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Comment by stochastic_monk | Hacker News Reader

I don’t do paleo or low carb or any fancy diet besides eating plenty of protein and calories.

The key for me is regular, heavy strength training. I exercise 3-6 days a week, all compound lifts, at high weight/moderate (3-7) reps.

More than just managing my physique, I find it immensely helpful for my mental health and general well-being.

I’m not the biggest or most shredded guy in the gym, but the focus on strength keeps me from obsessing with aesthetics, while everyone who knows me has still noticed the changes to my physique.

My point in all this is that exercise and sufficient calories is more important than following a specific diet, and that it’s been a solution in multiple dimensions of my life. I heartily recommend it to all my friends.

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I can't handle more than 3 days a week at the gym. I do my main lifts only once a week or I don't recover, but I am still getting stronger on my program. I have been lifting for more than a decade though.

I do cardio and lift on the same day, I also can't run every day or I don't feel great.

On off days, I just walk and do minor accessory stuff. Can't imagine lifting like this every day.

How much are you eating? I used to have similar troubles with recovery until I realized that I just wasn’t eating nearly enough to train at the volume I was. For me, adding two cups of Greek yogurt and a protein shake every day (so roughly 500 calories and 50 grams of protein over what I was eating before) made an enormous difference.

I am eating 90 grams of protein @ 190 lbs body-weight with a pretty low fat %.

More anecdata: I aim for 125g per day, 1800 calory target, at 138 lbs/5’ 5” and can lift strong every day. I usually take a “rest” week (calisthenics and 3-7 miles of walking) every other month when I travel somewhere.

That seems crazy high to me, but maybe I am just too used to my own thing and should try upping it.

It depends on your goals. I’m trying to gain muscle. 90 isn’t bad for maintenance in my case. Some folks would say I’m low as the recommendation is as high as 1.1g of protein per lb to gain.

Way too low. Try doubling it (not kidding). If you’re worried about calories, reduce your carbs.

Everything I read says .5 - .75g protein / lb of bodyweight for lifters. Maybe I will do more research.

Your number may (may) be a bit low but the number I settled on after researching it extensively was 1g / lb of lean mass.

Yeah, that tends to be around the consensus.

This is what my strength coach recommends.

Yeah, way too low. Shoot for at least 0.8g / lb.

as others have said, that does seem pretty low. I am 220lbs (tallish at 202 cm) and was eating about 120g. When I increased it to 175g I found my recovery was much better and and even though I was increasing my weekly distances (I run ultras for fun!), I wasnt getting any nagging overuse injuries. I try to get most of my protein from food rather than powders, but found it hard not to cheat a bit with whey, hemp and pumpkin in the mornings mixed in with my coco-puffs :)

Protein powder is essentially powdered milk. I don't think you can really 'cheat' with it, it's just 'food' :)

Random pro-tip: unflavoured whey powder goes into just about anything (and is 150% less gross than I thought it was before I tried it).

I get the unflavored whey too, and personally, I can be quite mercenary / practical about my food when I need to :) But I am a bit suspicious as to the bio-availability of these powders. Are the proteins really as good (or even good enough) as compared to actual food sources ? Quality also seems to vary immensely from what I have read. My intuition tells me 30g of protein from chicken breast and not the "restructured" stuff which is jacked with soy[1] is probably better than 30g of whey.

1 https://www.cbc.ca/news/business/marketplace-chicken-fast-fo...

I think I personally handle high volume well genetically, but I also haven’t been lifting as long and am probably moving a lot less weight than you are.

(For context, my squat max is 335, and my deadlift max is 405. Not bad, but nothing near competitive.)

I believed I was susceptible to overtraining for most of my life. N=1 and all that, but I made an effort to consume more protein and switched to a higher volume program and have had much better results (and I bike to work ever day).

One important aspect is that I de-load every couple of weeks when the volume starts to really wear on me. (I’m also vegetarian.) Most of my “program” is from Charles Poliquin’s writings.

I thought I was, too, until I committed to 2 hours a day, 6 days a week. After maybe a month of this I completely stopped being sore and it was tremendously beneficial to my overall health, even years after I dialed it down (2 hours got to be too much). I get sore now after working out but I no longer have the back, neck, and hand pain I used to have.

It depends on what training do you do and your personal recovery capabilities. You can do 7 days a week low intensity (in sense of resistance, not necessary cadence) cardio, no problem, but I don't know anyone who do can do high intensity weight training (as Mike Mentzer's and Arthur Jones defined it) that often and for that long.

What kind of training do you do, which exercises? I'm mainly asking because I too want to avoid "back, neck and hand pain" as I get older.

> My point in all this is that exercise and sufficient calories is more important than following a specific diet, and that it’s been a solution in multiple dimensions of my life.

Completely agree, hence I said -ish. I'm not Paleo, but it's probably the closest to what I normally eat. Lots of veggies and protein with high quality carbs and limited 'junk' (I also almost completely stopped eating sweets). I view diet as something you can do your entire life, and I've settled on something that I can easily follow and enjoy.

At which age did you start to lift?

I’m 29 now. I started lifting at 26, but finally got proficient and rigorous about a year ago. The biggest key was learning to eat more because my body’s metabolism was low because I wasn’t eating enough. I went from a 2000 calorie maintenance to 3000 in about 6 months.

Did you find it hard to increase your calorie intake? This is something I've been struggling with for a while. Especially since I don't deal well with lactose getting in enough calories and protein can be a bit daunting.

What are your "trick foods" that contain a good amount of calories but are good to eat?

It was hard! Here’s where the “eat clean” obsession breaks down for me. Gummy bears and chips balanced with plenty of protein works great for me.

1. Gummy bears. 500 calories a pack. (Usually before or after a workout)

2. Fritos, 1500 calories a bag.

3. Chicken breast and eggs - high protein and good fats from the eggs I can afford on a grad student stipend.

4. Natural peanut butter. This and other nut butters are key.

5. Whole milk.

Past a certain amount of carbs, I feel like they make me bloated, so it’s easier for me to use fats and some junk food to get the rest of calories in.

Peanut butter snacks during the day. I used to set alarms that would go off during the day. When they went off, I'd pull out a jar of PB and eat a few spoonfuls with crackers.

Second dinner. Eat your first dinner early, and then eat a lunch sized snack right before bed. When I was gaining, this usually consisted of a turkey or roast beef sandwich.

Know that I was almost never hungry. I ate on a schedule, and tracked everything I ate.

You should know that exercising a bunch and jamming more food into your system IS NOT the "healthiest" option, if life span is your goal.

Calorie restriction IS perhaps the healthiest route, if you are mainly interested in living longer. Feeling better is harder to quantify. The "TLDR" is: Exercise moderately, and find the minimal amount of calories you can consume without feeling like shit. That's the optimal balance.

The unfortunate reality is that often the "healthiest" path in life, doesn't FEEL the best. I felt my best lifting 3-4x a week, running, and eating 3600-3900 calories per day. I was constantly full, but felt like I had tons of physical and mental energy. Alas, plenty of research has been done on the effects of large calorie diets EVEN WHEN CONTROLLED FOR WEIGHT. Large calories = bad.

If you're interested, here's a good place to start:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2686342/

Controlling for weight isn't meaningful if you're not also controlling for body composition.

You make an interesting point. I glanced over the article and I’m curious: is weight a sufficient proxy for activity/lean body mass? The anecdata I have of athletes generally supports longevity and health, whether training strength or long distance exercise.

Perhaps, but no study has yet shown that calorie restriction actually extends human life. It works on lab animals. Given that human lifespans are already relatively long it will take many years to gather reliable data.

> What are your "trick foods" that contain a good amount of calories but are good to eat?

Cheese! Parmesan is 50% protein and 50% fat by weight. Almost all soups and stews can be improved in taste and calories by adding enough coconut oil

I think there are protein sources that work well for lactose intolerant people (soy, pea, etc?). I'm not well versed in them but google it up, protein is key for staying in a positive nitrogen balance. If you're looking to gain nothing is as efficient as a scoop or two of your most important macro.

I struggle to eat enough calories as meals, so I make "fat shakes". Obviously you're gonna want to adapt this to your personal preferences, but: coconut milk and protein powder as your base, a little sweetener (stevia, sukrin), a litte salt, one avocado, a bit of peanut butter, and a banana if you're feeling wild.

I eat keto-ish... Olive oil, ghee, and coconut oils are all hugely calorie rich and can easily be snuck into food. Hellamns mayo is 700+ calories per 100g, so slathering it on some broccoli can quickly make up any caloric gap :)

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