Becoming the Bull

Putting on weight. In the fitness world that means gaining muscle mass while maintaining the "lean and mean" look. How do you do this? Well first, what do you eat and how much do you eat? You are what you eat after all. 

Currently, I am working out twice a day, 7 days a week, eating 4-5 meals a day which total up to around 4 thousand calories. It was so odd to me that I was STILL hungry at the end of the day and it bothered me that I was hovering sub 140 lbs consistently. I knew I was getting stronger, but I was not seeing it. Eat more? Really? I brought this issue up with a good friend from San Diego. He simply told me, "drink milk...a gallon a day." A gallon a day sounds ridiculous! He brought up the examples of baby bulls. Their weight spikes from 500/700 lbs to 2000 lbs in a matter of months not with eating grass, but from milk. Also, back in the Arnold days (Arnold Schwarzenegger), they did not have all these perfected supplements and pre work outs you could purchase from your local nutrishop. These body builders for the most part were natural minus the hand full that took anabolic steroids. I decided to up my milk in take.  

Right now, I am finishing up week one of my milk experiment. I am not drinking a gallon of (whole) milk a day, but warming up to the idea starting out with a quart. It's not as hard as I thought it would be and immediately it has solved my late night hunger issue. The down side is, buying a quart of milk daily is getting expensive (let alone a gallon) and my body feels a bit off. The best I could describe the feeling is "heavy." I assuming it's not used to the amount of milk I'm putting into it. I will eventually find a happy medium. For you lactose intolerant people out there, I recommend almond milk (not soy) and/or greek yogurt if you want to try this. 

Currently, I am 142.6 lbs. (it's working!) 

First Post

Introduction

Call me Dale. It's a lot easier than my given name. I've decided to start a fitness/health blog because a lot of my friends and random gym people have been asking the question: "What do you do?"  I know I am in a shape, but I never knew people looked up to me in that way. Because of my frame, size and ethnic genetics, I am never going to lift big or play in any televised professional sport. I worked with the hand I was dealt and over time developed a work out routine that had the underlying goal of "cutting up." Since, I knew I was never going to be big, this seemed like my only route.

When I was growing up as a child, my parents, especially my mom was very concerned for my size. I was small, alarmingly skinny. I was often teased, picked on and bullied at school for being the quiet, twig-like Asian kid. I was really self conscious about my physical appearance. Fast forward a couple years to high school, I started working out. At first it was home work outs: running around the block, push-ups, sit ups, pull-ups and curls with the rusty dumb bells my dad had in the garage. At first, I was shy about going to the gym for reasons I will discuss in another post. None the less, here I am now. 

5'8" 139.2 lbs.