6' 3" 232lb Need Bulk/Cut Advice

I’m currently hovering around 232lb after dropping ~33lb 4 months ago I’m honestly not sure where I should be going right now. Cutting down to ~220lb (18% body fat) showed less muscle than I was hoping for and I’m doubting whether or not it’s worth spending another 3-4 months cutting to 200lb. My main goal is to increase my strength so I’ve been trying to bulk back up. I’m currently eating 6k calories a day to put on some size.

Question is should I bulk or cut right now if strength is my main goal?

Edit: Should note I’m currently doing starting strength for my training routine

I’m tall - 6’5” 240lbs. I think I have a fair balance of conditioning and muscle. From my perspective you don’t need to bulk. You need to seriously recompositon. You don’t need any more weight. You certainly don’t need 6k calories a day because it doesn’t look like you’re burning them up. Concentrate on the lifting and conditioning, and cut the calories down to maintenance levels. Most of all be patient. Rome wasn’t built in a day.

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I’ve been getting quite a bit of mixed tips regarding this so I appreciate the advice.

Agree with previous statement. It doesn’t look like you need to do either.

You made great progress in your cut, but 4 months is still kinda early so I’d give it some time.

You might wanna look at your food choices, eat till you full, and follow a good program (if you haven’t already - this site is full of great programs).

But in short, I’d suggest a slight bulk/ slight increase in calories to slightly above maintenance

How old are you?
What workout program are you on?
What did you eat yesterday, including condiments, drinks, anything you ate/drank?
Do you smoke/drink/do drugs?

Just some questions that can help people on here to help you. Before we get into anything, you need to stop eating 6 thousand calories a day. I really doubt you’re actually eating that much, but if you are, you’re adding a crazy amount of fat on. The people who eat 6, 8, 10K calories a day are doing so to maintain a large amount of muscle and a ridiculously active lifestyle. You’re carrying 50+ lbs of fat and not much muscle, so you can literally cut your diet in half and it will suit you better.

None of this is meant to be insulting, by the way. Good on you for losing some weight and working towards getting the body you want. Now give us some more info, then we can get you started on a proper diet, workout program, and you can head over to the training log subforum and hold yourself accountable. Good luck with everything!

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Usually I follow a 30% carb, 40% protein, 30% fat breakdown at 2000-2600 calories when I try cutting, beef, chicken, rice, eggs etc. Right now for training I’m doing starting strength about 3 weeks in, first 3 months I was program hopping because I had no idea what I was doing and decided as long as the scale moved I was happy.

19 years old, don’t smoke or drink, doing starting strength (3 weeks in) right now for programming. At least according to myfitnesspal I’ve been eating ~6k for the past week or so, protein smoothie, 4L of milk, steak and eggs with oats for breakfast, chicken and sausage with rice for lunch, some homemade mac n cheese with ground beef for dinner, and nuts to snack on. If there’s anything else you need to know from me just ask.

Do a program off this site like below and at your age you will lean out and get stronger as long as you push hard.
Diet: Eat those foods mentioned… steak eggs etc + plenty of vegetables at about maintenance cals. 6000 totally unnecesary. At your height I would say 3500 to 4000 cals

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Here’s what happened:
You were overweight, decided to lose weight rapidly (about 2lbs a week), and still don’t quite look like you lift. Because you don’t have experience in building muscle, you didn’t have the experience to retain muscle during a cut. I think your cut may have been too aggressive and wasn’t a good decision.

I’m 190 and 2600 calories is a big deficit even for me - and you were 70lbs heavier and are currently 40lbs heavier than me. It’s also counter intuitive to eat double my maintenance calories (3000) to put on size.

I’m pretty certain you didn’t hit 260ish off eating clean. I think your diet now is good, but I just scale it down. Find your maintenance calories if you need to work off a number and go with that.

As the video states: eat single ingredient foods, eat when you’re hungry, and eat till you’re full, and be active.

I should also state that starting strength is not going to be the best plan for you at this time. To me, it’s just not enough volume to build muscle. I’ll always recommend 5/3/1 Boring But Big:

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You’re not 18% and your thought process is about as illogical as I have come across. You haven’t lost enough fat so you don’t know if it’s worth continuing to diet?

Instead you’re going to eat as much as some professional strongmen?

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Should of clarified that the picture is me at 230, not 220, pretty sure the gym scale isn’t 100% accurate for measuring body fat but that’s what it said at the time. I’ve seen articles saying you shouldn’t cut first and should focus on building mass, and articles saying the exact opposite. So thought process was if I build some muscle up now in my newbie years where it’s easier, it’ll be easier to drop the fat later.

Hope that makes more sense.

the point everyone is making is that you don’t need to eat such retardedly high calories to build muscle.

If you eat 6000cals you’ll just get fat again.

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Stop.

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Stopped that on Saturday after getting responses, for the week this is what I’m planning on:

Breakfast:
Smoothie with Oatmeal and an apple

Lunch:
Chicken breast with asparagus and potatoes

Post workout:
Salmon steak with broccoli and rice

Dinner:
5 egg omelette and a glass of milk

Snack:
50g of almonds

~ 2400 calories

Am I missing anything in this or would this be a good starting spot?

I think you’re missing another 1000 calories.

Your maintenance calories for your height, weight, and activity level of 3-5x a week should be more like 3323 calories. If you simply can’t stomach that many calories, you can work towards it. But considering you were bulking off 6k, you should be fine.

2400 calories is a deficit for me, and I’m almost 50lbs lighter than you.

I think you should also ditch Starting Strength. Your time wasn’t wasted and you got your return already. Try a 5/3/1 variation and experience gainz.

If you don’t take the time and put in the work needed to build muscle, don’t be surprised when you cut weight and don’t show any muscle.

I’ll probably just toss in some more potatoes and rice to make up for the difference then. As for the programming part, I’m 90% sure I’m still counted as a beginner lifter with meh form so I dunno if 5/3/1 is the best program at the moment. Program hopping didn’t really help with my strength (did some for muscle) as my 5 RMs are trash. Muscle really isn’t my main goal overall anyway, strength comes first. That’s why I’m doing SS (properly) this time. Once SS is done I do plan on 5/3/1 though.

Then you should definitely be eating at least at maintenance.

I still think 5/3/1 is still a good beginner program (especially the BBB variation), but if you don’t want to program hop, commit to SS for another few months and get your weights up.

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