Help with eating all my calories...

Ginnie_Fizz

Today my goal is over 4300 calories with exercise. I still have almost 2000 calories left for today. I'm looking for ideas for foods to fill out my calorie goals.

I obviously already know about pop tarts, ice cream and cake, etc. But I'd prefer not to live in food coma all day. Fast food is fine for me here and there, but even if I wanted to eat it every day I really don't want to drive 20 miles each way just for that. I'm looking for foods that are calorie dense but relatively nutritious or at least not super heavy on the carbs.

Avocados. Glucose (the industry name is dextrose) is a better source of concentrated calories than is sugar (sucrose) because the fructose portion of sugar must be metabolized in the liver. Glucose is utilized immediately. You can make your own chocolate with baker's chocolate and dextrose. It turns out that chocolate is very good for you. It is one of the few "junk" foods that could be considered a "health food". I think you can probably buy dextrose-sweetened chocolate somewhere. That will use up a lot of calories in a healthful way. Organic grass-fed butter yields a lot of nourishing substances that are hard to get elsewhere. What about some nice organic popcorn dripping with organic butter?

That chocolate sounds amazing. Does anyone have a recipe?

BarackMeLikeAHurricane

My point is that two weeks is a really short amount of time for a bulk (especially if natty) and that cardio hurts your gains. Sure, you could get stronger but that's myofibrillar hypertrophy, not sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

A month ago eating at a 500 calorie deficit and StrongLifts got me as far as they could go. I was starting to stall both in strength gains and weight loss, so I decided to try eating over TDEE for a couple weeks and see what happens.

I'm still in the process of researching so I'm happy to do further reading if you have any recommendations. Do you have a specific timeframe or length of cycle that would be better? My goal is recomposition: lower bodyfat (currently 21%) and higher LBM (currently 147) as well as better endurance and strength. I'm not looking to be "elite" or competitive and not on a schedule or in a hurry.

8-12 weeks is a good timeframe for a bulk (ideally 12 if natty, on gear you still have good gains from a shorter cycle). Aim for TDEE + 500. Pick a good hypertrophy program, not a strength based program. I recommend DC, but you could also try PHAT, HST, etc. You'll probably gain some fat but it's easier to lose fat than it is to gain muscle. Pick one to focus on. Basically you can either look like DYEL Auschwitz mode or strongfat. Since it's summer and your bf% is high I'd recommend going the DYEL route and just cut (but definitely keep lifting).

DrBorkBork

healthy fat! avocados, coconut oil, grass fed cream, raw cheese, grass fed butter, etc. Make a fat bomb. They're pretty friggin' tasty.
http://wifezillasway.blogspot.com/2012/01/abi-faes-fat-bombs.html

LiftAllThePizzas

My point is that two weeks is a really short amount of time for a bulk (especially if natty) and that cardio hurts your gains. Sure, you could get stronger but that's myofibrillar hypertrophy, not sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.

A month ago eating at a 500 calorie deficit and StrongLifts got me as far as they could go. I was starting to stall both in strength gains and weight loss, so I decided to try eating over TDEE for a couple weeks and see what happens.

I'm still in the process of researching so I'm happy to do further reading if you have any recommendations. Do you have a specific timeframe or length of cycle that would be better? My goal is recomposition: lower bodyfat (currently 21%) and higher LBM (currently 147) as well as better endurance and strength. I'm not looking to be "elite" or competitive and not on a schedule or in a hurry.

8-12 weeks is a good timeframe for a bulk (ideally 12 if natty, on gear you still have good gains from a shorter cycle). Aim for TDEE + 500. Pick a good hypertrophy program, not a strength based program. I recommend DC, but you could also try PHAT, HST, etc. You'll probably gain some fat but it's easier to lose fat than it is to gain muscle. Pick one to focus on. Basically you can either look like DYEL Auschwitz mode or strongfat. Since it's summer and your bf% is high I'd recommend going the DYEL route and just cut (but definitely keep lifting).

Thanks. I have been reading the HST articles and put together a routine to try for the first cycle. I'm starting on the first day of 15's today. I'm doing natural stuff only, this is just a hobby. The only thing I've considered is creatine but honestly the extra 5% or whatever is not a big deal to me.

hyenagirl

Heavy whipping cream. It's 100 calories per liquid ounce.

SanteMulberry

Today my goal is over 4300 calories with exercise. I still have almost 2000 calories left for today. I'm looking for ideas for foods to fill out my calorie goals.

I obviously already know about pop tarts, ice cream and cake, etc. But I'd prefer not to live in food coma all day. Fast food is fine for me here and there, but even if I wanted to eat it every day I really don't want to drive 20 miles each way just for that. I'm looking for foods that are calorie dense but relatively nutritious or at least not super heavy on the carbs.

Avocados. Glucose (the industry name is dextrose) is a better source of concentrated calories than is sugar (sucrose) because the fructose portion of sugar must be metabolized in the liver. Glucose is utilized immediately. You can make your own chocolate with baker's chocolate and dextrose. It turns out that chocolate is very good for you. It is one of the few "junk" foods that could be considered a "health food". I think you can probably buy dextrose-sweetened chocolate somewhere. That will use up a lot of calories in a healthful way. Organic grass-fed butter yields a lot of nourishing substances that are hard to get elsewhere. What about some nice organic popcorn dripping with organic butter?

That chocolate sounds amazing. Does anyone have a recipe?

You can order "fructose-free" chocolate from a European company online--I forget what the name of it is, but you can google it. It is very expensive though. I just make my own with about a heaping teaspoon of glucose (dextrose) per ounce of baker's chocolate. You can put more or less glucose to taste. I melt it in a double boiler and mix in the glucose and add a splash of real vanilla extract. I drop it onto parchment paper and let it set up. The texture suffers a bit with the addition of the vanilla but it tastes just as good. It is a very intense chocolate taste but you can add a pinch of instant espresso powder to intensify the flavor even more. You can buy both the baker's chocolate and the dextrose/glucose powder at your local bulk food store. Chocolate is one of the richest sources of epicatechin which appears to be one of the most potent compounds for stimulating mitochondrial growth and repair. I think of it as "medicine" But it is pretty high in calories (about 200 calories per ounce) so I only eat one one-ounce piece on my heavier exercise days. Because it doesn't have fructose in it, it lacks the addictive quality of sugar-sweetened chocolate.

LiftAllThePizzas

Having read several things about dark chocolate recently I bought some 86% cacao chocolate at the grocery store out of curiosity. Kinda funny that you'd mentioned it too.

The thing with your liver processing fructose is that it's dosage dependent, just like alcohol. We are fruit-eaters, and we can even handle pretty significant doses of ethanol on a daily basis without liver damage. The serving size for the chocolate I got includes 5 g of sugar. Even if 100% of that was fructose, I'm pretty sure that 5g is nowhere near the point where liver damage is a realistic concern. (Although it's also 4 squares and 250 calories so I'm only eating half a serving at a time anyway.)

SanteMulberry

Having read several things about dark chocolate recently I bought some 86% cacao chocolate at the grocery store out of curiosity. Kinda funny that you'd mentioned it too.

The thing with your liver processing fructose is that it's dosage dependent, just like alcohol. We are fruit-eaters, and we can even handle pretty significant doses of ethanol on a daily basis without liver damage. The serving size for the chocolate I got includes 5 g of sugar. Even if 100% of that was fructose, I'm pretty sure that 5g is nowhere near the point where liver damage is a realistic concern. (Although it's also 4 squares and 250 calories so I'm only eating half a serving at a time anyway.)

We are fruit-eaters, that is true, but because we lack the ability to produce the uricase enzyme, the eating of a lot of fructose causes very high levels of uric acid in the blood. We have the gene for producing uricase, but it is non-functional in humans. While there are some benefits that come from uric acid, when it goes too high, it can produce a host of diseases.

Yeah--I don't think fructose in normal amounts of fruit-eating would be much of a concern for normal weight folks. There also may be protective elements in fruit that are missing from sugar-sweetened foods. But obese people have the problem of sugar-addiction and it is the fructose portion of sugar that seems to engender the most addictive reaction. High blood glucose levels are also a problem in that, glucose is converted to fructose in the bodies of those who are insulin-resistant and in those who have high serum uric acid levels (a large proportion of obese people have these problems) . Fructose researchers recommend no more than 15 grams of fructose per day for the obese and a limiting of total carbohydrates to keep blood glucose levels down.

However, the fructose researchers feel that anything more than 25-35 grams per day could be problematic even for non-obese individuals over time, because of the rise in serum uric acid, caused by fructose metabolism. For young people, it isn't typically much of a problem, but as we age, "Advanced Glycation End-products" contribute to the diseases of aging. High fructose consumption from eating a lot of sugar contributes to the body's production of "Advanced Glycation End-products". AGE's, as the acronym implies, brings on a host of diseases that we associate with aging; hypertension, cardiovascular disease, and possibly even brain disorders such as dementia.