Weight Gain
I’ve never weighed more than a hundred kilograms. Reason enough to give it a try to reach that mark. This post seeks to introduce what diet means to me in general and how the challenge will work. In later posts I want to explore the different exercises that I do and the resulting weight gain.
Exercises
The History of Food Consumption
Usually I don’t pay much attention to what I eat, but I naturally have quite a healthy diet. It was not always like that, though. When I first moved out from home I didn’t really know how to prepare a proper meal. Of course, I knew how to cook some pasta or how to fry some eggs, but that was basically it. The first year that I lived in a shared flat, I ate mostly highly processed food. The first meals after coming back from a visit home were usually good ol’ home-cooked meals from mom. The rest of the week would consist of pizza, pasta and canned sauce.
After a while, when visits home decreased, I got tired of the same food day in and day out. If I didn’t eat lunch in my company’s canteen I would have eaten nothing but pizza. Frozen foods all seem to be made of the same ingredients: cheap carbohydrates, fat leftover from the production of other foods, and of course umami injected by flavour enhancer. Cooking with those Maggi or Knorr flavour packages was not the real deal either, but at least I had to add to it real food and kind of had to prepare part of the meal myself. I had to boil water, fry a piece of meat and some vegetables, open a packet of pre-mixed spices and mix it all together. The obligatory double cream gave it the extra little kick l iked so much.
I gradually prepared more and more of the meal myself until I eventually got rid of those seasoning mixes altogether. A couple of years of experimenting with recipes that are available en masse on the internet and a bit of trial and error got me to where I am now. Friends really enjoy my food. I also know a lot more about cooking and food composition as a result of getting my teeth into cooking. I enjoy using fresh ingredients, or frozen vegetables for reasons of convenience. I cook decreasingly with meat. But I’m happy to add other sources of protein like fish, eggs or cheese instead. Likewise I try to include legumes and nuts whenever possible.
In the beginning of 2009 I challenged myself to get a sixpack in two months. To be sure, I wasn’t starting totally from scratch, as already mentioned in an article before. I was running and at the time heavily working out. But I had always been a big guy and I wanted a leaner and more defined body. The only option to achieve that was to get rid of a couple of extra kilos. Back then, I started from a weight of 95 kilograms – where I level off when I eat normal – and wanted to get it down to 90. I normally have no reason to stand on a scale to find out how heavy I am. But if you want to change something you have to step on one.
The goal back then was to get rid of five extra kilos; this time it is the exact opposite. I’m trying to gain five kilos. Even when I didn’t exercise at all, I never weighed more than a hundred kilograms. Which is exactly what I’m aiming for this time. I know how hard it is to lose weight, but how hard would it be to gain a couple of kilos?
I figured since one kilo of fat is about equivalent to 7000 kcal, I just need to increase my daily intake by 500 kcal to top up half a kilo per week. But it wouldn’t be a challenge if there weren’t a couple of constraints. I want to grow muscle and not too much fat. You can’t only grow muscle without putting on at least some fat, but the right training should keep it down to a minimum. And the diet should be healthy – therefore I not just going to stuff my stomach to capacity with “empty” calories like those from chips, coke and candy.
The Training
My general workout is really unstructured in terms of what kind of exercises I perform, at which intensity I perform them and which muscle groups I’m trying to activate. It is usually a mix of balancing, improving the execution of an exercise, strength and speed. For example, I’m very passionate about my handstand in any of its variations. I mostly try to make it more stable, which means balance, but sometimes I intentionally focus on handstand push-ups, which is a combination of balance and strength.
Another example would be the kind of chest workout that I do. It contains a variation of push-ups and dips, without aiming to exhaust my muscles. It is more like playing around with different exercises, or to see what the other guys that I’m working out with do, copying what they do. Just going with what seems to be fun to do.
For this challenge it is a lot different. I work out about the same number of days a week (3-4) and also about an hour each time. What makes it different is that I focus on muscle groups, splitting them into chest/triceps, back/biceps and legs. The goal now is to drive the muscles to exhaustion in order to get micro damage, which shows itself in sore muscles. These micro cuts in the muscle stimulate growth. I use particular movements to activate all muscle strands with alternating intensity and repetition, in order to stimulate the muscle more. I will devote separate posts for each muscle group.
The Sustenance
The number of calories a person needs to sustain their body weight can be calculated with the BMR (Basic Metabolic Rate) formula. This or similar formulas can be found on many sources on the internet or in any kind of books about exercise and nutrition.
W = weight in kg
H = height in cm
A = age in years
$latex Men: BMR=66.47+(13.75 \times W)+(5.0 \times H)-(6.75 \times A)$
$latex Women: BMR=665.09 + (9.56 \times W) + (1.84 \times H) – (4.67 \times A)$
For me that would be:
$latex 66.47+(13.75\times 95)+(5.0\times 190)-(6.75\times 29)=2060,5$
But this does not factor in any sports. The amount of activity that I do every week would entail a factor of 1.3 to 1.6, depending on which source you consult. That turns out to be a calorie consumption of about 3000 kcal a day. Including the aforementioned 500 kcal would mean about 3500 calories to consume a day.
Protein
For proper muscle growth, 3 g of protein per kilo of body mass are an adequate amount to sustain and grow muscle tissue throughout the building phase. This is what most sources state, including good ol’ Arnold Schwarzenegger and Mark Lauren, U.S. Special Forces instructor and fitness book author. Protein supplies 4 kcal/g of energy. My goal is 100 kg, times 3 g, which brings me to 300 g and 1200 kcal. The remaining 2300 kcal have to be obtained through fat and carbohydrates equally.
Carbohydrates
Carbohydrates are mostly a source of energy the body uses in order to function and to rebuild its cells. They also replenish energy stores in muscles and fat. The scientific literature distinguishes between simple and complex carbohydrates. This refers to the complexity – the length of carbon and hydrogen chains – of the molecule. Shorter chains are easier to break down and therefore enter the bloodstream quicker but also get stored in fat silos because of the peak of supplied energy that lets the insulin level rise. Insulin regulates blood sugar levels. A high level of insulin stores excess sugar in our muscles and fat cells. The more complex carbs have to be broken down into simpler forms before they can enter the bloodstream. That’s why longer chains “release” energy over a longer period of time, providing the body with a constant “stream” of energy, keeping the insulin level at a constant, lower level.
For this reason I mostly eat these more complex carbs to help my body regenerate over time. Sources of complex carbohydrates are cereals, pasta, potatoes, rice and vegetables. Simple carbs are found in fruits, dairy products and sugar. As usual, not everything is black and white. Other factors, like where the sugar comes from, and in which combination they are consumed with other nutritional components, are important. Fruits, for example, are not only a supplier of those “bad” short-chained energy sources but also bring fibres and important minerals and vitamins with them. As a rule of thumb, I avoid too many sweets and highly processed foods and eat more fresh and natural products instead.
Fat
Fat provides the highest amount of energy compared to the other two – 9 calories per gram. It helps to absorb certain kinds of vitamins like C,D,E and K, which could not be processed otherwise. There are two kinds of fat: saturated and unsaturated. The latter can be seen as the “good” fat that, among other things, boosts body function, takes part in the cell-building process and stabilizes cholesterol levels. It can be found in unsaturated plant-based oils, nuts and fish.
Calorie counting
In times when smartphones are basically tied to our hands, it would be silly not to use an app to help count calories. That makes it less difficult to keep track of daily calorie intakes. I use myfitnesspal for Android. It has a huge database of predefined foods and meals which can be searched and added to every meal. It also allows you to scan barcodes on food, and if not already available in its database, adds the product to it. You can also keep track of workouts, but it does not seem to work that well. As a plus, body weight can also be tracked and progress shown in a graph. The ratio of energy from fat to carbohydrates and protein can be set. It will inform you with every meal if you have reached a certain limit, or if a food is particularly high in any of the aforementioned energy sources.
Let’s begin the battle for calories. People be careful not to be in my way, I’m going to eat everything that you set in front of me.
I’ll let you know about progress and the verdict, soon.
Tropical diet, or how to lose 7 kilos in a week (inspired by a friend)
Go to a tropical country and infect yourself with a virus that ties you down to a hospital bed for a week or two. That and the bad hospital food alone will get you to your dream figure. Wonderful fever that keeps you warm included.
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