours of the different soccer a day, I think my basic maintence level is 3,500 calories? How many calories do I need to eat to gain a pound a week? Should I try eating more on especially busy days or just worry about hitting the same calories every day?

It seems I have to eat 4,000 calories, so a sample day could be:

liter milk (600 calories)
pound chickn (600)
3 potatoes (550)
olive oil (300)
half box spaghetti (600)
pound steak (600)
box cus cus (600)
4 eggs (300)
=
4050 calories (lol is this diet even possible) (i didn't include vegetables because they are negligable in calories in comparison to this other stuff).


ALL THOUGHTS, CLARIFICATIONS, ADVICE, please!

try a gallon of milk

This. Even if you don't drink an entire gallon try to have a big glass with every meal, it helps a lot.

No way a pound of chicken and steak are same amount of cals

96/4 or 98/2 ground beef is, I sometimes pick up the 96/4

Take casien protein before bed e.g 250g of cottage cheese

I'm not quite sure what the question is.

Your caloric burn is going to be the combination of all those factors although from what I've read lately the effect of metabolic increase is overestimated.

How about just measuring what you eat for a couple of weeks and measure your weight changes, while maintaining the same activity level. I think that's the only way for you to accurately estimate your caloric needs.

However, if you're asking how to gain weight, try eating more than you do right now and see where that takes you. Calorically dense foods and liquid calories seem to work for the skinnies that can't gorge like us fatties can.

Why not try to do SS? 3 times a week seems plenty and possibly excessive if you're gonna throw in a bunch of soccer on top of it. FWIW Lyle's calc has a 400-500 cal difference on daily calories for weight training vs not weight training. It also gives 2k as your maintenance with weight training.

You guys do realize people occasionally make skin on or dark meat?

Only those weak-willed softies who actually eat food that tastes good because it gives them pleasure, an obvious sign of weakness. All of us hardcore hard-bodies eat strictly for the purpose of looking better naked and so have to forgo such indulgences.

Only white, fatless meat and tasteless protein shakes for us.

I eat more on days when I do more, but mainly because I get hungry as hell then and drink an extra protein shake on days when I lift. If you are just trying to gain weight, there is little need to get ******edly anal about stuff. Hit your protein targets, and eat a lot of food. It's incredibly easy to do. A few days of eating like a glutton makes me constantly hungry and then it's super easy to pack on the weight.

Try setting protein targets higher.

It isn't hard to grill a couple lbs of meat and have a little food orgy. Or grill like 4-5 lbs and eat for a couple days.

What do you guys think my daily calorie needs are to maintain? And to add a pound a week?

Thremp what should my protein target be? FWIW I've considered calories more important, figuring thus: I see a can of tuna fish has 28g of protein but only 120 calories, so if I ate four cans of that it's a ton of protein but I will surely lose a lot of weight.

Why do I even bother.

Post your food log. If you don't have one yet, stop posting till you have one for a month along with weight measurements.

If you eat 500 extra calories a day, you would gain about 1lbs per week. The trouble is figuring out what "extra" is.

How many calories that is depends a lot on your activity level. 4000/day sounds reasonable (maybe a bit high, though) to start with with your high activity level and size. Try it. If you gain weight, good. If you don't, eat more.

3500 is for a pound of fat gain, muscle is less energy dense.

1 lb of muscle is around 600 calories? But someone gaining muscle will also likely gain some fat, so if someone is gaining muscle and adds 1 lb, it might be some mixture (say .75 muscle, .25 fat for example). That would mean 450 + 875 = 1325 calories for that case. Not sure if that ratio is realistic or not, but it would rarely be 100% muscle gains when you are gaining weight.

Sometimes it's best to put down the calculators and pick up a pizza instead.

Why not just eat 5k-6k per day to be safe, then stop if you get too fat?

ez.

"No researcher has made a human bigger than a dumb-**** bodybuilder."
-Dan Duchaine

thremp is saying it is better to focus on protein.

to gain muscle mass, is it better to eat 3k calories in vegetables and tuna, or 5k calories in pizza?

I'd say it is somewhere in between. You should a eat minimum 1g of protein per 1 lb of body weight. After that, where the rest of the calories don't make much of a difference. Check out some of the other logs to see what is working for others. Just adjust what you eat if you are a) not gaining or b) gaining too much fat.

I agree, except I would make it an absolute minimum of 2g per 1 lb of body weight.

Depending on the amount of calories you're consuming... With a caloric consumption like Bruiser's and his weight, this seems like a good starting point with an increase if necessary.

damn sounds like a lot of protein. i'm curious to see what my friend, who is a 4th year med student, has to say about this. i find that we disagree on a lot of this stuff, mainly because of differing perspectives and priorities.

i will keep this thread updated with questions and thoughts as i go along.

thought 1; protein is expensive. i've never noticed this before cause i didn't have to eat so much and cause i was rich, but for high quality protein it generally costs about $1 for 100 calories, whereas i can get 300 or more calories of carbs for $1. i just went to an indian food buffet, i figured this would be cost effective but really at $10, I am guessing I ate 1200+ calories with 2/3 a pound of chicken and a lot of calories coming from sauce, so this is OKAY at best.

I'm bad at this game apparently. I've hit 1g/lb probably one time in the last 9 months.

bruiser,

supplementing protein is ok and cheap.