GAINED 6-7lbs, stopped eating/working out like an idiot

[sven]

~~~~This is for beginning weightlifters who want to gain weight~~~~~
December 23rd -154lbs- January 27th- 161lbs

  I gained 6 pounds in a month.  During this month I began eating raw paleo for the first time in my life.  I don't know how much of it is muscle and I don't really care.  I've always been skinny and now I am finally gaining weight after 4 painful years of minimal gains...

Background-

Age 18- 135lbs
Age 19- 145lbs eating bulking SAD diet
Age 20- 145lbs eating bulking SAD diet
Age 21- 154lbs eating anabolic diet/cooked paleo diet with carb loads on the weekend(made good gains)
Age 22- 154lbs......
a few days away from Age 23- Already 161lbs

Diet-
 http://www.podfeed.net/episode/Super+Human+Radio+Show+-++420+Raw+Food+As+Effective+As+Anabolic+Steroids+In+Building+Muscle/2241597 

This radio interview inspired me to try RAW

At LEAST 8 RAW EGGS A DAY(taste like nothing)
1 POUND RAW BEEF CHUCK(taste great)
WALNUTS
APPLES
BANANAS
RAW MILK
RAW CALF LIVER TWICE A WEEK
RAW OYSTERS
RAW CELERY JUICE/BROCCOLI/CARROTS
COOKED CHICKEN
EXTRA VIRGIN OLIVE OIL(by the tablespoon)
RAW GROUND BEEF(taste like shit)
SEARED FISH(as much as I can afford)
AVOCADOS

This is all I've eaten in the last month, everything is grass fed, fish is farm raised, on saturdays I eat shit SAD food for social reasons, on sundays I eat cooked food during my job.  During the week its all raw baby! 

Things I've noticed- explosive energy, massive sex drive(I binge drink on the weekends and even when I'm drunk that shit shoots straight up!!!), Never dehydrated anymore, food does not weigh me down, I had barley any facial hair and now there is significantly more haha I didnt wanna admit that but hey fuck it, have to cut finger nails every 2 days, skin looks way better(darker color tone), lots of other little things but mostly I care about my strength gains. 

I am stronger than I have EVER been.  Being stronger means more muscle. I follow a VERY simple workout ONCE A WEEK.  No more than 20 minutes in the gym.  SQUATS/DEADLIFT, BENCH, SHRUGS.... that's it people. 
Stop spending hours in the gym doing curls and bodyweight exercises. LIFT HEAVY, REALLY HEAVY.  It doesn't matter how much you can lift as MUCH AS YOU ARE LIFTING 90-95% OF YOUR MAX.  I believe with my new diet and pushing myself to lift HEAVY WEIGHTS ONLY allowed me to gain 6lbs faster than I have ever done in my life before.  You should get a partner to spot you on certain exercises or you won't be able to truly max out.  and guys once a week is enough... Think if you carried a cow back home for dinner once week and made massive muscle gains because the damn thing weighed 1,000 pounds why would your body not hold onto that muscle until the next week.  Trust me don't go to the gym 3 days a week thats useless.  BE PATIENT WAIT A FULL WEEK FOR MUSCLE RECOVERY.  I promise by the end of the 6th day you'll be so pumped and ready to lift again you will see your strength soar!!!! don't forget to change your program every six weeks.

pics and workout log below

[sven]

1/26/10      SQUAT      5X185, 3X185, 10X225
         BENCH      5X185, 2X195



1/19/10      SQUAT      3X185, 3X205, 6X225
         BENCH      2X155, 3X185, 2X195
         FREE SHRUG   11X200
         FREE CURL      10X70


1/11/10      SQUAT      5X135, 5X185, 6X205
         BENCH      5X135, 3X185, 3X185
         FREE SHRUG   12X190


               
12/26/09       DEADLIFT(fail)   25X185         
         SHRUG(fail)      28X185

[sven]

and jan 27th

[sven]

I took only one measurement by the way and my arms are 0.4inches bigger.  Most of the weight probably went to my legs and chest

[goodsamaritan]

I love your enthusiasm 

[sven]

oops I left out my reasoning for taking a full week off after a good workout.  You can google the supercompensation graph, take a look at that.  When you workout you will become sore for the next 1-3 days.  Even up to 4 depending on how hard you workout.  The General Rule here is that your body needs to FIRST recover from exercise, once it recovers it will SUPERCOMPENSATE.  So you must FIRST recover.  My rule is the day you are no longer sore you have RECOVERED, but not SUPERCOMPENSATED, so you must take 2 extra days off to supercompensate.  Example, you workout on monday, are sore until thursday, you should NOT!!!! workout until saturday or sunday, even monday is ok.  I take a full week off just to be sure.  Good luck hope you guys make some gains.

[roony]

Exactly the same thing stanley bass states, 72 year old ripped body builder, fitter then most 30 or 40 yr olds lol

He exercises once or twice a week for only 15-20 minutes

& he's ripped to boot

Hiit is ridiculously efficient at building muscle

I would however, recommend you only ingest the following once or twice a week, or get rid of completely as theyre deleterous & create degeneracy cycles, ie prevent muscle growth

WALNUTS APPLES BANANAS

BROCCOLI/CARROTS

AVOCADOS

& the Cooked Chicken, something you should most definitely get rid of

Replace the Eggs, with fertilised eggs, from cockerel run farms


You should also add & replace the above with:

Bone Marrow, suet, & sweetbreads, make sure the sweetbreads include thyroids & raw animal fats taken from around the organs, ask your butcher or farm in advance for them



With the above, You should put on muscle & mass alot faster then you are now


I'm in the process of doing the above

[sven]

Exactly the same thing stanley bass states, 72 year old ripped body builder, fitter then most 30 or 40 yr olds lol

He exercises once or twice a week for only 15-20 minutes

& he's ripped to boot

Hiit is ridiculously efficient at building muscle

I would however, recommend you only ingest the following once or twice a week, or get rid of completely as theyre deleterous & create degeneracy cycles, ie prevent muscle growth

WALNUTS APPLES BANANAS

BROCCOLI/CARROTS

AVOCADOS

& the Cooked Chicken, something you should most definitely get rid of

Replace the Eggs, with fertilised eggs, from cockerel run farms


You should also add & replace the above with:

Bone Marrow, suet, & sweetbreads, make sure the sweetbreads include thyroids & raw animal fats taken from around the organs, ask your butcher or farm in advance for them



With the above, You should put on muscle & mass alot faster then you are now


I'm in the process of doing the above

Roony,

  Your advice is sparking my interest and enthusiasm.  I will be asking my butcher first thing tomorrow where I can find these items.  For bone marrow do you actually buy the stuff or can you just break open the bones?  Thanks for telling me to get rid of the chicken I've been wanting to eat it raw and no one in my life is helping out so I need the encouragement.  Everyone going to Chico State are a bunch of pussy close minded shitsheads.  Can you elaborate on the degeneracy cycles?  Do you have any other Topics or posts that you give out information on?  Thanks man

[sven]

http://www.musclehack.com/the-arms-blast-experiment-the-results/

This small experiment got me thinking about the recovery process for building muscle quick.  
The point of this article is to show that after the 5th day of recovery the participants finally Packed on muscle.  I have also read Dr. Dardens High Intensity Training book cost me about 20 bucks at Barnes and Nobles.  This book stresses the importance and explains the science behind recovery.  

Using these guidelines has helped me pack on muscle quick as I mentioned earlier

[ForTheHunt]

Wow. 1x a week? You're a pussy! 

Ok sure do heavy weight lifting 1x a week but atleast cardio on the other days. Jeez, I'm training like 13x a week and I'm gonna try to tone it down to see if I get more gains that way but I'm gonna continue doing daily cardio.

[sven]

The reason I'm not doing cardio is because doing deadlifts and squats are so taxing on the body that I need all the recovery I can get.  Since adding pounds is my goal (as much muscle as possible but I wouldn't mind a 1:1 ratio of fat muscle) I cut out the cardio it seems to just stress me out more.  Let me know if you obtain some gains from resting more, I would recommend at least 5 days off from everything.  But if you must then continue the cardio but I don't believe that your body needs exercise everyday, take a rest.  Try weighing yourself before and after 5 days.  Look forward to hearing

[ForTheHunt]

Aight, will do.

I am excited to see how this'll go. I am in pretty amazing shape right now but definitely having a hard time gaining weight muscle and weight, so it'll be interesting to see whether low rep high rest will do the trick.

[kurite]

Are you doing aerobic or anaerobic cardio because in the long run aerobic cardio gets you nothing.

[matthew ryan]

i buy marrow bones from slankers and it is surprisingly delicious.. you just get the leg bones and scoop the marrow out. to me, with a little salt, it tastes pretty similar to butter

Roony,

  Your advice is sparking my interest and enthusiasm.  I will be asking my butcher first thing tomorrow where I can find these items.  For bone marrow do you actually buy the stuff or can you just break open the bones?  Thanks for telling me to get rid of the chicken I've been wanting to eat it raw and no one in my life is helping out so I need the encouragement.  Everyone going to Chico State are a bunch of pussy close minded shitsheads.  Can you elaborate on the degeneracy cycles?  Do you have any other Topics or posts that you give out information on?  Thanks man

[Ouchburns]

Wow. 1x a week? You're a pussy! 

Ok sure do heavy weight lifting 1x a week but atleast cardio on the other days. Jeez, I'm training like 13x a week and I'm gonna try to tone it down to see if I get more gains that way but I'm gonna continue doing daily cardio.

If he is trying to gain mass, cardio is the last thing that he wants to go. He should be strictly lifting. He also needs to be in a caloric surplus. If you are eating raw, you should be consuming anywhere from 4000-500 calories per day to refeed your muscles adequately.

[Ouchburns]

Aight, will do.

I am excited to see how this'll go. I am in pretty amazing shape right now but definitely having a hard time gaining weight muscle and weight, so it'll be interesting to see whether low rep high rest will do the trick.

Sounds like your overtraining if your going 13x + per week. If you want to put size on, training each muscle group 1x per week to failure is best, with 5-7 days rest before working it again. a good 3 day split would be

Monday: Chest, shoulders, triceps

Wednesday: Legs, Abs, Lower back


Friday: Back, Biceps

Take weekends off and repeat the following week.


Eat lots of quality raw foods and watch your body change.

[ForTheHunt]

Aight, will do.

I am excited to see how this'll go. I am in pretty amazing shape right now but definitely having a hard time gaining weight muscle and weight, so it'll be interesting to see whether low rep high rest will do the trick.

Even though it's still early, I'm quite happy with the results I've been getting. My strength is increasing and I think my size is aswell. Still to early to tell

I've also cut down my work out time and I make sure I don't overwork my muscles every gym session.

Before I would train every muscle group till total failure. On chest day it'd end so I wasn't even able to do 1 push up. Now I just train for a shorter time but with higher intensity.

[Ouchburns]

Even though it's still early, I'm quite happy with the results I've been getting. My strength is increasing and I think my size is aswell. Still to early to tell

I've also cut down my work out time and I make sure I don't overwork my muscles every gym session.

Before I would train every muscle group till total failure. On chest day it'd end so I wasn't even able to do 1 push up. Now I just train for a shorter time but with higher intensity.

Good deal, train smart, not hard.

[sven]

Glad to hear its working out for you.  I'm currently switching my previous diet over to mostly organs and suet with less muscle meat and much less fruits.  I will be writing an update to let you guys know how much more muscle I put on.

[sven]

It's been a little while... I tried eating more organs but had a few overdose toxicity issues eating too much liver and kidneys.  Currently eating half a pound of liver and half a pound of kidney weekly which suits me just fine.  I added suet and marrow as rooney suggested before, can't say I was too crazy about it.  I found that too much fat usually gave me a fever.  I do enjoy the variety of fats in my diet however, but I guess I never realized how calorie dense and potent these fats were.  So maybe half a handful of marrow/suet and the rest from muscle meats such as beef chuck or egg yolks is plenty of fat for me in a day.  Raw butter mixed with Raw honey while I eat beef has become habit.  I switched my cooked chicken to raw chicken which tastes great.  Now for the muscle building progress....I still cook foods on the weekends for social reasons. 

I originally stated that going once a week was enough for me but that has changed because I am recovering far faster than I was on SAD.  So I was sitting at the same weight of 161 for a couple months.  I changed my workouts and everything but nothing was working.  I figure I was getting too much recovery time which can break down the body and prevents new tissue growth.  So I started going twice a week starting 3 weeks ago.  I am up 3 pounds, up to 164 and it is consistent... so basically I am gaining a good pound a week which is fantastic!

Currently doing Squats, Deadlifts, Weighted Pull ups, Dips, Dumbell Shoulder Press, and Dumbell Chest Press, Also work out arms for the hell of it.  I still believe in Brief workouts with heavy heavy HEAVY weight.  So twice a week I'm basically in and out.  Once I hit around 167-170lbs I'll post some pics to update the old ones. 

How's everyones progress going?

[sven]

Forgot to mention basically cut the fruits out... maybe 1 or 2 a week and it has really made a difference in energy levels.  eating Fruit and raw meat seems to really fuck up digestion. 

[ForTheHunt]

If you eat it together yes.

But my theory is that your body takes some time getting accustomed to eating fruit.

My first 2 weeks of eating fruit was bad. Stomach pain, itchyness etc. Now all that's disappeared and I feel great eating fruit.

[sven]

Well... I said I'd wait till I get to 170ish to post pics but ya know what?  I have lower bodyfat and bigger muscles, so I'd like to show my progress.  Again I am 5ish pounds away from my goal.... to refresh your memories I'll post the old pic from January first then a pic from today. 

I owe 80% of my gains to The Raw Paleo Diet and all the people on here.  Let me know how you guys are doing

[sven]

[sven]