First things first. Eat until you’re not Losing weight anymore. If you’ve been cutting for 6 months, increasing your calories may make you drop a few more pounds.
Don’t rush into stuffing your face until you find your new “maintenance” level of calories. You may be in the magical spot where eating to maintain your bodyweight is actually a Surplus of calories for your depleted body.
I was, too—what that post doesn’t indicate is that I had just come off a very long, very difficult time trying to get from an under-muscled high of 210 lbs. to a lean and muscular 165 lbs. I hit that weight sometime in late 2020, but I wasn’t big, I wasn’t strong, and I was driving myself and my family nuts being super-obsessive about food, calories, macros, body fat percentage, blah, blah, blah.
Long-story short: I joined these forums, saw things the successful folks here were doing, threw my unfounded caution to the wind and started working my a$$ off. No more tracking calories, no more weigh-ins, no more obsessing, no more “optimal”—just hard, hard work, day-in, day-out, and eating to recover.
I was about 180 lbs. at that point, which is what the first set of pictures from 30 June 2021 show. And, honestly, I started to look even fluffier once I was eating to recover, but at some point, my body figured out what to do with those “extra” calories:
I actually built some muscle.
And I got leaner.
And I got stronger.
Stronger than I’ve ever been in my life.
At 44 years old.
All while ignoring optimal.
Moral to the story: You won’t gain much fat IF you’re working hard enough.
So again: start a log and get after it!
I lost track how many times you said “hard work” in there, but i don’t think it can be emphasised enough.
Yours is one of the few logs on here that you can’t stay away from for more than a couple of days or there’s too much to read when you get back.
Wow! Thanks for sharing! This has helped me a lot. I’m excited for the new season to come. I’ve just been trying to lose weight for so long, I’ve been enjoying training but eager to get into building muscle. I’ll most likely continue to track calories just from not spilling over all the time. But I already eat a whole foods based diet so I’m not too concerned. I appreciate your help again!
If you mean body weight then I can’t answer that for you. Stop worrying about cuts and bulks and bodyfat % bullsh$t.
Just train hard, eat right at a slight surplus, be consistent with both training and diet. Don’t just do weights make sure you are doing some hard conditioning and some cardio, drink lots of water, eat some vegetables. This stuff isn’t rocket science but it does take hard hard work over time. Good luck
Eat to fuel your training. Don’t get stuck thinking of cutting and bulking. Train to get bigger and stronger and eat to fuel that.
I’ve been down this road. I’ve played this game. And I’ve failed repeatedly. Don’t eat like a pig. Don’t dirty bulk. Eat a slight surplus (if you’re tracking calories) for a long time and train hard.
Think in terms of years, not months.