Category: Diet

You can eat a lot of calories in america.

This is why obesity exists.

Low calorie healthy clean foods are basically impossible to eat too much of, too high calorie with.

Nutritious, but dirtier foods allow you to get in a higher number of calories.

For example :
2000 calories of frozen pizza or mozzarella sticks is so easy to put down that “not being able to eat enough” is seen as a joke.

To a degree I’ve found lower quality to be easier to eat in higher quantity.

Again look to the obese.

Certain cookies end up being something you can eat 1500+ calories of and not even notice you ate.

Like how people describe being hungry half an hour after having eaten chinese food.

Milk can be drank with every meal and go unnoticed.

This holds true for drinking calories, though it’s best to stick with milk and juice here.

I’m no longer big on saying “drink a 2 liter”, no longer suggesting soda for easy extra calories.

I don’t like how drinking high fructose corn syrup makes me feel.

I sense it slowing me down mentally and physically.

However, every obese grocery shopper looks to be drinking at least a two liter a day.

It is calories.

You know the stereotype of the scooter rider close to tipping it reaching for a soda?

I’ve actually seen that. 400lbs without locomotion had the coke at her fingertips, a half dozen two liters in the basket, the scooter starting to tip.

That woman’s cart cart just showed how easy junk food is to get down.

And when it comes to how and how much you get down some stuff is downright weird…

Stew :

I couldn’t eat enough pork or beef stew to bulk, it fills me quickly, but I can eat dessert before it (see the cookie example above), and am able to eat more stew if it’s over a pack of ramen.

Say the stew by itself is equal to 5 parts. Say the ramen is equal to 2 parts. When I mix those I end up eating 8.5 parts, able to eat 6.5 parts of stew once I’ve added the 2 parts of the ramen, but filled by 5 parts of the stew if it was stew alone.

I’ve found the same principle with chili over baked potato over ramen in three ingredients instead of two.

Go read the JM Blakley articles on bulking, you get to some weird food combinations at times, and really can always add calories in some manner.

I’ve poured heavy cream in place of milk over cereal. That’s a before dinner snack.

No meat on hand? Peanut butter and cheese melt nicely into top ramen.

You can easily slam an egg shake after any meal.

And to lose weight, the opposites :

Eggs drank before a meal with a brief period in between.

Small portions of stew alone, a few times a day instead of a huge bowl or two in the evening.

Real Fast Food Breakfast Options For Bodybuilding :

Here’s some real food, quick things you can do when crunched for time instead of partaking in fast food in the morning.

Precooked Bacon:

Now amongst those who eat breakfast are many who go through drive thrus.

This is entirely unnecessary. There are better options.

The time excuse doesn’t apply, and these are better nutritional options to boot.

The grocery store sells precooked bacon.

I always knew this since in 2nd grade I’d often have bacon on the sandwich I brought to school, while being able to count on one hand how many times my mom fried bacon up over my childhood.

It’s a lot pricier than if you cook it for yourself, but it’s only $4 or $5 for a box, can be eaten off once or twice, and is no worse on your wallet than a drive thru would be.

It’s a lot cheaper than trying to pull something keto off through a breakfast menu though.

Bacon is a natural energy bar.
Precooked bacon shines this way.

OJ Ala Rocky :

Now I’ve talked before about egg shakes.

This is a simple preparation, and the most breakfast like of the variants.

“OJ Ala Rocky”

OJ Ala Rocky is something I did one day, initially to keep noise down in the middle of the night.

I thought orange juice may hide the egg well enough, and could be quickly stirred instead of running a blender.

It can.
Though this is something I discovered in the middle of the night, it’s traditional breakfast foods, and I find easily stomached.

A TALL glass, fill it mostly with oj (I prefer pulp, but use whatever is on hand), then crack 3-5 eggs, and stir.

Then you down it.
Rinse the cup, give your hands a quick wash.

A nutritional breakfast taken care of in 90 seconds.

You could put it in a shaker cup, take it on the go, I drink it at the sink.

There ya go,
-J

persistenceandtenacity.com

It’s really not expensive to eat well on even the most restrictive of budgets.

It’s one of america’s strong suits.

Every third week or so pasta is on sale for under $1/lb. I figure each pound, with fixings is 3 or 4 dinners. Just buy 4 or 6 packages every sale, it’s about $5.

Now pasta is a carb, dry beans I count as a protein, and they too are often $1/lb, garbanzo beans being the only one I pay more for at about $1.35/lb.

(And the garbanzo beans are worth that extra cost.)

A pound of dry beans once cooked is enough for a week’s worth of dinners.

Veggies? 2 bags of mixed vegetables is $2-3 weekly added to the total.

In all honesty though I’d probably skip the veggies and buy another pound of beans, and a pound chicken thigh instead.

With the veggies you’re at 7 dinners for about $7 here, nutritious enough, but lacking the animal.

Adding in the animal, this is where the cost is racked up.

2lbs ground beef – the fatty one – $6
2lbs kielbasa – $7
3lbs chicken thigh – <$5

The pasta, bean, veggie base, with a pound of meat each day – $25/weekly for all the dinners.

Intermittent fasting, and you’re good.

But you want more calories, okay,
½ gallon of milk daily.

Round up to 4 gallons a week, it’s under $12 anywhere in the country.
Shit, I’ve seen it for less than $6.
That one walmart was selling gallons for $1.47, groceries were ridiculously affordable there.

25+12 = $37 weekly for a good dinner every night, including a pound of meat and ½ gallon of milk.

$13 minimally left on a $50 a week budget, eggs come next.

Say 4 dozen eggs, probably $6.
Ice cream is anabolic – 1 tub, $3.

$4 remaining.

brick of cheese – $2
generic poptarts – $1

Put the extra $1, though probably closer to $5 as I rounded up every time, back into the future “I’m frickin hungry” fund.

Buy sticks of butter with it.

This did bring you to ~4000 nutritious calories a day, completely on $50/week, a food stamp budget.

A Dietary Lesson Taught By Children :

I remember eating breakfast platters, I would’ve been around 4 years old, I wanted the one with the most sausage links and strips of bacon.

You get four. I remember thinking my father and the server the coolest people ever for letting me have two of each instead of one or the other.

I loved sausage links, but this was the only place I’d have bacon.

Two of each, once they even got me three and one.

The problem was the four pieces of fatty meat would be gone one french toast slice or so in.

Four pieces of meat per bread unit always sounded correct. I said so as a little kid.

“Excuse me, this platter needs eight sausage links and four strips of bacon.”

First the meat was gone.
Then the eggs.
Followed by the “main course” of french toast or pancakes smothered in butter, and doused in maple syrup.
Lastly I’d be scarfing down the toast with at least one jelly of every flavor, some butters, and peanut butter packets if they too were available.

As a kid given the opportunity it’s fatty meat first, working your way down to sugar and grain, attempting to fill yourself with that since the adults for some reason thought proper eating was in the opposite direction of nutrients, and you were still hungry.

You don’t know the science behind this as a kid, yet as a kid I clearly intuited it.

I did the same a few years older often opting out of dinner at grandma’s house friday night (a massive salad “rewarded” with some rice, hopefully white rice as brown rice hurt my stomach, and the tiniest bit of lean chicken or otherwise fish, the fish I liked and forced my way through the preceding course to), knowing I’d get some milk with breakfast, and hoping we’d go out, do something, then eat out, where a pizza or burger gave me what I craved.

You’re born intuiting this.

Children get it.

Adults often forget it, then opt into the opposite. They then have health problems.

Lunacy.

Trust your gut.
Trust your instincts.

It’ll never lead you astray.

Saturated fat is the most important, though you’ll fill yourself with carbs when you must, and even then fruit sugar is preferred.

And you prefer smothering grain in fruit sugar, and saturated fat, instead of having it plain whenever possible.

The Donuts & Massive Volume Of PT Weekend :

From The Archives :
8/15/18

Though I’ve alluded to this tale before, it came up in conversation today, so thus I write it :

At the time (2015) I was going to this small church, they’d have donuts and coffee after mass, and often sent my roommate and I home with the leftover donuts.

For some reason they had a massive amount of donuts that weekend, they’d offered them, and we accepted…about 10 dozen donuts.

From Saturday evening until Monday night or maybe Tuesday morning I and my roommate ate almost naught but donuts.

We’d split it 50/50 initially but near the end he looked at me and went “dude I’m sick of donuts you can have the rest.

In a little over 2 days I ate ~6.5 dozen donuts, a few cans of tuna, and drank a decent amount of milk and cream soda.

Mad scientist like I tried an experiment.

I did 1000+ pushups daily, swam a bunch, and did a bunch of other calisthenics and isometrics (maybe some jump rope too) for the 2 days of eating massive junk.

I distinctly remember eating 8 donuts 4x one day and immediately going and hitting volume pushups after each and every feeding.

That weekend saw an impressive short term change in build.

Ones upper body isn’t supposed to beef up that quickly.

I simply gave my body a massive energy supply of easily digested stuff, and burnt through it via super high volume.

Taking in a some protein while timing sugar very well in relation to physicality.

I wouldn’t suggest eating like that without the requisite high activity.

It’s just another memory of throwing gym rules and reason to the wayside and having good shit happen because of it.

-J

Stay tuned for a related idea of dietary wackiness.

(↑ I wonder what I meant in 2018 there. I know now – linkage.)

The above photo is of soldiers from the various countries of the eight nation alliance during the boxer rebellion.

The photo taken in 1900, I find it an interesting depiction of human stature at the time.

From left to right are soldiers from Great Britain, America, Australia, India, Germany, France, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Japan.

No Russian soldier is present, and the Indian soldier technically is British military at the time.

It’s surprising that the Brit is taller than the American.

Americans by way of food abundance tended to be the tallest worldwide.

With sergeant stripes that Brit may have come from a more well fed background then the lower classes in England.

The Australian is near the American and Brit in height, this makes sense, all three likely share genetic background. Plus Australia had good access to meat despite money as compared to Brits across the board via economic class.

I have to wonder if as they formed up height was determined by headgear, not true height.

The German seems bigger than the Indian in build, while only slightly shorter due to height of their respective covers.

Germans at the time were not known as giants though in strongman they produced some.

Their stature improved by WW2. Americans after WW2.

You see that height amongst Europeans varied considerably at that point in time.

This is mostly related to the economics of food. America and Australia had much better access to affordable meat by being big ranching nations.

The stereotypes we have of who is short are somewhat seen in this photo.

Next to Japan the shortest is the Italian, and I’ve met barely 5′ Italian adults.

From this photo to the year 2000 stature likely increased most amongst the Japanese, and shrunk the most amongst the Indians.

It would be useful to know the rank of each soldier pictured so as to conclude food access.

Still on the tall side you had good access to meat, and on the short side grain centric diets.

I wonder how small the average boxer soldier was in comparison being their economic situation was worse than neighboring Japan’s in addition to their nation having a rampart opium problem.

Having eaten a small amount of pasta, I spent the rest of the day gassy.

It’s strange, certain shapes of pasta affect me differently than others, some I stomach fine, and others I do not.

Ramen, the least expensive noodle, is fine. Some pasta is fine. Some pasta is not.

When it comes to diet trust your gut.

If something doesn’t sit right, listen to your gut, don’t eat it.

Going to school my stomach was always off.

Why? Because cooked oats, despite being considered a top choice for breakfast, don’t sit well with me in the morning.

I find they’re best used raw, fried into eggs which becomes a fried oat & egg pancake, or as an ingredient in egg shakes.

Your body knows itself better then your brain thinks.

You crave what is necessary when it is necessary.

Your body tells you when and what you need to eat. And it lets you know when it disagrees with your choices.

Digestion is improved when you follow your gut.

Do not listen to conditioned belief, listen to your gut.

Heavy is not the way to eat in the morning.

Fasting provides whole day energy.

Don’t eat before bed?
Ha! Feast before bed!

Follow your instincts. Trust your gut.

Persistence & Tenacity

Immediately before bed I’m eating.

Cheese and crackers, sometimes with peanut butter, sometimes with a little meat, and drinking milk with it.

It’s funny off the top of my head the word escapes me.

Like Sherlock Holmes and unnecessary details, at the moment I’m not coming up with it.

“Watson what care I whether the earth revolves around the sun or the sun round the earth – it does not help me in my work!”

(The one time Watson got to go “why it’s elementary my dear Sherlock”.)

The further I get into bodybuilding the more this applies to minutia.

The slow releasing dairy protein, starts with a c.

At 16 I could tell you the exact details, at 26 I realize it doesn’t matter.

Whey is said to be fast digesting, this is slow digesting.

It’s what the protein in cheese is, and it makes up a good percentage of the protein in milk.

Before bed? I figure slow digesting is perfect.

Casein, that’s what it is!
(I looked it up.)

I can reason out what I’m instinctively craving.

The night hours are when my body is building up.

Feeding it good stuff is the thing to do.

I fall asleep easier, sleep deep, and take a shit upon waking.

The before bed meal has been working well for me.

I’m recomping, and getting stronger.

Conventional knowledge says don’t eat before bed. I find it to the best time to eat, especially when it’s the right foods.

Eat cheese and crackers before bed with a few tall glasses of milk.

Good to go.

Casein before bed.

Bulking is a simple and straight forward task.

It’s not hard.
In fact, it’s easy.

The high school and college aged guys failing at it are most generally cases of paralysis by analysis.

This is so often the case that you must move forward assuming that you are not a special snowflake.

You’re not an exception to the rule.

You can get bigger. Thus far you have been failing to do what is necessary to do so.

For all those struggling to bulk, I’ve written out the mathematical equation for you.

May seeing it “click” what is necessary for you.

I call it “the sumo equation”.

The Sumo Equation :

Lots Of Food + Hard Training + Good Sleep = A Veritable Giant

Persistence & Tenacity