Bulking Up

After 26 weeks of contest preparation, low carb diets and tons of cardio it is finally time to eat. 

For the first couple of days after the last competition and the photo shoot, I was basically on a "seafood diet". I was eating all the food I would see. 

Ice cream, cookies, french fries, fruits, peanut butter, yogurt, Chinese food, sandwiches, bread, basically everything I was not allowed to eat for the past half year. 

While it felt great to finally have the freedom again to choose different foods and eat what I wanted, it kind of got old pretty soon and I was longing for the structure my contest diets provided me with. 

So after a couple of days of "binge eating", I sat down and created my "off-season/bulking" meal plan. This plan is based on my daily calorie requirements plus an additional 500 calories to grow.

It ended up being around 5,000 calories, which are split up into seven meals and spread out throughout the day with set eating times. 

Compared to my contest diets, I bumped up my daily caloric intake and  noticeably increased the amount of carbohydrates I eat daily. 

The plan is fairly stringent but not as "radical" as my pre-contest diets, since I allow myself 3-4 "cheat meals" per week and some not so healthy food snacks throughout the day.
To be accurate, this diet actually consists of two plans.
One meal plan for days that I lift weights at the gym and one plan for non-workout and cardio only days. Even though the daily caloric intake remains the same with around 5,000, the macros change significantly between the two plans. On actual workout days 35% of my daily calories come from protein, 53% from carbohydrates and around 12% from fat. I am trying to take advantage of my body's natural insulin cycle and time my carb intake accordingly. The majority of my carb is therefore consumed in the morning and right after my workout. Meal 6 and 7 do not contain any carbs. 

On non-workout days, the focus shifts from muscle hypertrophy to preventing additional body fat storage.  This is achieved by decreasing the carb intake to only 30% of the daily calories and bringing protein up to 42% and adding healthy fats. 

My main source of protein remains chicken but I have also added some more lean red meat to my diet and use whey protein for my pre-intra and post-workout shakes.

Brown rice, oats and yams, as well as white rice for my post-workout meal provide me with the necessary carbohydrates and healthy fats come from extra virgin oil, flaxseed oil and all natural peanut butter.
Two to four cups of green vegetables, such as spinach, broccoli, asparagus or green beans are added to meals in both plans. 

The plan is supposed to be an efficient, lean gain diet program intended to add lean muscle mass without too much body fat. 

Two weeks into the new diet and workout routine, it becomes obvious that this plan is an "off-season" plan and that some fat gain is inevitable. But with Summer gone and the beach/pool season over, I am more concerned about gaining mass and strength than maintaining my abs. Sorry folks!

So far my plan has worked out great. I gained almost 30 pounds since I stepped on stage August 25th and also made huge progress in the weight room. I am getting stronger week by week and, to my surprise, my abs are still visible, well, at least to some degree. Next week I will get a little bit more into detail about my current workout routine but that would be it for today.   

Well, time to eat again!