Comment by ellyagg | Hacker News Reader

Comment by ellyagg | Hacker News Reader

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I added 25 lbs of muscle in <month. Since high school I'd never been able able to gain much muscle. Even lifting heavily and being quite strong and eating voraciously the highest I could get to was 163 lbs at 5'11" when I was 25. Earlier this year, I heard of the Gallon of Milk a Day (GOMAD) diet and tried it. I went from 152 to 177 in less than a month, while doing CrossFit three days a week, and one day each a week testing my 1RM max in the squat and bench press. I've never had any appreciable bodyfat (~12%) and I did not gain any during this time. I did not use any supplements of any kind, not creatine, nor steroids, nor insulin.

Edit: Incidentally, since it did indeed happen, the incredulity expressed by the down votes indicates just how proud I should be about it. ;) I never complain about down votes, but there is something mind bending about being down voted for something you know to be pure fact and to realize your down voters literally have no idea what they're talking about.

I added 25 lbs of muscle in <month.

You do realize you lost all credibility right there. Saying you did 5lbs of muscle in less than a month would be questionable -- possible, but rare. 10 lbs in a month is virtually unheard of. Maybe among steroid users -- but even there, not common. 20 lbs? Probably never been done before. 25 lbs?

Seriously, if you really did that you would quite possibly be the first person in the history of the world to do so. You need to write a book, and start a training program. You'll make millions, if not billions.

But I have my doubts as to its veracity.

Yep, 25 lbs. It's not unheard of. You can do google searches to read up on some other peoples' experiences, but presumably you won't believe them either. You could read 4 Hour Body, which has pics, but I guess you won't believe that either. I don't know what to tell you, but it happened. You could ask anyone at the SEM firm I work at, many of whom I convinced to do CrossFit with me, what changes in my physique were readily apparent.

An interesting side-effect from the experience is that I finally diagnosed my angioedema without major urticaria that I'd been having since I was twelve, off-and-on. I'd always had swelling of the face or fingers or tongue or throat, periodically, that would occur in the morning. It went away for some years, but came back a couple years ago. It wasn't coincident with any particular food or activity so it was hard to see how it could be a food allergy. I would take Zyrtec once a day to manage it. However, after going on GOMAD, I couldn't manage it anymore, it was getting to dangerous levels. I went to an immunologist who didn't know what was happening either. After extensive research, I discovered that some people are sensitive to the casein protein found in the milk from common breeds of cattle in the US. It breaks down into an opioid in the body, and some of us produce a histamine response from it. I thank the a2milk company of Australia for providing the resources to help me figure it out. I've since been able to keep the acquired muscle by taking pure whey protein with water.

Anyway, so unless you think I just made up that food intolerance anecdote, yeah, it happened.

Yep, 25 lbs. It's not unheard of. You can do google searches to read up on some other peoples' experiences, but presumably you won't believe them either.

Probably not. I can find Google searches of people who made millions from their couch.

Send me a link from a credible muscle researcher that states that 25 lbs of lean muscle mass in a month is possible. I can't find one.

I don't think you are very well acquainted with the state of exercise science research. There is no one who can credibly claim what the upper limit on muscle mass accumulation is. Our current understanding of strength and hypertrophy pathways is primitive. Even incredibly basic foundational stuff is not agreed on: Some researchers claim you can only process 25g of protein in one sitting while others point to research that shows better protein synthesis and turnover when the entire day's consumption happens at one sitting.

People with my traits are very rare: A hard gainer who had over 10 years of lifting experience, could bench press 250 lbs at 5'11" and weighed 152 lbs? This made me oddly experienced, strong, skinny, and light. Perhaps that matters.

The state of health research is incredibly conflicted and ambiguous, including exercise science. There is more in this heaven and earth than are dreamt of in your philosophy.

I'm a programmer. I have nothing to sell and no agenda. I've been posting on hacker news for a long time. It's bizarre that you think I would lie about this.

First, I never said you were lying (at least not the way most people think about the term). You might be or there might be some other factors at play. I don't know.

What I do know is that no one gains 25 lbs of lean muscle mass in less than month.

What if I said that I ran 50 MPH over a one mile span? You'd probably say, "Not likely. No human has ever done that. If you can, you need to let people know because it would be a huge breakthrough in human athletics." Likewise, gaining 25 lbs of lean muscle mass in less than a month is unheard of.

As noted by another poster -- there's a story of someone who gained about 12# in a month and that story bordered on being so unbelievable that the author of the story has to continously inform the reader that this really happened. You're saying you did more than double that in less time.

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. With that said, you have nothing to prove to me. I'm just saying that I don't think what you said is credible and I don't think I'm alone. If you are being sincere, I hope at the very least, you can appreciate how hard your claim is to believe.

That's at the high end of reasonable, but lean gains on the order of 3# per week aren't unheard of. Mark Rippetoe documents one in his "Novice Effect" in which the gains were 2.84#/week over 11 weeks: http://startingstrength.com/articles/novice_effect_rippetoe....

I'd suspect that OP was hitting 50-50 for lean vs. fat mass, but that's still 12 pounds in a month, or about 3# per week. For a highly talented, untrained novice just starting to lift heavy on a milk-heavy diet, within reason/credulity. Though it'd be nice to see witnesses or supporting docs.

From the article you linked, "A best case scenario is Zach’s – he comes in skinny and weak, trains to his full potential, recovers to his full potential, and therefore expresses his optimum capacity for growth and strength. If Zach’s is the best-case scenario, the fact that you don’t really believe it happened the way I’ve described (you really don’t, do you?) means that it happens infrequently enough that less-than-best-case scenarios are the norm."

I don't doubt Mark. But Mark had to couch Zach's story so many times in, "I know... hard to believe"isms that it's super clear that it's something even rare for him to see. Double that rate of lean musle mass gains? I find that seriously hard to believe. I suspect Mark would too.

Look, of course it would be nice for documentation. I didn't set out to prove anything. This was just my experience. I would like for people to believe, but I'm not selling anything, and I have nothing to lose.

Was it 50-50 lean to fat? Well, I can say that my waist size didn't increase, and no one by visual inspection could point to any subcutaneous fat deposits. A normal person looking at me before and after would say that I had strictly increased in muscularity.

Easy there ... I'm mostly agreeing with you.

I work with ellyagg and I can confirm that he did in fact gain 25 lbs in a month using GOMAD, CrossFit and some additional strength work at the gym.

In the same time, I lost about 23 lbs with a diet of few carbs and no processed food, and doing the same exercise routine. I've kept it off even after going back to more normal diet. But, I plan on doing it again since I've still got some weight to lose.

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