healthy diet to gain muscle weight



jeff: what's up, guys? jeff cavaliere, athleanx.com. today we're talking nutrition. specifically for hard gainers, and more importantlythe mistakes that hard gainers make. and who would i bring into this video? no, not charlie. he's doing good with food. we're talking about jessie, our resident hardgainer. who, by the way – hi jessie!

jessie: how's it going guys? jeff: is actually not necessarily a hard gaineranymore because he's changing his mindset that places the limits on him thinking he'sa hard gainer. so we've addressed a lot of his training sofar, but we haven't really addressed nutrition. honestly, you can train your ass off as ahard gainer. if your nutrition isn't in check you willnot see the results that you want to see. particularly in the form of weight gain, ormore importantly, muscle gain because you're not providing the muscles with the propernutrition. the key is, this doesn't just mean 'calories'.

calories is not going to cut it when it comesto building new, productive muscle tissue. you need to provide, as i've said plenty oftimes already, high quality nutrition. not just food, but nutrient dense food. so i figured in order to cover this i couldtake you on my journey because jessie's following that journey as we speak, and i take you backto my childhood where my food intake was horrible. i mean, absolutely atrocious. i swear i've said this a million times. i was the biggest junk food junkie. i make jessie look like a complete healthyeater.

the fact of the matter was, i ate nothinggood. so maybe i was able to come home and my parentswould force me to eat, and my grandparents would force me to eat something good at dinnertime. but it wasn't for lack of trying on my partbecause i would have for breakfast, some kind of cereal. fruit loops, one of my favorites. as a matter of fact, i would put froot loopsand three other cereals in the same bowl. you know, i couldn't just choose one. so i'd have that.

the problem here: loaded with sugar, no fiber,nothing real beneficial in here. that wasn't enough though. of course i had my favorite of all time. entenmann's crumb donuts. these guys. of course, i wouldn't have one. so in one you have 250 calories, 20g of sugar. no, i'd have three, or four. at least three, or four.

the thing is, when you're having those typesof foods you're really providing no opportunity to have good, quality nutrition in place ofthat. so i would say that still wasn't enough. i would have some chocolate donuts, too. so these guys. you know? the little mini donuts. these? okay, i would pound at least three or fourof those every morning, too.

this is just in the same breakfast. so i could eat and i could take in a lot ofcalories, but the fact is, i wasn't taking in nutrient dense calories. this is the kid's problem right here, okay? jessie: come on! i love them! they're so good! jeff: okay, go ahead. have one.

these days are ending. so the fact of the matter is, you're not gettinga lot of protein, all these foods right there, there's literally no protein in here at all. more importantly, let's say you're the typethat feels that saturated fat is the enemy. a lot of people are in the camp these dayssaying that 'it's not as bad as it used to be', or as people perceived it to be. that's fine, but if you do believe that, there'stons of saturated fat in these things. in just three donuts here there's 15g of saturatedfat, and these donuts over here? same story.

there's no real good nutrition from that standpoint. but in my camp, i believe that sugar is reallymore of the enemy. there's plenty, as i said, of sugar in thesechoices here. other than that, really nothing. so what we know we need to do is, we needto get off that and try to get ourselves to this side of the table, which is where i eatthese days. so we have slow cooked oats, oatmeal, pumpkin– rich in vitamins and minerals – this, i put in with the oatmeal. walnuts.

great source of fat. we're not scared of fat, but it's got a greatamount of polyunsaturated fat, okay? so we have a different balance here. completely on the other side of the equation. the biggest mistake a hard gainer can tryto make in making the changes – even if you're watching this video right now and saying"yeah, i think i need to eat more of what jeff's showing over here" – it's to tryto jump from that to that. because i tried to do that and that as a mistake. i heard, and read in the magazines that you'resupposed to eat oatmeal.

that's what all the body builders were eating,all right? little did i know, they were eating otherstuff too, and taking other things, and injecting other things. but i was fixated on the oatmeal and i jumpedtoward the oatmeal, and i started having this. this was so disgusting to me because i wasused to eating all of that sugar, and this has none in it. 1 gram. it was so distasteful to me that i almostgot turned off completely to the whole idea of eating healthier.

but before i did, i did one thing that i thinksaved me. that was, i tried to pick something in themiddle. this is oatmeal, too. okay? it comes in this little package. jessie eats these every now and then. the thing is, these are – this is the fastoats. there's really not as much fiber in this asthere is in this, in the slow cook oats, but beyond that, these are loaded with sugar,right?

so they have the maple kind, the maple brownsugar, they have – what did you eat? jessie: i ate the brown sugar. that's why they're so tasty. jeff: i know. no kidding. so they made that more tasty by putting alot of sugar into it, but at least i was still eating oatmeal instead of eating donuts. instead of eating froot loops. so i felt like, to me, it was an upgrade.

and it was! but it wasn't where i needed to get to, butif i never did this first, then i never would have been able to get to this because whati did was, i would take two packets of this, and that would be my breakfast. i would have a glass of orange juice, or whateverelse i would eat with that. but then i started to combine one pack ofthis and then one serving of this and i was able to tolerate it because i was gettingmore and more of a taste for oatmeal in the morning. then i would take two of these, but i hadto start putting in my own brown sugar.

i put a lot to try to make it taste a littlebit better. but then i started to be able to wean thatdown because it started to taste a little too sweet to me. instead, i started to put in bananas, slicedup banana, which is a source of sweetness that wasn't as bad as just pounding the brownsugar. so over time i made better and better choicesto what i have these days. which, again, is pumpkin mixed with – andi put this recipe up on our channel here a long time ago – but pumpkin mixed in withsome brown sugar, and cinnamon, and the oats, and the walnuts, and then even a little bitof whipped cream on top.

it's freaking awesome. but the fact is, i never would have even gottenhere and had a tolerance for this if i didn't start somewhere in the middle. for a guy like jessie, we see what he eats. he loves gummy bears. what else do you eat? potato chips, right? jessie: potato chips, doritos. jeff: this is his daytime meal.

this is what he's eating. when he goes home and eat dinner he has agood dinner? jessie: yeah, a great dinner. i've got an italian mom. of course. jeff: italians mother's going to make surehe's eating at least normal foods, as opposed to all this fast food type stuff, processedstuff. so he at least gets that part right. a lot of times it's out of convenience, butdon’t confuse the fact that he's not taking

in enough calories and don’t confuse thefact that you might not be taking in enough calories. you probably are. you might be taking in a lot. they say "eat big, get big". it's not that. it's "eat good, eat high quality food, getbig". so if you even take and start making theseswaps you might find that your calories will go down.

but because your nutritional value and thequality which you're taking in is better, more productive; your body can do more withit. you're going to start seeing gains and startbuilding muscle. jessie: because they're higher quality calories,right? jeff: that's what i just said. so the fact is, you want to make sure thatquality is dictating your choices, not quantity. as a matter of fact, the quantity will starttaking care of itself. the good news is, you will be able to eata lot more of this, provided your stomach is able to accept it.

a lot of times your stomach isn't able toaccept it because you really haven't been eating lot of fiber, you really haven't beeneating a lot of protein. so you'll find that you get full pretty quickwhen you start eating the more nutritious foods. so that might take a little time for you toadapt to, and start eating a little bit more in quantities. but at that point, you could eat a lot andeat more, in terms of quantity, as long as you're eating high quality. now the gains really start coming.

so we're working with jessie on his nutrition. as i said, that was your last shot, buddy. you want one more bite? jessie: yeah. jeff: go ahead. take another bite. all right. there you go. so we're working on improving his nutritionso that over time here, he's going to be providing

much more productive calories for his bodyto actually do something with, and that's going to help us to add the gains to his physiqueas we continue to compliment what he's doing in the gym with what he's doing in the other23 hours of the day. all right, guys. if you're looking for a complete trainingprogram that has a nutrition plan that is forgiving – in other words, it's not tellingyou just to jump into this and eat bland and hate the way your life feels when you're eatingthis stuff. it's about showing you how to eat better andmaking it actually enjoyable and giving you plenty of options to choose from so you actuallylike what you're eating.

that's our x-factor meal plan. it's in our athleanx training system overat athleanx.com. in the meantime, whatever you want us to coverhere, especially with jessie as my guest here, we'll do that in future videos and make surethat we answer the questions that you want us to answer.

healthy diet to gain muscle weight,i'll talk to you soon, guys. see ya. say 'bye', jessie. jessie: see ya, guys.