Paleo Diet and Paleolithic Diet Questions & Answers

Question

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Currently I am 5'10" and weigh 155lbs with about 8.5% body fat. I do Crossfit workouts 6x per week, with olympic lifting and strength set added in. I am a college student, and eat as strict of Paleo as I can. I workout around 5:30PM everyday.

I would like to gain muscle and fill out more. What should I be eating throughout the day to accomplish this goal?

flag	asked Jul 1 at 21:07 James 13●3

Mike · Accepted Answer · 2012-07-02 00:18:12Z UTC

At your body fat % you'll need to be getting about 150g protein, and be over consuming calories. The biggest reason for failure to gain is not eating enough. So.. work out your diet in percentages and then calculate that as actual food for a typical day on fitday.com.

Then a good split routine, mainly compound exercises is all that's needed.

If you overeat by 250-500 calories, you'll gain half to one pounds per week (be careful of stretch marks).

The Katch-McCardle calorie formula (uses body fat %) puts you at about 2700 calories at day doing your level of exercise. So, start with 3000 calories a day and see what happens, tweak from there.

150g protein a day at 3000 calories is exactly 20% protein. I would then go with 30-40% carb and the rest fat (40-50%). You could do a little more protein if you like and go for 25% protein, 30% carb and 45% fat: This is a very nice Paleo macro ratio too.

So that would be: 188g protein, 225g carb and 150g fat. Work it out on fitday using your regular foods so that you know the volume. If that's all too much, just count calories and eat paleo and hit 3000 a day.

You will gain some fat too but don't worry, you then do cutting once you've gained the strength and size you want. You already have a great physique though judging by your numbers :-)

Sam Knox · Answer 2 · 2012-07-01 21:20:17Z UTC

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Drop the Crossfit and do some real strength training.

If your diet is adequate in protein, your muscles will get bigger.

answered Jul 1 at 21:20

Sam Knox
3,774●2●13

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look into 'starting strength', 'stronglifts' or Jim Wendler's '5/3/1' and then just eat eat eat – boss_keloid Jul 1 at 22:00

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Just a thought: Protein intake being "adequate" is necessary, but a calorie surplus is where the money is at for real size gains. – Potato Avenger Jul 1 at 22:29

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Yeah, the cals need to be there. Protein is of course important but there is much more leeway with the protein intake versus the caloric intake which fullstop must be over maintenance for new tissue growth period. – ben61820 Jul 2 at 0:24

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How many people are going to be upset that they aren't getting bigger or stronger while doing Crossfit before they realize any of this? – Sleepyhouse22 Jul 2 at 12:14

meta · Answer 3 · 2012-07-02 14:14:21Z UTC

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Increase protein intake, e.g. add a WPI shake per day
Decrease crossfit, eg 4 sessions per week instead of 6
Incorporate power lifting (squat, deadlift, benchpress)
Monitor for overtraining

answered Jul 2 at 14:14

Confused about what to eat and when for trying to gain muscle on a Paleo Diet

5 Answers