That’s a fantastic observation to be sure. If you are eating big, you will gain size, no matter HOW you train. What training does is impact the ratio of how much of that size is muscle vs fat. Some training is better than others for that.
One of the things to remember about Conjugate (which you read in all those articles I linked you along with that free e-book) is that what makes Conjugate Conjguate is that you are training multiple qualities AT ONCE. You train maximal strength, speed AND hypertrophy all at the same time. That said, training can (and should) STILL be phasic using conjugate, much like you’re demonstrating right now running it while in a fat loss phase of training.
Conjugate can absolutely be run indefinitely, because it’s not a program so much as a collection of principles that guide programming. 5/3/1 is the same way. What makes 5/3/1 more user friendly is that it doesn’t require NEAR the knowledge depth that conjugate does to be effective. Right now, you’re young enough in your training that you can pretty much get strong doing anything.
Make no mistake: you are a strong dude. BUT, you’re so “new” to the game that EVERYTHING is “weak” such that, if you focus on it, you’ll make it strong and see it reflected in your lifts. If you were to specialize in your triceps right now, your bench would go up…but the same is true if you picked pecs or shoulders. But one day, you’ll finally reach a point where making your shoulders stronger isn’t what is necessary, and you have to be smarter about what you pick for your assistance and supplemental work.
That’s where having a team/crew comes in handy with conjugate, because we tend to be terrible personal evaluators of our ability while outsiders are MUCH better at it. With 5/3/1, we keep things mostly the same and train the programming of the lifts in order to affect change, with conjugate, we keep the programming the same and change the lifts.
My first initial great big bulk, going from 190lbs to 217 (SO close to 220) was using a conjugate approach. It absolutely works, and you’re right: it’s FUN to train that way (as much fun as training can be). Except I never cared for dynamic effort work. But that’s because I was doing the Westside Barbell box squat against bands thing. If I did it over and did some kettlebell quick lifts or box jumps or something, I’m sure I’d enjoy it more.