bulking thoughts needed

[Lux]

Hey Guys.
I'm onto my 4th week of training p/rr/s and to compliment this training i have increased my cals from roughly 2000-2200 to now around 2500-2700. In the past i have trained and ate roughly maintenance cals and gained slowly but always able to see any changes (however small). I have done a couple of mini bulks in the past only lasting around 4-6 weeks before decreasing my cals and then back to my usual levels.

I have grown a little tired of struggling to go beyond 140lbs!! Am i afraid of fat? More likely that i'm an ecto and any fat gain seems dramatic in my own eyes, so i imagine that theres more fat than there really is?

So now i want to set myself a goal of 150 solid pounds, not much to some people but thats what i'll aim for. Roughly 10lbs gain sounds good, not sure how long it will take but thats my target.

Now onto the question of bulking. As the internet is becoming way too big for research and information now, i'm looking for some experiences from you guys. How is best to achieve the bulk and keep the fat as low as possible. Yes i know i will gain some but as little as possible would be better. I'm reading stuff on the net about 3 days bulk cals followed by 3 days cut or maintenance cals. Then theres a whole week bulk followed by a whole week cut. Or then theres the go flat out and gain everything brigade, that says bulk like a madman and go on a carb cycle to cut.

Any comments appreciated guys!

[Intensity]

lux said:

Hey Guys.
I'm onto my 4th week of training p/rr/s and to compliment this training i have increased my cals from roughly 2000-2200 to now around 2500-2700. In the past i have trained and ate roughly maintenance cals and gained slowly but always able to see any changes (however small). I have done a couple of mini bulks in the past only lasting around 4-6 weeks before decreasing my cals and then back to my usual levels.

I have grown a little tired of struggling to go beyond 140lbs!! Am i afraid of fat? More likely that i'm an ecto and any fat gain seems dramatic in my own eyes, so i imagine that theres more fat than there really is?

So now i want to set myself a goal of 150 solid pounds, not much to some people but thats what i'll aim for. Roughly 10lbs gain sounds good, not sure how long it will take but thats my target.

Now onto the question of bulking. As the internet is becoming way too big for research and information now, i'm looking for some experiences from you guys. How is best to achieve the bulk and keep the fat as low as possible. Yes i know i will gain some but as little as possible would be better. I'm reading stuff on the net about 3 days bulk cals followed by 3 days cut or maintenance cals. Then theres a whole week bulk followed by a whole week cut. Or then theres the go flat out and gain everything brigade, that says bulk like a madman and go on a carb cycle to cut.

Any comments appreciated guys!

Lux, i always been like you: Being afraid of becoming fat and losing my abs ;D but you know what, if you are 100% into it (make no exception) you can add muscle mass without becoming fat! As you said, you will add a bit of fat for sure, but you wont have to become very fat to add muscle! You seem to know how to calculate your caloric (protein, carbs and fat) intake, so determine your daily average (over a week) and slowly increase protein and carbs on your daily average every week (with the same protein-carbs ratio)! If you add between 0 -2 pounds per week, keep increasing slowly the amount… but if you add more than 2 pounds adjust your intake as you are probably gainning fat.

For exemple:

Week 1: 200p 300c / 140 lbs
Week 2: 210p 315c / 140,5 lbs
Week 3: 215p 320c / 140,5 lbs (not enough, increse more for week 4)
Week 4: 225p 330c / 144 lbs (too much, dont increase for week 5)
Week 5: 225p 335c / ……

Bottom line: Eat ;D

Mo

[Lux]

Thanks for your input Mo. It sounds like a good plan to increase carbs and protein like this. I suppose one of my problems has been to fail to mentally adapt as i physically grow. Maybe i have neglected to increase my food consumption as my body grows, and needs more to grow further?

My next plan is to stop figuring out my p/c/f in my head and actually write things down so its all in black and white, and i can see if i have been making any errors. I weigh almost everything i eat anyway so its no hard task to write those figures down.

[Intensity]

lux said:

Thanks for your input Mo. It sounds like a good plan to increase carbs and protein like this. I suppose one of my problems has been to fail to mentally adapt as i physically grow. Maybe i have neglected to increase my food consumption as my body grows, and needs more to grow further?

My next plan is to stop figuring out my p/c/f in my head and actually write things down so its all in black and white, and i can see if i have been making any errors. I weigh almost everything i eat anyway so its no hard task to write those figures down.

Good luck! If you have any question on this, just ask! If you want, you could also watch my last training journal in the training journal section... it will give you a great idea of how i do it (But in that case, it was for reducing my weight in prevision of my contests... but the idea is the same!)

Keep us informed!

Mo

[Lux]

I was just thinking how i have been changing my diet recently and so far it seems to be working. For the first couple of weeks of p/rr/s i ate around 2200 cals a day on average. I felt i could eat more so decided to increase to roughly 2400 cals for the following week and at the moment i'm onto 2600-2700 cals.

I could be increasing my cals a little too quickly so i might freeze it to this level for 2 weeks and go for a 20 min run on a saturday morning. That should put me back on course.

Do you feel i should be paying more attention to the increase of macronutrient profiles, or am i ok keeping track of the increase in cals? When i increase my cals i evenly increase the grams of protein and carbs, and fat is increased at a slower rate.

[Intensity]

I could be increasing my cals a little too quickly so i might freeze it to this level for 2 weeks and go for a 20 min run on a saturday morning. That should put me back on course.
---- It depends Lux, how many pounds did you gain? The answer will tell you if you did increase to fast!

Do you feel i should be paying more attention to the increase of macronutrient profiles, or am i ok keeping track of the increase in cals? When i increase my cals i evenly increase the grams of protein and carbs, and fat is increased at a slower rate.
------ Personnaly, i want everything under total control so i prefer to also track macronutriments! Moreover, in a long term, tracking macronutriments will allow you to experiment and understand how you react to some protein-carbs ratio… because in my mind, calories are not all equal and i dont think your body will react the same at 200g protein + 300g carbs versus for exemple 100g protein + 400g carbs...

Mo

[Lux]

I feel my current daily calorie intake is spot on, i've got a big belly by the end of the day but thats due to all the whole foods i have shovelled down. I only have one shake a day, something quite new to me as i used to prefer to have whole foods PWO. I was wondering what difference there is in the calorie needs for say 140lb then 141lb? Would that mean i was needing a 50, 100 or 200 cal increase due to a 1lb weight gain? But now you've got me thinking of a new plan Mo!
I have grown used to calorie counting but this weekend i'll sit down and draw up a plan for following a route of counting grams of carbs and protein more precisely.

Recently i have decided to change a lot of aspects of my training, so paying close attention to the balance of my diet is another good move.

[masterschamp]

Add 150 cals per day from clean protein---see how it goes from there and add 50 more cals per day as needed.

[Lux]

My fears of eating too much earlier in the week have proved to be just in my head! I didn't go for a run and just held my diet steady at its present level. I'm glad i did this as i havn't gained any fat that i can tell of. I havn't got calipers but i do have an odd way of checking fat! When i'm sat at my pc i just look down and see how much belly is starting to poke over my waistband

No change so far and when i get out of bed in the morning i still look lean and have a flat midsection. Definately growing as my shoulders, back, arms and chest look bigger in the morning than they used to. Legs will follow as i'm still recovering from a lower back muscle strain so progressing slowly with squats. I really need to stop being lazy and switch on to a few things with my training. I used to just go by the mirror and rarely weigh myself, but now i'll start weighing myself on a monday morning, as soon as i get out of bed and naked.
Time to start paying close attention so i can adapt anything that needs to. I was going to calculate my grams of protein and carbs and structure my diet like that. But i'm being lazy again so for a little while i'll continue calorie counting and steadily increasing my daily cals. The breakdown is roughly 40/45/15 protein/carbs/fats. For the first couple of days this next week i'm going to go for 2800 cals and if thats looking good i'll increase to 2900 later on. After that i might have to go a little slower as i'm just finding the right quantities for best results. Just to think that 4-5 weeks ago i was only eating around 2200! Definately restricting my gains

[Lux]

Time for a little update.
When i started this thread i decided to weigh myself in two ways. One was first thing in the morning and the other was around the same time of day i have weighed myself in the past. When i weighed myself as i used to, with a certain amount of clothes on and number of meals in my belly, i wasn't even 140lbs!!
And the morning true weigh in (just in my boxers) was 132lbs!!

I was really shocked at this as i seem to have been going backwards and forwards but nowhere productive.
I'm now up to 138-140lbs true weight and roughly 144lbs cheating ;D I have gained some fat, in fact at one time i began to develop too much.
I started to get carried away with increasing my cals and failed to adjust when i had some time off work. Due to the less active days i should have reduced accordingly, but i was happy to be growing so kept wolfing down 3000 cals a day.

I even began to feel a little burned out, probably tired due to eating too much and doing too little. Anyway i ended up taking a week off before hitting the iron again. I am now eating 2800 cals a day and will take it a lot easier with the increases.
I done a quick calculation the other day and my diet is pretty much a day 1, then day 2, then repeat. It came to roughly 195 pro and 230 carbs for day 1 and roughly 230 pro and 200 carbs for day 2.

Within the next couple of weeks i'll take some more pics and post them to see how i'm growing.

[Intensity]

lux said:

Time for a little update.
When i started this thread i decided to weigh myself in two ways. One was first thing in the morning and the other was around the same time of day i have weighed myself in the past. When i weighed myself as i used to, with a certain amount of clothes on and number of meals in my belly, i wasn't even 140lbs!!
And the morning true weigh in (just in my boxers) was 132lbs!!

I was really shocked at this as i seem to have been going backwards and forwards but nowhere productive.
I'm now up to 138-140lbs true weight and roughly 144lbs cheating ;D I have gained some fat, in fact at one time i began to develop too much.
I started to get carried away with increasing my cals and failed to adjust when i had some time off work. Due to the less active days i should have reduced accordingly, but i was happy to be growing so kept wolfing down 3000 cals a day.

I even began to feel a little burned out, probably tired due to eating too much and doing too little. Anyway i ended up taking a week off before hitting the iron again. I am now eating 2800 cals a day and will take it a lot easier with the increases.
I done a quick calculation the other day and my diet is pretty much a day 1, then day 2, then repeat. It came to roughly 195 pro and 230 carbs for day 1 and roughly 230 pro and 200 carbs for day 2.

Within the next couple of weeks i'll take some more pics and post them to see how i'm growing.

Hey Lux! I'm happy to hear about your progress and i'm anxious to see those pics!

So, is 144 a new personal best?

[Lux]

Yeah 144 is a personal best, especially as i'm still quite lean. Faint abs and obligues and still see some definition. But hey, that 144 is with clothes and my boots on so thats cheating ;D

I'm really pleased with training and diet at the moment, i know when i need to eat more because i get a need to eat around 4am, 3 hours before my alarm

So a true 140 is very pleasing, next step 150! As long as i focus a little more on my diet, i might progress a little slower but be able to keep a watch on that fat gain. On my pics already on the site i must have been around 132 lb judging by my current weight. I've got a decent front pic taken a couple of weeks ago saved on my digi cam. I need to buy a memory card though so i can upload pics to my comp, i'll have to pick one up this weekend.

[Lux]

My body is damn weird!
I was increasing weight nicely but for some reason i seem to going backwards Yeah i know i was eating 3000 cals and then dropped back to 2800 for a short time before steadily increasing again, but for roughly 200 cals less i seem to be losing real quick.
I noticed a couple of pounds lighter the other day but put it down to water, and today i'm 3-4 pounds lighter than last week!!!

I think i'm going to have to invest in some scales that check weight, fat and water. Judging by the mirror i look like i've lost a little water, maybe even some fat.

[RUBICON19]

Hey LUX. Either way you are on the right track. Just keep monitoring EVERYTHING and you will hit on what works best. Just keep plugg'n like the rest of us. Hey, Where's the pic's??

[Lux]

Aarrgghh! Damn computer problems! Trying to sort out my camera to my comp and adding or changing programs has caused me a headache. Might have to put the viewing of those pics on ice for a short while, Hopefully all sorted soon!!

[Lux]

I got on the scales this morning and they brought a smile to my face. 144 lbs, thats an increase of 12 lbs since i started this thread

I'm not saying its solid gains, theres definately an increase of fat (nothing shocking) and more water but damn thats good gains for me I've had no work for the past week so i have had to be cautious with how much i eat. Currently eating 3000 cals a day, going to stick to that level for another couple of weeks then its onwards and upwards!!

Training has been an 8 week cycle of p/rr/s, supposed to be 9 but dropped the final week because i needed a break. And now starting week 3 of rr/p/rr/p/s/rr/p/rr/p/s.
A big thumbs up for this method, its been hard to adapt to the longer rest times than i was used to, but the progress is proof it works
I'm growing all over, t-shirts are tighter and very shocked to see that i need to buy some baggier jeans ;D

So thanks to the p/rr/s training and the increased diet, i'm now going to have to start spending more money on clothes and food

Rep range chest and bi's workout this morning nearly made me puke, and so pumped i struggled to spoon feed myself my whey/oats/water mix

[Intensity]

Happy to know that everything is going well for you Lux! But hey, there is no surprise… you are paying your due so with effort comes results!

Mo

[RUBICON19]

Keep it up Lux. Sounds like you are heading in the right direction now..

[Lux]

Thanks guys.
I'm still happy with my weight, any fluctuations don't go below 140 now so thats a definate mental boost. I struggle to settle into my routine for the past couple of weeks. Its working and i get an awesome pump, totally beat after a set etc but i'm just not feeling it 100%. To begin with i found it new and exciting but i think i'm aching to blast my muscles with under 90 secs rest max?

The reverse pyramid routine i used earlier this year is appealing to me again. I didn't get chance to squeeze every last ounce of gains from this, as i caught flu and things went bad. Restless mind, maybe its the wedding just around the corner thats got my mind a little unsettled?

[RUBICON19]

I found the same with P/RR/S. Just wasnt feeling it anymore. Descent program and i am not bashing it in any way, but I got the same if not better results from my modified HIT/ Dorian style of training. So why do more, when less equals more?