duz eating big to gain muscle mass increase your body fat levels?

[booze]

hey every1, any who can help plz lend a hand
this is a question which has stumped me 4 ages!
ive been working out solidly for about 8 months and im a naturaly built bloke who looks fairly built but duznt hav a 6 pak, its more of a 2. I keep hearing that in order to keep gaining muscle mass, i have to eat high carbs, higher protein and low fat. which is fine, i do just that. But i want to bring out the 6 pack while getting big in muscle mass, but i hav heard this isnt possible to do while eating big to gain muscle, so i wont lose that little bit of extra body fat to show the abs whilst i am eating big. is this true or not? and by eating big will that also put on fat along with muscle?
any advice would be greatly appreciated thanks.

[abarlament]

You are right, eating big to gain muscle will not allow you to see your abs. You need to diet (eat less than you are) until you can see a 6 pack. Don't expect to build much muscle on a diet.

[threenorns]

***each and every time*** you eat more calories than your body can burn off or metabolize into muscle tissue, you're going to gain fat.

sounds like you're close, though: start by cutting 250 calories from your diet and increasing your aerobic exercise ("cardio", whatever) by 15mins for two weeks and see what happens. if there is no improvement or if there's only a little improvement, knock off another 100 calories and increase by 5mins until you finally see solid cutting results.

of course, you could always go whole hog and cut back your calories by 500 and increase the treadmill by half an hour, whatever flies your kite.

once you've got your six-pack, increase your calorie GRADUALLY: 100 every two weeks until you find the exact level that fuels your workout and provides you with new mass but does not leave any left over for fat storage.

you could also review cursor's posts -- he's AWESOME with the diet thing.

[sickwitit]

i bet you if you increased calories only a little a week say 100-200 a week you would gain muscle and keep the fat where its at or close to it. Try it because it works great .

[abarlament]

sickwitit most people don't have the patience to gain .2lbs of muscle a week.

[j407]

i was wondering the same thing that booze was. im about 155lbs ive got some muscle but not real built. im looking to gain muscle but i dont want to put a lot of fat on. i have a 30 inch waist. but i also only have a two pack. i dont have enough muscle to start realy cutting down. im starting a bulk up diet that consist of 2900 cals about 300 complex/some simple carbs and 240 protein and some good fats i split workout 5 days a week. is that diet good or is it to much?

[Axion]

Originally Posted by sickwitit

i bet you if you increased calories only a little a week say 100-200 a week you would gain muscle and keep the fat where its at or close to it. Try it because it works great .

Sure that is possible. But since it's pretty hard to know exactly how many calories you'd need to do this and eat just that many it's more realistic to try and eat a bit more when you're trying to gain mass.

[cursor]

If you're gaining fat, then your body is very simply seeing too much food. The fact that those calories are being being directed to fat stores means that your body simply can't us them to build lean mass.

Conventional 'bulking' typically allows for gaining inordinate amounts of fat. The development of lean body mass (without chemical help) happens slowly. Abarlament's suggestion that 0.2-lbs of muscle gain per week is unbearably slow. Even that seemingly low number translates into a gain of 10.5-lbs per year. That sounds pretty positive to me. What's the alternative? Gain 40-lbs of scale weight, then diet down so that you lose 30-lbs? What is the typical net gain in lean body mass? How much additional stress do you put your body through while following that traditional bulk/cut cycle?

[maverick]

I've liked the bulking process mainly cause in addition to the size gains, my strength has increased tremendously. I have before trained with a stable diet near my BMR and had gains in size and strenght nowhere near my current progress. I paraphrase guys like Jaster and Firehawk, more strength = more weight = more muscles.

I would be very interested to hear about anyone's research on the possible adverse effects of bulk/cut cycling as cursor was suggesting.

[threenorns]

easy: look up "yo-yo dieting". gaining and losing weight up and down is very hard on the heart.

[cursor]

Dr. Fred Hatfield :: Muscular Weight Gain

[CF-OC_gal]

I don't think 'bulking and cutting' is supposed to be in the same category as 'binging and severe calorie restriction' the way most yoyo dieters are. If it was there would be a lot of competitive body builders dropping dead.

Some people can bulk easier than others too. For me 5-10 lbs over my natural state of equilibrium would be "bulk". To go beyond that I would have to stretch the dietary rules for healthy choices even more than I do now.

[maverick]

It seems really hard to follow that zigzag method in a daily sense (rather than weeks or months), but I like the idea. Granted, who doesn't like the idea of burning fat with minimal muscle loss. As a rookie to serious fitness, I find having a lengthy amount of time to generate results is necessary. I fear that new guys like me would have a hard time finding the proper way to "zigzag", trying to determine bf% and weight too often. I know I personally was looking at the scale WAY too often when I started, overanalyzing every increase or decrease in small periods of time.

I'm just about done with my first bulk (12 weeks, 10 pounds), and I'm going to do an equal length cut cycle. I think after that time, roughly 1/2 a year, I should have a good handle on how my body works and responds. I plan to attempt the zigzag method then.

Cursor, do you have a current diet schedule that corresponds to Hatfield's theories? I think I understand the basic idea, but would feel better with an experienced example.

[threenorns]

I don't think 'bulking and cutting' is supposed to be in the same category as 'binging and severe calorie restriction' the way most yoyo dieters are. If it was there would be a lot of competitive body builders dropping dead.

yoyo dieting is not about bingeing and severe calorie restriction - it's about using diet to gain and lose weight. besides, what's "severe"? for an average person, a 2000 calorie diet is average weight maintenance. for a high-performance athlete or a bodybuilder weighing 250, that could be the starvation level. bingeing, seems to me, could be easily equated with the huge amounts of calories bodybuilders suck back to "bulk up". the only difference i can see is that the gain cycle in bodybuilding is deliberate, not a result of giving up on a shoddy weight-loss diet. i know bodybuilders who claim that as one ages, cutting gets harder and harder - i wonder if that's a result of age or a result of the body getting more and more efficient at preserving fat against the famine periods of cutting?

i would imagine the main reason bodybuilders and other athletes can pull this off is because we monitor and are very concerned about what's going on inside our bodies. chronic obsessive dieters don't - as long as the needle on the scale drops, they don't care if it's mostly fat or mostly muscle inside and they certainly don't care about what it's doing to internal body systems.

[cursor]

Originally Posted by maverick

Cursor, do you have a current diet schedule that corresponds to Hatfield's theories? I think I understand the basic idea, but would feel better with an experienced example.

Hatfield lays out some smart rules for how to eat around activities of varying levels. He offers some very solid/practical information. I'm currently in the process of (attempting) to fine tune that specification even further. I'll let you know when it's reached a presentable and meaningful stage.

When you allow what you do to dictate what you eat/drink, the flow of food becomes quite natural and easy, really. Your body will like you more too.