I am fairly new to this page so please excuse me if there are any repetitions. I am 16 years old and weigh around 120 lbs, as you can tell I am fairly skinny. I just wanted to know what I can do in order to gain mass and build muscle, even if its a long process I am prepared for the challenge. At the moment I eat 3 meals a day (breakfast, lunch and dinner) and I also drink 2% milk at least 2 times a day. I also take some supplements like mass gainer. I do a lot of cardio due to the fact that I play soccer almost every single day for at least 2 hours. I just wanted to know a diet plan I can follow in order and a work out plan to follow, to bulk up and have a physique similar to Cristiano Ronaldo in the future. Any help would be much appreciated. Thanks!
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Sport Diet
- Thread starter Thushanth
- Start date
Sport Fitness
There is no way to give a definate diet plan online, please view those who do with extreme caution. What I can do is give you some very basic guidance ot avoid you making some of the most common mistakes like high protein, low carbs.
The human animal is designed to get most energy from starch (complex carbs) so don't view them as the bad guys in your diet.
The ideal balance of calorific balance for the average person is 60-65% carbs (5% or less sugars 95% plus starch), 25% lipids (fats and oils), 17.5% protein. Activity and genetics will have an effect on this but you shouldn't be dramatically far from this.
Protein is very important for muscle gains but there are a few things the maximum supplement crew tend not to mention that encourage people to consume masses more of it than needed.
Only 17 grams of protein can be absorbed in one go, 25 just after exercise, a meal or drink with more than this will mean some of it not getting into your system at all unless you consume it very slowly.
Eating more protein than you need doesn't mean more muscle excess protein will either be stored as fat or disposed of as urea.
All this said I do tend to advise eating a little more (emphasis on little) than you need, the body will be able to burn of the extra fat if you are training hard anyway.
For easy balance look at a few images of food pyramids, ignore serving numbers just look at proportions. There is variation but they give you a generally sensible and safe balance. Use these as a simple guide rather than absolute truth, they arent perfect but after many years looking into nutrition I found they are one of the best high level systems I could see.
Accept imperfection. You will not consume exactly the right number of calories, milligrams of core nutrients, micrograms of vitamins and trace minerals every day. This is not failure, your body has been adapting to deal with dramatic seasonal changes in food for millions of years so getting it 90% or more right daily is plenty good enough as long as that 10% isn't eating raw sugar or arsenic.
More frequent intake of food is generally better for training especially when trying to add mass. I tend to regard myself as having one meal a day, with breaks for training and sleeping. Despite many requests for guidance no-one has come up with a way to eat while sleeping, very disappointing. It's easier to consume more small meals than fewer large ones and this means there is always fuel in your system for training. This is not totally crucial so if you can't do it don't worry, it's an ideal not a requirement.
To gain mass you need to eat more of everything. There will be more protein needed to repair damaged tisue, enable growth, metabolise other food etc. but more activity requires more energy first and foremost so ram the starchy carbs in with gusto. Your diet should be add more of x or y it should be shovel in more of the overall balance.
You need calorific excess for weight gain so switch the spoon for a shovel and keep eating. There are tools you can use to calculate the approximate amount of calories you are burning with different activities, they like most things are only a guid but they are better than pure guess work. Try working out what you need and adding a few hundred spare calories a day, see how it goes.
The amount of food I eat in a day shocks many people because I don't look big enough to need it but when they consider that a simple 5.4 mile run, my lowest intensity training, I do 3 times a week burns over 730 calories it soon becomes apparent why I need the food.
Training wise check out the sticky from Goldfish in Youth Athlete development. He is very good on generic training which means it works for virtually everyone alive.
The human animal is designed to get most energy from starch (complex carbs) so don't view them as the bad guys in your diet.
The ideal balance of calorific balance for the average person is 60-65% carbs (5% or less sugars 95% plus starch), 25% lipids (fats and oils), 17.5% protein. Activity and genetics will have an effect on this but you shouldn't be dramatically far from this.
Protein is very important for muscle gains but there are a few things the maximum supplement crew tend not to mention that encourage people to consume masses more of it than needed.
Only 17 grams of protein can be absorbed in one go, 25 just after exercise, a meal or drink with more than this will mean some of it not getting into your system at all unless you consume it very slowly.
Eating more protein than you need doesn't mean more muscle excess protein will either be stored as fat or disposed of as urea.
All this said I do tend to advise eating a little more (emphasis on little) than you need, the body will be able to burn of the extra fat if you are training hard anyway.
For easy balance look at a few images of food pyramids, ignore serving numbers just look at proportions. There is variation but they give you a generally sensible and safe balance. Use these as a simple guide rather than absolute truth, they arent perfect but after many years looking into nutrition I found they are one of the best high level systems I could see.
Accept imperfection. You will not consume exactly the right number of calories, milligrams of core nutrients, micrograms of vitamins and trace minerals every day. This is not failure, your body has been adapting to deal with dramatic seasonal changes in food for millions of years so getting it 90% or more right daily is plenty good enough as long as that 10% isn't eating raw sugar or arsenic.
More frequent intake of food is generally better for training especially when trying to add mass. I tend to regard myself as having one meal a day, with breaks for training and sleeping. Despite many requests for guidance no-one has come up with a way to eat while sleeping, very disappointing. It's easier to consume more small meals than fewer large ones and this means there is always fuel in your system for training. This is not totally crucial so if you can't do it don't worry, it's an ideal not a requirement.
To gain mass you need to eat more of everything. There will be more protein needed to repair damaged tisue, enable growth, metabolise other food etc. but more activity requires more energy first and foremost so ram the starchy carbs in with gusto. Your diet should be add more of x or y it should be shovel in more of the overall balance.
You need calorific excess for weight gain so switch the spoon for a shovel and keep eating. There are tools you can use to calculate the approximate amount of calories you are burning with different activities, they like most things are only a guid but they are better than pure guess work. Try working out what you need and adding a few hundred spare calories a day, see how it goes.
The amount of food I eat in a day shocks many people because I don't look big enough to need it but when they consider that a simple 5.4 mile run, my lowest intensity training, I do 3 times a week burns over 730 calories it soon becomes apparent why I need the food.
Training wise check out the sticky from Goldfish in Youth Athlete development. He is very good on generic training which means it works for virtually everyone alive.
Food supplements should be avoided as much as possible, consuming food in their natural form is best for any diet plan.
Don't "diet", just eat healthy. You should eat protein rich food and Exercise every day for about 45 mins. Avoid soda's, juice, gum, sweets and eat lots of veggies, fresh fruit etc. You can take coffee which is a powerful anti-oxidant, which is important for your recovery from exercise and overall immune health. Also, coffee mobilizes free fatty acids, which can then be oxidized during exercises.
Don't "diet", just eat healthy. You should eat protein rich food and Exercise every day for about 45 mins. Avoid soda's, juice, gum, sweets and eat lots of veggies, fresh fruit etc. You can take coffee which is a powerful anti-oxidant, which is important for your recovery from exercise and overall immune health. Also, coffee mobilizes free fatty acids, which can then be oxidized during exercises.
can't agree anymore, eat healthy,do sports!