Slow the fat gain

O

Orion

New Member
I'm coming to the end of my first cycle of HST and have made some good gains. My question concerns the inevitable fat gains during a bulking cycle. Starting at 77kg at 11% bf I'm now sitting at 83kg and 14% bf I have made gains of 1cm on upper arms, 1cm on forearms, 0.5cm on calves, 2.5cm on legs, 2cm on chest and 2cm on shoulders. However.... I have gained 2.5cm around my waist! Starting at 3000 cals with good macros I didn't start putting on weight until 4000 cals! High for 77kg yes? My question is did I go too high therefore gaining considerable fat? Should I reduce calories slightly to slow fat accumulation?
Thanks for any help.
 
How did you figure your calorie intake? That's some pretty high calories for only 77 kg. You should have been able to gain plenty on 3000 to maybe 3500 at most if you were active. How did you determine you weren't gaining weight? You should only be gaining roughly 1kg a week.

Regardless, your gains aren't too bad. Assuming your fat measurements are correct and you aren't doing something dumb like using a bodyfat measuring scale or something that is horribly inaccurate, then you went from 68.53kg of lean mass to 71.38kg which isn't too bad, however your fat gains were definitely bigger than your lean mass gains. Again, this is assuming you are using a non-retarded method of determining bodyfat percentage.
 
I've never been a big fan of bulking up for this exact reason. People have to understand that when they bulk up those cm, some times even inches are going to be majority fat not muscle. Pure dense muscle mass takes time to build. If I get a quarter of an inch in 3 months of training, I am happy. Reason for bulking so you have enough calories which gives you the energy to push harder and harder. Everyone's body reacts differently to bulking depending on what body type you are ie ecto, meso, endo.

You have a few options. a) continue bulking for the rest of the fall/winter time and not be concerned about gaining too much weight or fat then start cutting in April/May for the summer b) focus on more on if your strength is increasing and your gaining size - gaining weight is all relevant when it comes to dense muscle vs bulky water muscle c) work on your diet so you're not accumulating excess amounts of body fat by eating cleaner
 
There is a big difference between bulking where you carefully track calories and don't go crazy and "bulking" where you just eat whatever and get uncontrolled fat gain.
 
I use myfitnesspal almost daily to track calories. I tried 3000 cals for 3 weeks at the start of my cycle with zero change on the scales. So I upped to between 3500 and 4000 and gained 2.5kg in one week (water probably) in the form of a shake similar to the one in Tots ebook. At those calories I then continued to add on average 1kg per week so I assumed that amount of calories was the magic number for me as I'm tall with a super fast metabolism. I eat super clean no sugar no processed food one cheat meal per week. I use skinfold callipers (abs,thigh,chest) scales and tape measure to determine gains. Should I try reducing calories down to 3500 and go from there?
 
Keep in mind that some of your changes in skin fold measurement can be due to increased water retention still.

I think you may have just not had enough growth stimulus. You should have gained more muscle than you did, so you may need to increase volume.

Also, eating that much food can make your belly stick out more than usual and depending on how you are built, that could effect your waist measurement slightly. I would keep bulking if I were you, considering that there is no real chance of you having only gained what manimal refers to as "water muscle" since you are lifting heavy enough that you are not getting primarily sarcoplasmic hypertrophy.
 
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