Week 4: 155.4

No marked gains this week, but that may be a result of the fact that I weighed-in after a full day of fasting (about 14 hours).  I suspect that my weight will rebound significantly as my body compensates for the fast.

I learned two important lessons this week:

1) Intense training following a flu-shot seems to be a bad idea.  On Monday, I got my seasonal flu shot in the morning, and went directly into the gym and did back squats 3×5 (80%) followed by a short, intense metcon.  I felt fine the rest of that day, but I woke up in the middle of the night feeling shaky, feverish and nauseous.  As a result, I lost a couple of hours of much needed sleep.  My theory is that the extended workout seriously lowered my immune system (which is normal after intense workouts), and the flu shot produced a significant immune system response (which is normal for flu shots).  My body could have easily withstood one or the other, but the combination of both the shot and the workout led to my immune system spazzing out at around 4am.

2) Falling asleep fasted seems to be difficult.  On Tuesday, I had a large, fat-filled breakfast, and then proceeded to fast all day with the intent of not breaking the fast until the following morning (full 24 hour fast).  Everything went fine until bedtime.  I initially had trouble falling asleep (probably actually fell asleep around 12am), and then awoke at around 5am Wednesday morning and was unable, after about 4 hours of tossing and turning, to fall back asleep.  I felt irritable and stressed — I usually feel this way at night when I have been training too frequently or too late in the day.  I’m really not sure if this was a residual effect of immune system wierdness from Monday night (perhaps elevated cortisol?) or a result of the fasting.  At any rate, I’ll try the breakfast-to-breakfast schedule again next Tuesday to see if things go better.

I like ’em CHUNKY

Given the number of calories I’m going to be eating, I’m sure to gain weight.  It’s going to be interesting to see exactly how much weight I gain, but it’s also going to be interesting to see how that weight distributes itself on my body.  Here are various diameter measurements taken today (in inches):

Neck 15 1/8
Chest  39
Waist 32
Hips 37
Thigh 23 1/4

I’ve always had a top-heavy physique, mostly as a carryover from high school attempts at bodybuilding that completely neglected the lower half of my body.  I imagine that I still have a good deal of growing to do on my lower torso.   In particular, I am still in the process of training my hips and posterior-chain muscles to work together.  I suspect that my hips, glutes and hams are going to increase significantly in diameter.  In fact, my jeans already fit tighter than they did two weeks ago.  Something is obviously working.  I’ll take another set of measurements upon completing the 15 week cycle.

Got to go…time to eat again.

A good day…

Lots of things went well today, including nutrition.  I managed to fast 15 hours and still eat 20 blocks (5 x fat) without feeling bloated and lethargic all day.  All this is thanks to liquid  or near-liquid calories.  As usual, I’ll log blocks in parentheses (protein, carb, fat)

Meal 1, at 1:30pm,  6-block smoothie (6, 5, 30)
2 cups milk, 4 tbsp whey protein
2 cups strawberries, 1 cup blueberries
2.2 oz cashews, 10 g dark chocolate (86% cacao)

Meal 2, (post WOD) around 5:30 (4, 6, 20)
1 quart milk
1 cup apple sauce
2 oz cashews

Meal 3, around 8pm (6, 4, 32)
3 eggs, 1 oz cheese, 2 tbsp whey (in my oatmeal)
1/3 cup oatmeal (dry), 1/2 cup grapes
2 tbsp flax seed, 2 tbsp almond butter (in oatmeal), 1/2 tbsp lard (in eggs)

Meal 4, around 10:30pm (4, 2, 30)
4 oz ground beef
bowl of steamed spinach
1 oz cashews, 3 strips thick bacon — poured grease over spinach (yum)

That’s a lot of F-ing food for a dude my size.  Total block count: (20, 17, 112).  As I write this, I feel full, but not stuffed.  Definitely a good day.  Special thanks to bacon, for making everything taste good.

NOTE: While I am eating very “clean” and am avoiding all forms of gluten and nearly all processed foods, I am not eating “Paleo.”  I’m consuming large amounts of dairy, and a decent amount of oatmeal.  I’m also going to start eating sweet potatoes (and I don’t think those are Paleo-compliant either).  The Paleo-diet is based on an interesting theory of GI evolution, but it’s pretty clear that human evolution didn’t simply halt during the Paleolithic era.  I’m convinced that my pale-skinned ancestors from northern Europe evolved a life-long lactose tolerance for a reason.  I’m going to take full advantage of that fact.

Week 3: 155.0 lbs.

So far, so fat.  It appears that I’m making relatively linear weight gains.

This week, I shift from 18 blocks to 20 blocks per day.  Even at 18 blocks, I was already having some trouble choking down enough food.  Several nights, I went to bed with my stomach feeling uncomfortably distended.  I could resort to eating candy bars and pizza to increase the caloric density of my meals, but I really want to gain weight with high quality calories and without completely losing control of my insulin.

Maintaining the 20 block program is going to require:
1) Increasing the caloric density of my carbohydrate sources — that means more starch from oatmeal and sweet potatoes, and sugar from berries and applesauce.
2) Getting a significant portion of my calories in liquid form (i.e. smoothies), using either whole milk or coconut milk as the base.
3) Diversifying fat sources — I’m starting to get tired of the peanut/almond butters and the olive oil.  Bacon and lard have been a welcome addition to the rotation, but I’m thinking of branching out to coconut butter (expensive, but delicious).

Crappy Social Life = Good Diet

I had a boring weekend, which means that I had a very healthy weekend.  No alcohol, lots of sleep, and lots of good calories.

It’s a sad fact that college social life is completely inimical to health/fitness.

The only truly “bad” meal this last week consisted of fried chicken, green beans and beets.  I had a lunch-meeting with some old friends at a tavern that only serves fried chicken.  I contemplated simply not eating during the meeting in order to avoid subjecting myself to the inevitable breaded-chicken-crash; but, I decided that the social consequences of abstaining were more than I cared to deal with.  It’s funny: food is so deeply social.  Showing up to a “lunch-meeting” and then not eating will make everyone present uncomfortable.  They’ll ask if there’s something wrong with you.  “Are you sick?”  “Are you on a diet?”

As I saw it, I faced two options regarding my lunch-meeting: 1) explaining to my friends (in the most polite terms possible) that I would rather fast than eat the crap that they were eating; or 2) relenting and stuffing my face with chicken.  I took option 2 and tried to discreetly pick the breading off of my drumsticks, while chomping down as much fatty skin as possible.  One of my friends, after eating two or three buttermilk biscuits, chided me for smothering my green beans in butter: “That’s so unhealthy!”  I smiled secretly to myself.  How do you explain to people that you’re trying to get fat?

Supplementation

I take the following supplements on a daily basis.  I’ve taken nearly all of these supplements regularly for a year or more:

• 1 Multivitamin- Puritan’s Pride “Ultra Vita Man”
• 4-6 Fish Oil softgels, each containing 600 mg of Omega-3
• 13.3 mg Acidophilus (probiotics to keep my GI in order while eating tons of food)
• Before bed:
  1 capsule of 5-HTP
  1 capsule ZMA
  (both of these are to help me sleep — Robb Wolf recommends this supplement combination  in his article on sleep)
• Occasionally I will take a 500 mg vitamin C tablet about 1 hour before bed to reduce cortisol levels.  I only do this after several days of consecutive training when I can tell that my body is stressed out.
• Next week I’m going to start taking a general digestive enzyme to help my GI handle the large quantities of protein and fat.  This will be the only new addition to my supplementation routine.

*With the possible exception of ZMA, I’m not taking anything with cell-volumizing effects — i.e. no creatine, L-glutamine or anything like that.  I have nothing against creatine supplementation, and I’ve found it to be a pretty effective aid for strength and recovery in the past.  I’m consciously avoiding creatine-like supplements mainly because I wasn’t using them prior to starting this program (it’s been several years since I used creatine), and I really want to isolate the influence that this particular change in my eating habits has on my bodyweight.  ZMA was already a part of my supplementation routine prior to starting my “get-fat” diet, so there’s loss of control so long as I continue to take ZMA throughout the duration of the 15 week experiment.

Week 2: 152.4 lbs.

This is week 2, eating 18 blocks @ 5 x fat.

Weight this morning (fasted, post coffee, etc.):

152.4 (approx 1 lb. increase since last week)

I’ve tried to control for as many things as possible when weighing myself, but hydration alone can produce something like +/- 2 lbs of deviation in my weight from week to week.  It’s going to take several weeks of measurements before I’m going to be able to say anything meaningful about the rate of change in my bodyweight.

Enter the Hungry Rabbit

Hello Constant Readers!

Time to crush some food yes?  I may not be the master of measuring, but I too will be embarking on the quest of excess eating.

My goal: gain some weight and be strong and stuff!

My eating method:

Initial Phase:  Actually succeed in increasing food intake via blog accountability!

Secondary Phase:  Eat lots of fatty meat and potatoes!  Palmitic acid induced insulin resistance here I come!

Training method:

Initial Phase:  Finish the current Performance Menu cycle!

After That Phase:  Maybe discover if you can get fat doing gymnastics routines?

If I’m Not Fat Yet Phase:  More heavy stuff a la Westside?

Themesong:

Inspiration

Good Eats

Here’s a fairly standard day of decent eating.  I do something like this about 6 days a week.  Meal 3 is in eye-balled proportions, because I have to eat it at the dining hall; all other meals were weighed and measured.  I’ve broken things down by macronutrient group, recording blocks (protein, carb, fat):

Breakfast (4, 4, 20):
3 eggs, 1 oz cheese,
1 cup oatmeal (cooked), 1/3 cup grapes,
2 tbsp almond butter, and eggs were fried in 1/2 tbsp lard

Meal 2 (4, 2, 15):
3 oz chicken breast, 1 oz cheese
1 orange
1 oz cashews, 2 tbsp peanut butter

Meal 3, post training (~6, 7, 20):
4 eggs, 3 sausage patties, 1/2 cup yogurt
1/2 cup yogurt, 2 cups mixed fruit (pineapple, pear, peach), 1 hashbrown patty
4 tbsp peanut butter

Meal 4 (4, 2, 20):
4 oz chicken breast
4 cups steamed broccoli (measured uncooked)
2 strips thick-slice bacon with grease, 1 tbsp almond butter