 Next question is from Connor Sherry, what are the best snacks and quick foods to eat for hard gainers trying to pack in extra calories specifically protein? I want to address the snack word because it's been a while in the podcast. I used to tell clients there's no such thing as snacks. There's only complete meals and incomplete meals and it's like one of the most common questions that we get about like and the reason why I used to teach this to clients is because I just think it's a it's a bad habit to get into trying to figure out what's a good snack or a bad snack. It's better to look at every time you eat it is a meal and is it complete or is it incomplete because it's very hard to hit all your macronutrient targets regardless if you're trying to build or you're trying to lose and you're doing it through these snacks all day long. It's just way it's much easier to look at the time you're about to eat and you're also far better off resisting eating some food for that you know to hold you over until the next meal resisting eating that and having a bigger fuller of complete meal than to have all these little snacks. Not to mention that category of food usually yes what are you going to get in that category so like well let's just eliminate that category and focus on the meals and then you know the spillover of like I didn't get enough protein how am I going to do this maybe that's where an opportunity lies in finding a snack that has more protein. So if I had a client well what about like fruit like an apple or something right okay well that's fine it's not bad but if I if you're gonna eat let's say an apple on average is about 150 calories or so unless it's like a giant one you know let's say about 150-200 calories I would much rather see 99.9% of my clients not eat the apple and eat three more ounces of the chicken breast at dinner or two more ounces of the steak that they're about to eat because protein is much harder for them to get and a lot of times they fill up on carbohydrates and that's part of the reason that doesn't allow them to hit their protein targets I would much rather see my client resist the snack and then have a bigger more complete meal. When your challenge is getting in enough calories and I know some people watching are like I hate those people but this can be a challenge for some people is getting in enough calories to get to their muscle building or weight gain goals I can actually be very difficult. The things you want to look at are calorie density and digestibility because those are the things that will get in your way like is this food something that I can easily eat and then is it okay and easy for me to digest because if you eat the wrong foods either you waste your time eating a big meal because the calories are too low or you eat food that makes you feel bloated and then you're screwed for the next meal. Now I have some staple bulking foods that I would eat that were just super effective for me packing on size. The most impactful food was literally I would get 80% lean so 20% fat ground beef and I would have that with white rice so I'd mix that with white rice and I would make the white rice with bone broth and that would be a bowl that was 1200 calories 60 grams of protein there was some good carbohydrates in there it was very easy for me to digest it was a very easy bulking meal for me inexpensive ground beef is cheap so is rice so is bone broth and I throw in some vegetables on the side but that was like a for me that was a staple weight gain food and one of the easier ones that I put together and I'm going to push back on the continuing and you're naming a complete meal that's right I'm going to I'm going to keep pushing back on the snack thing of like if you're a hard gainer and you struggle getting calories be careful and weary of filling it up with you know nuts and carbs and snacks in between your meals go get what you need through whole foods and whole meals first and then if you were a client of mine that's a hard gainer I might allow you to enjoy what the dessert at the end of the night looks like if you still need calories we've hit most of our our macro nutrient targets you just need more calories some fillers and then I like then I would prefer to use something like magic spoon would go have a giant bowl of magic spoon at the end of the night where you get 40 grams of protein and you're not overloaded full of sugar and it tastes amazing so you know pile that on to the end of the night if you need more calories but what you don't want to get caught up is oh I have a hard time I'm a hard gainer and then you start to have all these snacks I tried this by the way too I because and this is where I'm speaking from that I'm speaking from being a hard gainer my whole life trying to figure out the hacks to get the calories and a mistake I made was thinking that this was a good hack like oh I'll start to carry I'm sure you did this too I'd carry peanuts in my pockets and I'd have between meals I'm eating this yeah we I'd have a box of wheat things I carry all the time I did all that bullshit you know and you actually what you end up finding out is that you if you even hit your calorie target you fill it up full of crap and you don't hit the things that are most valuable like lean protein and so and that was just to get to your calories right so instead I would always coach my clients and this is myself also get all what I need like through these whole meals and a great choice you know some ground beef and rice is just easily digested you can keep piling it on well do people associate like protein shakes in this category of snack because I know there's a lot of eating a meal and then I did a workout I get a shake yeah and then I eat another meal and then I get a shake and then I go to bed and I get a shake so my my most valuable piece of advice when it comes to a hard gainer and how to use shakes in my experience so this is my own personal experience that I found was I did like to do a shake right after my my workout because what I found was I could pound it really quick and then in the car by the time I got home I was still hungry because I just had this intense workout that shake it already digested it it wasn't very much I got my we got my protein intake and then I'd sit down and eat a whole meal like that I found you can sneak in more calories that way that's yeah that's right here's the second value with protein shakes is at the end of the day when I look at all my calories and I go oh man I missed it by 50 grams of protein or by 500 calories okay here's what I'm gonna do I'm gonna make myself a shake throw some bananas and peanut butter in there blend it up and now I made up for the difference but it definitely those are the two ways I use shakes exactly but the goal by the way is always to get it through whole foods so my I set out every day with the intent to eat meals just like Sal just suggested which I think is great you know or quinoa pasta and sweet potato yams all those are great choices and even if you're fine if you don't like gluten doesn't bother you even regular pasta and potato white potatoes everybody think demonizes yeah but if you like that stuff like eat that with your your meats hit your protein targets if you're still struggling then pile the shake on at the end of the night