Building Muscle Mass

OK, i think its finally time for me to get back in shape... over the past two years, i've had my 6-pack turn into a keg, my muscle mass decrease tremedously, and my bodyweight drop to an unhealthy 135 pounds... (i know, i'm a skinny muthafucker right now...)
I recently bought some protein shakes called "Ensure", which claims to help build muscle. It says its got 12 grams of protein per serving, and a shitload of vitamins and minerals.

Here's my question: I have no idea how healthy this is for me... Should i be drinking like, a lot of this stuff? Will it seriously aid in building back muscle?

also, what is creatine?

Well you beat me to it. I was gonna tell you to drink Ensure. I drink one with every meal. But you HAVE to work out or else you'll just get fat. They are meant to be a meal by themselves. Ensure isn't really made to be a protein shake or anything. Its really an "old people's drink" for those who are at an age where they don't eat often enough, or for people trying to lose weight by cutting out meals and subbing them with Ensure. But its perfectly safe to drink as many as you feel are necessary, but make sure you hit those weights.

And even if you don't drink the Ensures, the basic thing you need to do is take in more calories than your body burns each day. Ensures are 500 cal each so if you do 3 a day thats an extra 1500 calories to be converted into muscle mass. But this is based on your body's need to call on these calories to be converted. When you use muscles, they are utilized in two groups. the first group is used for normal force and a bit above. So lifting a moderate amount a bunch of times just wears out the first set of muscles, which causes them to take the body's calories to be restored, but usually not built up. When you lift above the ability of the first set, the second set is forced to help, but since those muscles are under-utilized, they need the extra calories to rebuild themselves bigger than before in order to compensate. I hope that's not too confusing


That being said, stay away from creatine. It artificially boosts muscle mass by filling them with water. No good. Once you're off it, muscles will most likely deflate since they are filled with water, which the body naturally dissipates.

thanks, i knew creatine did something like that, as in artificially build muscle, but didn't know it was so temporary. Yeah, i've started to go to the gym again, but wanted some boost. i mean, this may sound ignorant or just stupid, will protein help build muscle faster? compared to ofcourse doing the same workout without protein shakes?

And even if you don't drink the Ensures, the basic thing you need to do is take in more calories than your body burns each day. Ensures are 500 cal each so if you do 3 a day thats an extra 1500 calories to be converted into muscle mass. But this is based on your body's need to call on these calories to be converted. When you use muscles, they are utilized in two groups. the first group is used for normal force and a bit above. So lifting a moderate amount a bunch of times just wears out the first set of muscles, which causes them to take the body's calories to be restored, but usually not built up. When you lift above the ability of the first set, the second set is forced to help, but since those muscles are under-utilized, they need the extra calories to rebuild themselves bigger than before in order to compensate. I hope that's not too confusing

Sorry, I added that in an edit while you were posting.

protein does help you build muscle, but the calories combined with the heavy lifting make it happen faster. So taking a billion protein pills is nothing without the calories to provide the conversion energy. Its like having lumber to build a house, but only one person to build it.

and conversely, taking in a bunch of calories with no protein is like having a thousand guys to help you build, but no materials for them to use

i heard that creatine wont do shit unless you work out when you take it. other wise you muscle turns to like water or something. this is what i heard.

i heard that creatine wont do shit unless you work out when you take it. other wise you muscle turns to like water or something. this is what i heard.

Your muscle doesn't turn to water, but the creatine will make you gain a bunch of water weight. All creatine does is cause your body to retain more water than it normally would. So if you're working out and building muscle, it will add the water to the muscle, if not, it adds it all over, so you just get fat. But if you take creatine while working out but then stop, the water that has been trapped in your new,swollen muscles will be released, leaving you with a deflated effect.

Your muscle doesn't turn to water, but the creatine will make you gain a bunch of water weight. All creatine does is cause your body to retain more water than it normally would. So if you're working out and building muscle, it will add the water to the muscle, if not, it adds it all over, so you just get fat. But if you take creatine while working out but then stop, the water that has been trapped in your new,swollen muscles will be released, leaving you with a deflated effect.alright thanks for clearing this up for me.:grinyes: thats what i figured but wanted to double check.

if you're looking to mass up, try your local health food shop or GNC store. The people will put you to a whey supplement powder to use to bulk out. Protein is only good to strengthen the muscle while you use calories to rip and strain it (make it bigger and stronger) so you don't take a huge hit out of each work-out. I live with my parents n a rich ass golf community with 2 restaurants in it, and a workout centre. I go swim for an hour in the pool, and then go up to the grill and eat a bunch of fries and ranch dressing for dipping. then i go down to the spa and work out my chest hard, and legs lightly, and go swim a little more, then come back in, and work my legs super hard and work my chest slightly more. then i do crunches, etc.

Hopefully i'll be getting a job as a trainer.

Also, nothing works better than a good long run to get off excess calories at night, other than really rough long sex. You want to get off all extra you can before you sleep.

I just need to say that the description of creatins is completely wrong. yes, it does cause your muscles to retain more water and they will grow a bit, but that's not what it does and that's not why pretty much EVERY professional body builder uses it. I boosts your bodies natural creatine content. creatine (or creatine phosphate rather) is used to aid in short bursts of power. your body uses ATP (adenozine triphosphate) as energy. there's a great explanation on wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Creatine

anyways, it helps your strength, so you can lift more and tear more mucle, it also helps your recovery, so you rebuild that muscle faster and you can see gains faster. If it only added water to mucles, bodybuilders wouldn't use it becuase they want deffinition and hard muscles, they don't want soft, bloated muscles. plus, they dehydrate themselves for a week before the competition (they slowly cut their water intake down to zero the day before the competition.) to tighten the skin and show muscle definition and veins much better. if they were taking creatine at this time, they would have incredible kidney problems and they would most likely die, or almost die, of dehydration because of the added water intake needed when you take creatine. If you decide to take it, remember you ABSOLUTELY NEED TO DRINK MORE WATER, if you don't you'll most likely have headaches and maybe some kidney problems, and don't take any more than the recommended dose. the recomended dose is very safe to take, if you take any more than that without the advice and supervision of a personal trainer or doctor, you could be in trouble.

I also looked up the ingredients in ensure, they look pretty healthy. there's nothing in there that i think could be harmful. the only thing to watch is that you do get enough hard food. those shakes are good and all but you can't get all the nutrients you need from them. foods are so complex, if you survive on supplements, you'll end up in bad shape or just plain unhealthy. so, take one of those halfway between breakfast and lunch, or between lunch and dinner, or both if you need those calories and protein. becuause they aren't a meal replacement, nomatter what the bottle sais. nothing can replace a meal for nutrient content.

If you want to build muscle mass, you need alot of protein, but not too much, if you overkill you'll just end up with a bunch of calories that your body doesn't need/use. so your diet should be something like 60% carbs, 20%fat and 20%protein, I've also hear 15% fat and 25% protein but these are just rough estimates. I don't really pay attention to that, i just try to eat high protein, low fat dinners, which usually end up being high protein with moderate fat. so for breakfast i'll fry a few eggs in some vegetable or canola oil, then have it on top of toast that has been dribbled with a bit of olive oil (for taste and fat content. it's best to get your fats from plants because they are more likely to be used as fuels and are less likely to stay in your blood stream). then for lunch ill have some chicken, turkey, or roast beef or a bun, no mayo (well, sometimes i add mayo, you don't just eat to live, you've got to enjoy it) with a bit of cheese. and dinner is a toss up, this is the one i usually cheat on. sometimes i'll have something healthy (like some kind of meat pasta, or whaever mom makes) but sometimes i might have 2 bacon cheese burgers with mayo and ketchup, probably about a 2000 calorie meal.

sorry for the long post but i've been reading alot about this stuff for the past few months so i have alot to write about, i could probably go on longer but i doubt you'd be interested.

edit: just thought i'd add a little more. you NEED to work out your legs. not only will you look stupid with a big upper body and little twig legs, but they help you build muscle. what are the biggest muscles in your body? your quadraceps. this means you can lift the most weight with them. when you work a muscle and tear muscle fibers, it triggers an anabolic (muscle building) response. you release more testosterone, you send more nutrients to your muscles, etc. well testosterone is the key engredient to building muscle, which is why lots of people supplement it with anabolic steroid injections. so your legs, being the largest muscle in your body, will trigger the largest response, the testosterone will go wherever it is needed, it can't really be like "oh here's a bicep that's recovering, i'm not going to go there because i need to go to the legs" so if you do a hard leg workout, it'll help you build bigger arms. sounds stupid but it works. but make sure you work every part of your legs, you don't want to be unbalanced in looks, some excercises might be tedious but it's important to build your body evenly so you don't look stupid.

If you need some info for excercises you can PM me, I've been researching for a while now and have found alot of different excercises to do different things. I don't know how much info you want so if you need any, just send me a message with a question, i love talking about this stuff, almost as much as i love talking about cars and girls, so it's no bother to me.

Edit #2: I just reread the ingredients of these shakes, the protein one contains only soy protein, which some people will say that because it contains phitoestrogens (which resemble estrogen) that it will increase your estrogen levels. well new studies have shown that this is completely false and that your body does not use these phitoestrogens to increase estrogen levels and i think they just pass right through you.

anyways that's not why i added this, i wanted to let you know that soy protein isn't absorbed nearly as quickly and isn't as effective as whey protein. whey protein is the best protein available on the market right now. it's absorbed quickly and it also has alot of nutritional value. not only that but it contains all kinds of nutrients that help prevent diseases and helps general health. it also contains sugar, that's where the carbs are coming from. sugar is not a good source of energy. it is quickly absorbed and its calorie content is high so it's good right before an athletic event or between 2 events when you need to refill your glycogen content. anyways it's better to get your energy from unrefined sources. so you want to get them from bread, white or brown doesn't really matter but with brown you get mroe nutrients and fiber, or other places.

I would suggest using another kind of protein shake, I use a whey protein isolate for mine (iso pro low carb to be specific) and it's got ~100 calories per shake with 35 grams of protein. you can also go for a whey protein concentrate. its protein content won't be as high but it'll have alot mre of the nutrients that whey protein alone contains. I'd stay away from an ion exchange protein. ion exchange is a way to extract the protein from milk, it yields the highest protein content but the protein isn't as good as other ways to isolate it. it leaves less biologically active proteins, and although it's absorbed the quickest, it's not the best IMO.

for what you're using it for i'd suggest a protein concentrate, it'll have more calories and it'll be good for a fourth and fifth meal between larger meals. or if you're already getting all the calories you need, go with an isolate. I would also suggest finding a good tasting one. I started on the chocolate iso-pro and it tastes horrible, i switched to vanilla and it's better. today i'm actually going out to by some unflavoured stuff, i don't like the taste of sucralose, the artificial sweetener they use in iso-pro. when you search for one, look at the ingredients, try to stay away from sugar and also it'll tell you what kind of filtering process it uses (so ion exchange, CFM (cross flow microfiltered), etc) so stay away from ion exchange.