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Milk and health

Question: I heard about this old cherished weight gainer.

I heard a workout regime called milk and squats, which I started. But I stopped the milk part due to hearing that too much milk is unhealthy and affects your kidneys.

My co-worker an avid milk drinker was told by his doctor to stop drinking milk because it had an adverse effect on his body.

What are your thoughts on it? I really like the idea of drinking a gallon of milk a day to gain weight.

Answer: I won’t argue with a doctor, but I suggest that “hearing things” is far removed from research. Thousands of men (and women) have gained the weight they want drinking a gallon of milk a day. (You have to exercise hard, too, to build muscle and not just pack on fat.)

To my knowledge, there is no evidence that drinking a gallon of milk a day harms your kidneys.

There is a misconception that “too much protein” can cause kidney problems. But it’s just that – a misconception.

There is little compelling evidence that mega doses of protein causes any sort of kidney damage in the least.

PLUS, the GOMAD is not to be used long-term. Three to six weeks at a time is all you need. Gain a little, maintain it, repeat if necessary.

Hope this helps!

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Lean and Weak?

Here’s What To Do

I got an inquiry the other day about a reader who proclaimed that he’s “lean and weak.” Of course, I personally replied to his email but then I thought that this is such a universal question that I’d share my answer to him with you.

Lean and Weak?

I, too, was skinny and weak at one point. I’m glad you are ready to make a change!

Here’s what I did: I ate, drank, and slept weight training. I read everything I could, bought every supplement in the stores, and trained hard. REALLY HARD.

Guess what? It didn’t work for me. And it took me a really long time to figure out what I was doing wrong.

Bottom line: I was doing nearly everything wrong!

Can you believe that? For my body type, there was no way in the world I should be training the way I was. It was too much, too often. Plus, my diet was not helping and the supplements were sending me (and my parents) to the poor house.

I finally discovered the secret. And now it’s really no secret. I wrote a Manifesto about how I gained 60 pounds in one year.

Now, I don’t know if you’re ready to lay down $37 for my Hardgainer Manifesto. Maybe you are, maybe you aren’t.

If you are, go to http://www.hard-gainers-manifesto.com. There, you will find the keys to adding a whole bunch of muscle and gaining super strength.

If you want to get a taste of the course, for FREE, check out my 7-day ecourse. You can find it here — http://www.muscle-build.com/https://muscle-build.com/hard-gainer/.

Either way, you’ll learn more in 20 minutes of reading than you would have in 200 hours of reading “muscle magazines.” I will never say that muscle mags are all junk, but think about this —

How many supplement ads will you find in the leading muscle magazines? In a recent Flex magazine, I counted nearly 40 pages of supplement ads in the first 40 pages!

That’s right. Before the first viable muscle-building content, there was nothing but ads.

To make matters worse, think about this: Who do you think writes those articles? They may have a famous bodybuilder’s name under the title, but it most likely was some skinny guy who might have watched a pro bodybuilder train.

And now, get this — those articles are geared toward pro bodybuilders. You, and 99.9 percent of all weight trainers will never be pro-caliber. Heck, most of us don’t want to look like a pro bodybuilder!

Those guys are not your ordinary guys and gals. It would be like you and me training like Jerry Rice, only to find that we’ll never be as good as him. Or practicing day and night on the guitar, only to discover that we are not of the same caliber as Stevie Ray Vaughan.

Just ain’t gonna happen.

Plus, I daresay that all professional bodybuilders are a) taking some serious drugs and b) are getting boatloads of supplements for free.

These are “advantages” neither you nor I will ever have (or want).

So, the gist of all this is that you should not train or eat like a pro bodybuilder. Stop reading the mags (I know, they’re cool and it’s great to dream — you may be one of the few who can ever look like that), start training and eating sensibly, and you can attain fantastic results

• without drugs
• with — at MOST — 45 minutes a day (every other day) in the gym
• and without breaking the bank buying food supplements

You’ll look great, feel great, and have time and money left over to enjoy life.

I hope this helps. If you have any other questions, feel free to ask. Best of luck to you!

PS — There are some really good muscle-building programs out there besides mine (though I’m biased and think mine give you the greatest chance at success, at value prices). Check out Muscle-Building-Guide-Reviews.com for some of the best.

PPS — If you’re lean and weak, you just need to find what works for you. Every body is different. Challenge yourself to find out how to break out of “lean and weak” syndrome!

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Losing Fat Gaining Muscle

Question: How do I figure the calories I need to gain muscle and lose fat?

Answer: Ah, wouldn’t it be great if there were an easy answer to this question? I’m going to take this as a two-part question, since it’s VERY difficult to gain muscle and lose fat simultaneously.

The answer is the same on both sides, meaning either add 250-500 calories per day to gain muscle or subtract 250-500 calories per day to lose fat.

Any more (or less) than this, and you’re going to be trying too hard.

So, if you currently maintain your weight by consuming 2,500 calories, then eat 2,750 to 3,000 calories to gain muscle. Vary the intake; don’t keep it the same every day. The body is VERY resistant to change, so keep it guessing.

MORE is NOT better! Don’t think that if 5000 calories is good, then 1,000 calories is twice as good. It doesn’t work that way. You’ll wind up putting on too much fat and you’ll feel sluggish throughout the day.

It works the same on the fat-loss side. Instead of adding 250-500 calories, subtract them!

The only distinction between adding and subtracting calories is the following: When trying to build muscle, your added calories should be mostly in the form of protein and when trying to lose fat, your calories should be cut from fat.

Don’t go to a no-fat diet, however. Ironically, you need fat in your diet to lose body fat. So never take your fat intake down to zero.

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Meal Planning

Meal Planning for Building Muscle or Losing Body Fat

Here’s a reply to an often-asked question:

I’m a big fan of baselining anything and everything. After all, how can you judge progress if you don’t know where you started? In that light then, I’d suggest you record what you eat over a 7 day period. I won’t tell you to go so far as to weigh and measure everything, but certainly make an attempt at being fairly accurate. The reason I use 7 days and not just one is because people’s weight and calorie intake naturally vary day-by-day.

The idea in this 7-day period is to maintain your weight so that we can know your “maintenance caloric intake.” If you gain or lose a pound, don’t worry much, but if your weight changes by 3 pounds or more, then we’ll have to start over.

It’s easiest to eat pre-packaged foods during this time period because those food sources already have the calories, protein, carbs, and fat grams already determined for you. There’s a great book called Nutrition Almanac that has all sorts of data about thousands of different food sources. Check out your local bookstore or Amazon.

Keeping a log is fairly simple. I suggest Excel or some other garden-variety spreadsheet; however, writing it down on paper works, too.

The things I would track are portion size, calories, protein, carbs, and fat. At the very least, get the cals. Create a spreadsheet or a piece of paper with calories, protein, carbohydrates, fat, and portion size as columns, the things you eat per meal as rows.

Log everything each day. At the end of the day, add it all up. At the end of the week, take the average of each day. If you maintained a steady weight, you now know your maintenance caloric intake.

As for your wife and your different objectives, I’d take a roughly similar approach. To change your weight (in gaining weight you want to increase mass while maintaining or losing fat, ideally; in losing weight, you want to drop fat while maintaining or adding muscle), vary your daily maintenance caloric intake by an average of 500 calories.

For example, if your maintenance caloric intake is 2500, and you’re goal is to gain muscle, then up your caloric intake to 3000 on average.

Here’s the twist: Over the course of a 7 day span, your caloric intake ought to be 3000. BUT, vary this amount. Your caloric intake might look like this:

 

	Calories
Monday	3050
Tuesday	3350
Wednesday	2800
Thursday	2500
Friday	3250
Saturday	3050
Sunday	3000
AVERAGE	3000

Every fourth day, go back to “normal.” The body is terribly resistant to change and if you just up your calories from 2500 to 3000, you probably won’t gain an ounce! So, don’t let it adapt by changing your levels every day.

Now, this isn’t as hard as it sounds. Because I assume you eat different things every day, you’ll never eat exactly the same amount of calories each day.

How do you add calories? There are a few ways:

• Increase portion sizes slightly
• Add a meal or snack
• Add a protein or weight gain drink pre- and post- workout

How do you drop calories?

• Mainly, decrease your portion size
• Cut out fatty food
• Eliminate juice and bread and “add-ons” like butter, dressing, and condiments

Your caloric intake for losing weight looks similar to gaining weight, only back off the calories by an average of 500 per day, but remember to vary that number so that it is an average.

Building muscle and/or cutting fat is mostly a math problem. You either need to create a caloric surplus (gain muscle) or deficit (lose fat).

Exercise plays a vitally important role here, too. If you want some help there, let me know. The short story is that your training can be mostly the same, whether you’re attempting to build muscle or lose fat.

Remember intervals, circuit training, and high intensity. Long aerobic sessions are out (think jogging for miles on end).

If you want some really good meal plans that address specific body composition needs, let me know via the Contact Form. Be extremely specific about your objectives.

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GOMAD Works!

by Tony (Indiana)

I was tired of being a 140 pound twink. I started lifting as heavy as I could 3-4 days a week while eating 5000-6000 kcal/day, about half of which was milk.

In one year I’ve made huge strength gains and gained about 60 pounds without a large rise in body fat.