Bulked Up for a Year, Got Fat

Bigger Stronger Leaner
21

Some people let their gut hang out all day, kinda like when you make yourself have a pot belly.

Try draw ins they will teach your body to naturally hold your gut in (not like youre some fat chick at the beach getting her picture taken either). Get on all fours and suck your gut in and hold it. Think belly button to spine. Do not round your back, keep a nice natural lumbar lordotic curve and a thoracic kyphotic curve, just draw in and hold it. Do this as part of your stretching before your workout until you notice that you are doing it naturally without consciously thinking about it. I would say 3 sets from 45 seconds to a minute.

-Zep

22

you ask what the best thing to do right now is. But you don’t tell us what your goal actually is. Also, how tall are you? And do you have any measurements, like arms or waist measurements

23

A: It also looks like he has excessive lumbar lordosis - sticks the belly out

B: Op isnt holding fat in other areas relative to his belly, which suggests to me bloat caused by diet.

I bet a 2 week Keto run + posture correctness would really sort this out.

Training wise, OP, you’re at the point where I’d recommend getting off ripptoes and doing whatever. Bodybuilding, powerlifting, 5/3/1 etc. you have been doing this long enough to have formed ideas of where you want to be in a year.

24

Have you checked for food intolerances? To me you look bloated.

25

What did your 2000 something calorie diet consist of?

26

OP, Here’s what you need to do:

Train at least 5x a week and do more than 3 exercises each session.

Eat 4 meals a day:
1 - scrambled eggs, oatmeal
2 - chicken, rice, vegetables
3 - steak, potatoes, vegetables
4 - protein shake with a banana and some olive oil.

Practice holding in your gut and flexing throughout the whole day, it will get easier.

Go and push your car a couple times a week, or get a prowler, or just do some sprinting (preferablly up a steep hill).

It’s really simple.

27

does look like a food tolerance thing, wheat, grains, sugar etc. Or you have a bun in the oven.

28

I’d cut and drop Rippetoes. Rippetoes isn’t for bodybuilding and I’m not sure why people still do it for that goal.

Twice a day training and stuff like that is really good for fat loss.

29

[quote]Mr_White wrote:
I’d cut and drop rippetoes. Rippetoes isn’t for bodybuilding and I’m not sure why people still do it for that goal.

Twice a day training and stuff like that is really good for fat loss.[/quote]

I think it’s important to point out that here is a guy (OP) who followed the advice given constantly in the beginner’s forum here and on bodybuilding forums all across the web nowadays to “just eat a ton of food, and do rippetoes and don’t stop for a year”, and “you gotta do rippetoes and get strong before you can do any stupid ‘bodybuilding’ work”

And the results aren’t surprising.

Yes the OP needs to clean up his diet, and start training on a COMPREHENSIVE ROUTINE that has him in the gym most days of the week, and probably doing cardio as well, and absolutely not doing rippetoes routine.

30

To be honest I don’t see why anyone would follow Ripptoe’s routine unless they were really strapped for time.

3x a week, 3 exercises, 3 sets of 5? Thats at most 3 hours of training a week, compared to the 100 or so hours you will be awake, 97% of the time you are doing no exercise.

31

Ok so my long term goals have been to squat 450, bench 300 and deadlift 500 and lean out to around 10% bodyfat with this strength. I’m 6’4 27 years old and love playing basketball, but I never reached my athletic potential. I can inconsistently dunk with 2 hands so my vertical is low 20’s I thought if I get real strong and lean out, I could jump much higher and be able to do some nice dunks in pickup games.

At first, I was thinking about continuing starting strength, getting as strong as possible, then doing the texas method, then possibly 5 3 1 until I reach these numbers. Then I wanted to lean out and maintain my lifts be like 6’4 195 or so strong as hell and more muscular from this increased strength. I’ve gotten as high as benching 230, squatting 325, deadlifting 355 and military pressing 160.

I’ve always been a skinny guy so it feels good being stronger and feeling bigger, but the gut is out of control and I dont really want to go any further before I lose that. Also I see that my legs have gotten bigger, but my chest and arms could really use some size so I do want to work on that as well. I think I want to work on some hypertrophy and fat loss now so I can look good for the summer, then maybe go back to the strength goals in the winter.

As far as diet I feel my diet is very strict. This is all I eat:

morning optimum nutrition 100% natural whey protein drink w water and almond milk
egg white omelete plain
oatmeal with almond milk and a small amount of peanut butter
cottage cheese with added protein and strawberries
black beans with chicken breast and spinach or green beans
nuts ( almonds, cashews)
salad with flax seed oil one hard boiled egg and chicken breast or fish
Optimum nutrition natural whey and casein w water and almond milk

I’ve seen that my maintanence calories would be around 2800 -3400 on different sites, so I’m aiming for 2200 on nonworkout days and 2500 on workout days. Should I try to bring this down lower?

I’m thinking about maybe doing the squats and deadlifts 2 times a week say monday and thursday to maintain that leg strength and adding in more volume and core work but not sure what the best thing to do is. I think realistically I need to lose about 30 pounds of fat and gain about 10 pounds of muscle to look really good.

32

[quote]Professor X wrote:

[quote]dapunisher1 wrote:

There was no need to somehow focus ONLY on strength as a beginner as if that would somehow lead to more gains unless you are one extremely weak individual and need to work up to “normal”.

[/quote]

sometime PX could be a dick but oftern he writes the truth…

33

[quote]dapunisher1 wrote:
Ok so my long term goals have been to squat 450, bench 300 and deadlift 500

[/quote]

ok,
AFTER you 5x5 (strenght training and multi-joints excercises) put in 5/6 sets of isolation/singlejoint excercise with lighters loads.
I mean ,for legs (for example) after your 5x5 squat “don’t be late at leg press/extension”
after the deads don’t be late to lat machine (or chin ups).
after benching don’t be late at dbs flies a/o decline bench.
use common sense…you wanna be stronger and bigger; do your shit right,IMO.

34

[quote]dapunisher1 wrote:

As far as diet I feel my diet is very strict. This is all I eat:

morning optimum nutrition 100% natural whey protein drink w water and almond milk
egg white omelete plain
oatmeal with almond milk and a small amount of peanut butter
cottage cheese with added protein and strawberries
black beans with chicken breast and spinach or green beans
nuts ( almonds, cashews)
salad with flax seed oil one hard boiled egg and chicken breast or fish
Optimum nutrition natural whey and casein w water and almond milk

[/quote]

Lol. Do you literally never leave your bed?

35

Yeah I’m thinking 5x5 texas method would probably be the move since squats arent heavy 3 times a week. We have one heavy volume day, one light day and one day going heavier with only 1 set so recovery is easier.

Im going to start weighing myself every morning surprisingly on an empty stomach this morning I was down to 219.6 and 2 weeks ago I was 228.4 so I am losing weight it looks like. I’m thinking I need to keep doing this diet and cardio until I’m around 195-200 and try to at least maintain the strength, then I will go on a hypertrophy mission with a slight surplus to put on some solid muscle.

36

OK…people telling this guy to worry about cutting when he is eating like he is need to stop. Simply NOT training like a 5th grade school girl and getting in the gym more often could solve his problem all by itself.

Who the hell thinks doing those limited exercises alone somehow builds better progress than focusing on everything? Oh…well it does have a brand name…so it must be true.

37

[quote]dapunisher1 wrote:
Ok so my long term goals have been to squat 450, bench 300 and deadlift 500 and lean out to around 10% bodyfat with this strength. I’m 6’4 27 years old and love playing basketball, but I never reached my athletic potential. I can inconsistently dunk with 2 hands so my vertical is low 20’s I thought if I get real strong and lean out, I could jump much higher and be able to do some nice dunks in pickup games.

At first, I was thinking about continuing starting strength, getting as strong as possible, then doing the texas method, then possibly 5 3 1 until I reach these numbers. Then I wanted to lean out and maintain my lifts be like 6’4 195 or so strong as hell and more muscular from this increased strength. I’ve gotten as high as benching 230, squatting 325, deadlifting 355 and military pressing 160.

I’ve always been a skinny guy so it feels good being stronger and feeling bigger, but the gut is out of control and I dont really want to go any further before I lose that. Also I see that my legs have gotten bigger, but my chest and arms could really use some size so I do want to work on that as well. I think I want to work on some hypertrophy and fat loss now so I can look good for the summer, then maybe go back to the strength goals in the winter.

As far as diet I feel my diet is very strict. This is all I eat:

morning optimum nutrition 100% natural whey protein drink w water and almond milk
egg white omelete plain
oatmeal with almond milk and a small amount of peanut butter
cottage cheese with added protein and strawberries
black beans with chicken breast and spinach or green beans
nuts ( almonds, cashews)
salad with flax seed oil one hard boiled egg and chicken breast or fish
Optimum nutrition natural whey and casein w water and almond milk

I’ve seen that my maintanence calories would be around 2800 -3400 on different sites, so I’m aiming for 2200 on nonworkout days and 2500 on workout days. Should I try to bring this down lower?

I’m thinking about maybe doing the squats and deadlifts 2 times a week say monday and thursday to maintain that leg strength and adding in more volume and core work but not sure what the best thing to do is. I think realistically I need to lose about 30 pounds of fat and gain about 10 pounds of muscle to look really good.
[/quote]
check out 5/3/1 for bodybuilders, it might be what you’re looking for. And I wouldn’t lower the calories any more

38

OK so I’m hearing I need to get in the gym and lift more times a week. What’s my best bet for that. I used to do Max ot training off and on for years and I liked that, but I’ve heard 5 day splits are no good for ppl not on steroids and that you should be working each body part twice a week.

Would a 4 day split be good for this with say upper lower or push pull. I kinda like the idea of chest and tris one day, legs n shoulders another, and back n bis maybe rotating that so everything is worked every 4 or 5 days, and add some core work. Thinking I want to try the 8 to 12 rep range.

That’s what I really want to do to put on size, butttt the gut issue is in the way. Does it make sense to just start this and not worry about the gut for now just hide it and put on size to disguise it or cut now on a full body workout then do the hypertrophy, or just start this workout on a cut w cardio

39

[quote]myself1992 wrote:

[quote]dapunisher1 wrote:
Ok so my long term goals have been to squat 450, bench 300 and deadlift 500 and lean out to around 10% bodyfat with this strength. I’m 6’4 27 years old and love playing basketball, but I never reached my athletic potential. I can inconsistently dunk with 2 hands so my vertical is low 20’s I thought if I get real strong and lean out, I could jump much higher and be able to do some nice dunks in pickup games.

At first, I was thinking about continuing starting strength, getting as strong as possible, then doing the texas method, then possibly 5 3 1 until I reach these numbers. Then I wanted to lean out and maintain my lifts be like 6’4 195 or so strong as hell and more muscular from this increased strength. I’ve gotten as high as benching 230, squatting 325, deadlifting 355 and military pressing 160.

I’ve always been a skinny guy so it feels good being stronger and feeling bigger, but the gut is out of control and I dont really want to go any further before I lose that. Also I see that my legs have gotten bigger, but my chest and arms could really use some size so I do want to work on that as well. I think I want to work on some hypertrophy and fat loss now so I can look good for the summer, then maybe go back to the strength goals in the winter.

As far as diet I feel my diet is very strict. This is all I eat:

morning optimum nutrition 100% natural whey protein drink w water and almond milk
egg white omelete plain
oatmeal with almond milk and a small amount of peanut butter
cottage cheese with added protein and strawberries
black beans with chicken breast and spinach or green beans
nuts ( almonds, cashews)
salad with flax seed oil one hard boiled egg and chicken breast or fish
Optimum nutrition natural whey and casein w water and almond milk

I’ve seen that my maintanence calories would be around 2800 -3400 on different sites, so I’m aiming for 2200 on nonworkout days and 2500 on workout days. Should I try to bring this down lower?

I’m thinking about maybe doing the squats and deadlifts 2 times a week say monday and thursday to maintain that leg strength and adding in more volume and core work but not sure what the best thing to do is. I think realistically I need to lose about 30 pounds of fat and gain about 10 pounds of muscle to look really good.
[/quote]
check out 5/3/1 for bodybuilders, it might be what you’re looking for. And I wouldn’t lower the calories any more
[/quote]

5/3/1 for bb’ers is definitely better than Rippetoes but his lifts aren’t that bad as they are right now. I would focus on something higher frequency then 5/3/1.

40

This whole thread has started on the wrong foot because the OP’s original picture is just him blowing his stomach out. I agree with eaerlier points about looking as if there’s some sort of food allergy going on there.

As to SS, I’m torn:

I’ve never done SS (I learned to lift in high school on a football training program). That said, I have a friend of mine whom I have doing it now, and I’ve told him to eat a ton. I think it’s effective for absolute beginners insofar as it does two things: (i) gives people a “tried and true” program that says “yes, you can get stronger every week” and (ii) teaches the major lifts and performs the squat 3x/week.

He started SS this January, and I’ve basically told him to run it until August. He’s doing well now, and he has a good sense of accomplishment with tracking the weights each week and such.

Granted, you could do that on most any program. But SS builds that foundational strength with the major lifts and such in a way that seems to do well for absolute beginners.

That was my rationale for telling my buddy to do that program. This thread does have me thinking, though, that maybe I should recommend that he move on to something else after 5 months or so instead of waiting until August.