holand and barrett muscle and sise gainer

bulbs2010

I am 5 ft 8 age 42 and 11 stone started weight training and running 4 months ago I was 12 .5 stone then .I started taking "hardcore series muscle and size gainer" yesterday to try to gain muscle.Am I doing the rite thing I hope it wont put the fat back on .I would be greatfull for any advice thank you

the drifter

Whats your diet like? A better diet is always the way too go!

bulbs2010

yeah I have a good diet but maby a bit too many carbs and not enough protein

the drifter

bulbs2010 wrote: »

yeah I have a good diet but maby a bit too many carbs and not enough protein

Then sort this with more protien before turning to a mass gainer!!!!

marathonic

Most of Holland and Barrett's products are poorer quality than what you'll find in the likes of myProtein or BulkPowders.

As stated above, adjusting your diet to increase protein intake is the number one priority. After this, my advice would be to finish the stuff you've got and then get yourself

• a blender,
• a few kilos of peanut butter (I order 4 at a time for the bulk discounts)
• a 5kg bag of unflavoured protein
• some flavouring

Then, buy bananas for the carb content and you can blend your own shakes. You can reduce the peanut butter content when on a cut and continue with the protein to maintain muscle or adjust in any other way as your goals change. It should also work out a lot cheaper.

Even if you don't want a blender, you can just eat the peanut butter with a spoon, the banana as normal and simply have the whey in a shake.

As a sample, you could blend a shake with:

50g Peanut Butter - 290 calories and 15g Protein at a cost of €0.30
50g Whey - 197 calories and 41g Protein at a cost of €0.54
1 Banana - 103 calories and 1g Protein at a cost of €0.37 (for example)
Flavouring at a cost of €0.04

The above shake would cost €1.25 per serving and provide 590 calories and 57g of Protein and a lot of good fats. It's also highly customisable.

For comparison, the H&B product costs about €1.87 per serving and only provides 315 calories and 23.9g of Protein per serving.

You could also consider flavoured protein but the flavdrops allow you to have a bit of variety - it can get sickening going through 5kg of the same flavour of protein.

My myProtein discount code is MP289427 which will give you 5% off your first order. However, make sure to look at the other suppliers to just in case they're cheaper at that time:

http://www.myprotein.com
http://www.bulkpowders.co.uk
http://www.ironscience.co.uk
http://www.bodybuildingwarehouse.co.uk

bulbs2010

thank you for the advice I will try to make my own shakes.Just wondering would all those extra calories not put the fat back on me that I lost over the last few months ,I have gone from a 36 waste to a 32,dont wanna go back to 36

marathonic

bulbs2010 wrote: »

thank you for the advice I will try to make my own shakes.Just wondering would all those extra calories not put the fat back on me that I lost over the last few months ,I have gone from a 36 waste to a 32,dont wanna go back to 36

That depends. Those calories are coming from better sources than that of the Holland and Barrett "hardcore series muscle and size gainer". If you replace, calorie for calorie, the H&B shake with the homemade shake, it won't cause you to add more fat than you would have anyway with the H&B product.

You really need to figure out how many calories it takes for you for maintenance (neither lose or gain weight) and add 500 to that. If you can get that via a clean, high-protein diet, then that's your best way to proceed. If you find it difficult to do this, then eat as many calories as you can via such a diet and then add a shake to make up the difference.

There's more information about how to work out your maintenance calories in the Nutrition stickies.

If you find it too difficult to work out, then do the following:

1. Clean up your diet making it sufficiently high in protein
2. Lift heavy in the gym
3. Weigh yourself after two weeks and add 500 calories if you haven't gained 1kg or reduce 250 calories if you've gained more than 1kg
4. Repeat until your gaining 1kg per fortnight

By lifting heavy in the gym whilst on a high protein diet at the correct number of calories, you can expect to gain 1lb per week. Half of this will be fat and half muscle. Then, every few months, you can reduce the calories and cut the fat. You should be able to maintain the muscle if your diet remains high in protein.

As an example, if done correctly, you could gain 6kg in three months - of which 3kg will be fat. You can then spend the next month on a cut and lose 2 lbs per week resulting in an overall reduction of about 1kg in fat and gain of 3kg in muscle over the four months.

This is the easiest way to gain muscle as it's pretty difficult to lift heavy and, thus, increase muscle whilst, at the same time, being on a calorie deficit to try to cut fat.

bulbs2010

thank you very good advice makes a lot of sense

Laisurg

A lot of weight gainers contain a good bit of simple sugers so watch out for that, i also havn't heard great things about holland and barret products.
I don't think you'd need a mass gainer, that's usually for people that have a very high metabolism or do a lot of different exercise and have trouble getting the right amount of calories every day.

I'd say just buy whey protein if you're finding it hard to get enough protein every day, at 11 stone you should aim for about 150 grams of protein a day.

Tigger

whey and banananas (sp?) is the way i when
eat between meal without ruining your appetite

silverwood

marathonic wrote: »

That depends. Those calories are coming from better sources than that of the Holland and Barrett "hardcore series muscle and size gainer". If you replace, calorie for calorie, the H&B shake with the homemade shake, it won't cause you to add more fat than you would have anyway with the H&B product.

You really need to figure out how many calories it takes for you for maintenance (neither lose or gain weight) and add 500 to that. If you can get that via a clean, high-protein diet, then that's your best way to proceed. If you find it difficult to do this, then eat as many calories as you can via such a diet and then add a shake to make up the difference.

There's more information about how to work out your maintenance calories in the Nutrition stickies.

If you find it too difficult to work out, then do the following:

1. Clean up your diet making it sufficiently high in protein
2. Lift heavy in the gym
3. Weigh yourself after two weeks and add 500 calories if you haven't gained 1kg or reduce 250 calories if you've gained more than 1kg
4. Repeat until your gaining 1kg per fortnight

By lifting heavy in the gym whilst on a high protein diet at the correct number of calories, you can expect to gain 1lb per week. Half of this will be fat and half muscle. Then, every few months, you can reduce the calories and cut the fat. You should be able to maintain the muscle if your diet remains high in protein.

As an example, if done correctly, you could gain 6kg in three months - of which 3kg will be fat. You can then spend the next month on a cut and lose 2 lbs per week resulting in an overall reduction of about 1kg in fat and gain of 3kg in muscle over the four months.

This is the easiest way to gain muscle as it's pretty difficult to lift heavy and, thus, increase muscle whilst, at the same time, being on a calorie deficit to try to cut fat.

Excellent post....thanks!

Gummy Panda

Tigger wrote: »

whey and banananas (sp?) is the way i when
eat between meal without ruining your appetite

Oats are good too or if you want to be fancy aktivated barley with some whey.

Hanley

muscle man wrote: »

I don't think proteis are sufficient when you want put up on weight.
I would suggest more proteins and carbohydrates intake in your diet. proteins are sufficient when tonning up but not gaining mass. agree, proteins are to build muscles but on it own are not sufficient. proteins will rip you, rather gain weight.
I would gain mass, than rip muscles on proteins.

That's some of the strangest advice I've ever seen.

Pace2008

Hanley wrote: »

That's some of the strangest advice I've ever seen.

I thought the same at first, but I think he means that when trying to bulk up, you need to focus on getting in plenty of calories with a high carb intake, as well as sufficient amounts of protein, before dropping the carbs and calories when trying to lose weight, and upping the protein to prevent muscle loss.

Which basically sounds like a traditional bodybuilding bulk/cut diet.