Myth 1: You need to eat every two hours.
Meal timing is largely irrelevant to body composition and gaining weight. You should focus on getting enough total calories in and meeting your macros for the day. For optimal nutrient partitioning I would try to eat the majority of my calories and carbs post workout but if you can’t it’s not the end of the world.
Visit www.leangains.com and you can find hundreds of people who have successfully put on 2lbs or more of lean body mass per month while fasting for 16 hours each day.
Myth 2: You can eat whatever you want.
Don’t use bulking to justify poor eating habits.
For each pound of fat you gain during your bulk you’ve added an extra 7-10 days of cutting in order to reach your ideal physique. So it’s up to you. Eat twinkies, donuts, fast food and get fat. Or maintain some discipline and get jacked.
Myth 3: You need to spend a lot of time in the gym
Your workouts should be focused on quality and not quantity. The guy who spends 45 minutes on compound movements(presses, squats, deadlifts, pullups, rows) will make more gains in both strength and size than the guy who spends two hours doing isolation work(bicep curls, etc.).
As a natural athlete trying to put on weight you need to focus on heavy compound full-body workouts. Starting strength 5×5 is a fantastic program and I recommend it for everyone that’s getting started in the gym.
Compound movements produce far more “bang for your buck.” They will ensure that you develop a well-rounded and solid foundation of muscle. They also elicit positive hormonal changes(increase in testosterone and more release of growth hormone). More hormones, more muscle.
Myth 4: You need a protein shake post workout
Protein shakes are a godsend for those who find it difficult to hit their daily protein goals through solid meals. They are also useful as a meal substitute when you’re short on time.
Supplement companies would have you believe that if you’ll go catabolic if you don’t immediately drink whey protein post workout. The truth is that while the post workout meal is still important it is not nearly as catastrophic to miss as supplement companies would have you believe.
Physiologically there is a window of a few hours post workout where nutrients that you take in get preferentially partitioned to your muscles. This means that amino acids and glucose eaten post workout will be more likely to be used to repair and replenish your muscle stores rather than being stored as bodyfat. This is why good trainers will tell you to fit a large portion of your daily calories into your post workout meal.
The only people that truly need to drink fast digesting protein and high GI carbs immediately post workout are those who need to replenish their muscle glycogen as quickly as possible. These people generally fall into the category of competitive endurance athletes. Endurance athletes who may need to perform back to back glycogen depleting exercises.
For those of us that have 24+ hours to recover from our workouts the speed of digestion of our post workout meal really has very little impact on our recovery. Therefore if it’s convenient for you drink some protein. If not don’t worry about it. It is by no means necessary.
Myth 5: Cardio will hurt your gains
Let me preface this by saying that this subject is complicated. The type, duration, and intensity of the cardio you’re doing combined with your quality of rest and nutrition all determine whether or not the cardio portion of your workout will hinder your gains.
Let’s focus on how to integrate cardio into your workouts in order to maximize your gains.
First you need to ensure that your cardio isn’t interfering with your weight lifting sessions. For example you wouldn’t want to run 5 miles the day before a heavy squat workout. The running would compromise your leg strength. This loss of strength would cause you to perform poorly in your squat session thus leading to less strength gains and less hypertrophy overall.
The best time to fit cardio in is immediately after a weight lifting session.
Be creative. Focus on high intensity interval training(HIIT). HIIT is superior to steady state cardio(jogging) across every measure of fitness. HIIT improves your VO2 max, your aerobic fitness, and your anaerobic strength. It also burns up to eight times more fat than steady state cardio. CrossFit has a great variety of high intensity interval circuits you can perform in 4-8 minutes that will improve both your aerobic and anaerobic fitness.
Myth 6: You just “can’t eat enough.”
This is just an excuse. And a bad one. Man up. Eat more!
If you’re not gaining weight then it all comes down to the fact that you’re not eating enough. Eat more!
Adding just one tablespoon of peanut butter three times a day will add 300 calories to your day. You can make a meal replacement smoothie to add an extra 500-1000 calories. Or just make each of your meals a bit bigger. You can do it. It might not be easy or comfortable but you can do it. So stop it with this bullshit excuse and EAT. MORE.