Since this article didn't elaborate on Rip's suggested diet, and I haven't seen another post here that did... here it is: ff GOMAD, or Gallon Of Milk A Day, is

Since this article didn't elaborate on Rip's suggested diet, and I haven't seen another post here that did... here it is: ff GOMAD, or Gallon Of Milk A Day, is the diet that commonly is combined with Starting Strength (SS). The general idea is that, in addition to eating a lot of food, you drink a gallon of milk a day. It is not for the protein in the milk. It is not for the added calcium. It is a straight up calorie per dollar play. A gallon of whole milk is 2400 calories, and costs about $3. It's basically the best dollar to calorie ratio that exists at the grocery store. Why do you need the extra 2400 calories? For recovery. SS operates on a linear progression. Every other day, you lift a few more pounds than you did the day before. In order to achieve that (safely, and sustainably), you need to be fully recovered by your next workout. There are many aspects to recovery, but the primary bottleneck is fuel. Which is calories. So the rationale behind GOMAD is to remove the bottleneck. Give the body more fuel than it could possibly use in a day to spend on recovery. If your typical diet is 3000 calories from food (not unusual when on an aggressive exercise plan), GOMAD will up that to 5400. The exact upper bound on calories your body can actually burn in a day on recovery is variable - depends on the person, the day, the workout, etc etc etc. But the usage ceiling is definitely lower than 5400 calories. So we give the body more fuel than it could POSSIBLY burn, to give it the ability to recover as much as it is humanly possible between workouts. You do have to do something with those extra calories. It DOES turn into fat. You do gain a little fat when doing SS+GOMAD. But you have to chose one - lose weight or build muscle. It’s incredibly difficult to do both, while also demanding gains in a reasonable amount of time. So typically once someone finishes a SS cycle, they switch to IF (Intermittent Fasting) or something to cut the extra weight. Then you end up much stronger, and leaner. Hope that was helpful in clearing up the GOMAD diet, and the rationale behind it.