Bulking: How Clean is Clean Enough ?

Diet and Nutrition
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[quote]ActivitiesGuy wrote:

[quote]Sheed3K wrote:
The fact that most of the weight I lost was fat makes me optimistic I can add more muscle…Must be doing something right if people arent sure its possible. [/quote]

I think you misinterpreted where I was going with that, so let’s try again. You have had an impressive transformation, no doubt. But I strongly suggest that you compare the above picture of yourself to a couple other pictures of men > 200 pounds with < 9 % body fat and ask yourself, realistically, if you think that is your true body fat percentage.

I’m not trying to rain on your parade for the sake of negativity, just trying to give you a more realistic assessment of your current level of leanness. I, too, have been delusional about my BF percentage in the past, once telling myself that I was about 10% at 195 pounds and just needed to cut a teensy bit to look totally ripped, when I was probably more like 20% in real life.[/quote]

Dude, I get what you are saying. My point remains that regardless if I’m actually 10,12,15 or higher bfp the scale is the same. The trainer doing my caliper test can be off quite a bit but it’s still relative to where I was during my last measurement. I was measured by 2 different trainers and both came to the same measurements. If it’s flawed so be it. I don’t care if I’m under 5 bfp or over 30 it’s a matter of what I want to look. I don’t see how any of this is pertinent to my OP about how to add calories responsibly. It doesn’t matter what the bfp test tells me. My original goal was to show abs which I did. Now I want to add lean mass. How does my actual or imaginary bfp play into this? Have you ever been under 10%? I thought I’d let you take your foot out of your mouth but clearly that isn’t your plan.

22

[quote]Sheed3K wrote:
Have you ever been under 10%?[/quote]

No, I haven’t, and that’s what led me to posting here in the first place: I can relate to your current position. I was about 250 while playing college football, lost a ton of weight to be a decent-looking 195, got the same type of comments you described about being “skinny” now, decided I was, like, totally ripped, brah, and that I should gain some weight back. Then, I gained a little weight (to about 210) and realized that, uh, now I was a bit softer than I wanted to be.

As for whether that is germane to your original post…lest you get me wrong, I’m certainly not trying to argue you should abandon your plan of a clean bulk; everyone should choose their own goals however they see fit. I would argue that knowing exactly where you stand at the start is important, but you’re correct that obsessing over a BF number is less than ideal; if you’re pleased with your current level of leanness and gain weight while remaining pleased with what you’re seeing in the mirror, fuck BF % and go with it.

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Nice transformation. Although your probably not 9%. I would put you at about 12-13%, although this does not really matter.

Only thing I could add is that maybe increase your calories slowly. For example try increasing calories by 300 daily, rather than 600+ and see how that goes in term of adding some mass after a week or 2. Stu has given us some awesome advice regarding variety. I like to take advantage of my post-training window with apple scrolls and delicious turkey sammiches.

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