Lean mass gains

S

stevie

New Member
ok this might be an extremely stupid question belonging in the basic explinations forum. For asking this i will probably also loose any respect from anyone who's respet i might have had (that is...if there was ever anyone).

My question is about eating for lean mass gains. Up till now i was convinced I realised the importance of eating sufficient calories...now im not so sure.
Lets say that i take Bryan's 'eating for size' recommendations as my diet starting point.
Up till now, i would have eaten those 2,500ish calories throughout the cycle. Total body mass gain would have been in the range of 2kgs (4 and a 1/2 lbs) over a 2 month period (~0.25kgs/week or 1/2lb per week), (including fat gain). Because i gained weight and some fat at the love handles, i would have previously thought these 2,500 to be adequatley above maintainance and thus not given diet any more thought. I would have blamed my dissapionting LBM gain on training....because i thought i was eating enough to grow on. However, after discovering and implementing HST im not so sure that the fault is with my training.
After reading loads of lyle mcdonald's stuff, i have been wondering if inspite of a general weight gain, that 1/2lb per week is too little for maximal LBM gain? Should i be eating enough for a 1lb weight gain per week? More? I fear that if 2,500 was giving me love handles, then increasing cals further will only increase those love handles. Should i have faith that an 8-9lb total weight gain over 2months will give satisfying LBM, in addition to the fat gain?

Thanks in advance for any advice!!!
 
You can have my respect, and you can also subscribe to my friendship for $10/week. I'm a whore
butbut.gif


Now, would you like to expand on what exactly you're eating ? I would believe (but then again, I'd believe just about anything as long as it's being told by a beautiful lady who says it'll get me laid) it's enough if you're gaining fat, but you could try adding a little more.

Anyway - 2500 or 3000 kcals of pizza and beer won't get you anywhere, so you might as well include your diet. Sorry, but I don't know your level of knowledge.

Cheers!
 
Call me crazy but couldn't you lose weight on pizza and beer provided the total calories are under mantainence? Would be a horrible diet considering how much you'd starve for most the day and possibly lose muscle since it wouldn't add up to very much protein but still..
 
I have read articles from John Berardi that suggest in his studies and research that sometimes eating far above maintenance calories is needed to be more anabolic and may even upregualte metabolizm while bulking and result in more LBM gains than if you ate say 250-350 above maintenance...You can read about these articles on his website...Now I have ate both ways and still end up with about the same percentage of bodyfat either way, ie I mean I have bulked on 4200 cal/day and I have bulked on ~5200-5500 cal/day and in both instances I ended up with ~12% BF, but the latter also resulted in significantly higher LBM gain, ie on the former diet I ended up between 245-250 and the latter 260-265 and these were both while drug free...Also the more protein you eat (to an extent) increase the thermic effect of food so in this case you can essentially increase your overall caloric intake, by upping your protein but at the same time this promotes more thermogenesis in you body (most studies suggest that anything greater than 1 gram/lb of bodyweight for natural athletes is not necessary, although I like to keep mine about 1.25/lb)...I like to split my meals up into protein/cho meals and pro/fat meals seldom mixing the three together this helps me to stay leaner, although its not for everyone...
 
Over the last few months, my diet has been pretty similar to bryan's 'eating for size guidline'. I eat the same types of food and macro nutrients add up to his figures. The only main difference is that i spread the calories over 3 main meals and one smaller meal (plus pre and post WO every other day).
I rarely eat 'junk' food. Its always lean(ish) meats, usually eggs, chicken, tuna, lean beef steak mince, turkey thigh etc. Plenty of veg and fruit. Rice or pasta.
Im an occasional drinker (probably a 1-2 beers every 2 weeks is the average).
I dont eat sweet 'food'. Ill eat McDonlads or pizza probably once every 2 months or something like that.
I know that many people are unaware of what they are really consuming, but please accept that my diet is pretty good.
 
1) Do you do any cardio?

2) Have you tried training twice per day?

The reason I ask, is because both of these will increase your metabolic rate/expenditure allowing you to consume more calories. It may sound counterproductive but it isn't. Just consuming more food will create a more anabolic environment (more insulin, more leptin, more test, more GH), and the additional exercise also enhances this by increasing IGF-1, and protein synthesis rates in tissues. (yes, cardio increases protein synthesis in those muscle you are using)

The additional exercise will also lower your average glycogen levels and increase your insulin sensitivity at the same time, in addition you will get some upregulation of lipolytic enzymes. All of this makes those additional calories that you are eating less lipogenic.
 
Elementary though it may seem, there *is* an optimum level of calories. For example:
1) You eat 300 kcal above maintenance for 2 months. You gain 2.5kg. You find that 2kg is muscle and 0.5kg is fat.
2) You eat 500 kcal above maintenance for 2 months. You gain 4kg. You find that 3.5kg is muscle and 0.5kg is fat.
3) You eat 1000 kcal above maintenance for 2 months. You gain 8kg. You find that 5kg is muscle and 3kg is fat.
What is your choice ? If you are looking for an optimal muscle/fat ratio, then of course it is No.2. But it will also depend on other things:
1) How easily you shed fat and how much muscle you lose during the process. For example, if you are extremely lean and can't put on weight, then probably no.3 would be a better choice and you wouldn't gain so much fat.
2) How close you are to your genetic potential. If you are already pretty close, then in case no.3 you will probably gain 7kg of fat and 1kg of muscle.
3) Your age. If you are 40 you can't expect to be as anabolic as a 20year old. Again, choice no.3 would probably leave you with too much fat.
The numbers 300, 500, 1000 are just examples. Yours might be 500, 1000, 2000. By this I mean that noone can tell you for sure unless you try.
 
[b said:
Quote[/b] ]1) Do you do any cardio?
2) Have you tried training twice per day?
Click to expand...

cardio?...not that regularly. Up until just now i considered cardio useless for mass gain (other than the indirect effects of better conditioning etc).
At the moment training twice per day is not something i want to do. This next cycle i will experiment with 6x per week (once per day with reduced volume), for the reasons that you outline.

Micmic, from everything else ive read, you are probably right. I need to try these things out for myself to see how i respond. I guess im just worried that i will pile on loads more fat without any extra LBM. That would really piss me off. But i guess there is only one way to really find out.
Thanks all.
 
You sure about all that Micmic?

Wish I could train twice a day instead. Unfortunately training twice a day is definately not possible for most people, especially someone like me who works from 7a-4p. I'd have to get up early and thats a physical impossibility considering the time I fall asleep. If I could actually fall asleep around 9 or 10 it'd work but that would never happen w/o a serious dose of sedatives...and then I'd just oversleep heh.
 
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