HunterUk said:
Yes very much an ecto unfortunately. My staple routine has been the 5x5 that MadCow was advocating on here a while back concentrating on full body 3x per week with a heavy, light and medium day and lots of compund lifts. Every 8-10 weeks or so I change to doing a more typical bodybuilder style split of higher reps and more isolation stuff for 2-3 weeks to mix things up a bit and to keep things more interesting. I do pretty much no cardio now (used to do a lot of long distance running for many years when i was younger which probably doesn't help, I'm 23 now).
Have been training on and off for 3 years, with proper consistency for the last 1 1/2 but am still only 165lbs at 5'11. BF is lowish, around 12-15% (I have like a 4-pack going on with fat covering the lower abs, although I'm not really bothered about losing abs at the moment I'd rather gain mass first). My body composition has is gradually changing, I'm looking more defined but I'm not really putting any size on (I weigh pretty much the same as I did when I started) and before I take my shirt off you wouldn't really know that i work out at all.
I understand that the body is supposed to be able to get used to eating 6+ meals throughout the day but in a year and a half I'm still just choking down all the meals with no appetite so was hoping there was something I could take that is a proven appetite stimulator that isn't weed! I am all natty of course, not that I have anything against the juice, I'm just nowhere near my genetic potential naturally yet.
Alright broly
I broke this motherfucker down for you big time.
Read it, print it. Learn it and grow from it
Breakfast 5am: 3 Eggs, 1 piece toast with All natural PB, Banana, 6 oz whole milk
Mid Morning snack 8am: Nitrotech bar
Lunch 11 am: 6 oz Meat(preferably red, but white is fine), 1 cup Brown rice, 10 Almonds
Pre workout Snack: 30 grams protein, 1 banana, 1 PB & J sandwhich
Post workout: 30 grams protein, banana, 8 oz OJ or apple juice
Dinner: 1 cup pasta or 6 oz potato, 6 oz tuna or steak. 1 piece toast with PB
Before bed: 30 grams protein, 8 oz whole milk
Total caloric goals must meet the following benchmarks; 17 calories per lb LBM, 200g protein, 400 G carbs, 20% fats.
We will deal with the supplements later on.
I wanted to get a little info on your body type (ectomorphs) to put in writing our reasoning for the meal frequency and caloric demand. Ectomorphs are the “hard gainers” when it comes to gaining muscle mass. Most can train like Godzilla ravaging a local seaport but appear less muscular as a result of their efforts. As a rule, ectomorphs posses elongated muscle bellies to give them a streamlined or sleek appearance(sound familiar?)
To turn you into a beast we have to feed you a diet high in protein and carbs but moderate in fat. A carb to protein ratio of 2:1 is generally best tolerated. The reason for this is ectomorphs tend to be more insulin resistant, so they need MORE carbs in order to promote growth. the body will convert muscle stores of amino acids into glucose (sugar) if there is a lack of available glycogen. Since ectomorphs are somewhat insulin resistant they seldom are able to create adequate glucose/glycogen stores to fuel training and recovery. For most of them training leaves little in the way of energy stores to fuel recovery, so adaption in the way of muscle growth is near impossible. This is like trying to build a house without any materials…or workers to do so. But if the body can covert fat into energy producing ketones and fat has more calories per gram, why not eat a high fat diet instead??
Here is the answer. The problem with running out of readily available energy substrates is especially a problem for the ectomorph due to excessively high metabolic activity. As a result the body simply cannot convert fats into ketones fast enough to keep up with metabolic needs and the propensity toward insulin resistances results in reduced capacity to transport and store glucose as glycogen in muscle and liver tissues, then the body tap’s into muscle tissue for gluconeogenic amino acids to make enough blood sugar to survive(this is bad for trying to build muscle!!)
As far as the selection of carb sources, low glycemic is the way to go. This way the weight gain will primarily be muscle. The only exception to this fact is pre and post workout when a high glycemic carb is needed to trigger a emergency response for blood glucose clearing and an effective way to induce hyper recovery.
During normal metabolic rest periods, such as sleep and the periods 3 hours or more post training, brief high glucose periods promote calorie wasting and prolonged periods of insuffiecient calories needed for energy and growth. The result is, again, muscles become munchies for energy. Pay careful attention to how each carb tends to affect your physique. As example, if you appear flat then increase the carbs until your muscles appear fuller. If your muscles appear soft then cut back on the carbs and decrease fat intake because your insulin levels may be too high for too long a time. Fat will only become a problem if you consume too much of them and they are primarily saturated. Otherwise fats are very important to help maintain strength, stamina, energy, effectual hormone profiles and well-being.
As a final note you MUST cycle your diet. This fluctuation should be about 1000 calories every 2 weeks. The diet outlines above for you is the LOW time. This will help stimulate muscle growth due to an alteration in nutrient uptake in favor of lean tissue (muscle).
Supplements
Right now we need to try to keep a relatively basic approach to maintaining a efficient hormone profile and general sense of health and well being.
Muti-Vitamin
Antioxidant
ZMA
Tribulus terrestris
These are cheap and all easy to obtain. After about 4 weeks we will start a creatine cycle. Ill address that when we get there.