How much is too much

BlueSuitcase said:

Awesome, thanks for all your help. One more quick question, do
protein drinks really help much? I eat all the time and get alot of
protein already, but wasn't sure if maybe having a protein drink
could help even more.

First of all, unless you are eating breakfast there is no reason to
worry about any sort of fancy meal replacement or supplement. Eat
breakfast, the more the merrier. As an added bonus stick to things
that your grandmother would approve of. Oatmeal is great, eggs are
great. Heck, even a bowl of cereal is not so bad if you can tolerate
milk and you don't choose something like Captain Sucrose's Sugar
Bombs.

Protein drinks are handy for two reasons. They are a relatively
inexpensive way to get a good dose of protein, and they make it easy
to add one more meal to the day without having to cook up yet another
piece of meat. There's also quite a bit of research on the benefits
of whey protein in particular, but that's not really the point.

Of course, this only applies if the protein drink that you use is
relatively inexpensive. I got some at Costco that was something like
$0.21 a serving. This allows me to add a little over 40 grams of
protein to my diet for less than half a buck (two servings). All you
need is a shaker and some water (yes, it tastes better in milk and the
extra calories probably won't hurt in your case) and you have a
protein snack that's ready to go. If you currently weigh 150 lbs you
probably want to get at least 100 grams of protein a day, and you
probably want a *lot* more than that (Dmitri will probably chime in
and say that you only need to eat once a day, and that you can grow
muscle on a steady diet of grass and pollen, but don't listen to him
until you have tried eating 🙂.

If you are really motivated you can get an account of fitday.com and
feed it a list of everything you eat. You'll probably be surprised.
However, its far better to make a few good habits that you can live
with for the rest of your life than to try and do too much and decide
to give up after a month. In summary:

* Eat breakfast

* Don't goof around when you are supposed to be working out (get in,
get tired, get out)

* Keep a workout log

* Work your lower body hard (squats, deadlifts)

* Get lots of protein

* Get plenty of sleep

Don't forget to take pictures so you can remember how scrawny you used
to be 🙂.

Jason

BlueSuitcase said:

Hi, I am 17, somewhere a little over 150lbs and about 6'1". I work out
about an hour three days a week, I am still filling out and still
growing taller(though very slowly now). How much working out is too
much? And what would not be enough? Also I heard a rumour that if I
work out alot before I've filled out that by time I do fill out I could
have some nice sized muscles, is this true?

www.hypertrophy-specific.com

Jason Earl said:

If you currently weigh 150 lbs you probably want to get at least 100
grams of protein a day, and you probably want a *lot* more than that
(Dmitri will probably chime in and say that you only need to eat
once a day, and that you can grow muscle on a steady diet of grass
and pollen, but don't listen to him until you have tried eating 🙂.

My "steady diet" does involve meat:
http://home.nc.rr.com/netsink/veggies4526.jpg
(don't pay attention to the name of the file)

Quoted message said:

* Eat breakfast

Breakfast and lunch are overrated.

DZ said:

Jason Earl said:

If you currently weigh 150 lbs you probably want to get at least 100
grams of protein a day, and you probably want a *lot* more than that
(Dmitri will probably chime in and say that you only need to eat
once a day, and that you can grow muscle on a steady diet of grass
and pollen, but don't listen to him until you have tried eating 🙂.

My "steady diet" does involve meat:
http://home.nc.rr.com/netsink/veggies4526.jpg
(don't pay attention to the name of the file)

I was just getting in a bit of a preemptive strike. I knew that if I
recommended eating a lot of food to gain weight that you would be
likely to chime in with, "I only eat once a day and can do a
quadzillion muscle-ups." Don't get me wrong, the muscle-ups are very
impressive, and you have convinced me that your style of eating
probably has life extension benefits, but for a 17-year-old kid trying
to add weight I still believe that the key ingredient is lots and lots
of food and that breakfast is key.

Quoted message said:

Quoted message said:

* Eat breakfast

Breakfast and lunch are overrated.

To each his own. When I skip breakfast I pay for it all day long.

Jason