Bodybuilding Forums

Agh i feel like i screwed myslf over now.
Im 15 years old and im wanting to start this cycle soon but then this happened...
I went to a local gym and the guy working there started to talk to me all about wieght gainers and protien drinks.
He told me that this weight gainer called Serious Mass would help me alot.
So what do i do? I buy the 12 lb of it.
Then i found this website and i dled the book and i read all this great info about carbs and everything.
I look back at the ingredients and nutrition info about Serious Mass and this is what is it...

Nutrition Facts
Serving Size: 2 Heaping Scoops (334g)
Servings Per Container: 16
Total Calories 1250

Calories From Fat 35

Total Fat 4 g 6%

Saturated Fat 2.5 g 13%

Cholesterol 80 mg 27%

Sodium 430 mg 18%

Potassium 940 mg 27%

Total Carbohydrates 254 g 85% <---- WOAHHH

Sugars 21 g

Protein 50 g 100%

Vitamin A 5000 I.U. 100%
Vitamin C 60 mg 100%
Calcium 630 mg 63%
Iron 5 mg 28%
Vitamin D 200 I.U. 50%
Vitamin E 30 I.U. 100%
Thiamin (B1) 4.8 mg 320%
Riboflavin (B2) 4 mg 235%
Niacin (B3) 50 mg 250%
Pyridoxine (B6) 5 mg 250%
Folic Acid 400 mcg 100%
Cyanocobalamin (B12) 10 mcg 167%
Biotin 300 mcg 100%
Pantothenic Acid 25 mg 250%
Phosphorus 460 mg 46%
Iodine 150 mcg 100%
Magnesium 140 mg 35%
Zinc 15 mg 100%
Selenium 70 mcg 100%
Copper 1 mg 50%
Manganese 2 mg 100%
Chromium 120 mcg 100%
Molybdenum 75 mcg 100%
Creatine Monohydrate 1 g
L-Glutamine 500 mg
Glutamine Peptides 500 mg
Choline (as choline bitartrate) 250 mg
Inositol 250 mg
PABA (para-aminobenzoic acid) 5 mg

Thats like crazy over the amount of carbs then what Mark said.
So what should i do? Any thoughts?
Keep In Mind~Im currently doing school workouts designed by my athletic coaches 2 times a day and i wont be able to start the cycles
for another 3-4 weeks.

Well first of all if you need to gain a significant amount of weight and strength to improve your athletic performance, especially for a 15 year-old, restricting nutrients in your diet like carbs would not be something I would recommend doing. If you were planning to start trying MANS, I would reconsider and go more with Mark's GLAD plan with a 40/30/30 split of carbs/protein/fat. Athletes depend on their muscle glycogen stores for performance and are constantly depleting them with heavy training and competitions so you need carbs on a daily basis.

I'm not sure what your weight gain goals are but you have to realize that a more carb restrictive diet is not really optimal for gaining weight. It's designed more for body builders and models who want to shed fat but still continue to gain only lean muscle weight at the same time, which as far as weight gain goes, will make for a slower process.

For that supplement, yeah it's pretty lame since carbs are so cheap, convenient, and plentiful in regular food as it is, you should never need to supplement carbs no matter what kind of diet you are on. But now that you have it and probably can't return it, I would still use it in your situation. You're getting about 1000 calories of carbs in that supplement, so if you eat mainly protein/fat foods for the remainder of your diet, you can easily make up the difference and hit a standard 40/30/30 ratio of carbs/protein/fat for the day. Also consider you don't need to take the entire serving at one time and can spread them through the day or use only a portion of the serving as desired.

Yeah, ignore what the gym-jockey told you. Just EAT MORE, particularly protein (read: meat, poultry, & fish!), if you want to put on weight while lifting weights. Anything that lists "high fructose corn syrup" or "sugar" in the ingredients is off the list for me.

Just ask your parents to start buying lots more beef, chicken, and fish, then cook it up and add a few extra servings per day. With a weight-training regimen, at your age you'll start putting on a few pounds of muscle quickly. As SurferX said, MANS and GLAD are more for people who are concerned about body fat while putting on muscle... if you're active, eating plenty of protein, and working out regularly at your age, unless you plan to compete in a bodybuilding competition you shouldn't have to worry about body fat.

--Matt B.

It's best if you get most of your calories from FOOD. Weight gainers are OK if you are desperate to get your calories up, but you can also make your own "weight gainer" shakes by just adding extra calories to a protein shake (bananas, etc).