This is my first post, though I've been reading the forum for a few weeks. I've been eating 100% raw fruits and vegetables for 2.5 weeks now and I love it. I'm 21 years old. 5' 8'' and about 145lbs I think (haven't weighed myself in a while and I don't have a scale now). I'm quite lean and have muscle that I've built over the last couple years on high protein diets. I'm trying to continue to build muscle and gain weight on this diet.
Over the last week I've found a pattern with eating. Here is basically what I've been doing:
Breakfast (8am): 1500cals. 2 Mangos, anywhere from 7-10 bananas and then however many dates to get to 1500 calories.
Lunch (noon): 1500cals. Usually 1-2 pieces of juicy fruit like nectarines or pears. 9-10 bananas and the rest from dates.
Dinner (6-8): I make sure to get lots of calories in during the day, and use the evening to eat more of the juicy fruits that I can't get enough calories from like watermelon, kiwis, strawberries, grapes, or oranges. After that, I have a salad with lettuce and/or spinach, peppers, cucumber, tomato and I eat half and avocado.
My end of the day stats are usually the following:
calories: 4000
protein: 50-55g (4-5%)
carbs: 88%
fat: 30g (7%)
My questions are the following:
1)Overall, how does this eating pattern look? More specifically, if I'm trying to build muscle, how many calories should I aim for? Is this sufficient? I could easily just eat more bananas and dates in the evening to crank it up close to 5000, but I usually have had enough of them and I want to enjoy variety with juicy fruits for dinner or I'll get sick of this diet. But if it's necessary, I'll substitute some of the high volume, low calorie juicy fruit with some more bananas and dates.
2) I eat the half avocado with my salad because it fits my fat intake and I love it. I know 80/10/10 are the upper/lower bounds, but seeing as I'm trying to build muscle, I'd like to get as close to the 10% protein as I can. However, eating just fruits and vegetables, I can't seem to get to 10% What are possible ways to get there? Are there higher protein fruits I'm not eating? Is it recommended to eat nuts and seeds, particularly hemp seeds? I know they are also fatty, and would eating nuts and seeds affect the benefits of eating only raw fruits and vegetables?
Any comments, suggestions and advice would be much appreciated.
Thanks,
Ari
Permalink Reply by Iron Clad Ben on June 23, 2012 at 1:09pm Trying to up your protein intake will not help build extra muscle. Hard, consistent work in the gym, plenty of sleep and sufficient calories will. Looks like you are definitely on track with that last one. How about the other two?
Permalink Reply by astoler on June 23, 2012 at 1:20pm Ok. So how does my intake look? Would you say that is sufficient or would you suggest I try to get closer to 5000?
Permalink Reply by Jelle on June 24, 2012 at 7:21am Looks like a good start, I agree with Iron Clad Ben that there is no need reaching 10% protein a day, up the total amount of calories and thereby increase the amount of protein and other nutrients needed to recover and build muscle. Just see how it goes the next six or twelve months, it may be needed to add some more calories, greens, nuts or seeds.
Magnus Beck replied to Magnus Beck's discussion Trained 7 times! for my first sucessfull Marathon
Gwen1472 posted a status
© 2013 Created by TheBananaGirl.
Powered by
