Post: #1

I'm thinking of doing the gomad diet, which consists of drinking a gallon of milk a day for 1-2 months. I'm not a big eater, so it's hard for me to eat all the necessary food needed to gain weight. I'll probably be using almond milk instead of whole milk. Has anyone here tried the gomad diet and had success with it?

Post: #2

I have not done it but I would advise against it. You will put on weight and its not going to be mostly muscle. You will get fat. If you are doing a 5x5 program and you do bulk on tons of weight with GOMAD, you will get a lot stronger. Increasing your weight generally helps with the major compound exercises. However, it will be mostly fat that you put on.

Even if you try to substitute it with almond milk which is lower calorie, I dont see a benefit to doing a GOMAD diet. If you just eat right and do a strength training program, you will put on muscle mass.

If you want to put on weight, just eat a couple hundred more calories a day so that it is put on at a reasonable pace, do not binge.

Post: #3

GOMAD is dumb, just learn to eat.

Over time consistently eating to the point of discomfort, your stomach ( the organ) will stretch out and you'll become accustomed to eating mass quantities.

Progressively build up to eating more daily, eventually it will become natural.

Post: #4

On top of that I've never heard of anyone doing GOMAD with almond milk. How do the cals, protein, fats compare to whole milk?

Post: #5

I'd advise against GOMAD, because it's high in sugar and incites allergic reactions in many people.

Try protein shakes with heavy cream, coconut cream, or nut butter. Eat lots of meat, potatoes, rice with lots of butter, coconut oil, extra virgin olive oil or saturated animal fat. Cheese is also a lot less problematic than milk (no sugar, not as allergenic).

Check these threads:
/archive/index...18636.html
/archive/index...23293.html

Post: #6

You cannot do GOMAD with Almond milk man.

Off the top of my head whole milk is about 60-70kcal per 100ml depending on your area. It also has like 5g of protein per 100ml and a ton of fat.

The only Almond milk I can get hold of is about 25-30kcal per 100ml. Not only that but Almond milk has minimal protein and minimal fats in its nutrient profile.

The whole point of drinking a gallon of milk a day would be for the large volume of calories, protein and fats it provides. Almond milk is a great dairy substitute but not in the context that you propose unfortunately.

I do not drink any cows milk, I use rice milk as my substitute. I add whey protein and mass gain powder to give it some protein but this stuff is like 50kcal per 100ml and it goes down like water. I would suggest looking into rice milk as a substitute and beefing up its nutrient powder with whey and or mass gainer. If you get a blender throw in some oats and some peanut butter and you've got yourself a loaded mass gainer without all the milk bloating and gas.

Edit: As Basil Ransom just said, you got to consider all the shit that's in processed pasteurised milk. That's the main reason I cut it all out. Coconut cream is also a good suggestion. That's like what 180kcal per 100ml? Great as a base for a shake and full of sat fat to keep your T levels high.

Post: #7

Remember in GOMAD you are not just eating milk as your only food but adding a whole gallon a day to your diet to boost your calories. At the most I maybe added a quart per day.

GOMAD is probably not a good idea unless you are super skinny and in the early novice stages: If you are able to progress by something like 10 lbs. on your squat every single workout, 3x a week. (Also the younger you are, the better.)

Otherwise remember that the fun of making fast strength gains will balanced out by the not so fun process of losing excess fat later. The good part is that if you put on more muscle and boost your metabolism, you'll be able burn fat faster.

I think this guy makes a lot of sense:

http://www.powerliftingtowin.com/cutting...erlifting/

Post: #8

(10-12-2014 10:36 AM)Blackwell Wrote:  Coconut cream is also a good suggestion. That's like what 180kcal per 100ml? Great as a base for a shake and full of sat fat to keep your T levels high.

Coconut cream would be great, but it's usually packaged in cans which can give it really undesirable flavors, sometimes like a canned tuna flavor. You have to try different brands, and see if you can stand it. Chaokoh is good if you can find it. I would love to see coconut cream in a jar instead. I think the weird canning flavor disappears when used in cooking, eg for coconut curries - another great way to add healthy fats.

Instead, I just try to use lots of pastured butter in my cooking.

Post: #9

Actually I think whale milk would be the best if you can find it.

If you look up the mass gain rate for a baby whale, it's pretty mind blowing.

Post: #10

Gomad's a great starting diet for a beginning hard gainer. I always had trouble putting on weight so I tried the gomad diet. In actuality, I was only able to put away a half gallon maybe 3 quarts in a day. Any more and I would get sick.

Basically anytime I was thirsty I drank whole milk instead of water. I would mix it in with strawberry syrup to make it tastier.

For the first time in my life I was able to put on weight (and strength!). Although it was more fat than muscle. When I went in for a cut, GOMAD ultimately helped me understand how much food I needed to eat for losing, maintaining, or gaining weight.

Again i'd only recommend this diet to bean pole skinny guys.

Post: #11

really isn't necessary if you just find out what macro's work for you. doing GOMAD will just get you soft as shit most likely.

Post: #12

I'll point out he didn't ask 'what is your opinion of GOMAD'. There is a world of difference between 'this is my opinion of this thing I haven't even tried', and 'I tried this thing, and this is what happened'.

Yes I did GOMAD. this is what happened:
Drank a bit under a gallon, about 3L per day of full cream milk, every day without fail.
Motivation was I have a truly brutal time getting food into my body (appetite/stomache size/genetics whatever) and am scrawny as a result.
I would say that I did manage to gain a small amount of fat, but mostly on the belly. The biggest problem is that it destroys your appetite for normal food. It also clogs up your bowels so you spend longer on the toilet trying to pass the hard crap that results. It also causes more frequent and more sour flatulence.
I was not training at the time, so I can't vouch for its effects under a training regime.
When I started a training regime (weight training compound exercises to failure, 4 times per week), I used a mix of bulking shake powders, and medical meal replacements that I found a supplier for online, and whatever solid food I could squeeze in (not much). One tactic I used was to eat a full meal, then to force chugg two meal replacement cartons on top of that. Very difficult to maintain this. Consistent and hard weight training is trivially easy in comparison, you don't have to do that 3 to 5 times a day without fail, and muscle fatigue is nothing compared to feeling like you're going to vomit.

Regarding some of the comments here about 'just learn to eat'. I'll just say try forcing food past a gag reflex, fighting against the nausea, and then trying to eat again later when you have absolutely zero appetite. Not everyone has the same physiology. I've even been researching ghrelin mimetics to try and defeat this. Scrawnyness has absolutely crippled my success with women and crippled my respect from men, if I weighed 15kg more I'd have lived a completely different life.

Currently using this shake, a lot cheaper than using powders etc: milk, oats, olive oil, banana, peanut butter, chocolate.

Post: #13

I have done it twice, once for 8 weeks with a 14lb lean muscle mass growth, and the other for 4 weeks with I think around 8-10. Each time measured with calipers by a professional at a sports training facility, once with a "pod" body fat measurement machine. The first time I was 31, the second time I was 34. I did starting strength, and went up in my numbers, and stalled a few times, but kept progressing. I trained with Rip and did his cert, and worked with SS trained coaches.

A couple of things worked for me; I was working somewhere I could eat and drink milk all day. I was a new dad so I could care less about getting fat.

Bad things; it gave me hemorrhoids. It gave me a giant moon face. I would go from 14% body fat to over 20% body fat, and gain up to 30lbs total each time. I would grow out of all of my clothes. I blew out several pairs of paints, once in an airport in a $1000 suit that was ruined. At 5'10" I was around 175 lean body mass. My highest body weight was 225.

It totally works. You get fat and build muscle quickly, at the same time. Its the only real way to grow such a large amount of muscle so quickly without gear. Downside is getting the fat off. I was never able to do it quickly. In fact its been a struggle staying thin, sub 14% bodyfat, since I did it. I am still very muscular.

Who should do it? Anyone that wants to powerlift, under 35. Who should really do it, and who is it really intended for? High school and college athletes. Prepare to wear a fat suit if you do it as a desk jockey.

The willpower and effort to lose the fat after you gain is like reversing a loco motive, metabolically speaking. For the layman, i.e. non-professional/ non high level amateur athlete, its damn near impossible and easily takes 2-3x as long to get the fat off, as it did to gain the muscle. Hence the problem with GOMAD for joe sixpack. This is discussed at length all over the interwebs.

Post: #14

That much milk will surely destroy your pooper, even if you are otherwise lactose tolerant.

Post: #15

Started lifting at 130, got up to 160 by natural food/diet and then cut to 150 via intermittent fasting.

Hit a plateau at 150 for months. Simply couldn't put weight back on. Admittedly, I also just had a career change and moved to a new city with where I had no friends/family and had to rebuild my entire social life, so my appetite was not the greatest.

GOMAD helped me put on weight, although I would only recommend it short term (~1 month). Not the 'cleanest' gains, as Vaun and many on the net have pointed out, but for me I know I can use intermittent fasting again to knock off whatever fat I gain...cutting/losing fat has never been my issue. In addition, I saw gains that were smaller than most that people claim...gaining 12 lbs in a month is a lot but no where near enough to make me fat...I was at low body fat when I started and even now my abs are still visible.

My digestive system was fine with it...you just have to evenly spread consumption over the day and take your time with drinking the milk.

I would eat my entire meal of regular food then sip on milk for 30 min, constantly refilling the glass. Was able to throw on 12 lbs in a month, which I consider a success. As most people have commented so far, this is an easy, simple way to crank up calorie consumption. I would recommend it to guys that have real trouble putting on weight that already have tried to eat huge normal meals but for one reason or another can't stuff their faces enough to see gains.

Post: #16

I've done it. I got fat.

If I were to go back, I would have followed a macro-based approach.

Post: #17

If you're a really skinny guy it can work. If you have a fluffier "built-fat" or "skinny-fat" physique it is not recommended.

I tried GOMAD with 20 rep squats but could only manage the diet for about a week, constant diarrhea is not conducive to making gains or having a life.

Post: #18

^^^

Post: #19

I did half GOMAD with 20 rep squats for about 6 months, years ago. I built most of my current muscle mass then, but also got really fucking fat. Took ages to cut the fat gain.

Don't recommend it unless you're a serious hard gainer and can tolerate lots of milk.

Post: #20

Thanks for the input, guys. I'm not going to start yet, I'm going to try to expand my stomach in preparation for gomad by drinking a gallon of water a day and eating a bit more. Plus I'm doing bjj at the moment and don't want to end up shitting on the mats.

Post: #21

(10-12-2014 08:20 PM)StrikeBack Wrote:  I did half GOMAD with 20 rep squats for about 6 months, years ago. I built most of my current muscle mass then, but also got really fucking fat. Took ages to cut the fat gain.

Don't recommend it unless you're a serious hard gainer and can tolerate lots of milk.

This is why I don't understand the point of GOMAD and why people want to do it. Unless you are a scrawny and look like a toothpick, doing this is just plain dumb in my opinion.

Post: #22

I really don't think people should be giving their opinions as gospel if they have never tried it.

Here's my experience; I was a tiny, scrawny guy, never thought I could gain weight and struggled to eat a lot of food. I was 5'11 130lb. I started out doing stronglifts 5x5 and GOMAD at the same time.. in 1 month my lifts were going up and my weight was climbing. After 3 months my weight climbed up to 166lb and I had filled out massively. People started to comment that I had become a lot larger and some even thought I had taken steroids etc. Note that my diet didn't really change, just drank half a gallon to a gallon on milk a day extra.

Side effects: There were a few side effects. The biggest thing was having an uncomfortable, bloated sick feeling a lot of the time, especially after eating. Because there are so many calories going in, eating real food becomes a challenge and with the milk you can start to feel very sick. I remember throwing up a few times, mostly after training sessions. I gained fat around my mid section but due to the big growth in other areas (legs, chest, shoulders) I wasn't bothered. I never got acne. I never had any bowel problems.

Would I do it again? In a heartbeat. I personally would recommend doing it if you honestly find it hard to eat a lot and put on weight. Don't be worried about putting on fat like so many people are. If you are a true 'hardgainer' you can easily shed this. One of the best things about gomad is that once you stop, you body will still crave that many calories so eating a lot of food is easier. After finishing GOMAD my weight hovered around the same / started climbing very slowly.

Post: #23

Make sure you eat enough fiber if you do GOMAD. I eat a lot of oats, but I made the mistake of swapping that food item out for another when I did GOMAD and uggh my rear end hated me for it.

Post: #24

Did almost that. more like 3/4 a gal a day for about 5 months.

1) I gained muscle and fat, but more fat than I wanted.

2) Milk is actually acidic due to the lactose, etc. It caused me to start having GIRD at night bad enough to cause reflux burns on my larynx which caused a vocal chord polyp from yelling too loud just once. I've yet to get it fixed and it's left my voice very breathy sounding. (Bottom of chords became inflamed and the abrasion of them constantly rubbing together when I talked caused a capillary to expose and polyp that capillary)

3) Had my cholesterol checked, mind you I was mainly drinking 2%, not whole milk, and my cholesterol was off the charts. Beware of that!

4) If you do this, only do it for a few months, as we know casein and whey are milk derivatives so there some value in those calories, but you'd better be doing cardio too. In general though, it can fuck up your digestion.

Post: #25

(10-13-2014 08:15 PM)FretDancer Wrote:  This is why I don't understand the point of GOMAD and why people want to do it. Unless you are a scrawny and look like a toothpick, doing this is just plain dumb in my opinion.

GOMAD builds muscle very quickly and makes you stronger if your goal is heavier lifts. For people that just want to grow a little muscle and gain definition its not the routine for you.

Who was it designed for??
High school/College hard gainers heading into season.
A power lifter building base strength

Its not for a typical gym rat. Use powders if you are looking to get a little buff. I was the latter chasing a 500lb deadlift and mid 400 squat.