Low Filling Foods:

1. Bagels – Cinnamon raisin bagels are my favorite. They go great with peanut butter. I personally can eat two of these bagels pretty easily for breakfast and have never found them that filling for some reason. The calorie break down is pretty high. 2 Bagels = 500 Calories. 4 Tbsp of Peanut Butter = 400 Calories. Add a glass of whole milk for 300 more calories and you’ve got a really nice 1200 calorie breakfast. A great way to start out the weight gaining day.
2. Steak – Steak is loaded with protein and almost no carbohydrates, little fat as well. This definitely wont help you gain fat weight, however it WILL help you gain heaps of muscle mass. A 1lb steak can have 80 grams of protein in it. You’d have to drink a gigantic thick and gross shake to get that many normally. Best of all I have no problem getting a 1.25lb steak down. Red meat always seems to be less filling that many other foods.
3. Hot Dogs – Did you know 1 hot dog (+ bun) can have 300 easy calories in it. Eat two of these to get 600 calories, drink some milk and you’ve got an easy 900 calorie lunch. 2 hotdogs used to fill me, but after some stomach stretching I easily got to a point where I could eat 3 and sometimes 4 in one meal
4. 

   Burger King Buck Double

   The Buck Double at Burger King. Just one of these bad boys has 750 calories in it. Its pretty easy to eat two of these plus a drink giving you close to 1800 calories in one sitting. Only costs $2.00 too

Things I stay away from:

1. Pizza… For some reason I have trouble eating more than 3 slices of pizza before feeling bloated and nasty. Plus its hard to drink milk with pizza cause they just don’t go well together. Pizza actually doesn’t have very many calories in it for how full it can make you feel (unless you are one of those crazy guys that can down an entire pizza on your own).
2. Chicken Nuggets (like McDonnalds). These have a high fullness factor while having relatively low amount of calories. 600 calories of McNuggets completely fills me, where I could have over 1000 if I got burgers instead.

Feel Free to comment with your own!

Being a server at a restaurant is extremely stressful. You are CONSTANTLY multitasking, queuing up tasks for 3 or more tables in your head CONSTANTLY, running around doing things CONSTANTLY, not a moment to stop and chat… And then you have to put up with assholes that are impossible to please…

I don’t care how much you breath deeply, meditate, or count to 10, your eyes will twitch, your heart beat will increase, you’ll tense up your muscles unconsciously, keep your fists clenched, your shoulders up tight, and IDK how much Swearing burns calories but I’m sure its a lot.

Its just plain damn stressful!

I did make a shitload of money doing it, its probably the best paying part time job a college student can get averaging $15 an hour in tips alone at a modestly priced chain restaurant…. BUT I HATED IT!

I have a new job now, a job I love, everyday is fun and going to work is no longer work. I am never stressed, I am always relaxed… And guess what, I am gaining 1lbs a week on 2500 calories a day at 135lbs and counting… (Actually currently at 139.5lbs )

Moral of the story there are other parts of your life that interfere with your bodybuilding that you may not even realize. You might have to take some time getting other parts of your life in order before you can jump into improving your body. Fix all your annoying little problems and you might find bodybuilding becomes much more naturally.

orange juice and cream

So you are sick of drinking milk, you need a break from it, but you still need a high calorie drink to gain weight. Well lately I’ve been craving orange juice, for some reason, but its hard to make the calorie sacrifice when I can be getting double the calories from milk… So what can I do?

Well here’s the recipe for a solution: Just add some 1/2 and 1/2 or cream to your milk. Remember those Popsicles Tropicana used to make that were vanilla with a coating of frozen orange juice on top? They are friggin’ delicious, well anyways that’s what your orange juice will taste like when you add 1/2 and 1/2 or cream to it. Not too much, but just a few tablespoons can bump up the weight gain ability by 100 calories or so, so use it at your own discretion until you think it tastes right.

And you still get the satisfying fruity refreshing taste of orange juice. Let me know what you think once you try this orange juice recipe.

ready to drink protein shake

Protein Shakes are

• Nasty
• Kinda Expensive
• Thick and Nasty
• Leave you feeling bloated
• Convenience is the only pro I can think of

Steak is

• Delicious
• Low in Fat
• Extremely dense in protein
• Did I mention delicious?

So a Guy at my gym was drinking these things (over on the right). It’s a $4.00 (outrageous!) ready-to-drink can of flavored protein drink, readily available at GNC… A 12 pack will run you about $50.00, which in my opinion is INSANE! I guess this works out to roughly 8 cents per gram of protein. I can see convenience working in as a reason to have this

Rare Grilled Steak

stuff, but a diet high in meat should render it obsolete. I mean, just tonight, I went down to the grocery store and picked up a nice steak for $3.00 that has 75 Grams of Protein in it… The math on this one is 4 cents per gram of protein. The protein in a steak costs 1/2 as much as the stuff in that nasty can (this is actually one of the cheapest one’s I’ve found lately, usually its not more than $1.50 more though). Could he not wait to get home, fire up the grill and throw on a steak? I usually have time I guess if you are in a huge hurry all of the time you might need the nasty shakes.

But I have another point. People today seem to think getting enough protein is all about supplements and shakes, but it doesn’t have to be! Eat a few eggs at breakfast with some ham, toast and peanut butter, make milk your primary beverage throughout the day, have a meaty sandwich at lunch, and have a steak at dinner, and you are easily at 150 grams of protein in one day without even trying, without consuming one shake! Just eat more meat! Its really low in carbs, low in fats when its not fried; making hamburger patties at home on the grill with lean hamburger is another good source! I think people have forgotten how healthy meat is these days. Meat get a bad rap.

To further push against shakes, the amount of carbs and sugars shakes are usually loaded up with, at the end of the day, will usually transfer to a net amount of fat gain much higher than steak or any relatively lean meat in general. That shake may only say 8 grams of fat, but when you look down and it says 250 grams of total carbohydrates and another 50 grams of sugar (extreme case, read on), you know that’s just going to metabolize into fat anyways! And at that point, the everything comes back down to that single equation, are your calories in greater than your calories out (or vice versa)… Even some of the leanest ” PURE Whey Protein” powders will still struggle to hit the protein : net fat ratio of even some non-lean cuts of meat.

Just something to consider before you start downing shakes like crazy!

This post is dedicated to meat.

Oh well, progress can officially resume now.

Here’s how the night that made me quite went: I went out to the bars with my buddies on a Saturday night last weekend. I knew I didn’t want to drink much because I know I get hungover easily, so I paced myself reasonably well. Over the course of 4 hours I had 4 beers, that’s all. The resulting hangover was torture and its effects lasted for 3 days. Sunday morning I was completely crippled and confined to locations where I could lay down and pull my knees to my chest. I was dry heaving for hours. My appetite had completely gone for the entire day, and I _maybe_ got down 500 calories total. My appetite still had not returned for Monday or even Tuesday, It was impossible to force myself to eat enough to gain weight.

Finally today, Wednesday, I am feeling relatively normal. I finally got back into the gym, but I was barely able to repeat the sets:weight amount I had done my previous workout. After I checked my weight on the scale and found I had lost 2lbs!….  And for hard gainers, getting those two pounds back doesn’t come easily. It has set me back, probably 2 whole weeks.This isn’t the first time something like this has happened either.

I do stay hydrated, I’ve tried the oldest tricks in the books to avoid getting a hangover, my only explanation now is that maybe I’m somehow allergic to it? Maybe my great great grandparents hooked up with some Inuits a long time ago and I inherited the alcohol intolerance gene.

And that’s how I decided that enough was enough. If I want to continue making bodybuilding progress as fast as I want, I’d need to completely give up alcohol… Not that I particularly enjoyed drinking that much in the first place.

And so I move on. Have you ever given up anything in order to pursue fitness goals?

I work at Romano’s Macaroni Grill part time and our dishes vary hugely in their amount of calories. Some are as little as 500 calories, some are over 1500 calories, usually with little price difference.

It will be much more convenient to have the calories listed right in the normal menu rather than having to hunt down a nutrition menu or just guess how many calories I’m eating. Some restaurants don’t even have nutrition menu’s which makes calorie counting very aggravating!

Everyone who counts calories should be in favor of this right?

One of the dishes at the Macaroni Grill, the “Parmigiana Crusted Sole” has 1700 calories in it, and its not very filling… Its a mid-priced dish too. I wonder how it will effect consumer behavior /  the amount of people that order it once they see they are consuming 85% of their daily calories in one sitting!

New Progress Pictures will be up tonight.

I’ve broken the 135lb barrier, finally! I think I’ll be ready for updated progress pictures pretty soon. Once I hit 136lbs I’ll definitely post an updated picture.

I’ve also definitely settled into my new routine. Its taken about 5 complete rounds of the 4 day routine to completely get the hang of everything. With the new exercises I had to find the right weights to hit failure at the right number of reps… And honestly it takes a while… But I’m definitely on track now. I’m hitting muscle failure right around where I should be and slowly increasing the weights with each exercise.

Good things, good things. I think I’ve definitely got a good summer beach body on the way. I hope to look amazing by June. There’s no room left for any more slacking!

Each packet contains 400 calories and 5 grams of protein. I like to make mine as the instructions say, and then strain all the juice out and just eat the noodles. Ramen Noodles are really quick to make and are a great non-filling high calorie snack. You can get this stuff even cheaper if you check out your local Sam’s Club or Costco and buy it in bulk.

This is definitely a great calorie booster to eat during the day. Two of these packets leave me able to keep eating more, they definitely have low fullness factor. My personal favorite is Chicken Flavor.