Diet questions?
 

So ... I'm a newbie lifter who is slowly gaining musle, gained 4.4 pounds of lean body mass in my first three months, so the lbm is building up nicely BUT I do have some concerns:

I don't eat red meat. I don't eat chicken. I don't eat pork. Etc. I do eat fish.

I am conscious of my protein needs, and I have been eating:

2 serves of cheese daily
3 protein bars a week, after I lift
3 serves of fish a week

I have decided to try and incorporate fish daily if I can.

I eat a CRAP LOAD of fruit'n'veg, don't eat too much pasta and bread but do eat a little.

Any advice?

How can you tell you gained 4.4 pounds of muscle? Is there a test you can do for this? Id really like to know if i have gained any muscle in the past month but i wouldnt know, i can feel my sholders and upper arms are harder and a bit more bumpy though.
My gym has been measuring my body fat using those tanita like scales, but if keeps varying each week by 3% even though my weight is either the same or i have lost of gained no more then 500g between the past 3 weeks, so im not sure how accurate those scales are.

Have you tried entering a day's worth of food into fitday to see how much protein you're getting? It's possible to get enough protein even on a vegetarian diet, but it takes a lot of careful planning. What you've described doesn't sound like enough protein, but it's hard to tell without more information.

Do you eat eggs/egg whites? Also, some whole grains will help "complete" the proteins you are getting in the veggies.

What about other meats, like duck, venison, kangaroo..other seafood like oysters,prawns,calimari etc. Any of those appeal?

Go and grab Allan Broushek "Calorie King" pocket book. Or i think you can order it from his website www.dietclub.com.au
It lists every single food out there, and it says how many calories, grams of everything, like fat, protein carbs, fibre etc is in foods.
Its about $10, i buy the new one every year, you can find it at any aussie bookstore :)

Got it and love it! Alan's book DOES have a section dedicated to protein, and according to that, I can reach the required 60 grams if I eat fish, cheese, vegies, grains, and the protein bars. I spose I might try and eat a little more bread (I only eat wholegrain bread) because the only place I'm getting grains from is my brekkie cereal every morning.

Flutter: my gym has this really cool system where they measure your body fat using calipers, then they enter it in and it calculates, according to your starting body fat, starting weight, current body fat, current weight, how much % of your body is LBM and how much is fat. After ascertaining your bodyfat %,you could sit and work this out yourself, for instance:

(Oversimplified example)
Starting body weight: 100kg
Starting body fat: 30 percent = 30kg fat, 70kg LBM

A number of months later ...
Current body weight 80kg
Current body fat: 25 percent = 20 kg fat, 60kg LBM

In that example, their body fat has gone down but so has their LBM ... that can happen too, as weight loss (especially without weight training) will diminish muscle mass. My example is more complicated, but in my case, my LBM is going up. (49.8kg up to 52.1kg) and my body fat went down (34.7 kg down to 27.7kg). Therefore, a total fat loss of about 7kg - muscle gain of 2kg = total weight loss of about 5kg. Well, at that time it was ... I have dropped a bit more since then.

LBM up and BF down is where you want to be :)

*LBM includes bones, muscles, organs. Take into account that someone increasing muscle mass will also increase bone mass.


Current

I wish my gym used calipers!

I dont liek the tanita scales, they are making me feel fat!

lol

yeah I am kinda peeved cause my gym has moved away from calipers to the electronic thingey which has me at 4% higher BF! Argh!

For sources of protein, what about tofu, beans, and lentils? Then, there's always meat subsititutes - veggie burgers, etc. If the sodium is too high in the prepackaged stuff, you can buy Textured Vegetable Protein (TVP) at the health food store and make your own.