I'm kind of new to this creatine protein stuff, and need help

Question

My schedule consists of me working out in the morning, around 7 am, eating 2 eggs before that cooked. after my workout I take my protein/creatine in the same bottle. Should I take it around supper too? I workout during the weekdays. I need to know what I should be doing also to go from 160 to 180 in 4 months.

Also should I be switching my diet going from drinking pop and stuff to lean meats and protein foods with carbs? I heard from many people but they all have different strategies and it doesn't help. Is there anything else I should take?

Answer 1

What you need to eat does also depend on your body type (and age). Definitely you'll need protein, the basic building blocks of muscle. You'll want more than one serve per day. Go for at least another in the evening, as well as more lean meats. Try to eat protein with every meal.

Also, don't ignore carbs. You need carbs for energy to fuel your workouts and also to ensure that the protein you intake is not being used for fuel and remains for muscle building.

Depending on the type of creatine/workout booster your taking, I expect you'll get more benefit taking that prior to your workout, rather than immediately after. Creatine aids in energy transfer during anaerobic activity, such as a weight training. It's not a supplement for directly building muscle, as protein is.

Importantly, lift hard and go to failure and beyond with every set (once your form is good). Your body only grows in response to stimulus and that stimulus is making it work harder than it is used to working. Even if that means increase the weight by only a 1lb each workout, or doing one more rep to failure.

Answer 2

Besides your protein intake, you need to cut "empty calories" (ie sugars) as much as possible if you want to build lean mass, and not gain fat.

A can of pop has about 140 calories. Sure you need calories to live, but the reason it's called "empty" is because besides fuel your body for the day, that "food" (Coke) doesn't do anything else for your body.

Better have 140 calories of some food (any food!) that has at least some kind of vitamin/mineral content.

Answer 3

Your training program looks good, ideally if you want to gain mass then you should focus on compound exercises (never compromise on form however) and as anyone will be able to tell you 80% of you gains will depend on your diet.

Use this calculator to figure out how many calories you need to intake per day.

Regarding the actual diet, definitely cut the soda. Focus on lean meat and a high protein diet. You will have to ask a nutritionist to make you a diet depending upon your tastes and schedule. What worked for me was a lot of sausages, potatoes, pasta and burgers along with the obvious lean chicken, but then I didn't care about gaining fat as I was pretty skinny :)

To answer your question though, creatine gives you a strength boost and one serving a day is enough, you could consider adding a serving of mass gainer before you hit the sack.