This is a stupid assertion. You may as well be arguing that 1 = 2, because 1 is near 2 so therefore they're similar enough that they're basically the same thing so 1 = 2.
Controlled bulk =/= maintenance. If you're bulking, you aren't at maintenance. If you're maintenance, you aren't bulking. They're mutually exclusive in every respect.
Now, isn't THIS a stupid assertion? If you're working out and your weight doesn't change from week to week beyond +/- 2-3 lbs fluctuations, you ARE pretty much at maintenance, period. Muscle slowly grows AT maintenance (consisting of adequate protein), fat grows at a surplus.
2-3lbs a week? Either way? Over how long a period?
It sounds to me like you are someone who has never tried to track calorie intake accurately. Of course, it's impossible to be exact under normal daily living conditions, but you can make some fairly consistent approximations each day. There is no way that your actual bw should be fluctuating by +/- 2-3lb a week if you are counting calories carefully. To me this just indicates that you are doing a lot of guessing and/or taking bw measurements at inconsistent times of day where changes in water weight are skewing your readings.
You became fat because you didn't do a good enough job managing your calories.
Indeed, I became fat because I overate on purpose some time in the past. It takes a person to overeat by a mere 500 kcals once or twice a week while eating roughly at maintenance the other days, to eventually build up fat. I probably ate even more than that, more often.
One person's fat is another person's skinny. Too vague. If a person is attempting to add lean mass through resistance training then, newb gains and people with >20% bf aside, they will have to consume enough extra calories to grow larger and heavier. Recomposition is very hard to do once you are a seasoned lifter so if you don't consume over-maintenance cals you will be on a long journey to frustration.
Over maintenance by 1000 Cals a week will make you fat? Really?
Say you weigh 200 lb and your maintenance Cals per day are 3500,
(I'll assume adding a pound of fat in a week is going to take ~3500 Cals over maintenance and adding a pound of muscle is going to take ~2500 Cals over maintenance.)
Eating 1000 Cals over maintenance for a week is going to allow you to potentially add bodyweight in the region of 1/3 lb. If your training is dialled in for hypertrophy, some of that will be lean mass and some will be fat mass—according to p-ratio and the kind of training you are doing. It won't all be fat and it won't all be lean mass.
Let's say, for you, it's a 50:50 ratio. Over the course of a month you will have potentially added 1 1/3 lb body weight with 2/3 lb being muscle and 2/3 lb being fat. You now weigh 201 1/3 lb. Your maintenance level has now gone up, so if you don't increase your cals over what you thought was your (maintenance + 1000) Cals/week you will add less body weight the following month. And so on, until you don't increase body weight any further because your original (maintenance + 1000) Cals is now your maintenance.
There is no way you are going to get fat in some sort of out-of-control fashion if you bulk sensibly.
In reality it would be impossibly hard to keep track of all the variables and to ensure you gained lean mass optimally all the time while, at the same time, gaining as little fat as possible. This being the case, surely it makes sense to consume slightly over estimated requirements for growth, even if this results in a bit more fat being deposited along the way? It really isn't that hard to shave off a few pounds of unwanted fat while retaining most of your hard-earned lean tissue.
I think my arms just grew again.
) I've been carefully executing my diet and my training. I dont eat any junk, but i ensure that I get "enough" calories over maintenance so that I can grow. I've moved from 165 to about 181 since last August. Sure I gained some fat, but I also gained some good muscle and a great deal of strength relatively speaking. I probably started around 14%bf and now sit around 15%bf. I think 'bulking' seems to get dangerous when folks think they can eat anything and everything when trying to add weight. If I had eaten cheeseburgers and french fries at every meal, and had ice cream for dessert every night, I would have definitely gained weight but I would have gained a lot more fat. For me, planning and calculating my daily calories has been critical, estimates just don't cut it. Wild, undisciplined "bulking" will make you fat. Careful, planned, disciplined "bulking" has worked relatively well for me.
