Starting CrossFit. Should I stick with a "bodybuilding" type diet?

[Niall Somerville]

A bit of info about me. I'm 6'1" and have always been extremely skinny. A few months ago I decided to change that so I started a serious diet and training program which I wrote myself and gained 11 kg's in the space of 3 months. I sustained an injury and stopped dieting and training and since then I have lost 6kg's of the 11 I gained. I'm about to get back into training and have decided on CrossFit but i'm wondering if I should eat the same as I did when I was bodybuilding. My goal is to gain lean mass and drop a little bodyfat in the process. My diet was based around 30/40/30 pro/carbs/fat and I was eating close to 4000 calories per day clean. What does everyone think? Should I back off the calories a bit or keep them high?

[Brian Negrotto]

Everybody here preached and preached Paloe diet to me. I finally gave it a try and already the benefits are HUGE!! Check it out.

[Katherine Derbyshire]

4000 calories is not high for someone your size who is trying to gain weight. I wouldn't back off until you've had a chance to assess the results, and you may find you need to eat even more than that.

Katherine

[Joe Bernard]

How much do you weigh? What is your weight goal? If you want to put on a good bit of weight, lifting heavy stuff is always a good bet to put on the most muscle. Starting Strength or Crossfit Football are good programs for this.

[Laura Kurth]

If this diet has worked for you in the past, why mess with a good thing! Though I would say, at 4k in kcal you probably don't need 30 percent from protein... Little high. Unless you particularly like protein... But protein foods tend to be $$ so you could fill in some of those kcal with less pricy foods.

[Adam Ahern]

11kg in 3 months eating clean? were you drinking a lot of milk?

[Niall Somerville]

Originally Posted by Adam Ahern

11kg in 3 months eating clean? were you drinking a lot of milk?

Not really. The only milk I drank was with protein shakes. I usually had 2 per day. To be honest my progress was pretty freaky. No one could really believe how quickly I gained weight. I started at 65kg and was 76kg when I stopped lifting and being strict with my diet. I'm back down to 70kg now and want to get into the 80's. Here's a pic of my progress.

http://img195.imageshack.us/img195/1427/progressd.jpg

[Greg Privitera]

Good work keep going, up the calories again when you need to. Forget about percentages in your diet, go for grams of each macro and then overall kcal intake.

[Ryan Palm]

Originally Posted by Katherine Derbyshire

4000 calories is not high for someone your size who is trying to gain weight. I wouldn't back off until you've had a chance to assess the results, and you may find you need to eat even more than that.

Katherine

How can you say that? He didn't give you a weight, and activity level...or any type of information that would allow you simply just say 4000 is to little. All we know is that he gained a ridiculous amount of weight in a short period of time...off of his 4000 cal diet...His pic's look like he's making very good progress...

It would have been to ask a few more things...especially because he wants to add lean mass and cut fat...there's a good chance that if he was to eat more he would not be achieving the second part of his goal. (even if it looks like there's not much fat to drop, it's still his goal.)

Niall, there is a good chance your going to know the answer to your question better then any of us, If I was you I'd continue what I was doing, the direction your going looks like a good one. It's a trial and error process, so if you see that you’re slipping to much one way or another tailor your diet to correct it. I'd keep the ratios.

[Justin McGinley]

It looks like that diet worked the first time around. Give it another go.