I am 51 and have lifted weights for fitness and strength for 20 years with good success. I am in very good shape. Never tried bodybuilding, though. If I started now, I am concerned that the bulking cycles I read about are for much younger men with faster metabolisms. My maintenance is 2000 calories. I don’t think I could eat 4000-5000 calories without just getting fat. Suggestions please. Thanks.
Prime, welcome. I am 27 @ just under 200lbs and @ 4000-5000 bulking I gained way to much fat also. Everyone is different and has to find their personal maint. k/cal level and go from their. Mine is around 3000.
A solid approach is to up your cals slowly 250 k/cals @ a time. Stay @ that level until progress stalls then go up another 250.
This is also the approach that is laid out in JB’s revision to Massive Eating. Do a search on the Mag. It was published a couple weeks ago.
Hope that helps, keep us posted on the progress and dont hesitate if you have any further ?'s.
Prime, I am almost 59 and have been working out since I was 13 except when in the military and other less patriotic pursuits of the flesh and taste buds. I have been using HST for about 19 months and think it is a great body building program. Chad Waterbury’s Anti Body Building programs on T-Mag are also very good as are 5X5 routines for hypertrophy.
I too could not eat 5,000 calories without just getting plain fat. You do need to adjust the published diets to compensate for age, metabolism, current bodyfat %, etc. Phill’s suggestion of upping calories about 250 is a good one. I currently eat between 2800 and 3200 calories per day. Anything over that and I start to get some belly fat.
Keep us posted on your progress and feel free to ask any specific questions.