Whole milk.

Originally Posted by Jeff140

I'll probably have to gain weight and move up a weight class, and I'm lifting often, but I fear that I'll have trouble putting on muscle. In addition to my workouts and diet, what supplements should I take? I need something that will promote muscle growth and strength. I don't need something that just increases size and mass; I also need functional muscle.

Any help would be appreciated

Functional muscle will have to do more with the exercises you perform as opposed to your diet. Weight training will add some strength & size but you have to supplement that with exercises that have to do with wrestling & also flexibility.

There are also other factors to look at beside just strength & weight in your diet & supplementation: your overall health.

The good stuff:

In terms of "Milk", I drink only Non-gmo organic Coconut Milk, (So Delicious brand is found now in health food stores). WHY? Because a lot of mass marketed supplementation is just plain garbage. Avoid things with Soy especially Soy protein Isolate as they content Hexane a petroleum by product & neuro toxin. They only Soy I eat is Organic AND NON-GMO. When living in Asia I drank a lot of Soy Milk but having learned how much Soy is not tainted

The protein powder I supplement my diet with is The Ultimate Meal as it is Organic, Non-gmo, dairy free, wheat free, yeast free & vegan. It shoudl be available at most health food stores or HERE: The Ultimate Meal

One good dairy source of protein is free range organic eggs. I eat several every day. It is one of nature's nearly perfect foods. The idea that eggs elevate your LDL levels (bad cholesterol) is a myth. Another thing that actually helps break down LDL levels is Lecithin which also has high levels of IP6 (a nutrient that breaks down tumors).

Another one of nature's nearly perfect foods is a Blue-Green Algae from Klamath Lake in Oregon. The amino acid profile of it falls into a 2-3% range of what exactly the human body needs. By weight it is 80% protein & about 10% minerals & 10% carbohydrate. I have been eating it for 20 years. I have gotten athletes on it & they have noticed that it makes for leaner denser muscle mass. Olympic Decathlon Champion Dan O'Brien swears by it. You can find it here: SimpleXity Health

I would suggest making a protein shake with Coconut Milk, Ultimate Meal & some eggs. Thats an easy 50 grams of Healthy protein in one serving. And you will of course need a lot of protein if you are trying to add weight. Consuming about 30-60 minutes after your workout is ideal. Consuming it with the Simplexity E-12 enzymes to aid it's digestion & absorption would be a big help as well.

The bad stuff:

Personally I would not drink Whole Milk unless it was certified organic, non-gmo, non-bgh & raw. Milk also creates a lot of mucus in the body which harbors bacterial pathogens. Again I drink Coconut milk which has coconut oil it, one of the best things you can put in your body as well as being a protein source.

Most of the mas marketed protein supplements have high quantities of different sugars, high fructose corn syrup & even worse artificial sweeteners like SUCRALOSE or Nutrasweet. Horrible stuff to put in your body. Both things make your body pH acidic: NOT GOOD.

I hope this helps. Drop me a PM if you have any other questions.

Nuts and bolts simplified:

To lose weight one must be in a caloric deficit. To gain weight one must be calorie positive. Hypothetically if your unadjusted RMR is 1500 calories and your exercise burns 1500 calories you will need to consume 3000 calories to maintain. (More accurately if you are using an unadjusted rmr of 1500 and your exercise is wrestling I'll assume that's extremely vigorous activity. Therefore 1500 * 1.9 = an adjusted rmr of 2850 cal to maintain.) Consume less you'll lose weight, but consume more you'll gain. That's the basic concept and the math...albeit a bit oversimplified.

So consume more calories than you burn and you will gain. The excess will go to fat storage or muscle depending on your activity.

There is an ongoing debate between clean and dirty calories when trying to bulk. My opinion and experience is it doesn't matter.

I recommend a strenuous weight lifting program That includes deads and squats not just upper body. Working the legs builds upper body too. You should get some expert help here.

I think protein is a good suggestion. A single serving of protein with water is about 30 grams. Mixing with milk will add a bit more. You should try to get about 1g of protein per kilo of body weight. There are different types of protein supplements so do your research.

Hit the weights hard. Aim for 500-750 cals over your caloric requirement will add 1-1.75 pounds per week. (This is really questionable though because muscle mass usually doesn't build that fast.) Heavy lifting will shock the body into building muscle rather than storing it as fat. Too steep of gain will likely go on as fat. Too steep of loss (close to the target weight) will result in the body converting muscle as calories rather than using the calories from fat.

I'm not an expert but I've wrestled, powerlifted, and involved in body building for years. I feel confident in the basics and know how my body responds. You need to educate yourself by studying and critically evaluate what people tell you online and learn from your own body what it needs to respond.