What Is Your Experience With GOMAD? [Archive]

gordonrumble

03-12-2010, 06:58 PM

I'm not much in the strength department right now, having just had a double open hernia and my diet falling apart in the meantime, but I did GOMAD for about 4 months.

It's the easiest way to get decent calories in, it's cheap, it also gets you water, and it didn't bother me digestively as I'm lactose tolerant. I gained 26 pounds on it. I increased my squat into the mid-200's and everything else proportionally, despite back issues, ankle surgery and a shoulder injury which resulted in many weeks of missed workouts.

I believe that I would not have been able to make the gains I did in the number of workouts I did had it not been for GOMAD. I do think that GOMAD is not necessary, but it's a great food source and if you're not a big eater it helps you get those nutrients in. I also found that I gained a fair bit of fat. I was the fattest I had ever been after GOMAD, but this is mitigated by the fact that I missed a lot of workouts. Having no interest in getting chubby, I cut down when I got the hernia done, and since lost a great deal of weight.

william jackson

03-12-2010, 07:07 PM

my experience: farts and epic strength increases

Sami

03-12-2010, 07:10 PM

my experience: epic fart strength increases

Nice.

MikeD

03-12-2010, 10:16 PM

Strength shot up, BW somewhat (not always doing full GOMAD, at least half though).

I got stomach cramps so bad the first few days that it hurt to walk. If I didn't know it was from the milk I seriously would've gone to the hospital for an appendectomy. But it's fine now, not farting anymore than I usually do, haha.

MAD9692

03-13-2010, 01:28 PM

My strength, body weight, and gut all increased. As well as my trips to the bathroom. I had terrible stomach aches in the beginning, but I was fine after a while. I probably did GOMAD 3 different times, ranging from 4-9 weeks. I highly suggest you start very slowly. I would take a month ramping up to a gallon. Let your stomach adjust. Farting in the middle of a heavy squat while some hot chick is checking you out easily ruins a day.

Nauticus

03-13-2010, 01:44 PM

I've got Irish heritage, I can drink milk like it's water and my tummy never complains. Main negative effect I experience: Bloating. Mistook the bloating for fat and quit GOMAD because of this. After a week, it had disappeared.

RobertFontaine

03-13-2010, 01:46 PM

extremely productive in year 1.
productive but excessive in year 2.
too much for year 3.

Squatson

03-13-2010, 02:11 PM

11/1/2009 = 162

3/13/2010 = 208

That's what I think about GOMAD...really easy, really cheap, make sure you are eating a pile of real food too.

If you are having problems with the doo-doo, you should try taking a fiber supp before giving up on the milk.

Squatson

03-13-2010, 02:13 PM

I'm just speaking from my own experience...but the day that I finally figured out what the fuck GOMAD stood for, was the first day that I drank a whole gallon of whole milk.

I guess if you have a sensitive belly, build up slowly...but if not GOOOOOOOOOOOMAD.

Tim Lofton

03-13-2010, 09:50 PM

11/1/2009 = 162

3/13/2010 = 208

That's what I think about GOMAD...really easy, really cheap, make sure you are eating a pile of real food too...

I'm pretty much on these numbers: 165# in November, started 1/2 GOMAD, weigh-in this morning was 198#. Somedays I do 3/4 to a full gallon, but by-in-large it has been 1/2 gallon per day. Tolerated well, some bloating on some days depending on what else I'm eating. I'm sure I could be 210-220 or more if I were doing the full-on GOMAD, but this progression has suited me and my budget well. Both kids drink a good amount of milk too, so I have to temper my intake a bit so as not to do in the family food budget.

August West

03-14-2010, 12:08 PM

In two months, November-January, I gained 30 pounds. Bodyweight has stayed level ever since then. I still drink a lot of milk, especially on training days. I'm just not so focused on gaining that fast anymore, so I don't push the whole gallon. But for those first 2 months, it was a big difference-maker.

Patrick

03-15-2010, 04:03 AM

I didn't have any bad digestive experiences. I did it twice... first time to get to something like 180, did it again to get to something like 225. My best advice is to make sure you're drinking it throughout the day instead of if one or two mammoth chugging sessions.

Buscotucky

03-15-2010, 08:29 AM

No digestive problems here.

Lifts accelerated (linear programming) - dl +55#, squat + 85# & about 10% increase in other lifts.

I gained over 23# in 10 weeks, over half lean muscle. Did get the spare tire to go with it...worth it imo.

Gary Gibson

03-16-2010, 03:47 PM

Tried it years ago when my form wasn't so good. The one day I got the entire gallon down I nearly died. Bloating, cramps, intense headaches.

I built up to it more slowly late last year, while not bothering to worry whether or not I was "lactose intolerant". This past December I really went at it while doing Pins Into Pillars high volume squatting and went from 164 lbs to 188 lbs in just under two months (see my log 12/2009 to 1/2010). My squat went from around 360 to a very hard 430 and a meet best of 419 at 179 lbs at time of weigh in.

Before that I'd gone from the mid 160's to the mid 170's (and a barely legal 405 single SQ) while drinking the whole gallon most days. I was much more successful when I drank AT LEAST a gallon per day in my run from 164 to 188. I think the fact that I was doing a specifically myofibrill--building protocol made a lot of difference too. When I did the PiP protocol, I would quaff at least half a gallon during the actual session and between my ten sets of squats.

Right now I'm taking a couple weeks off from squats. That kind of volume and the increases in strength I got took a toll and it's taking many days for the inflammation and fatigue to dissipate. When I resume high volume training in April, you can bet it will be fueled by GOMAD. I expect to break the 200-lb mark handily by June, 2010.

ajs5153

03-16-2010, 08:55 PM

I started gomad 3 days ago. Doing 1/2 got me to gain 18 pounds. Drinking the milk is not a problem for me, I don't get any nasty side effects that others have mentioned. Hoping to put on another 20 pound in 2 months

TTT

03-16-2010, 09:21 PM

you did 1/2 gomad for 3 days and gained 18lbs
is this what you are saying?

applescruffette

03-17-2010, 12:50 AM

ILiftAlone

03-17-2010, 02:43 AM

Ive never done a full gomad. Even this being the case Ive gained what felt like 20 lbs of gas in my intestines.

MotoPsycho

03-18-2010, 10:55 AM

This is a great testimonial thread. But I'm curious about the ages of the more sucessfull posters.

I really want to work into a GOMAD, but at 45, I'm worried the majority of gains I'll recieve will just be gas and a spare tire...great... if I was a service station. :D

Jamie J. Skibicki

03-18-2010, 12:19 PM

Eat more, how much more depends on your goals and how well you handle it. The suggestion of Gomad is for skinny kids, it was never for everyone.

ajs5153

03-18-2010, 12:35 PM

you did 1/2 gomad for 3 days and gained 18lbs
is this what you are saying?

no, I am saying that doing 1/2 over a period of 2.5 months gained me 18 pounds, and now I switched to doing full gomad.

gzt

03-18-2010, 12:35 PM

I've been on it whenever I'm trying to make linear gains. It works well. When I'm strength training in any way, I have between a quart and half a gallon, but when really pushing, GOMAD is the way to go. It's hard to say exact poundages, but I do have logs. I came back from a layoff in mid November weighing 225 and squatting in about 225 for reps, I got back up to 255 and 330 by the end of January, and that was with two weeks off around Christmas due to illness and travel. I've been off GOMAD since about that time.

ajs5153

03-18-2010, 12:36 PM

At your pace, I think you're going to gain those 20 pounds by the end of this week.

haha everybody, i guess my first post was confusing. i hope my last post clarifies my experience thus far with the milk

Badman

03-19-2010, 12:39 PM

4 weeks of gomad and my first month of SS = 23lb gain. Squat went from 55kg - 92.5kg. Everything else went up too. I was worried about getting fat though so now i do about 1/2 Gomad. This was 2 weeks ago. Lifts still progressing, and i reckon im back to my begining bf%. In two weeks ill kow whether im going back to Gomad or not. Most of the fat that scared me was bloat too.

Does being irish mean you can drink milk easier? I jumped straight into gomad - took about 3-4 days before i could have drank more. I think we're just tougher.

stronger

03-20-2010, 11:28 PM

Does being irish mean you can drink milk easier?

basically, yes. People of European and specifically Northern European descent have a much easier time with lactose. This has to do with the domestication of cattle and consumption of their milk, I assume

http://www.dsm.com/le/static/maxilact/images/lactose_intolerance.jpg

northern euro descent here - no problem with any volume of milk.

Johnson

03-21-2010, 04:34 PM

Started GOMAD right at the beginning with organic whole milk, took just 2 days to ramp up to the full gallon. Felt like an insane amount at the start...

Drinking smaller amounts more often rather than bigger amounts all at once helps.

After one month switched over to raw whole milk. Digestion, taste and overall ability to handle the volume of milk is way better for me with the raw milk.

Northern European, FWIW.

PVC

03-21-2010, 05:30 PM

People of European and specifically Northern European descent have a much easier time with lactose. This has to do with the domestication of cattle and consumption of their milk, I assume

I'm one of those unfortunate 0-20% of northern european descent that can't handle milk - in fact, my entire immediate family is lactose intolerant.

Gary Gibson

03-21-2010, 08:00 PM

Just sayin'...

I'm black and I'm 34.

Platus

03-21-2010, 09:27 PM

I am 24. I have done 1/2 gomad on a semi-regular basis (5-6 days a week on average); maybe once a week I get the full gomad down. By my rough caliper measurements, the milk + SS = about 40lbs of LBM over 4 months.

MEbigUsmall

09-20-2010, 06:31 PM

Can A person use 1% milk instead if they want to limit getting fat?

Carlos Daniel

09-20-2010, 06:37 PM

There is this paper on the effects of whole milk and skim milk on muscle growth, for some reason whole milk is better than skim even when controlled for calories and protein content (they compared with the same quantity of protein on both milks and then with an amount of skim that had the same calories as a small amount of whole). So I'm thinking maybe no.

confuzzl3don3

09-21-2010, 02:49 AM

^ do you have that article carlos. i'd love to see it.

Carlos Daniel

09-21-2010, 05:46 AM

Oh crap. I'll try to get it in pubmed, just because I think you're cool. You owe me beer.

Carlos Daniel

09-21-2010, 06:07 AM

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16679981

There you go!

shaddix

11-01-2010, 09:04 AM

Adding to this old thread. Started doing gomad about a week ago along with starting strength. I am 6'1 and 179lbs(26y/m). 3 days ago I was 173lbs. That's 6 pounds in 3 days. Do I need to slow down? I am eating ~4500kcal/day. I was thinking I should eat 5000/day, but going from 173 to 179 in 3 days is making me think twice. I don't want to get so fat that I have to slow down my food intake and then have my muscles starving for nutrients.
Note my muscles are weak and atrophied. DL is 95lb, bench is 70lb, squat 65lb, press 60lb, p.clean dunno haven't got the hang of them yet.

gzt

11-01-2010, 09:07 AM

Adding to this old thread. Started doing gomad about a week ago along with starting strength. I am 6'1 and 179lbs(25y/m). 3 days ago I was 173lbs. That's 6 pounds in 3 days. Do I need to slow down? I am eating ~4500kcal/day. I was thinking I should eat 5000/day, but going from 173 to 179 in 3 days is making me think twice. I don't want to get so fat that I have to slow down my food intake and then have my muscles starving for nutrients.
A lot of that weight is water retention. You're taking in an extra gallon of fluid each day. Don't worry about it. Everybody has a sudden hit when they start doing GOMAD and it isn't fat. Or muscle. Your bodyweight probably fluctuates widely during the day right now, too, so don't put much stock in two points taken 3 days apart.

EDIT: so, yes, keep eating.

shaddix

11-01-2010, 09:19 AM

EDIT: so, yes, keep eating.

Thanks gzt :)

Danish Viking

11-01-2010, 10:46 AM

Thanks gzt :)

Just to back up GZT's point: You'll gain a fuckload of weight the first month or so. Enjoy it - it wont always be that easy.

There's something in the Clarification article about this as well.

gzt

11-01-2010, 10:48 AM

Yeah, just ride it on up to 200, then take a step back and see if you like what you've got. If you stop and reevaluate after every single pound you gain, you'll never get anywhere.

shaddix

11-07-2010, 12:50 PM

Just now got around to looking at that clarification article. Apparently I'm NDTP as I have gained 14lbs in 2.5 weeks and squat weight has only gone from 45 to 70lbs.

Age_of_Aquarius

11-09-2010, 07:46 AM

For the few weeks I tried it, it made me fat, real fat.

OzDamo

12-16-2011, 12:42 AM

For the few weeks I tried it, it made me fat, real fat.

Amen to that. But I sure was getting stronger fast.

Vanity caused me to stop.

Eric K

12-16-2011, 06:33 AM

I guess this is an old thread, but I'll throw in my experience because I did it. I'm 5'8" and it helped me go from a bodyweight of ~175 to ~200 pretty quick (Nov 11 - Dec 20 last year). I never got fat, and I stopped after I got over 200. I'm currently at 197, and I drink a fair amount of milk, but not a gallon a day.

Jsutt

12-16-2011, 09:09 PM

Why not...

I weight about 160lb at the start of July, I've been doing 1/2 to 3/4 GOMAD since getting on SS in September and now I'm 196lb. It got easier after discovering that mixing lactose-free milk with normal milk helps break down the lactose in the normal stuff if you leave it for a while, before that it was regular trips to the bathroom and a lot of gas.

Cameron

12-18-2011, 06:31 PM

It got easier after discovering that mixing lactose-free milk with normal milk helps break down the lactose in the normal stuff if you leave it for a while, before that it was regular trips to the bathroom and a lot of gas.

You can also take lactase tablets before you drink the milk. I used to get bloating, gas, diarrhoea and cramps. I have no problems when I take the lactase tablets.

BicepCurlsAreForFags

12-20-2011, 08:06 PM

toilet became my best friend.

i became really fat also.

it sucks.

dont do it.

not to mention, i didn't want to keep on taking lactose tablets because i felt like an old fuck.

MikeC1

12-20-2011, 08:11 PM

This is why everyone should blend up peanut butter and milk, there are no lactose intolerance issues. JOPBAD diet FTW.

tzanghi

01-30-2012, 12:30 PM

For those interest in GOYAD, you may want to try out kefir. It is sort of like a cross between yogurt and milk(think very fluid yogurt) with a similar macro-nutrient profile. It has active cultures to aid digestion and I am quite sure it is lactose-free. My mother has stomach issues with milk, so she drinks kefir to get enough calcium. They also make it in fruit flavors.

TheLostProphet

01-30-2012, 03:35 PM

Diarrhea at unpredictable times

JDeb

02-02-2012, 10:56 PM

Here's my recent experience with GOMAD, I actually used chocolate milk, rather then regular milk. I didn't use raw milk as it is illegal here in Australia.

On 9th December, 2011 I had a DEXA scan done, I was 67.71kg LBM & 15.32kg body fat, 3.76kg bone mass for a total of 86.8kg.

On 13th January this year, frustrated with trouble gaining weight (probably not eating enough) and stalling on my lifts, i decided to do some GOMAD, despite warnings i'd seen about us "skinny fat" people doing it. And I have finally seen some weight increase and I feel stronger when lifting and I have broken past my plataeus.

Today I got another DEXA scan done and I came in at 70.90kg LBM, 15.83kg body fat, 3.76kg bone mass for a total of 90.5kg.

I can't attribute it all to the milk because its been almost 8 weeks since my last scan but i have noticed improved strength and feel more muscular. I'm obviously delighted that of the extra 3.7kg on my frame, 3.2 is muscle and just 0.5kg is fat.

I had been hoping for a 50/50 muscle to fat ratio. I will continue with the GOMAD until my bodyweight achieves 95kg and will be hoping to get another 2.5kg minimum of muscle.

EDIT: Some more stats on me

I'm 28, 184.5cm tall (roughly 6'0) and my latest lifts (and i am not a massively accomplished lifter, but i have made increases in all lifts.

Deadlift 118kg
Squat 90kg
Bench 61kg
Powerclean 45kg
Press 40kg

I can manage 4 single chinups at the moment and i'm working on increasing all of these.

I'd also like to add that i'm a recovering fatty, November 2010 I weighed 120kg and was around 40% bodyfat. I dieted down to 80kg and have been working on gaining muscle since. I was worried that being a recovering fatty my body would for some reason scavenge food and put it into "fat storage" due to some of the BS literature i've read, but again, delighted with the result.
Cheers.