bellypacker:
bbencourgr:
Blowing Up Your Fatboy: Gainer Shake Basics
So I know
you have your opinions about gainer shakes: what’s best, what’s healthy,
what’s stupid, what’s toxic… And yet for all that supposed
information, there’s probably at least as much confusion. From decades
of bodybuilding and fattening guys, here’s what I’ve discovered about
gainer shakes and using them to put over 150 pounds on my fatboy since
we got together a few years ago. (And all that blubber looks amazing on
his 5'6" frame.)
Guys who’ve followed what I’ve outlined here
(both quantity and frequency) have gained 15-20 pounds in a month. In
one case, 10lbs in a week for several weeks when combined with an
already high-calorie diet.
4 Pillars of a Gainer Shake
Whatever the recipe and no matter the goal, all gainer shakes are built from four main components:
a calorie source (heavy cream, peanut butter, etc.)
an insulin trigger (maltodextrin, dextrose, glucose, table sugar, etc.)
a flavor component (cocoa, Quik, fruit, juice, ice cream, etc.)
a texturizer (ice, xanthan gum, milk, soluble fiber, lecithin, egg yolk, etc.)
If
your gainer shake tastes terrible, doesn’t give the desired results, or
gives your fatboy diarrhea, it’s because you don’t have the right
balance of the four components above.
All-Purpose Gainer Mix
Use
this unflavored mixture to pour over cereal or fresh fruit. You can
also use it to revive stale cake, stale hard cookies, stale hard bread,
stale cooked rice. Just pour it over the day-old food and put it in the
microwave for about 30-60 sec.
A pint (=2 cups, =16 fl oz, =500ml) of “heavy whipping cream” (=“whipping cream” in the UK, =about 30-40% milk fat).
Half cup (=4 fl oz, =120ml) of maltodextrin (available cheaply online)
This mixes easily with a spoon and has a sweet, creamy texture.
Gainer Shake Variation
To the recipe above, add
0-1 cups (0-250ml) of milk to thin the mixture to a desired consistency.
Add flavorings such as
Nestle’s Quik, or
fruit, or
ice cream
Blend well.
If
you can’t tolerate dairy, use non-dairy creamer and half as much
maltodextrin (or else it’ll be insufferably sweet). If that doesn’t
please, see the Pudding recipe below.
Pudding or Dip Variation
Feed
this pudding variation to your growing fatboy as is, or have him use it
as a dip for cookies, apple slices, bananas, or a bland cracker.
A
cup (=8 fl oz, =250ml) of “natural” peanut butter (just peanuts and
salt). You can use bad commercial peanut butter, but it’ll be hard to
incorporate the maltodextrin, and it won’t taste as good. To make any
peanut butter more pliable, microwave it for 15-30 sec.
Half cup (=4 fl oz, =120ml) maltodextrin (available cheaply online)
You
can substitute any nut butter you wish for peanut butter. Peanut butter
is the most common of nut butters, but almond butter or especially
macadamia nut butter are even more fattening. All you need to make a nut
butter is some nuts, some salt, and a grinder.
Frequency & Variety
Gaining
is much more about consistency than about quantity. Blowing up your
fatboy necessitates at least one serving of any of these every day. Now
think that through: He’s gonna eat one of these at least 30, maybe even
60 times in a month, so you need to keep the flavor and textures varied.
Even if he tells you he loves one particular recipe and wants it every
day, strongly urge him once in a while to try another flavor, texture or
variant. He’ll say he doesn’t like it as well, but that’s perfect. He
can go back to his favorite the next time with renewed enthusiasm. The
alternative is that he eats his favorite every day until he’s sick to
death of it, and then you can’t feed him anything like it for at least a
month.
A Word About Maltodextrin
Maltodextrin is a
common additive in packaged foods around the world. It’s not expensive;
it’s not exotic. Maltodextrin is the most efficient substance to trigger
an insulin spike in your fatboy. Now whenever you say “insulin” to a
gainer, he hears “diabetes.” (You
can look forward to my writing a future blog entry on diabetes and
gaining). Your fatboy is not crazy for making that association, but it
might help to know that bodybuilders also use maltodextrin
to help them build muscle. Maltodextrin used to be very popular in
bodybuilding circles when
high-carb diets were in vogue because the substance enters the blood
stream twice as fast as ordinary sugar. This makes it the most effective
way to shunt calories into the fat cells. (In bodybuilding, it was used
by “hard gainers” as a post-workout drink combined with high amounts of
protein.)
Maltodextrin spikes Insulin, which unlocks muscle or fat cells to allow nutrients
to enter. Whether the insulin unlocks muscle or fat cells is a long
explanation and not fully understood in nutritional science. (Also there
is no evidence that a particular diet–much less a particular
nutrient–will give someone diabetes). However, the bottom line for
fattening your guy is that you want something to push all those calories
into his fat cells like a tsunami, not like a trickle.
Maltodextrin is available online quite cheaply in almost every country. A inexpensive source I’ve found is My Spice Sage.
If you’re considering dextrose, which is more easily available in
health food stores that cater to bodybuilders, keep in mind that the
osmotic pressure of maltodextrin is less than that of dextrose, which
means less bloat and discomfort.
Butter & Oils
Cooking
oils taste horrible and will run through your gainer’s digestive tract
like a freight train (if he doesn’t just vomit). Yes, you can use only
small amounts, which sort of defeats the point, or you have to have at
least twice as much fiber and starch to prevent the diarrhea. Butter
isn’t too bad, but it won’t emulsify well (you’ll get little granules of
fat), and why not just use cream. The fat in cream is butter.
Now,
a far better use of butter or olive oil would be as a roux with rice
(Creole style) or as a sauce with sautéed garlic over pasta (northern
Italian style).
Weight Gain Powder
Weight gain powders
are expensive and inefficient. I know they say “weight gain” on the
label, but they don’t mean “fat gain.” I don’t even recommend 90% of the
ones on the market to bodybuilders. They’re usually mostly sugar
(dextrose) and some cheap or low-quality protein such as casein, soy, or
a hydrolized mystery protein. For that, you’ll pay more than you would
for the same calories in regular food. Weight gainers do boast a lot of
calories but check out the serving size. Usually you have to drink a
cement mixer full of the stuff. Sure, weight-gain powder and gainers
seem to go together like truckers and beer. But using weight-gainers as a
calorie source is like using beer in your truck as a fuel source. In my
opinion, weight gain powders have no uses for gainers, and I only
recommend a select few for encouragers trying to put on muscle mass for
bodybuilding.
Cake Shakes
Well, here you’re on your
own. If you’re drinking a shake for calories, a shake made with cake mix
is a poor choice. Yes, it’s got loads of calories, but again we must
consider the volume. A cup of heavy cream has 800 calories. A cup of
peanut butter has 1600 calories. A cup of cake shake has probably 400
calories.
The only use of a cake shake is if you’re more
concerned with bloat than calories. Many gainers love feeling like they
just eaten an entire brick yard. If that’s your aim, then you can’t
beat the cake shake. And sure, it’s got a lot of calories too. Again, I
prefer other foods and feeding techniques for really taking a guy to
capacity in a feeding scene.
#Can'tWaitToUseThese #He'sGonnaGetSoFat