[initialdproject]

Originally Posted by zdrax

Body comp is 90% diet. Training, so long as you're ripping it up in the gym or on the fat, is really the 10% solution. There have been studies done where completely untrained individuals were overfed with proper nutrition and netted muscle gain AND fat loss without any exercise whatsoever.

As far as being a hardgainer, very few individuals are. Yes some people have a harder time gaining muscle, but it's mostly psychological. If you have pudge, you are not a hard gainer. In my experience, people have preconceived notions of what a "lot" of food is (as dictated through societal norms, parents, friends etc.) and this hampers their progress. No doubt about it, you NEED a caloric surplus (assuming you're not a completely untrained individual) if you want to gain muscle mass.

As far as magic times, sports nutrition shows that the hours after resistance training have you oxidizing fat while ripe for glucose replenishment. How do you maximize this time period? Simple, in the 4 - 6 hours after your train, eat most of your day's carbohydrates with a high amount of protein (100 - 120g). Your body will soak up the nutrients and begin repairing muscle while burning fat at the same time.

Your abs are a product of your eating habits, nothing else. I highly doubt you're a hard gainer. You're probably displacing calories, meaning taking in poor food choices at the expense of eating a lot of good food choices. Your insulin is probably bouncing around like crazy all day, so I imagine you're letting mood and subjective notions of "hunger" dictate your eating schedule. See the thread Nutrition for MMA Fighters Q&A for more info.

oh your the man.

it's not quite a pudge, just somthing that I can squeeze and make into a roll...
I'm not a hardgainer? Ok that would be cool, I try to eat about every two hours, suplimenting meals with shakes. I'm about 5'9" and 135 pounds and workout 3 times a week as well as run three times a week. Hopefully with more proper nutrition I can gain more lean muscle. Thanks.

Thanks

[zdrax]

To get you started:

Log every single piece of food you put into your mouth for the next 3 days. They should be representative days of your weekly schedule (i.e. hit all the different types of training you do.) Measure your caloric intake and take an average of that intake. Now eat 500 more calories than that. You should also switch over to a "cleaner" diet. Refer to the Nutrition for MMA Fighters Q&A for a list of foods.

In addition, most people will benefit from a balanced macronutrient intake (33/33/33 Pro/Carb/Fat). Start from that model and adjust.

[talking.dingo]

I wanted to say thanks those of you in the ivory tower. I have been injured as of late, not working out, and re-assessing my diet. I am doing this primarily because I have a ton of time on my hands. Anyways, two weeks into this, I have noticed improvements in my recovery time, muscle tone, and my pants dont fit right anymore. I had to start wearing a belt. Mostly, this is from changes to diet. I can't see any other reason why I could lose weight and feel healthier while not exercising.

[Fight_Song]

5/5

[stylesbjj]

great thread

I made this post in the vegan thread about the complexity of human body operations. I was talking about proteins, but the same applies to fat/calories/ect.

Originally Posted by stylesbjj

Not all proteins are the same. The effectiveness of any nutrient depends on how they interact with the food they are attached too. Thats why nutrients from food >>> supplements.

Its just not about getting all the amino acids. Its also about the micronutrient profiles, amino acid profiles, the medium(food) of nutrients.

There is a whole world of genetic and ****bolic regulation that is still not fully understood.

For example (made up hypothetical situation), a certain amount of phenlyalanine and zinc may activate protein A which transcribes protein B from DNA. Meanwhile, Protein C uses saturated fats do make hormone A. Hormone A and protein B work in synergy to activate protein C from a DNA segment. Protein C is used to amplify testosterone production.

And that is just a really simplified example, is much more complicated than that:



each dot below is a protein







Why might meat/eggs/dairy proteins might be more effective than others?
Meat: Its been in our diets way longer in our evolution than diets based on agriculture.
Eggs: The process of creating a baby chicken is an anabolic process, so the nutrients in eggs are optimized for anabolic processes.
Dairy: Similar to reason above. Growing a baby cow is an anabolic process.

Of course, all this will vary from person to person, especially during adulthood. Growing during adulthood is not as dramatic as growing during child/teenager-hood. Try both diets and see what works for you.

[pork]

point 1) Is the 'set point' theory of weight loss/gain for people who want to read about it. (At least thats what is sounds like). Thought to be caused by your adipocytes (fat) acting like a thermostat, the "Adipostats", in order to keep your weight at the same point.

The effects of having Large (full) and Small (empty) adipocytes (fat cells) and the gene expression caused by the secretion of the chemicals from these cells are still unclear.

And different people have different amounts of each and thus different amounts of chemicals secreted, which play a part in the varying ****bolic function of people.

For instance take 2 skinny guys,
1 was never fat so has a small number small adipocytes.
Another guy WAS fat but lost the weight, so he has a large number of small adipoctyes.

And thus they would each secrete different amounts of chemicals, and guy number 2 would have a greater capacity for weight gain.

You can empty fat cells but it sure is hard to kill them!