[Derek Arruda]

I agree with everything said here. One more strategy is to back off for 2-3 weeks. Go into a severe deficit even and let appetite come back to you and then start going up but don’t do any shakes, don’t do any cheese or mutant xxxtreme and eat.

Also try splitting those 4 meals into 5 or 6. I know you have the mid night shake but honestly that’s not a meal. Eating 150g raw rice in one meal vs 100g raw weight across 3 meals is a big difference. Going lower on the fats could also work for you but it might give you the heavy carb feeling of being lazy as well so access how you feel

[Derek Arruda]

Too much reliance in protein powder. But overall it is really good for lifestyle I guess. The problem comes in when you’re a bit more advanced and have digestion issues or something and can diagnose them because you eat about 1000 different ingredients a day and if you go through different recipes all the time then your sodium, potassium levels will be all out of whack. He also advocates for only counting protein and calories and letting fats and carbs fall where they may because all his recipes are severely lacking in fats and healthy fats.

[Derek Arruda]

Bellow 10g seems to be the ideal. You could even do steak and rice which is my choice and if you get lean steak it’ll still be at most 8g of fats.
I guess the only scenario it would make sense to add 20g fats there is if it’s also your last meal before bed and you tend to wake up hungry in the middle of the night because of a blood sugar crash or something but in any other scenario you should go low fat

[Derek Arruda]

I do oats, add 5x weight of oats in lukewarm water. Microwave for about 3 mins (700 watt) take out, stir, add protein powder, stir, add frozen blueberries or freeze for 10 mins and then add peanut butter or wheat germ or whatever toppings. That’s how I like it but honestly if I wasn’t so lazy with good prep I would 100% make them on the stovetop and I could get away with more water and more volume. My mom makes 40g of oats look and thick like 100g with my method.

[Derek Arruda]

Not sure why you only have 30g of Fat on a training day. I mean fat is also an energy source. Hopefully you’re only counting direct macros and not overall macros.
But chicken thighs, canned tuna, buying really cheap whey in 10lb bags although they can cause issues with lactose digestion and such, eggs ?. You can get a shit ton of eggs for nothing if you know where to shop. Greek yogurt is quite expensive so I would do the math on that if I were you. Also don’t be afraid to get 85/15 beef and drain it. It’s harder to track it but you could possibly turn it into a 90/10 beef while not adding a cent to the bill.

[Derek Arruda]

Why have you got 2 threads on this ?

I’m not sure it posted it twice when I wrote it in the site and I couldn’t delete it

[Derek Arruda]

Some things you could try mate for my point of view is too.

*put your pre workout meal back slightly to say 90/120 mins pre workout giving it more time to digest

*Take the fat out of the pre workout meal so it digests quicker causing the Intra to sit better

*How much fluid is in your intra shake?

*Have you always used the Gatorade power, with no issues?

To be honest EAAS are not critical in the slightest to making progress, as long as you have ate 30-40 G protein within a few hours of the gym your completely fine. People seem to think that meat and whey digest within 2-3 hours, it’s still in your gut for 24 hours so you are still getting the benefits up to a day after, if it’s still not sitting just drink it post it really really doesn’t matter

Hey Jamie. Thanks for the response. my pre-workout meal is 90mins pre workout, but 60 mins before intra drink which I currently drink omw to the gym. I’ve tried even training “fasted” with an intra twice because of shitty work schedule due to Covid once upon a time and it still upset my stomach quite a lot.

I normally have my intra workout in a 1 liter shaker cup, I’ve tried a half gallon before but it was way too much water to jug causing bloating simply because of the ammount of water floating inside of me.

The gatorade powder is really good with me, it’s just a sweetener and I use the propel powder mostly for its potassium as I eat very little potatoes.

hope this helps.

I’m thinking skipping the EAAs altogether since they seem like just a waste of money at this point lol. Not sure if those 40g of carbs right before, specially since they’re pretty much as easy to digest as possible would help me in my workout or if I shouldn’t even bother specially since I’m in a surplus either way and my glycogen is mostly always full.

[Derek Arruda]

Matt Jansen says that at the end of a contest diet it might make a difference. Probably not a big deal in the off season or anything but if an Olympia winning coach who is mostly on point all of the time says so I’ll believe it. He’s saying it out of experience and he’s got years on me

[Derek Arruda]

I haven’t used a pre-Workout in about a year. You don’t need it. Mentally taking that scoop might help you but it’s mostly placebo most of the time unless you’re really desensitised to caffeine. Make sure you’ve got a good Intra and that’ll help you out more than a pre, especially at that time.

[Derek Arruda]

Look at the end of the day the most important thing is that you get all of your food in, whether you spread it out through four or six meals is honestly personal preference period I myself prefer six meals because it’s easier to die jest, and I feel like I do perform better throughout the day not being loaded or anything while eating 6000+ calories. But some days my schedule with work and everything just doesn’t work with my eating schedule and on those days I will split meal 5 between meal 4 and meal 6.
That way always get everything out planned out inside my body, and get to bed on time and don’t compromise sleep quality or duration

[Derek Arruda]

Short answer. Yes. It’s actually the only spot I ever pin. I just raise my arm above my head so my lat is stretched and forwards and do it

[Derek Arruda]

I think the name of the game is experimenting. I’ve tried lowering cals and shifting carbs to fats but ended up with worse recovery and looked a bit soft after each rest day.
Now what I do is simply remove my Intra workout and lower my carbs in the post workout meal and I run better with that.
The method you described works well, specially if you have problems with appetite and nutrient uptake as it gives your body a “stress-free” day.

[Derek Arruda]

test E but I’d rather do smaller shots as big shots would also leave even my lats sore

[Derek Arruda]

I agree that your protein is too low. 50g of cooked chicken just doesn’t sound like enough. Also if I ever have digestion problem in someone liquid egg whites, unsweetened almond milk (because of the gum in it), oats, and dark chocolate are out immediately. Substitute oats for grits or something lighter, go without the milk.

Also, nothing to do with your food choices or anything, but since you train after meal 1 I would make meal 6 a higher carb meal as well rather than just trace vegetables. I do that myself most days.

[Derek Arruda]

I agree with everyone. You could start growing as you are right now but then you’d have to run a mini cut in a couple of months so I would get down to a true 10-12% so you can, in the long run, spend the most time actually bulking as possible