bulk diet advice

I've been following the below diet for a couple weeks now and I am unable to gain any weight

I'm 5'7'' and 60kg , and I do weight training 3 times a week (madcow 5x5) and cardio twice a week (40min walk or quick 2km run).

Below is the diet i'm using (besides the oats, ive added them today and hope they will help me gain weight).

Breakfest:

2 cups of milk
2 pieces of bread
1 cup of oats

Shake:

1 cup of oats
1 scoop of whey protein
3 egg whites
2 cups of milk
1 banana

Lunch:

1 cup of broccoli
2 cups of potato
1/2 chicken breast
1 cup of grapejuice with a teaspoon of creatine

Shake (post work):

1 cup of oats
1 scoop of whey protein
3 egg whites
2 cups of milk
1 banana

Snack:

1 protein bar (home made with oats etc)
2 cups of milk

Dinner:

1 cup of broccoli
2 cups of potato
1/2 chicken breast
2 cups of milk

Before Bed:

1 protein bar
2 cups of milk

--

Any advice/tips would be great!

Hi Dude,

The addition of oats will be a great help to your bulk diet (or any diet) and they will really help you. It would have looked pretty sparse without them in my opinion. Some things I find great for bulking are nuts and natural peanut butter (lots of good non-saturated fat as well as protein).

For my breakfast I have a big shake with blueberries, oats, big spoon of natural peanut butter, 2 scoops of protein and some honey (low gi energy). This is a great way to start your day and should set you up with plenty of energy.

It looks like you have another shake between breakfast and lunch for morning tea. Try replacing this with whole food. I have a can of tuna, a heap of almonds and a little protein powder mixed with water for morning tea. The tuna is good for protein and and good fats. The protein powder probably isn't essential I just use it to make sure I get my protein per meal upto 30 grams.

Your lunch looks pretty good. Maybe try replacing the potato with sweet potato. If you don't like sweet potato mash it up with normal potato and ad a little salt. I'd probably have a little more than half a chicken breast at lunch but I weigh a fair bit more so this should be fine for the time being.

Try to save your protein shakes for first thing in the morning and post workout and also possibly before bed. Before bed I have a small protein shake and some cottage cheese for slow release protein. Natural yoghart is also good.

These things should definately help you bulk. I would pretty much cut your cardio out all together. I know you probably want to stay fit but at your weight you can't really afford to be burning extra calories. Also I'm not sure at the exact times you eat, but I try to eat every three hours. My day looks something like this.

7.00am Breakfast Shake with Blueberries, natural peanut butter, oats, honey and protein powder
10.00am Tuna and Almonds and sometimes protein in water
1.00pm Lunch - Chicken with peas and corn and brown rice
4.00-5.00pm - Tuna, Almonds, Large Banana (I eat this over the course of an hour usually to carb up before my workout at 6.30.
6.00pm - Pre-workout drink
7.30pm - Shake with WPI/WPC Blend and Dextrose
8.00pm - Dinner, similar to lunch
10.30pm - Shake and cottage cheese

I put on weight pretty quickly on that diet. You should be able to experience some excellent newbie gains with a similar diet and the 5 x 5 program. Always have a bulk bag of nuts in your draw or your car to snack on the run if you've missed a meal or you feel hungry.

All the best

At a guess, you're consuming over 4,000 cal and 150g protein daily. So that should be plenty, about 50% more than you need.

You didn't mention your age, younger people's bodies consume more stuff just sitting around, then it would be just right.

It's only been a couple of weeks, it takes some months to see strong gains.

Usually in the first few weeks, you're not really training very hard because your body's just learning the movements. It's like how when you first kick and footy or swing a cricket bat, you can't send the ball very far because you haven't yet learned the best way to do that. In the same way, when you first bench or curl or squat, you're not using all your strength.

So your muscles aren't being fully worked out, which means they're not strained, which means they don't ask the body for materials to grow - so all that extra stuff you consumed gets pissed and pooed out.

In fact, you can probably forget about the protein powder, and certainly the creatine. All the rest will provide you with enough fuel and material to grow. When you're just beginning, you don't need to go crazy with all that stuff, just a normal healthy diet with a bit extra bananas or milk or whatever to give you the workout energy is enough.

I would say give it about two months of regular training and good eating and see how you go.

Best of luck!

Thanks for the advice guys.

I'm going to head off to the shops and grab some nuts, yogurt, sweet potato and some more fruit.

I'd say eat more fat, eat some junk too, it won't hurt.

raw eggs are useless
cook your eggs
eat the yolks too (good cholesterol) and good for bulking