dietary advice for health/training

[dezhen2001]

hey guys (and gals if any come here)

after a period of basically slacking coz of being depressed and stress, i am now officialy p|ssed of and wanna get back in to training.

Basically i am wanting advice on how to try and gain a little weight/muscle but in a more natural way. i am around 5'10" (178cm) and aorund 150lbs (68kilos) so a bit on the scrawny side. Guess that makes me an ectomorph.

Now, bearing in mind that i am also a student and on a VERY tight budget, i was wondering if u guys have any advice u can give me. i posted this on the Health forum as well, but as i do Qigong and htings was wondering if there is a TCM perspective to this.

ok, to give you an idea of my training, read below:

Flexibility: basic warmup and stretching methods to increase my flexibility and range of body movement, including jumping stuff.

soft Qigong: standing and moving sets

hard qigong

Wing Chun: Siu Lim Tao and basic movements

Stances: Zhan Zhuang and Mabu training.

Now im not really bothered about getting 'big' or anything like that... more just to become stronger (and if im lucky maybe a few pounds heavier). Kinda whole body strength, connected - The hard qigong really helps with that. But im more wondering about the food side as its important for me too

im not interested in supplements really as a) expensive and b) dont like that idea, prefer food.

Any advice anyone can give me would be most appreaciated
thanks,

dawood

[Former castleva]

:)

Would seem to me that you should,based on what is handed out,be worthy to take a look at this from a dietary perspective (mainly "western") which will most probably suit your needs in order to grow etc.
This,since one would have to take elements and polarities into account,including their related qualities of food´s-"hot","cold" etc. and even colours (as known,food being used in tcm related issues as medicine which in turn,would require a certain diagnosis in order to know what to strengthen...)
Not to turn down but to just stand back for the grey,as far as I dare to. :)
Cents are a few.

Good luck.

[Marshdrifter]

I am not a dietitian, but with my manual labor job and practicing
Wing Chun, I've discovered some things out by accident.

Not too long ago, in an attempt to improve my muscle recovery
rate, I changed my carbs to protein ratio, by increasing the
amount of protein I was getting in my diet, while cutting back a
bit on the carbs. I cut out all the unnecessary stuff like soda and
chocolate (well... most chocolate :) ) and the protein was mostly
soy (Tofu and soy milk), fish (tuna and salmon) and nuts (I'm
addicted to cashews). Just by changing my diet and doing my
usual practice, I lost a bit of the exterior fat and noticably gained
muscle (and weight). I'm currently at 5'7 and 130 pounds.

YMMV

[dezhen2001]

hey guys thanks fo ryour advice :)

well im not really wanting to change my build by diet, more interested in what is better for me to eat if i am training a lot. from my own experience it seems increasing protein is good, and i was just wondering where etc. i asked ths on the health forum as well, just wondering opinions here too :)

mainly like i said i will be doing my qigong for 2 hours plus a day (even up to 4) for my 100 days to build up my hard qigong level. that pretty much takes care of the muscle building so i was just wondering about fod etc. as well.

thanks,
dawood