Anyone else's digestion giving up trying to hit 5000 calories a day off-season?

Mid off-season bulk and struggling to hit 5000 cals consistently. The gear makes you hungry but the stomach has limits. Gastric volume is the bottleneck not appetite. Found that switching to jasmine rice instead of oats for carbs made a real difference - digests faster, next meal comes sooner. 6 smaller meals instead of 4 large ones also helps. Anyone else found practical solutions beyond just eating more often? Digestive enzymes worth adding or is that overkill? And the liquid calories approach - mass shakes between meals, is that how you guys are hitting the upper range?

The liquid calories between meals approach is what got me over the line on hitting 4500 calories daily. Mass shake with whole milk, oats, banana and peanut butter - about 800 calories and it takes 3 minutes to make and 5 to drink. Compared to cooking and eating another full meal that is a huge time saving. The smaller more frequent meals approach also helps. Six meals at 750 calories each is much more manageable than four at 1125.

Hitting 5200 calories daily on my current off-season. The liquid calories between meals is how I close the gap. Mass shake with oats, whole milk, peanut butter, banana gets me 900 calories and I can drink it in 5 minutes. Compared to eating another solid meal that takes 45 minutes to get through. Gastric volume is the limiting factor not appetite. Smaller meals more often plus the liquid calories between - that is the formula for consistently hitting the upper range.

The 6 smaller meals approach fixed the gastric volume issue for me. Used to do 4 big meals and the last one of the day was a battle. Now eating every 2.5 hours at moderate portions and hitting the same total calories without the late-night suffering. Digestive enzymes worth adding - took a while to notice the difference but meals process faster and I am not still digesting dinner at 11pm. Liquid mass shake between solid meals for the last 500 calories is exactly the approach I use too.

The faster-digesting carbohydrate switch made a real difference for me. Moved from oats and whole grain sources to jasmine rice as the main carb and the next meal becomes possible much sooner. Digestive enzymes added at the same time - hard to isolate which change made the bigger difference but together the high calorie eating became much more manageable. The liquid calorie approach between meals is something I have not tried yet but will add it on the next off-season run.

Digestive enzymes genuinely made a difference for me when I was trying to hit high calories. Not a dramatic change but the food sits less heavy and the next meal comes around sooner. Combined with smaller more frequent meals rather than 3 or 4 big ones. The real game changer for me was liquid calories between meals - oats, banana, peanut butter, milk, around 800 calories a shake. That is how the last 500 calories of the day gets in without your stomach complaining.