Mid morning hunger, cycling, and weight training - oh my!

[ShampooEfficient]

Right. I'll say, straight off, I've always had a massive appetite even in the days when my exercise consisted of lifting pints and climbing stairs, and not much else.

I've been getting fitter, through running 3 or so times a week, but mainly through cycling to and from work, plus proper rides on the weekend. Also, in the last three months, I've started training with weights. I'm definitely changing shape, which is working.

I need to keep my cardio fitness up, hence the running, cycling, and occasional swim - and the two main objectives of the weight training are size (hate being scrawny), but also strength. Both of which are coming along.

The main problem I have, is that I'll have a breakfast of, say, muesli and bananas, maybe an orange or a yoghurt, nothing heavy - but within a couple of hours I'm hungry. I know the cycling will be the main reason... the question is, is it worth me getting some sort of shake-type thing to fill me up, if I grab a five minute break here and there? I drive a bus for a living (again, not exactly conducive to health and fitness), and I struggle to carry fruit around without it going squishy in my bag.

I've ever so slowly weaned myself off my midmorning bacon buns as well - though filling, I know they're no good for me - so I intend on popping to the fruiterer in the town for a couple of bananas or whatever instead.

Otherwise, my diet (apart from my off days, we all have them) is mainly pasta, potatoes, or rice, with chicken, beef or fish. With veg, naturally. And many glasses of water or squash.

So, if I fling a shake or two together, do you think that'll help? I seem to remember being told that when weight training, being hungry is a bad thing. Should I look at whey protein (from myprotein?), or perhaps some sort of Weightwatchers-esque "meal replacement"?

I could of course just get strawberry Nesquik into a Maximuscle shaker... Blimey, that's a wall of text.

[Ordinary_Chap]

I've always been the same as you, with an incredible hunger when training.

I usually do this;

Morning; Eggs on toast, scrambled eggs or most commonly myprotein shake with oats (oats are brilliant at keeping hunger away)

Mid morning; Myprotein shake OR lean meats like salmon or other type of fish OR nuts. Just be careful with nuts, I advocate almonds or cashews because they contain lots of good stuff including fats. macadamia nuts are probably the best

Lunch; Lean meat + some green salad

Afternoon; similar to mid morning

Dinner; Lean meat/fish + greens

After training; protein shake

Before bed; 0% carb cheese or protein shake

Also I'd suggest if you're trying to get big quickly cardio isn't going to help you, since the body generally isn't good at doing two things at once i.e. staying lean and fit and gaining muscle. And to your question about hunger, yes it isn't conducive to muscle gain.

Take a look my thread (Lee's challenge) to see what I've recently been up to but there are other ways other than mine like gaining muscle slowly but without gaining half as much fat as I did in the process.