You Shouldn't Be Afraid of Bulking!

Nutrition
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[quote]Zagman wrote:
Wow, I have to disagree with most of you. I am a FFB, I spent the first 19 years of my life bulking up to 260.8. Now I am about 13lbs leaner than my avatar(now in the low 190s) and only slightly weaker by comparison.

My current methodology is one of cycles; if dieting, I diet until a noticeable loss of strength, I can get most if not all of that strength/lean mass back in 1-3 weeks of clean mass gaining.

I am pretty sure that I am in or near the single digits for body fat, have maintained the vast majority of my lean mass. Now in a week or so I am going to start a slow mass gaining phase. If at any point I put on more than a couple of lbs of fat, I am going to rip it off in a week or two of dieting, then continue my clean “bulk”.

I can understand the mentality of you guys if you are powerlifters, but if you are bodybuilders, why the hell would you want to be fat 9 months of the year. It is still about building a better body, right. I prefer the Golden Age approach, Frank Zane and Arnold managed to stay in great shape year round.[/quote]

You seem turned around on many issues. Why would any bodybuilder allow any loss of strength purposefully? You aren’t carrying very much muscle mass. You are just lean (supposedly). That isn’t an insult, that is just reality. I doubt there are many people who have actually gotten big approaching training the way you are. By the way, you have definitely NOT gotten very large muscles from your approach. In fact, I’ve known people who don’t lift weights who are bigger than you.

You plan on dieting down any time you gain even 1-2lbs of body fat?

You will be running in circles for many years to come. Good luck with that…but stop acting like that approach is the way to any real results.

For the record, Arnold bulked up in the off season. There is a reason his nickname was “smooth” when he first got here. Just because you don’t see many pictures of them during the off season (since none would take many when not in their best shape just like many bodybuilders today), it does not mean they stayed in contest shape year round.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zagman wrote:
Go to the college cafeteria, go to the salad bar and empty out their ham and grilled chicken dishes. Throw in the baby carrots and you have a perfect veggie/protein meal.

I know it is hard being in college and eating good, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Just avoid the shitty foods and load up on the good ones when they are present. You can usually find ok alternatives.

Have YOU even seen any gains in muscle mass eating the way you recommend for others? Baby fucking carrots?

Was this a joke?[/quote]

Carrots are high GI, duh moron.

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Loving this thread and just want to add an article link that we all need to read learn and ilve by if we want to achieve anything.

Kelly Bagett’s Shit or Get Off The Pot, the ultimate opposite of CT’S The truth about Bulking (no disrespect meant to CT).

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im going to try this…

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I don’t intentionally lose strength, it is just a byproduct of losing 60lbs of fat. You don’t lose strength when you diet down hard.

I am not huge, but am constantly improving. I should have quantified, a couple of lbs of fat is probably going to be 5-7; that should take some time and without eating massive quantities of shit food should pull some good clean mass with it.

I said carrots, because I was talking about making an entire meal from the salad bar without resorting to shit food. I should have taken the stuff your face with ckicken mcnuggets until you pack on the fat approach.

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[quote]Zagman wrote:
I don’t intentionally lose strength, it is just a byproduct of losing 60lbs of fat. You don’t lose strength when you diet down hard.[/quote]

Actually, many people DO lose strength when they “diet down hard” which is why so much focus is placed on food intake and continuing to lift some degree of heavy weights like what built the mass in the first place. The goal is to avoid this completely.

Actually, I think you should take the “I don’t have much insight on what it takes to gain a lot of muscle mass because I’ve only been dieting off all of the fat I gained over many years and am afraid to gain any of it back so I worry about fat gain more than the gain of muscle mass” approach.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:

Actually, I think you should take the “I don’t have much insight on what it takes to gain a lot of muscle mass because I’ve only been dieting off all of the fat I gained over many years and am afraid to gain any of it back so I worry about fat gain more than the gain of muscle mass” approach.

[/quote]

Maybe that is true, time will tell. I still believe you can add muscle without adding an unnecessary amount of fat.

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[quote]Zagman wrote:
Professor X wrote:

Actually, I think you should take the “I don’t have much insight on what it takes to gain a lot of muscle mass because I’ve only been dieting off all of the fat I gained over many years and am afraid to gain any of it back so I worry about fat gain more than the gain of muscle mass” approach.

Maybe that is true, time will tell. I still believe you can add muscle without adding an unnecessary amount of fat.[/quote]

If I am gaining enough muscle, then the fat gain was NECESSARY. the only way it would be “unnecessary” is if you either go overboard on gaining weight or aren’t gaining enough muscle to justify it. I don’t see anyone here making a recommendation that someone become obese…but thinking you will diet down every time you notice a couple of pounds of fat gain is ridiculous. You won’t be making any progress that way and will look the same or worse 5 years from now.

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I feel like that is what every bulking article says on this site, “if you notice some fat gain, drop a couple hundred calories next week.”

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[quote]poisongatorade wrote:
If I am gaining enough muscle, then the fat gain was NECESSARY. the only way it would be “unnecessary” is if you either go overboard on gaining weight or aren’t gaining enough muscle to justify it. I don’t see anyone here making a recommendation that someone become obese…but thinking you will diet down every time you notice a couple of pounds of fat gain is ridiculous. You won’t be making any progress that way and will look the same or worse 5 years from now.

I feel like that is what every bulking article says on this site, “if you notice some fat gain, drop a couple hundred calories next week.”

[/quote]

Even that is too specific as no one has the exact same calorie expenditure every single day. Some of you would do better to learn to listen to your bodies than specific number rules.

If I am gaining too much body fat, I may reduce my carbs a little, but it is definitely nothing too drastic and usually involves eliminating some fast food somewhere.

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[quote]Professor X wrote:
Zagman wrote:
Go to the college cafeteria, go to the salad bar and empty out their ham and grilled chicken dishes. Throw in the baby carrots and you have a perfect veggie/protein meal.

I know it is hard being in college and eating good, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Just avoid the shitty foods and load up on the good ones when they are present. You can usually find ok alternatives.

Have YOU even seen any gains in muscle mass eating the way you recommend for others? Baby fucking carrots?

Was this a joke?[/quote]

I don’t understand why its so unreasonable to eat veggies when you’re trying to gain mass. Some think “well I need to consume so many calories that I can’t eat veggies and get enough calories at the same time.” Not true at all. Lets say you need a meal around 1000 calories. Eat your protein and veggies, then have a cup of walnuts or pecans (800 calories). There now you had protein, veggies and more than enough calories, without even being stuffed (a cup of nuts is extremely easy to eat) It seems like people don’t really WANT to eat veggies and just use the excuse of needing more calories than veggies provide.

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[quote]Dubbz wrote:
Professor X wrote:
Zagman wrote:
Go to the college cafeteria, go to the salad bar and empty out their ham and grilled chicken dishes. Throw in the baby carrots and you have a perfect veggie/protein meal.

I know it is hard being in college and eating good, but you gotta do what you gotta do. Just avoid the shitty foods and load up on the good ones when they are present. You can usually find ok alternatives.

Have YOU even seen any gains in muscle mass eating the way you recommend for others? Baby fucking carrots?

Was this a joke?

I don’t understand why its so unreasonable to eat veggies when you’re trying to gain mass. Some think “well I need to consume so many calories that I can’t eat veggies and get enough calories at the same time.” Not true at all. Lets say you need a meal around 1000 calories. Eat your protein and veggies, then have a cup of walnuts or pecans (800 calories). There now you had protein, veggies and more than enough calories, without even being stuffed (a cup of nuts is extremely easy to eat) It seems like people don’t really WANT to eat veggies and just use the excuse of needing more calories than veggies provide. [/quote]

You missed the point completely. You ignored the recommendation that someone waste their time eating a freaking salad and recommended “BABY CARROTS” and assumed this was in opposition to any ingestion of vegetables.

Next time, ask if you are confused.

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I am now fully convinced that even if the beginner, bodybuilding and nutrition and supplements forums had their entire first pages populated with threads about gaining muscle and fat somebody would start another one. There has to have been, without any exaggeration, several dozen threads related to how much fat should be gained while getting bigger in the last couple years.

It seems some are getting it so I guess it’s OK.

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Dubbz wrote:
I don’t understand why its so unreasonable to eat veggies when you’re trying to gain mass. Some think “well I need to consume so many calories that I can’t eat veggies and get enough calories at the same time.” Not true at all. Lets say you need a meal around 1000 calories. Eat your protein and veggies, then have a cup of walnuts or pecans (800 calories). There now you had protein, veggies and more than enough calories, without even being stuffed (a cup of nuts is extremely easy to eat) It seems like people don’t really WANT to eat veggies and just use the excuse of needing more calories than veggies provide.

Yea, but I could get a greens supplement (like I have) drop the veggies at every meal, add some pasta instead and I just upped my calories another another 300- 500.

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Good to see some debates here…I never meant it was okay to get fat. And my metabolism is not fast, I wouldn’t say it is slow, but eating more speeds it up and it forces me to DO more.

Regardless, I think gains of a pound week would be very good for anyone regardless of present shape if your looking to build muscle…If your gaining size on your arms, chest, back…who cares about your center getting a little softer.

I just think I was wrong for two years thinking I could gain muscle and lose fat/carry the same amount of fat…Also, after eating lots of shitty food this week I have realized that I hate that garbage…so next week I will clean it up but eat more food in general. Also, the junk foods definitely hit the waist hard and I am going to try and gain weight without having to buy too many new jeans. I think its fair to say you can gain at a reasonable weight without having to go up in pants sizes, at least as a natural lifter, and I have also found that keeping carb/protein meals and protein/fat meals seperate helps with digestion and doesnt bloat me up…that feeling I can live without…also, keep big carb meals to breakfast and post workout…just makes sense and it will keep you growing but not as much fat, at least thats what i think works for me…Week 2 of food begins tommorow.

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Yeah, but you don’t need to do that. You many WANT to do that, since pasta is more appealing than veggies, but you could easily keep the veggies and pour a couple tbsp of olive oil on top of them. The point I’m making is that needing alot of calories isn’t a legitimate reason to neglect veggies, as I’ve heard some people claim.

And fyi- greens supplements are not the same thing as eating a real vegetable. Just as taking a vitamin is not the same as eating a food that naturally contains that vitamin.

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I find it interesting that so many people seem to completely ignore the advice I have heard from every single BMF I have ever met: Losing the fat is a fucking walk in park compared to packing on the muscle.

Everybody shit their pants about Dave Tate looking ripped after 2-3 months of dieting but didn’t pay any mind to the 25 years of bulking he had been doing up to that point to get over 308 pounds.

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Good point above. And has anyone ever read about the massive amount of food Berardi was pounding back when he was skinny. Or how much food Jason Ferrugia says he was eating when he seriously put on some weight. I dont think they were worried about gaining a little fat in the process. They turned out just fine when it was all said and done.

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[quote]Donut62 wrote:
I find it interesting that so many people seem to completely ignore the advice I have heard from every single BMF I have ever met: Losing the fat is a fucking walk in park compared to packing on the muscle.

Everybody shit their pants about Dave Tate looking ripped after 2-3 months of dieting but didn’t pay any mind to the 25 years of bulking he had been doing up to that point to get over 308 pounds.[/quote]

Apparently this is tougher to grasp than I ever thought. It almost makes me snicker any more reading some guy with the LBM of a chipmunk wondering why he isn’t getting any bigger OR leaner.

There was a thread a while back where people were actually arguing that losing fat is more difficult than building muscle.

Let’s try it again. When you one day have 50 more pounds (or more, maybe much more) of lean mass than you do now with all the metabolic ramifications of that, losing fat will be a laughable breeze compared to what you had to do to gain that 50 pounds. Of course that won’t happen by spring break so what’s the point?

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[quote]Tiribulus wrote:
Donut62 wrote:
I find it interesting that so many people seem to completely ignore the advice I have heard from every single BMF I have ever met: Losing the fat is a fucking walk in park compared to packing on the muscle.

Everybody shit their pants about Dave Tate looking ripped after 2-3 months of dieting but didn’t pay any mind to the 25 years of bulking he had been doing up to that point to get over 308 pounds.

Apparently this is tougher to grasp than I ever thought. It almost makes me snicker any more reading some guy with the LBM of a chipmunk wondering why he isn’t getting any bigger OR leaner.

There was a thread a while back where people were actually arguing that losing fat is more difficult than building muscle.

Let’s try it again. When you one day have 50 more pounds (or more, maybe much more) of lean mass than you do now with all the metabolic ramifications of that, losing fat will be a laughable breeze compared to what you had to do to gain that 50 pounds. Of course that won’t happen by spring break so what’s the point?[/quote]

Yeah but if I just take a bunch of creatine I’ll gain those 50 lbs in what- a couple months? It’s not that hard. Wait. Shit. You said 50lbs of lean mass. Damn you…