Bodybuilding Forums

Hello All,

What happens if we are trying to follow THT4 using the MANS diet, but struggle to consume the required calories/macros??

I have just finsihed TSPA for now, got down to 9st 13lbs and about 9ish% bf, although abs are not defined enough to see without me tensing and leaning forward slightly. However, I felt at 9st 13 lbs that I couldnt get any lower in weight, as already the wife thinks I am now too skinny. So, I thought I would move up to MANS.

So based on my lean mass, job, allowing an extra 100-200 additional calories, my target macros are approx a minimum of 158g protein, 30 g carbs and 210g fat. There is NO WAY I can eat 210g fat, so therefore I am eating more protein (say 200g) and therefore less fat to reach the 2600 calories each day.

However, I am struggling to reach this number. I am finding I am having to eat when not hungry. Last night for example, I had dome my shoulder/traps workout, and still had about 300/400 calories to eat. Now I LOVE my food, but find it hard to eat when not that hungry!!

Anyone else experience this. What should I do? I could eat more during the day, but again, I like to eat when I hungry. Now if I could eat a few bars of chocolate at night time, that would be easy to do as I dont need to be hungry to eat chocolate. However, I dont think that would be a good idea!!

Any help greatly appreciated.

Cheers

If you don't want to eat so much fat I would recommend trying the GLAD diet instead of MANS - Mark uses GLAD details are on his page.

In order to up your calories my suggestion would be to space out your calories more, eat earlier & later than you do now. Alternatively integrate some liquid calories such as shakes or just milk. Nuts also have a high calorie density, almonds and walnuts are highly recommended. If you have over 20g of fibre a day try reducing that a little or try drinking less fluid with meals. Avoid food with a low nutritional value such as chocolate as those are empty calories.

Good luck !

all good advice by loadedscissors.
you could also increase your fat intake if that's what you want to do by eating things like full fat cheese, milk, cream also omega3 capsules will give you extra good essential fats and are easy to consume. but personally i concentrate firstly on the protein level make sure it's high enough or just slightly over. keep the carbs low, just make sure you eat lots of red meat and eggs and oily fish ie makrel fillets, salmon, herrings etc. as loaded scissors stated you should get some of your protein from easy to consume whey shakes especially straight after a w/out when your muscles can soak up the fast digesting protein. i mix mine with full fat milk for the extra fat, calories and flavour.
good luck. let us know how you get on.

sorry i forgot to say the most important thing after eating the correct amount of protein is to listen to your gut! if your hungry, eat your fill of the required macros. if you are not hungry then don't force feed. this will only leave you uncomfortable but may also encourage your gut to stretch/increase in size over time, (a tactic the roid takers use to be able to get the required calories in) which could leave you always feeling unsaited when trying to reduce calories when cutting up. believe me i've done this before many years ago (not the roids. i've never touched them). it's best to have the smallest tightest gut for you body size and just eat smaller meals more often.

EGGS= high good fat content (especially omega3 enriched)
EGGS= high first class protrein
EGGS= low carbs
easy to cook = poached, scrambled hard and soft boiled even fried (although i steer clear of these)
fairly fast absorbing and delicous for b/fast
3 large eggs + 2 slices toast approx' 30g protein. now that's what i call a decent breakfast.
add a glass of milk and add another 10g of protein, make that a whey shake made with milk and your looking at 30g protein.

Thanks guys. I have started trying to eat 4 egss each morning with anout 40-50g of full fat cheese. I also have at least 100ml of double cream added to jelly to give me a mousse, which I eat late at night. Just about managing to get my 2600/2700 calories each day. Saturday I was too greedy. I carbed up, but ate for the sake of eating a large part of the day. Simply because there are lots of food which I can't eat during the week, such as low fat custard, bananas, yoghurt drinks etc, so I went to bed Saturday night feeling stuffed and uncomfortable. A feeling I hadn't had since before TSPA/THT, when I always used to eat until I was stuffed!!

Do ppl here in the MANS diet eat toast other than Saturday?? Scrambled eggs and 2 slices of toast first thing sounds very tempting, although that would take my carb count to 30 plus whatever is in bread. I can eat between 4 and 6 egs daily (apart from Saturdays) and ppl look at me shocked!! Everyone seems to think the yellow yolk is high in cholestrol, and therefore should be limited to 2 or 3 each week! Never!!!

I dont like the thought of my stomach increasing due to eating when not hungry. I guess though, if some days I really cant make the 2600, then I just wont force it. I also chuck in an extra can of tuna at night time after my workout, with a little salad cream. And also after a workout, I have 180g total yoghurt, mixed with 35g choc whey. That gives me lots of protein, plus gives me my fixing of sweetness.


Thanks again for your replies

Hi Jarv,
Like I said the best thing is to not to stuff yourself so much that you are uncomfortable as this has 2 main side affects; one as we have already spoken about, which is increasing the size of your gut, but also your digestive system/liver will strugggle to assimilate all that food if you have overeaten. You can sometimes see evidence of this with your skin becoming spotty or blotchy especially around the liver area. You should always make sure that you drink plenty of water throughout the day to help keep your system flushed out.
As for the two slices of toast with the eggs, I only wrote that because that's what I had yesterday, but normal week days I have three eggs and only one slice of toast.
After the w/out you should consume your whey shake/yoghurt as the muscles are crying out for fast digesting protein. you could mix the whey with cream to get your desired fat content. I don't follow any of Mark's diets to the letter as yet, but i suppose the closest i get is to the GLAD diet which is higher carbs an lower fat than MANS. Carb's is still the killer for me as well so i keep my eye on them except for the w/end when i have a carb spike.
The collesterol in egg yolks is the good type which the body needs and if you are very active and lean then the egg fat/collesterol willl not be a problem.
When i used to eat a lot of tinned tuna in the past, i used to eat it with pineapple because pineapple has a natural digestive ensyme in it. You will have to watch the carb' content in pineapple, but what you could try is tipping your tuna into a plastic sealable box or pot and tipping a small amount of pineapple juice on it and put back in the fridge overnight and when you get it out in the morning it will have started to tenderise/breakdown due to the digetive ensyme in the pineapple. This in my mind makes the tuna much more palletable and lees dry and boring.
I don't know how long you have been training but i think you need to be patient and not to try to get too lean. find a body fat % that suits you and try to grow whilst maintaining this. you can always cut up for the summer!

Hi Jarv,
I couldn't fit this on the last reply but here goes,
I am 5'-9" and 75Kg (165lbs 11-7). my body fat % is unknown but i can see my abs and am fairly well cut, although if i lost a couple of pounds i would be well cut i think.
I have been training for about 30 yrs and when i was in my mid twenties i was 13stone 10lbs (192lbs). i was much bigger then obviously but i wasn't as lean.
I am currently doing a THT style workout. I have always trained on my own only using a spotter on rare occasions as i don't like anybody holding me up when i'm training or letting me down and not turning up.
My bodybuilding hero is steve reeves. He starred in the hercules films and had one of the best natural bodies ever, with what most people say are perfect all-round body dimensions.
Check him out on the web and on you tube if you don't already know of him.
Let us know how you get on.

Kind regards, Graham

Hey Graham,

I am also 5'9" but recently been on tspa for 7 weeks, so I am now 140lbs (10 stone). I can see my abs if I tense, or lean forwards, but 7 weeks of a calorie deficit was enough for me. Also, I got very skinny, and I think my abs would have shown up more, but maybe they weren't defined enough. Maybe for the first 2 weeks in December I will do tspa again, and try and shed my lasy bit of fat. The calipers were saying about 8% bf, and this web site was saying about 9% (by waist is 29) but personally I thought I was more like 10%. Wife thought I was way too thin though...

Today I have had 7 boiled eggs, and will have 2 more after my workout. I try and consume 30g of protein post workout, which is normally 35g whey plus 180g total yohurt, so probably about 40g protein total. Then for supper I have my cream and jelly.

If you ahve been training for 30 years, I assume you must be in your 50s then (or maybe late 40s) but far play if you can see your abs. Already after 2-3 months, I lose motivation, and have to force myself to workout. Cant see me still doing this in 5 years, never mind 30!

Will check out Steve reeves.

Cheers for the reply, apprecaite it

Hi Jarv,
The trick with keeping the motivation, is to keep your body guessing. I have lots of interests around boybuilding. I have studied books and information from the net on sports injuries. therapies and sports massage. This is as a result of having had treatment in the past for back problems due to overlifting with overhead press back in the early days. I had osteopath/massage treatment and realised the power of sports massage to release the tension in muscles that have tightened up to guard an injury and to break down muscle fibre legions and knots. If you are doing THT training you may need to self massage where you can, and use trigger point therapy, and massage from your wife to help with the muscle knots and inflamation. There are loads of video clips performed by experts on http://www.Youtube. A good book to read if this area interests you is 'sports massage' by Dr Yari Ylinen and Mel Cash. I say if this area interests you, but to be honest it is essential to learn about massage and trigger point therapy TPT because you will need it to relieve muscle pain and tension that you will experience from time to time. All things sports/training/fitness/nutrition/sports psycology interest me. I also go through spells sometimes where i do cross training ie, cycling, running, walking etc. mixed in with my weights. variety is the spice of life! by the way I am 48 years old but feel like I'm 25 sometimes until my 13 yr old son chalenges me to a sprint race. my mind says I can thrash him but once i start sprinting my body says this aint so easy! he is just starting to get the better of me on some occasions. He is a 'chip off the old block'. he plays football amongst every other sport and gives 100% for the whole game. Everbody says he has a 'good engine'!
Good luck and just remember.
"The first 1000 mile march was started with a single step"!