Sorry if this is in the wrong forum but I thought it more apt than the nutrition forum. I’m planning my first cycle for sometime in the near future and I want to get everything perfect to maximize my gains.
I’ve been training seriously for 8 years. Mostly for performance not necessarily body building. My goal is to put on as much muscle during my 10 wk cycle with the least amount of fat gain. I’m fairly experienced gaining muscle naturally but I haven’t been able to find very good info on the different nutrition needs for a natural vs non-natural.
At 180lbs/10% bf I’ve found that I can make fairly lean muscle gains at a rate of 2lbs/month with a macro split of P200g/C400g/F70g. On cycle I’m expecting much faster gains. With the increased protein turnover and lipolysis AAS offer I’m expecting to increase my protein and over all calorie intake.
But how much? I’d appreciate any advice other than eat as much as you can. I’m not a hard gainer by any means. The macros above don’t really satisfy me even though I gain weight on them. I can eat ALOT! But I don’t want to get fat. Thanks.
While it’s different for everyone, somewhere between 1g - 1.5g of protein per pound of BW is ideal. You can probably lower your fat intake a bit (50-60g) and then up your carbs a good amount. Just watch yourself in the mirror… if you’re putting on too much fat, drop the cals a little. If you’re staying way too lean / not growing, you can up them. It’s always advised to get in as much clean food as possible and eat fairly often.
no one is going to give you a magic number for your macros, you just have to figure that out by trial and error and experimenting. Eat to grow, not to maintain. That’s barely 3000 calories but if you say you’re still gaining on that then fine but i would eat more if your main goal is quality mass.
It’s really going to come down to experimenting to find out what works best for you. If you’re currently gaining 2lbs a month just up your protein (250-350g) and healthy fats (100) and lower your carbs a tad (350-380). You can add one day a week to load up on carbs
By the sounds of it you should be able to grow nicely. Watch your Estro levels and don’t confuse bloat with fat
I’ll definitely bring my protein up to 250g. What’s your reasoning behind upping the fat? It’s my understanding that you can actually bring your fats down since you are using exogenous hormones you really aren’t concerned with maintaining your endogenous hormones. I suppose it would be different if you are using HCG on cycle to maintain your natural production. But my biology knowledge isn’t that great.
I was thinking of just leaving fat the same, upping my protein to 250g and upping my carbs another 100g to 500g. If I gain more than 2 lbs/wk I think I’d drop carbs 25-50g and reassess. I’m not really sure what is a reasonable weight gain while on cycle. I know from experiance and internet studies an intermediate natural gaining more than 2 lbs per month is getting fat. If I gained 20 lbs in 10 weeks on cycle and half of it was muscle I’d consider the cycle a success I suppose.