Hey guys. I weigh 146 lb with 8% bodyfat. I've been working out consistently over the past two years and am now in a bulk cycle. My workout is to do a full-body workout three times a week:

Deadlifts (2 sets of 10)
Bench Press (1 set of 10)
Assisted Wide-grin Chin-ups (2 sets of 10)
Dips (1 set of 10)
Crunches (1 set of 10)
Shoulder Press (2 sets of 10)
Lunges (1 set of 10)
Machine rows (2 sets of 10)
Shrugs (1 set of 10)

My focus is on back and shoulders.
Suggestions?

I'm trying to get to 165 lb by January 1st, and I think I'm a pretty hard gainer.

Just recently, since I'm starting my freshmen year of college, I decided to prepare all the meals that I have a day and count the caloric intake, and analyze my nutrition to have a more balanced, complete, and healthy diet.

Please let me know what you think! What should I have more of? Less of? Thanks!

Meal 1
Cafeteria breakfast (eggs, potato chunks)
Multivitamin
Total EFA with Pure Fish Oil (14 g of fat)

Meal 2
Optimum Whey Protein Shake (24 g of protein)
Yogurt
Bear Naked Granola

Meal 3
PB&J on Whole Grain Bread

Meal 4
Optimum Whey Protein Shake (24 g of protein)
Yogurt
Bear Naked Granola

Meal 5
Grilled Chicken Breast

Meal 6
Cafeteria Dinner

Meal 7
PB&J on Whole Grain Bread before bed

I counted out the nutrition in this diet, excluding my breakfast and dinner at the cafeteria and came out with this:

Protein: 128 grams for 512 calories

Carbs: 237 grams for 948 calories
Sugar: 104 grams

Fat: 84.5 grams for 760.5 calories
Saturated Fat: 15 grams

Total: 2220.5

Is yogurt healthy? It's contributing 54 g of my sugar intake. It's the Whole Foods' brand "365 Fat Free".

Nearly all of my fats are from nut or pure EFA sources. The Bear Naked contributes 28 grams of fat total, which I believe are good fats from a variety of nuts and healthy oils. The peanut butter in my PB&Js contributes 32 grams of fat, which I think are also healthy fats from nuts. Another 14 comes from the tablespoon of pure EFAs I take. What do you think of this?

I believe my protein intake is well sufficient at 128 grams without the breakfast and dinner. With them, I should have at the very least 150 grams, very likely more.

Much of my carbs I tried to derive from whole grain and oatmeal sources. The Bear Naked contributes 44 grams of non sugar carbs, and the PB&Js contribute 72 grams of non sugar carbs.

How many calories should i take in to bulk efficiently?

What can I do to improve this diet? I believe my protein and fat intake is fine but my carb intake should be higher. I drink plenty of orange juice but that means the carbs are mostly sugars. What do you recommend or is 237 grams enough?

Thanks!

You need natty peanut butter, plain yogurt (add your own fruits), more calories, more protein, and more leg work.

And a pbj isn't a meal. You're on the right track, but you need to work on it.

I think that you are on the right track. Have you checked your meal plan to see if you are getting enough calories to support a bulking phase? Also, I'm not sure if you are getting enough sets per muscle group to promote a good amount of growth.

mreik...I've compared some natural PB versus my JIFF and there doesn't seem to be all that much difference. So why does everyone promote natty PB over other stuff???

you must have good stuff. i forget what i used to eat, but it was night and day. the natty tasted like poop though, so i stopped eating pbj's lol

mreik...Smuckers seems to be a pretty favorable natty PB from what I've read on the forums. That's the name that keeps being tossed around. Mine is just JIFF creamy though...

non-natty peanut butter usually has added hydrogenated oils AFTER they remove some of the natural oil, as well as added sugar. The hydrogenated oil helps keep it soft and smooth, but is horrible for the body. natty pb oil tends to separate out, though not in our house cuz it never lasts that long

natty peanut butter ingredients are: Peanuts. Sometimes there's a little salt too, but that's it.

Gotcha Malkore...thanks. I did notice a little more salt in the Jiff...but I didn't see much difference in the macro breakdown on the labels...ya know? That's what makes it really hard for me to figure these things out

I would reccomend increased sets you may actually want to break that workout down but work harder on the excercises. On bench press you do one set of 10 reps when you should be doing more like 3 sets. You may want to drop the reps to between 6-8 for more strength. Also about the peanut butter I have Smuckers natural peanut butter and it is great! I can hardly taste the difference between that and the Jiff peanut butter my brother uses.

does the Jiff have Trans fat? if the word "hydrogenated" appears in the ingredients, then they removed some good fat and added bad fat, but kept the 3 macros essentially the same.

the smuckers natty stuff should be fine. my natty pb is kept cold next to the butter at the grocery store.

I'm using jiff creamy. I'm gonna go to the store asap to get some natural pb soon.

Should I add another protein shake? That'd be a good 24 extra grams of protein to the 128 I already have. That's 152 grams plus the protein i get form breakfast and dinner. I'm going to conservatively guess that I had at least 40 grams of protein from my breakfast and lunch. That'd put me at 192 grams. A little high or okay?

And once I switch out the bad pb for good pb, what else do you suggest i add to the diet? I get a LOT of carbs from breakfast and dinner (lots of pasta, rice, potatoes, a few veggies).

It's just difficult to estimate because the food changes everyday. I really need foods that I can just grab and bring to eat, or eat really quickly.

I'll have to go back to Whole Foods to find some plain yogurt. Surprisingly, there was none i could find. I find it a pain to add my own fruits because I'm on a college schedule, but I don't think I'd mind just eating plain.

What are the nutritional benefits of yogurt and what should I look for?

Back to the question at hand. I was intaking more calories than that when I was cutting! 128g of protein is definitely too low, RDA is around .8-1.2g per pound of bodyweight alone. This is one of the first times I havent seen a full body workout with arm isolation added in, so you got that going for ya. However while your stimulating the muscles, only doing one set isnt gonna cut it for ya. If your pressed for time, you could try a vertical loading cycle which is basically working from the top of the body down or vice versa. Do one exercise, rest for 60 sec, then do the other (ex: bench, 60s, row, 60s, deadlifts...).

Check this link for some very useful info on bulking.

http://forums.steroid.com/showthread.php?t=113010

Thanks for that great link!

As for the workout plan, I read this article about HST that stated the following:

"HST suggests that you limit the number of sets per exercise per workout to 1 or 2. This is based on "some" evidence that sets beyond the first "effective" set do little more than burn calories."

and thus, I tried to outline my workout after the following:

http://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/hst1b.htm

I definitely am going to do two sets on the bench press tho every workout and maybe add in lateral raises. I'll see.

According to that very useful calculator, Tony, I need 3200 calories to gain one pound per week. That seems achievable. What I don't really think is likely is that a person get 320 grams of protein per day! That's just incredibly high, and much more than the recommended 1 gram per pound of body weight.

You're thoughts?

Thanks!

my thoughts, more than 1.5g of protein per pound of lean mass is just gonna get wasted. carbs really help you on a bulking phase. they promote muscle growth by providing you with all the energy you need, so all protein can be used for muscle repair.

i know the topic has shifted away from natty PB but those of you who may not like it...you may want to revisit it with this

http://www.smuckers.com/fg/pds/defau...=11&prodid=489

its so freakin good. and the macros are almost equivilant to the regular creamy.

Okay, I just got some organic peanut butter. It has less saturated fat, ingredients: peanuts and salt. I'm happy with that.

I got some plain nonfat yogurt. It's going to be a pain to prepare tho cuz it comes in a big tub. Any suggestions for this?

I'm sitting at these numbers:
196 grams of protein
212 grams of carbs
-74 grams of sugar
88.5 grams of fat
-12.5 grams of sat fat

This gives me 2438.5 calories NOT COUNTING my breakfast and dinner. I suppose a good target calorie-wise is 3200 calories (please correct me if I'm wrong). This means I need to get 761.5 caloreis in my cafeteria breakfast and dinner, or about 380 calories per those meals. Do you think this is achievable?

I'm going to attack the eggs/potatoes at breakfast and the pasta/rice at dinner for those carbs.

Are pancakes and waffles good breakfast foods? I think they wouldn't be but I'm not sure.