I see a lot of powerlifters talking about "just eat a lot," they eat somewhere around 4000/5000 calories a day, and they're not fatasses. Yet the common advice is "don't go more that 500 over your maintenance otherwise you'll turn into a fatass."
I have two questions:
1. Is it possible that the powerlifter, eat-a-shit-load-and-lift-heavy group of people's metabolisms are adapted to the point that 4000 or 5000 calories is their maintenance?
2. Do people just say "eat 500 over and no more" because that's the common logic? Are you really going to put on a lot of extra fat if your body is trying to build muscle and adapt to a heavy training stimulus?
I guess I think of beginners who put on a lot of weight in the beginning stages of something like Starting Strength, but then the weight gain slows down and seems to correlate more or less with fluctuations in their training. I'm 165 at 6'2", so I know I'm a skelly anyway, but I just hit a 225 squat for reps today.
I see a lot of powerlifters talking about "just eat a lot," they eat somewhere around 4000/5000 calories a day...
Most powerlifters are lanklets or balooned manlets. If you're in the range of 5'10"> you won't get any noticable gains from going 300kcal over maintenance. If you're like frank yang at 5'7" or some shit you only need to get to 155 to be ripped so 300 over maintenance is doable.
So you're saying tall lifters should eat a fuck ton but not short lifters?
As a fellow tall guy (6'5) I found that after taking the slow road for years just saying fuck it and going all out with bulking gave me the best results. I was 175lbs, bulked to 205 over the course of 6 months while doing greyskull (I was not a beginner, already squatted 195) and I gained a serious amount of size and only went up maybe 1-2% in bodyfat. I ate ridiculous amounts of food, big breakfast, 3 lunches, big dinner and another smaller meal later at night. I almost pretty much entirely cut out any food I didn't make myself, only drank pop with mix drinks when I went out.
I'm currently at 220 seeing my abs for the first time in my life thanks to finally doing direct ab work, and I'm the strongest I've ever been.
Take the extreme road if you want to get somewhere.
The weight is distributed over a smaller area so the weight will make a bigger difference.
6'3 here
currently bench 230 for reps
OHP 1.5pl8 for reps
rowing 225 for reps
but i cant squat or deadlift for nuts.
you give some you take some i guess
If you train seriously and have daily high intensity workouts you shouldn't be worried about eating 1k over maintenance. You won't get significantly fatter, but you'll sure as hell put on muscle which makes any fat less noticeable.
Get that row up.
But yeah I blow at deadlifting too I always found squatting way more natural.
Did you do any cardio or anything else? Like, how active were you over that period? Working out three days a week? More?
How do you guys get all your calories in?
I’m struggling to get past 3,600 per day. I’m only 6’0” but I feel like I should be doing 4,000 per day and I wouldn’t gain too much fat.
I started eating like 4000 calories a day, sometimes a little less, about 3 weeks ago and went from, like, 161 to 168. Part of that was probably miscounting on Thanksgiving, but yeah. Am I fucked? I feel way stronger and my lifts are going up.
I had to work up to eating as much as I was at that point but after a while I realized I unknowingly was following some rules:
>Eat a MEAL, not a snack I mean actual food, every 3 hours or so
>You should not be hungry AT ALL during the day except before breakfast, if you get hungry at one point during the day you fucked up, being comfortably full all day is preferable.
>If you start eating something finish it. If you legitimately can't eat anymore wait 10-20 minutes and finish it.
I found my appetite is like work capacity, you need to ramp it up over time, eventually you'll be putting down huge amounts of food like nothing.
The other thing I did was I decided to say fuck that chicken breast rice and broccoli for every meal shit, make shit you like that's reasonable and eat that. I basically live on pasta, I ate chicken alfredo (not super often obviously) spaghetti, sandwiches with buns instead of bread, mexican style ground beef with pasta, chili, and I'd just mix in a bunch of veggies into everything I made, or eat them on the side depending on what they were but you get the point.
I should also add I take no supplements, including protein I just eat a fuckload. 4 eggs 4 pieces of bacon and a bowl of vector with almond milk, 2 sandwiches and leftovers from the night before for my lunches, usually pasta but obviously I mixed it up with potatoes and rice for dinner. Ate spinach mixed in my eggs and pretty much all my meals every day, plus I get big bags of frozen veggies that I'd steam to eat on the side.
Honestly jealous of guys like you. I eat somewhere around 4000 a day and have to stop myself from eating more because I don't want to turn into a fatass. If I was never hungry, I'd also never see my dick.
Man when it comes to your weight fuck the numbers. Do you still look the way you want to look? Is it helping your performance? Those are the only things that really matter.
Yeah I always had a super small appetite and I was a huge skelly. I think I was like 5'11 120lbs in grade 9 if that gives some perspective.
But man if you have the appetite you should put it to work in the gym, up your volume, train heavier, start crushing shit when you work out and you'll have the calories to replenish it.
That being said obviously use your head, if you find yourself getting fat then cut back.
Try Bulgarian method for powerlifting
Same, my TDEE is like 3400, but I was eating over 6,000 on bulk when I played hockey, so it's really easy for me to fuck up and eat 5000 calories by accident.
Fair point, really. But what if I gain weight too quickly and only get to bulk for another month or something?
According to the Journal of Broscience, it's a lot more complex than just getting the right amounts of kcal, since several metabolic pathways are included.
You need proteins, and a positive nitrogen balance throughout the entire day. Distribute protein as you see fit to accomplish this. (Night-protein before bedtime and so on.)
You need carbs, and some people like to fill up in chunks (big meals) to get that insulin/IGF-1 spikes.
You need saturated fat, because before Ancel Keys's Fake Science it was the main source of energy for most humans (and for babies on breastmilk it still is).
If your body gets all this it will probably go into full anabolic mode since it has everything it wants, but if it's missing out on one of these it may (or may not) decide it should be careful with constructing those energy consuming muscles.
Since nobody can plan or explain in exact detail how you should plan your meals, it's easier to tell people to just eat thousands of kcal instead of going through your individual requirements.
When you become an elite bodybuilder your experiments in the art of extreme cutting will have you find out more precisely what works for you.
If you're gaining weight too quickly then dial it back. I'm not trying to be condescending when I say this since pretty much everyone fails to do this but just use your head.
It all comes down to just autoregulation, your plan should help you get closer to your goal, it's not a prison. If something is becoming detrimental then stop and try a new strategy. If you find yourself getting too fat dial your bulk back, do a short cut or recomp. As long as you don't regress on your lifts you'll be ok.
I'm eating around 5500 calories daily right now. I'm 6'4 and don't have a consistent routine, probably working out less than I should, just doing what's "fun" to me (lots of diddly and chinups). I started around 3 months ago at 165lbs and am at 196 today, I've gained some fat but my abs are still mostly visible (n00bgains?). I have friends that I do an MMA sparring and padwork thing at a park every weekend and the last two weeks I've been getting a lot of compliments on progress and even described as "chadded the fuck out" by my bros. I originally started eating like this so I would have enough bodyfat to /FAST/ for ten days but I'm pretty pleasantly surprised with how much muscle I've put on. I highly recommend bulking like this and doing GOMAD. I'll likely keep eating like this long term and just fasting every time my abs disappear. If you are afraid of fasting maybe this isn't a good long term strategy.