How Long to Stay at Weight After Bulk?

UtahLama · February 18, 2013, 1:03am

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]fr0gger666 wrote:

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
If dieting was the easy part, X wouldn’t quit diets after 1-2 weeks because he felt like he was “losing size” or need biweekly pizza buffet cheat meals right from the get-go. When someone who has both increased their initial bodyweight by 50+ lean lbs AND gotten to “back of the hand” leanness tells me, I’ll listen, but right now X might as well be trying to tell me what it’s like to grow up as a Mexican in Moscow.

My fiance has an elite powerlifting total and also took overall in her first physique show. She will tell you straight up that those 12 weeks leading into the physique show were far and above the most difficult 3 months of her life. I bulked up initially, spent 4 years pushing my weight up from 140 and lean to 220fat. I did it the way X is always endorsing on this site. As a matter of fact, I followed his advice to a “t” for the better part of my college years and graduated a full 80 lbs heavier. That’s all well and good if you take simple scale weight as a measuring stick of progress, but in order to get to the same level of leanness I had at the beginning of the push, I had to drop back down to the mid 160’s, and this took me EIGHT MONTHS of dedicated work and dealing with hunger, tiredness, and my lifts going to shit. Five years of work yielded 25 lbs of actual muscle (you know, that thing we’re all here to build). That’s right, 25 lbs in 4 years. I’m convinced I could have done better than that had I not chased the scale and fucked my hormonal profile up by being a fat ass at 20% bodyfat. In the year and a half since I finally lost the weight, my weight has only varied +/-10 lbs, but I’ve made huge changes in my physique, as those who know me IRL on this forum can attest. I really believe this is mostly attributable to my insulin sensitivity, p ratio, etc getting un-fucked as I was no longer forcing food on my body that it didn’t need. When it comes to bodybuilding, weight is a garbage metric. It’s like trying to judge how fast a car can go based on the size of it’s gas tank.[/quote]

yeah blame X because you didn’t know what you were doing.

did you ever consider that you weren’t eating enough protein, or that your routine was garbage, instead of blindly blaming calorie intake, though?

from 140 you should be able to get to 180-190 lean within 4 years, maybe even less… 140 is almost no muscle mass to begin with

[/quote]

Nice try with the troll account, though, X.

You seem to be doing some grade-A nut swinging lately. Do you have any pics?[/quote]

Well played all it was missing was the ??? brackets.

Professor_X · February 18, 2013, 4:42pm

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]fr0gger666 wrote:

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
If dieting was the easy part, X wouldn’t quit diets after 1-2 weeks because he felt like he was “losing size” or need biweekly pizza buffet cheat meals right from the get-go. When someone who has both increased their initial bodyweight by 50+ lean lbs AND gotten to “back of the hand” leanness tells me, I’ll listen, but right now X might as well be trying to tell me what it’s like to grow up as a Mexican in Moscow.

My fiance has an elite powerlifting total and also took overall in her first physique show. She will tell you straight up that those 12 weeks leading into the physique show were far and above the most difficult 3 months of her life. I bulked up initially, spent 4 years pushing my weight up from 140 and lean to 220fat. I did it the way X is always endorsing on this site. As a matter of fact, I followed his advice to a “t” for the better part of my college years and graduated a full 80 lbs heavier. That’s all well and good if you take simple scale weight as a measuring stick of progress, but in order to get to the same level of leanness I had at the beginning of the push, I had to drop back down to the mid 160’s, and this took me EIGHT MONTHS of dedicated work and dealing with hunger, tiredness, and my lifts going to shit. Five years of work yielded 25 lbs of actual muscle (you know, that thing we’re all here to build). That’s right, 25 lbs in 4 years. I’m convinced I could have done better than that had I not chased the scale and fucked my hormonal profile up by being a fat ass at 20% bodyfat. In the year and a half since I finally lost the weight, my weight has only varied +/-10 lbs, but I’ve made huge changes in my physique, as those who know me IRL on this forum can attest. I really believe this is mostly attributable to my insulin sensitivity, p ratio, etc getting un-fucked as I was no longer forcing food on my body that it didn’t need. When it comes to bodybuilding, weight is a garbage metric. It’s like trying to judge how fast a car can go based on the size of it’s gas tank.[/quote]

yeah blame X because you didn’t know what you were doing.

did you ever consider that you weren’t eating enough protein, or that your routine was garbage, instead of blindly blaming calorie intake, though?

from 140 you should be able to get to 180-190 lean within 4 years, maybe even less… 140 is almost no muscle mass to begin with

[/quote]

Nice try with the troll account, though, X.

You seem to be doing some grade-A nut swinging lately. Do you have any pics?[/quote]

Well played all it was missing was the ??? brackets.[/quote]

Just a note, I doubt T-Nation would allow a MOD to have a duel account for no reason. Ask the MODs. It is a shame that anyone who agrees with me is apparently shouted down or discredited this way.

The MODs here have no problem outing troll accounts…so this was one poor attempt…and pretty sad that some of you feel the need to do this to posters simply because they disagree with you or the mob.

Professor_X · February 18, 2013, 5:01pm

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]The3Commandments wrote:
I think that a lot of this discussion is colored by the fact that most on these boards are in college or their early 20s and do not have to make real priorities/choices compared to an adult like BlueCollar.

The 16 weeks of dieting is much more difficult than 16 weeks of bulking, of course. But if you’re someone with a demanding job, kids, and maybe one other hobby in life, then being someone who can consistently train for years on end to gain LBM is a real challenge and takes more dedication than a diet that’s measured in weeks, imo.[/quote]

A wise observation.
The birth of a child, the death of a marriage, two companies closing down, the ups and downs of loving and leaving, parenting, parenting, and more parenting, coaching, competitions, injuries, diets [restricted and surplus], aging parents, etc. The iron and sweat are the only thing that has been consistent. [/quote]

Good post…and this is why I will ALWAYS listen to a really built older dude over some college student who thinks they know everything with less than ten years of training under their belt.

Life throws curveballs. The dedicated guys keep lifting through the hard time…and let me tell you, MOST of the college aged students who train now won’t be anywhere near a gym in ten years…especially the ones claiming they will.

Yes, getting huge and staying that way while also gaining an education and a career along with family and relationships means a hell of a lot.

Any college student should be able to stay focused in the gym unless they literally work all of the time along with school. If you can’t do it during that time of your life, you sure as hell won’t keep it up later.

Show me the guy who got built and actually accomplished several life goals with it and that is who deserves more credit than the guy who lives at the gym or hasn’t even done much yet.

xjusticex2013x · February 18, 2013, 5:39pm

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

[quote]The3Commandments wrote:
I think that a lot of this discussion is colored by the fact that most on these boards are in college or their early 20s and do not have to make real priorities/choices compared to an adult like BlueCollar.

The 16 weeks of dieting is much more difficult than 16 weeks of bulking, of course. But if you’re someone with a demanding job, kids, and maybe one other hobby in life, then being someone who can consistently train for years on end to gain LBM is a real challenge and takes more dedication than a diet that’s measured in weeks, imo.[/quote]

A wise observation.
The birth of a child, the death of a marriage, two companies closing down, the ups and downs of loving and leaving, parenting, parenting, and more parenting, coaching, competitions, injuries, diets [restricted and surplus], aging parents, etc. The iron and sweat are the only thing that has been consistent. [/quote]

Good post…and this is why I will ALWAYS listen to a really built older dude over some college student who thinks they know everything with less than ten years of training under their belt.

Life throws curveballs. The dedicated guys keep lifting through the hard time…and let me tell you, MOST of the college aged students who train now won’t be anywhere near a gym in ten years…especially the ones claiming they will.

Yes, getting huge and staying that way while also gaining an education and a career along with family and relationships means a hell of a lot.

Any college student should be able to stay focused in the gym unless they literally work all of the time along with school. If you can’t do it during that time of your life, you sure as hell won’t keep it up later.

Show me the guy who got built and actually accomplished several life goals with it and that is who deserves more credit than the guy who lives at the gym or hasn’t even done much yet.
[/quote]

This is very true. Hell, I’m still in high school. I’ve had ups and downs and have some gains to show for it, but my tenacity has in no way been truly tested yet.

UtahLama · February 18, 2013, 6:16pm

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

[quote]Stronghold wrote:

[quote]fr0gger666 wrote:

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
If dieting was the easy part, X wouldn’t quit diets after 1-2 weeks because he felt like he was “losing size” or need biweekly pizza buffet cheat meals right from the get-go. When someone who has both increased their initial bodyweight by 50+ lean lbs AND gotten to “back of the hand” leanness tells me, I’ll listen, but right now X might as well be trying to tell me what it’s like to grow up as a Mexican in Moscow.

My fiance has an elite powerlifting total and also took overall in her first physique show. She will tell you straight up that those 12 weeks leading into the physique show were far and above the most difficult 3 months of her life. I bulked up initially, spent 4 years pushing my weight up from 140 and lean to 220fat. I did it the way X is always endorsing on this site. As a matter of fact, I followed his advice to a “t” for the better part of my college years and graduated a full 80 lbs heavier. That’s all well and good if you take simple scale weight as a measuring stick of progress, but in order to get to the same level of leanness I had at the beginning of the push, I had to drop back down to the mid 160’s, and this took me EIGHT MONTHS of dedicated work and dealing with hunger, tiredness, and my lifts going to shit. Five years of work yielded 25 lbs of actual muscle (you know, that thing we’re all here to build). That’s right, 25 lbs in 4 years. I’m convinced I could have done better than that had I not chased the scale and fucked my hormonal profile up by being a fat ass at 20% bodyfat. In the year and a half since I finally lost the weight, my weight has only varied +/-10 lbs, but I’ve made huge changes in my physique, as those who know me IRL on this forum can attest. I really believe this is mostly attributable to my insulin sensitivity, p ratio, etc getting un-fucked as I was no longer forcing food on my body that it didn’t need. When it comes to bodybuilding, weight is a garbage metric. It’s like trying to judge how fast a car can go based on the size of it’s gas tank.[/quote]

yeah blame X because you didn’t know what you were doing.

did you ever consider that you weren’t eating enough protein, or that your routine was garbage, instead of blindly blaming calorie intake, though?

from 140 you should be able to get to 180-190 lean within 4 years, maybe even less… 140 is almost no muscle mass to begin with

[/quote]

Nice try with the troll account, though, X.

You seem to be doing some grade-A nut swinging lately. Do you have any pics?[/quote]

Well played all it was missing was the ??? brackets.[/quote]

Just a note, I doubt T-Nation would allow a MOD to have a duel account for no reason. Ask the MODs. It is a shame that anyone who agrees with me is apparently shouted down or discredited this way.

The MODs here have no problem outing troll accounts…so this was one poor attempt…and pretty sad that some of you feel the need to do this to posters simply because they disagree with you or the mob.[/quote]

I thought you were not going to post for a week?

And being a MOD yourself…you could pretty much do anything on the bodybuilding forums you want, including blocking posts.

Correct?

The3Commandments · February 18, 2013, 7:28pm

[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
I’m very impressed with your video.

have you or do you plan to go the trt route. And I mean nooooo disrespect just wondering because you are getting older my dude and it is a subject that interests me because my levels have tested very incredibly low for my age.
[/quote]

I’m on TRT right now due to a head injury I sustained in high school when playing football. I didn’t actually know I had low T until about 1.5 years ago and started treating it a year ago.

Interestingly, my ability to recover and get stronger hasn’t been impacted as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten stronger in the past year, but even with a T level of 34, I was still squatting 350 for 10+ reps. Lol, in fact the morning I was told I had that T level, I was squatting in the mid 3s before seeing the doc.

I’m on it mainly because without it a lot of my blood levels tank (hematocrit, hemoglobin, etc). I would say to hold off as long as you can, as it’s something you have to be consistent with. Most people get on TRT for reasons relating to mood or being unable to put on muscle.

Also worth mentioning that someone with “low T” (i.e. in the lower range of normal or even slightly below normal) will not necessarily see huge results by being boosted to a moderate level (e.g. the 700s). People assume that being on TRT is going to leave you getting unusually muscular and whatnot, as if it were close to AAS or something. It doesn’t seem like there’s really much correlation between muscularity and T levels when you’re talking about people in the normal human ranges, which is why you see people doing AAS that boost their T levels to many times the normal human threshold.

Professor_X · February 18, 2013, 7:46pm

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I thought you were not going to post for a week?

And being a MOD yourself…you could pretty much do anything on the bodybuilding forums you want, including blocking posts.

Correct?
[/quote]

?? Once again, no T-Nation does not allow MODs to troll the forums and they have never been shy about outing someone if they were causing problems.

Bottom line, you tried to discredit someone ONLY because they agreed with me.

That’s sad. You guys are looking pretty weak lately…and everyone can see it.

I said I might be out most of this week. I will post when I choose.

Grow up.

Ask the MODs or Tim himself if you are so concerned.

DoubleDuce · February 18, 2013, 7:59pm

I can only say that I’ve used “set points” to help continue my cut. I tend to drop about 15 pounds, then when progress starts stalling, I’ll up my calories, up my training volume and cardio, hold the same weight a few months, then drop the calories a tad and continue dropping weight. It makes the weight come off easier again.

UtahLama · February 18, 2013, 10:28pm

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]UtahLama wrote:

I thought you were not going to post for a week?

And being a MOD yourself…you could pretty much do anything on the bodybuilding forums you want, including blocking posts.

Correct?
[/quote]

?

Grow up.

[/quote]

?
??
???
???
???

Never change…never.

Stronghold · February 19, 2013, 4:03am

So X has the power to block people and remove their posts…let he really believes that everyone who criticizes him is part of some giant conspiracy out to get him.

Or maybe it’s just that he’s a sad soul and, deep down, loves the fact that SOMEONE is paying attention to him.

By the way, I wish my week was as short as X’s. 2 day work week would be nice.

jeremielemauvais · February 19, 2013, 10:01am

You’re actually like 5’6" aren’t you lol?

[quote]Stronghold wrote:
You’re right about one thing, 140 isn’t much muscle mass. I’m glad you can make that assertion without knowing my height (5’8"), but I’m in good “natural” shape at my current weight.
[/quote]

paulieserafini · February 19, 2013, 12:48pm

[quote]The3Commandments wrote:

[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
I’m very impressed with your video.

have you or do you plan to go the trt route. And I mean nooooo disrespect just wondering because you are getting older my dude and it is a subject that interests me because my levels have tested very incredibly low for my age.
[/quote]

I’m on TRT right now due to a head injury I sustained in high school when playing football. I didn’t actually know I had low T until about 1.5 years ago and started treating it a year ago.

Interestingly, my ability to recover and get stronger hasn’t been impacted as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten stronger in the past year, but even with a T level of 34, I was still squatting 350 for 10+ reps. Lol, in fact the morning I was told I had that T level, I was squatting in the mid 3s before seeing the doc.

I’m on it mainly because without it a lot of my blood levels tank (hematocrit, hemoglobin, etc). I would say to hold off as long as you can, as it’s something you have to be consistent with. Most people get on TRT for reasons relating to mood or being unable to put on muscle.

Also worth mentioning that someone with “low T” (i.e. in the lower range of normal or even slightly below normal) will not necessarily see huge results by being boosted to a moderate level (e.g. the 700s). People assume that being on TRT is going to leave you getting unusually muscular and whatnot, as if it were close to AAS or something. It doesn’t seem like there’s really much correlation between muscularity and T levels when you’re talking about people in the normal human ranges, which is why you see people doing AAS that boost their T levels to many times the normal human threshold.[/quote]

good shit man. Thanks for the post!

paulieserafini · February 19, 2013, 12:48pm

[quote]BlueCollarTr8n wrote:

Thanks Paulie…your one of my favorite members, and a large man in your own right!

[/quote]

dawe shucks. Stahhhp it.

AzCats · February 19, 2013, 6:50pm

[quote]fr0gger666 wrote:

[quote]detazathoth wrote:

[quote]fr0gger666 wrote:

[quote]detazathoth wrote:

Do you even reading comprehension?

Or is English not your first language?

As Stronghold’s hetero life mate and a good friend of his fiancÃ???Ã???Ã??Ã?Â©, he didn’t undershoot his protein intake, if anything, it was
Overkill.

Lol, as a guy who’s gained 100lbs of bodyweight at one point, and is settling at a 75-80lb+ net bodyweight gain, I’ve share Stronghold’s same view that bulking and pushing the scale up for the shake of pushing it up is absolutely ass backwards
[/quote]

5’8 140 is nothing, and 20 lbs/year is nothing

dunno how you could blame X for getting fat on a slow bulk, no idea how you would manage to do that really

[/quote]

You can’t be serious?

You didn’t see the part where Stronghold said he started at 140, went to 220 and cut to the 170’s?

He’s NOT 140lbs AT THIS MOMENT

[/quote]

it’s funny how most of the people who got really huge & muscled started out “fat”(which apparently is 15-20% BF), and then those same people come here and post how it wasn’t necessary

kind of like how people say heavy weights aren’t necessary, and in their past they were lifting heavy weights

its so easy to look back and pretend you could’ve done it another way

its like PX said though, lot of people here want to look like the scrawny/wimpy jersey shore dudes, stronghold if you want to stay 165 its your choice… at 5’8 i would look to be around 220-230 lean if you want to set any kind of challenge for yourself, though

and if I was 5’8 140 i would look to gain about 30-40 lbs a year for 2-3 years before thinking about cutting
[/quote]
lol @ 5’8 220-230 Lean

MattyXL · February 19, 2013, 8:55pm

[quote]The3Commandments wrote:

[quote]paulieserafini wrote:
I’m very impressed with your video.

have you or do you plan to go the trt route. And I mean nooooo disrespect just wondering because you are getting older my dude and it is a subject that interests me because my levels have tested very incredibly low for my age.
[/quote]

I’m on TRT right now due to a head injury I sustained in high school when playing football. I didn’t actually know I had low T until about 1.5 years ago and started treating it a year ago.

Interestingly, my ability to recover and get stronger hasn’t been impacted as far as I can tell. I’ve gotten stronger in the past year, but even with a T level of 34, I was still squatting 350 for 10+ reps. Lol, in fact the morning I was told I had that T level, I was squatting in the mid 3s before seeing the doc.

I’m on it mainly because without it a lot of my blood levels tank (hematocrit, hemoglobin, etc). I would say to hold off as long as you can, as it’s something you have to be consistent with. Most people get on TRT for reasons relating to mood or being unable to put on muscle.

Also worth mentioning that someone with “low T” (i.e. in the lower range of normal or even slightly below normal) will not necessarily see huge results by being boosted to a moderate level (e.g. the 700s). People assume that being on TRT is going to leave you getting unusually muscular and whatnot, as if it were close to AAS or something. It doesn’t seem like there’s really much correlation between muscularity and T levels when you’re talking about people in the normal human ranges, which is why you see people doing AAS that boost their T levels to many times the normal human threshold.[/quote]

This is a great post, and so many people fail to understand that there is a huge difference between a Therapeutic dosage and Performance enhancing dosage while on TRT.

Waittz · February 19, 2013, 9:31pm