Skinny-Fat Bulk or Cut? Pics Included - Help!

Training
41

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]nighthawkz wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
Here’s your solution:
2 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day. When you need to convince your body to build structure, there is nothing better than megatons of building blocks.
[/quote]

Could we please stop this 2g/lb bullshit? That’s way more than necessary according to about 98% of all sources. Yes, I know that Dante Trudel and Dorian Yates will disagree, but 1g/lb, even 0.8 is perfectly fine for most people, especially when there is no caloric deficit. Sorry.
[/quote]

Tried that; it didn’t work. Tried 2g/lb; it worked. I don’t care who says what, I’ll go with what works.

I don’t eat 2g/lb now, but that’s what it took to get things moving. It’s also what it took for me to hop past the 200lb mark. I also had to gain some fat along the way. At my heaviest, I was 235 and over 20%bf. I had to eat over 5000kcal/day to get there, including 500g of protein per day.

That was also when I was my strongest, with a 495 DL, 285 bench, and 435 squat. I know those aren’t amazing numbers, but I think they’re pretty good for 5 years of serious lifting in your thirties. Of course, I had lifted “seriously” before, but never could make any progress, so I basically gave up for years at a time before going back to try it again. [/quote]

I feel like there’s a lot of room for debate on the protein issue, since so many people seem to respond so differently. Most days of the week, I probably hit .8g-1g protein. I almost NEVER exceed that amount, and as a natural lifter, I got to very similar numbers without every getting fat. I’ve still never weighed over 200 lbs. I also happen to respond well to high carb diets. I can load up with sugar all day and stay lean, and I’m also in my 30’s. Everyone’s metabolism is different, and everyone’s thyroid function is different.

42

Definitely a lot of room for debate, but I know for a fact that it will change the way your body reacts to diet and lifting. I’ve seen some beginners make muscle so fast that they didn’t gain much fat at all, and didn’t even look like the same person after a year.

All of Charles Poliquin’s research and experience indicates the same. His basic recommendations are 1.5g/lb for carb tolerant lifters, and 2g/lb for non carb tolerant. And that’s coming from a highly sought-after world class strength and conditioning coach.

43

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
Definitely a lot of room for debate, but I know for a fact that it will change the way your body reacts to diet and lifting. I’ve seen some beginners make muscle so fast that they didn’t gain much fat at all, and didn’t even look like the same person after a year.

All of Charles Poliquin’s research and experience indicates the same. His basic recommendations are 1.5g/lb for carb tolerant lifters, and 2g/lb for non carb tolerant. And that’s coming from a highly sought-after world class strength and conditioning coach.[/quote]

I would say that it’s logical that when a beginner tries to meet an excessively high protein target, he does end up cutting out a lot of crap from his diet. But I doubt many actually meet that target consistently.

Can you post links to the research? Not what Poliquin claims the studies state, but the actual studies.

44

I almost forgot about something critically important: water!

We all know that our tissues are pretty close to 75% water, but you’d be surprised how many people fail to make the correlation between that and eating. For every pound of dry weight you eat, you would have to drink three pounds of water in order to make use of it. Of course, most of the food we eat contains some water, but drinking plenty of water is absolutely necessary for growth.

45

[quote]peetpeew wrote:
Thanks for all the replies guys, it’s really eye opening for me and I am happy I posted here.

I am following the GSLP program that I listed on the last page, but I haven’t been able to do the burpees every day as it really hurts my left calf for several hours afterwards for some reason.

Deloads:
If I couldn’t get 5 reps on the last set then I would drop the weight down by 10% (as suggested by GSLP ebook).

When I first reached 110lb (50kg) squat, my reps were 5/5/6.
After deloading when I failed 5 reps at 120lb (55kg) I then reached 5/5/10 reps on 110lb (50kg)… so 4 extra reps on the last set which made me think I was definitely getting stronger.

I am pretty much just following the GSLP program exactly as it is laid out.

Calories:
The problem I see with increasing calories is that I will add on more fat (possibly). I already think I added on a tiny bit eating at 2000-2200.

I was advised on here to just lift hard at maintenance or slightly above and recomp over a long period of time. 6 weeks of doing this showed 0 changes which lead me to think I must be doing something wrong as I should have seen something at least and it seems like a few of you agree.

I understand that it’s hard to tell how strong I’ve got and I knew that would be the case with the different rep ranges. I started off light for sure at the start and I am now starting to find the weight harder to lift and reach 5 reps.

So I should try increase calories to 2400-2500 on workout days and 2200 on non workout days and re-evaluate after a week or two via scale?

What about fat gain and recomping? Because the main purpose of this thread was to check whether I should cut first or bulk/recomp and most said to recomp at maintenance.

Thanks everyone.
[/quote]

Hi man, I’m in a simular place as you. Been doing Greyskull for about the same time as you. I’ve not deloaded on anything even if I don’t hit the full 5, I’ll eat more and go for it again next time. I’ve found even a couple of hundred calories makes a big difference, you’ve just got to play with your diet till you are eating enough to keep your lifts progressing and not gain fat if possible. No one can tell you exactly what calories to eat as everyones different so like I say just change things up till you find what works for you. Like me you are in the very early days of this lifting game and you’ve got to resign yourself it’s going to take time. Before I started in the gym I’d lost just over a stone (14lbs) by dieting so it took me a while to get my head round eating more to fuel my lifts so totally understand where you are coming from but my weights are going up and body weight is still coming down slowly, even with eating more. I’m not having a go here but are you really going hard in the gym? I thought I was going as hard as I could but the last couple of weeks I’ve found I’m pushing things a lot harder, really squeezing those extra reps out, if you can stand up and walk straight away from the equipment you ain’t working hard enough. I’d guess it might be something to do with the central nervous system adapting to the workload or just getting used to lifting in general but I’m feeling the benefits of it already. Also don’t be afraid of asking someone to spot you even just benching 55kg, I felt a bit daft asking the first time I did it but it makes so much difference knowing you can push that last rep without the risk of it coming back at you, you can really go for it :slight_smile: Oh and you say you’ve seen 0 results but you said you feel firmer! You didn’t want to build flabby muscles did you :wink: It’ll come man, don’t worry :slight_smile:

46

IN MY OPINION, you should focus on gaining muscle. Forget recomping, forget cutting. The more muscle mass you add, the more calories you’ll burn at rest, the easier it will be to cut/recomp in the future, and you’ll also look better (even if you gain some fat along the way).

The trick is to figure out the level of caloric intake at which you are efficiently building muscle and not gaining excess fat. This can be tricky to determine. IMO, you should err on the side of eating more than you think you need for a couple weeks, and modulate based on weight gain (or lack of gain). This is because even though we can all spout equations at you, like BW x 17 calories, or LBM x whatever, you may actually need a lot more (or less, but unlikely in your case given 6 weeks of no gain) calories than that. It’s individual, and some guys need to really pile on the calories to get their bodyweight moving up.

If you want to carb/calorie cycle then 2200 and 2700 is a good starting point as mentioned above, (or you could just do 2400 every day), but don’t be afraid to increase food if your BW doesn’t move after a week or two. I’d say 1/2 pound / week of weight gain would be a good target, at least for the first few weeks.

47

[quote]peetpeew wrote:
I am following the GSLP program that I listed on the last page, but I haven’t been able to do the burpees every day as it really hurts my left calf for several hours afterwards for some reason.[/quote]
I just looked at the program on the last page, and maybe I missed it, but I looked a few times and I still don’t see burpees.

Why are you doing burpees?

48

This may sound absurd to some but I’ve gotten better results with my extremely skinny clients, squatting only one time a week. I usually get three days with them so I normally focus on the bench, squat, and pull ups. And some of you are probably thinking I am talking blasphemy and want to rip my head off but max effort upper,lower and repetition upper body split has proven more effective to my clients than anything if they are extremely skinny. They just do not seem to respond to having the bar on the back twice a week and squatting heavy more than once. If they are capable or willing the fourth day can be strongman style workouts.

49

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]nighthawkz wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
Here’s your solution:
2 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day. When you need to convince your body to build structure, there is nothing better than megatons of building blocks.
[/quote]

Could we please stop this 2g/lb bullshit? That’s way more than necessary according to about 98% of all sources. Yes, I know that Dante Trudel and Dorian Yates will disagree, but 1g/lb, even 0.8 is perfectly fine for most people, especially when there is no caloric deficit. Sorry.
[/quote]

Tried that; it didn’t work. Tried 2g/lb; it worked. I don’t care who says what, I’ll go with what works.

I don’t eat 2g/lb now, but that’s what it took to get things moving. It’s also what it took for me to hop past the 200lb mark. I also had to gain some fat along the way. At my heaviest, I was 235 and over 20%bf. I had to eat over 5000kcal/day to get there, including 500g of protein per day.

That was also when I was my strongest, with a 495 DL, 285 bench, and 435 squat. I know those aren’t amazing numbers, but I think they’re pretty good for 5 years of serious lifting in your thirties. Of course, I had lifted “seriously” before, but never could make any progress, so I basically gave up for years at a time before going back to try it again. [/quote]

… So you ate 500g of protein a day to become fat? You obviously didn’t need 500g of protein to grow if you got to 20% at 235… I know I have been 235 and 20% bf and I was a fat fucking slob. You obviously didn’t need that much to grow as you were well in an excess. There is a huge difference between wanting to eat 5000 calories a day and NEEDING to eat 500 calories a day.

50

[quote]Reed wrote:

… So you ate 500g of protein a day to become fat? You obviously didn’t need 500g of protein to grow if you got to 20% at 235… I know I have been 235 and 20% bf and I was a fat fucking slob. You obviously didn’t need that much to grow as you were well in an excess. There is a huge difference between wanting to eat 5000 calories a day and NEEDING to eat 500 calories a day.[/quote]

So what you’re saying is that you got fat, and then got lean, and it worked for you, too. And I would assume, since you were 235 and only 20% fat, that you were lifting heavy at the time?

51

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]Reed wrote:

… So you ate 500g of protein a day to become fat? You obviously didn’t need 500g of protein to grow if you got to 20% at 235… I know I have been 235 and 20% bf and I was a fat fucking slob. You obviously didn’t need that much to grow as you were well in an excess. There is a huge difference between wanting to eat 5000 calories a day and NEEDING to eat 500 calories a day.[/quote]

So what you’re saying is that you got fat, and then got lean, and it worked for you, too. And I would assume, since you were 235 and only 20% fat, that you were lifting heavy at the time?[/quote]

I got strongISH and I got fat. I am now leaner and strongER eating WAY less protein (250g a day tops) and way less calories than before (3000 compared to 4-5000). So did what I do before work? For what? Getting stronger yeah, for getting fat yeah, for getting way over where I really needed to be competitive? yeah, for getting to a point I had to hire a coach to help me do a legit 16 week diet to fix all my dumb ass mistakes from before? Yeah it worked for that too.

So once again what you are telling him to do is foolish. Why get so fat that you have to actually work at getting leaner and instilling new eating habits when he can just start them from the beginning. I got fat because I didnt know any better I was a typical dumb ass young powerlifter. I would never recommend what I did and I dont quite understand how you can.

52

Actually, that’s not what I recommended to him. I was eating 22.5x my body weight in calories and 2.5x in grams of protein. I recommended 2x in protein and 20x body weight in calories.

The purpose is to change the way your body operates. Once you convince your body that food is plentiful, and give it a reason to build muscle, magical things happen. You did it on accident. I did it on purpose. Tons of enormously successful strength and conditioning coaches advise it. Tons of world class powerlifters and bodybuilders have done it and continue to do it to this day.

So yes, I recommend it. Maybe not to the extent that I pushed it, but that’s not what I recommended anyway.

53

[quote]JayPierce wrote:

[quote]nighthawkz wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
Here’s your solution:
2 grams of protein per pound of body weight every day. When you need to convince your body to build structure, there is nothing better than megatons of building blocks.
[/quote]

Could we please stop this 2g/lb bullshit? That’s way more than necessary according to about 98% of all sources. Yes, I know that Dante Trudel and Dorian Yates will disagree, but 1g/lb, even 0.8 is perfectly fine for most people, especially when there is no caloric deficit. Sorry.
[/quote]

Tried that; it didn’t work. Tried 2g/lb; it worked. I don’t care who says what, I’ll go with what works.

I don’t eat 2g/lb now, but that’s what it took to get things moving. It’s also what it took for me to hop past the 200lb mark. I also had to gain some fat along the way. At my heaviest, I was 235 and over 20%bf. I had to eat over 5000kcal/day to get there, including 500g of protein per day.

That was also when I was my strongest, with a 495 DL, 285 bench, and 435 squat. I know those aren’t amazing numbers, but I think they’re pretty good for 5 years of serious lifting in your thirties. Of course, I had lifted “seriously” before, but never could make any progress, so I basically gave up for years at a time before going back to try it again. [/quote]

lol

So you ate way too much and ended up really fucking fat and not very strong.

Tell us more about how it “worked”…

54

20% is not “really f’ing fat”. And again, that’s not what I was telling the op to do.

495 DL is at the advanced level for 242lbs.

Of course, my point of reference is as a natural lifter. I see you spend a lot of time on the steroid forum. Nothing wrong with that, but gear changes everything; specifically the point of my post - gene expression.

55

Let’s take it easy, gentlemen.

I agree with most of what Jaypierce is saying. Reed’s points are valid, too. No one needs to get fat as fuck and there is a lot of somewhat questionable info out there about “eating big to get big” BUT I do think there is a lot of value to the idea of eating big and not worrying too much about fat gain for the FIRST BULK.

In order to maximize the initial quick gains in strength and size, it’s imperative that significant caloric surplus and adequate protein are present. There truth to the idea that the body doesn’t want to change and more than a couple hundred calories over maintenance being necessary to spur growth. A guy I’m training right now when at 166 lbs should have gained weight at 2500-2600 calories / day but now he’s up to 3350 kcal / day and still barely gaining. His strength is going up quickly though and he’s probably losing some fat as he builds muscle despite hte high calorie intake.

Which is to say, I don’t think it’s great advice to the OP that he should be super careful with his calories and worry about every pound of potential fat gain. He is a beginner and capable of rapid progress in strength and size… IF he eats right.

The problem with “bulking” is not that it doesn’t work, especially for newbies – it’s that pretty much everyone takes it too far. They get excited about initial gains and keep piling on the calories for years. When what they should do is bulk for a few months to drive rapid strength increases and then tighten up diet significantly.

56

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
20% is not “really f’ing fat”. And again, that’s not what I was telling the op to do.

495 DL is at the advanced level for 242lbs.

Of course, my point of reference is as a natural lifter. I see you spend a lot of time on the steroid forum. Nothing wrong with that, but gear changes everything; specifically the point of my post - gene expression. [/quote]

^Wow. After that rubbish post about water, he finally went full retard. Lol!

57

[quote]dt79 wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
20% is not “really f’ing fat”. And again, that’s not what I was telling the op to do.

495 DL is at the advanced level for 242lbs.

Of course, my point of reference is as a natural lifter. I see you spend a lot of time on the steroid forum. Nothing wrong with that, but gear changes everything; specifically the point of my post - gene expression. [/quote]

^Wow. After that rubbish post about water, he finally went full retard. Lol![/quote]

Not to get in the middle of this pleasant exchange, but come on… what in that post is full retard?

20% BF is not even close to really fat. I was 22.7% BF according to a DXA two months ago and I had visible upper abs when flexing.

495 DL @ 242 may not be impressive but it’s perfectly respectable for a recreational lifter.

And obviously geared vs not-geared makes a big difference.

58

[quote]craze9 wrote:

[quote]dt79 wrote:

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
20% is not “really f’ing fat”. And again, that’s not what I was telling the op to do.

495 DL is at the advanced level for 242lbs.

Of course, my point of reference is as a natural lifter. I see you spend a lot of time on the steroid forum. Nothing wrong with that, but gear changes everything; specifically the point of my post - gene expression. [/quote]

^Wow. After that rubbish post about water, he finally went full retard. Lol![/quote]

Not to get in the middle of this pleasant exchange, but come on… what in that post is full retard?

20% BF is not even close to really fat. I was 22.7% BF according to a DXA two months ago and I had visible upper abs when flexing.

495 DL @ 242 may not be impressive but it’s perfectly respectable for a recreational lifter.

And obviously geared vs not-geared makes a big difference.
[/quote]

  1. He has no clue about what he’s talking about when he brings up gene expression within the context of his posts. Increasing protein WITHOUT much increase in calories MAY indirectly support what he thinks he’s talking about.

  2. Gear upregulates AR expression which leads to increased protein synthesis, and vastly improves nutrient partitioning. Which means much higher amounts of calories and protein can be utilised for muscle builiding. Yet he is still arguing about higher calories and protein despite being told by a GEAR USER that the amounts he is recommending are excessive.

I can’t be bothered to pick apart his other posts, nor will I reply to any of his rebuttals because I don’t think he’s very sane. Just let the logic of the 2nd point sink in lol.

59

Hey so it looks like this thread got sidetracked a bit :frowning:
Thanks for all the advice again guys.

RE Burpees:
I stopped doing them but the greyskull program basically had an optional thing you could do called the Frequency method where you can do easy multiple sets of pushups/pull ups spread daily, and an optional burpee challenge on top; 100 burpees in under 3 minutes (starting off with 3x20) - which the author said he always seen very successful body recomp transitions with by the time clients could reach it on top of the core program.

For those don’t know about the program, someone recommended me to me on the first page and I did a lot of research on it and it seems to be a very good program.

Current results:
So the thing that confuses me the most is how I am eating at maintenance and I haven’t lost any fat, or gained much fat or muscle but I am getting stronger. I guess I hadn’t really reached the “heavy” weights until the last 10 days or so as I started off very light and that makes sense.
It also makes a lot of sense about needing to be in more of a caloric surplus in order to force my body to grow. My man boobs and mid section are already big right now relative to the rest of my body and I really don’t want them getting any bigger. Eating at maintenance has clearly not worked as I had hoped though.

What body fat % would people estimate me to be at?

I will try 2200 calories off days and 2600-2700 calories on workout days and post a new update in 4 weeks on top of any other advice anyone else wants to add in.

Thanks again.

60

[quote]JayPierce wrote:
20% is not “really f’ing fat”. And again, that’s not what I was telling the op to do.

495 DL is at the advanced level for 242lbs.

Of course, my point of reference is as a natural lifter. I see you spend a lot of time on the steroid forum. Nothing wrong with that, but gear changes everything; specifically the point of my post - gene expression. [/quote]

Ok, so just “fat” then…

And it’s not what you told the OP to do, directly, but following your advice will have that effect.

And dt79’s already addressed your asinine comment on gene expression.