T Nation

Dirty Bulking - Skinny to a Skinny Fatty

Beginners
#1

Hey guys,

I started a mass building program called Starting Strength by Mark Rippetoe around 3 months ago, weighing 120 lbs(19 years old, 5’9"). Currently, I am now around 150lbs., but I put on way too much fat, and my compound lifts have all stalled.

These are the improvements I made in my lifts:
Squat 95lbs. -> 175lbs
Bench 95lbs. -> 135lbs
Deadlift 95lbs. -> 195lbs
Military 60lbs. -> 90lbs
Power Cleans 85lbs. -> 105lbs

I was put under the impression that being so skinny, I should just eat freakin’ everything, but now that I’ve started reading some of the articles on this website, I’ve just started to realize that there is a way to bulk cleanly…

The problem is that half of the day i’m thinking that I still look like a scrawny little kid and I need to put on lot more mass, and the other half i’m thinking about this huge fatty gut that’s forming around my stomach.

Is there any way to go on a clean bulk that lets me continue putting on mass, but also can cut some of this fat i’ve accrued off? I was planning on going on the velocity diet for a month to cut, and then start over with a clean bulk cycle, but I only weigh 150lbs; I feel like if I did that, I would end up looking emaciated.

In terms of supplements I’ve been using Muscle Milk, drinking it when i wake up and before I fall asleep, and additionally drinking around a half to 3/4 gallon of whole milk a day (the program recommends it for hardgainers to put on mass quickly) as well as eating food all the time. So Stupid.

Any advice on what I can do now to fix things???

#2

Dude your 150 at 5’9" so you’re not fat. Don’t do the velocity diet; I have nothing against it, but I don’t think jumping into a cut would be a great idea. Drop your calories a little or start doing some cardio and clean up your diet. If you do a cut now, you’ll regret it in a few years when you realize you could have made a lot more progress if you would have just stuck to the plan.

It doesn’t sound like you’re a hardgainer (I don’t even know if I like that word), so you shouldn’t be stuffing your face.

You said that your lifts are stalling… well, you’ll find that linear progression really doesn’t exist. Gains will come in bursts, and when they do you want to have sufficient calories to facilitate said gains.

Good Luck.

PS- Read some articles and use the search function brotha! This topic has come up more times than I can count.

#3

5-9 120. What would that even look like?

#4

Seriously, I don’t think you can be that fat at 150lbs.

Though at that relatively light weight it may be easier for you to do a cleaner bulk, but if I were you, I’d lift hard(which you’re apparently doing) and never pass up a second helping of meat. Also, I wouldn’t worry about how many carbs you’re having, if you were.
I sometimes think the milk thing goes a little far. I love milk but only drink about half a litre a day.

One way to look at it is you really can’t get bigger and lose fat at the same time, but you can become leaner, in the sense that if you gain more muscle than fat, you’ve technically become leaner and your bodyfat percentage would be lower than before.

#5

buddy…i’ve actually been in your shoes. Your body needs to adapt. At 5’9 120, you were probably anorexic and definitely in a state of semi-starvation (unless you have an incredibly lean --and not to sound racist, but probably asian — frame). You NEED to keep eating, clean or unclean if you WANT to. If not, listen to your hunger cues and eat periodically (4-6x a day), and do some cardio. The fat will come off.

What exactly were you eating? For three months, and 30lbs weight gain, those strength increases are pretty much minimal.

I suggest John Berardi’s Scrawny to Brawny (at least the eating/training principles) if you want to keep bulking…although maybe a higher volume/frequency program would benefit you.

#6

[quote]sstewart22 wrote:

What exactly were you eating? For three months, and 30lbs weight gain, those strength increases are pretty much minimal.
[/quote]

Oh,l we see that here all of the time. They spend more time worrying about exactly how many reps they are doing rather than if they are actually lifting heavy enough to force an adaptive response from their own bodies.

I don’t even understand getting the “eat more” concept while ignoring the “work your ass off for this” concept.

#7

direstraits this is an article on bulking by CT a while back now, most of what he suggests still holds true…

#8

how old are you direstraits? If you are like 15-16 don’t even sweat it lol
Don’t worry man, do you have a picture of yourself to confirm this fatness? You might just be getting dilusional cause you actually have some more weight on you. We all doubt you are getting fat, but who knows.
If you are you don’t have to eat everything in sight, and eating chips and shit is not bulking.
You are just eating junk food.
At 150lbs it’s not a lot of food for you to eat to gain.
Take in at least 1g of protein per lb. of BW. That’s your main thing to do.
Try to get in a piece of fruit and some veggies at each of your meals.
Spread your meals across 5-6 so it’s easier to get in the amount of cals you need in.
I used to calculate for gaining multiplying the BW by 20.
It’s different for everyone though.
I got some great advice to start at 15xBW, and add 300 cals from there…keep adding until you start growing
this way you won’t gorge yourself too much and you’ll be at an optimal state (you can only build muscle so fast)

Aside from that don’t give up, it’ll come within time. But that’s what it’s gonna take…time.
Also it will sometimes be hard to get good advice here, but when it comes it can change a lot of things for the better.
Also how long have you been lifting for? (3 months only?)
Your gains SHOULD BE LINEAR unlike a poster said above. When I was 130lbs, I didn’t stop making gains until I hit around 180 in strength. I was up to 300lb bench, 430 squat, and deadlift not sure…but it was about the same as squat or a bit more (didn’t do deads much).
You may just need a deload if you haven’t given yoruself a break from Rippitoe’s program.
I know you can keep gaining, it’s too early for you to stall.
Especailly…no offence, your not very strong at all at 150lbs. Your not even benching your own BW. You gotta get all that fixed. You really may be just stuffing yourself too much, esp. of the wrong foods.
Anyways this post was too long for my taste, but hopefully I helped some.
Good luck.

#9

If you even slightly developed a gut while going from 120 to 150 at 5’9 then you are simply not training hard enough. End of story. You are barely eating enough to grow because you are still rediculously underweight even though you’ve gained 10lbs per month.

You have to force your body get much stronger. If you dont do this it doesnt matter how good your diet is.

#10

OP, you have a few options. You can use a few of them.

  1. Come on here and MAYBE find someone qualified and competent in nutrition and/or fitness to accurately critique your diet and program for FREE.

  2. Come on here and get more subjective, VAGUE feedback:

    “Eat more.”
    “Train harder.”
    “You’re 150; you can’t be fat.”
    “You should be eating everything!”
    “You probably got an Asian frame.”

  3. Develop the competence and literacy to design your own damn diet instead of simply “eating everything” or “eating more”. Yup, that’s right: read articles and books and whip out your nutrition almanac and food labels or nutrition software and calculator

  4. Go to a nutritionist and dietitian to PROPERLY design a diet that’s appropriate for you and give you nutrition education for a fee! Yeah, that’s right: shell out 75 to 300 bucks for an RD or nutritionist or personal trainer and get it right!

You know, I admit I’m totally incompetent and a schmuck in some areas. For example, EVERY time I try to understand financial instruments or ask a financier about their profession, I have no idea what they fuck anyone’s talking about! I still don’t know the what the the Dow Jones, shares, funds, and bonds are! I still can’t define what the GDP is!

However, I’m very good at math (went up to calculus in high school) and understanding science and health information. So I was able to design my own damn diets before I even went to school for dietetics. All I did was read some basic exercise and nutrition books and articles and applied the information I got.

I still can’t believe, with the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of articles and books out there showing how to design a fucking diet for ONESELF, that people still can’t do it if they’re interested and determined to do so. I say this knowing that others might think I myself am a jerkoff for not understanding finance (and I might be one). However, ff you have half a brain and really want to do it, you can figure this shit out, just like if I was hell-bent on understanding financial instruments and concepts and institutions, I’d do it. If one day I want to invest or need more financial literacy and I can’t figure the shit out for myself, I’m going to a finance professional and paying him for services.

It seems like 75% of the information provided by Biotest-TMuscle is now on perti-workout nutrition, yet we still have people starting threads in which they ask, “What’s good to drink while lifting?” You can go to a site like allrecipe.com and find THOUSANDS of recipes for snacks, meals, soups, desserts (whatever the heck you want) and people still come on and ask, “Anyone know some good eats?” Now, there’s nothing wrong with these questions and despite these posters being PESTY, they’re definitely NOT intentionally trying to be so. I doubt there are any malicious or truly stupid people on here. They just ACT stupid and pesty and are clearly uninformed and inexperienced.

I have NO problem with this OP’s thread. It started out of a lack of understand of what to do. I’m just surprised that people don’t search around the site or the internet or the newsstand or library more… MUCH MORE! And yup, I said newsstand! Despite what all these “strength coaches” say, “Muscle & Fiction” is a bullshit name used to smear popular bodybuilding and fitness mags, despite the FACT that some of the articles in those mags are pretty damn good and even some of the writers on here have contributed to them!

#11

excellent post Brick

#12

I don’t even get the question. It seems you want to keep gaining weight and lose fat. That’s impossible.

Your increases seem kinda small to me honestly. If you did things right those increases should have taken 2 months at the most, not 3.

If you don’t mention what your goal is then noone can give you advice, they’ll just tell you what they would have done in your place according to what they want from themselves.

You say you want a cleaner diet to bulk? I don’t get it, what’s stopping you? Just don’t eat crappy food and eat more clean foods. If its very basic knowledge that you don’t know then here is some:
eat ~200 grams of protein, at least 100grams of carbs and 50grams of fat. From there on you decide what to increase, learn your body. Of course you’ll need more than this to gain weight but get from each of these at least these amounts.
protein sources:
meats, fishes, dairy products, eggs
I hope its obvious what’s more clean with these things. If you don’t know ask your mom.

carbs:
fruits, whole wheat spaghetti, rice(heck go for normal, no big deal), whole wheat bread and more I can’t remember right now.

fats:
fish oil, olive oil, dried nuts(most here use peanutbutter), fat from meat

eat as many vegetables as you like. drink lots of water.

My advice is rather simple… fry your meats with olive oil, and use a bit if you can on other things. figure out how much protein you wanna eat, if its 200 grams divide it by however many meals you’ll have per day and if its say 4 then you need 50 grams per meal. 50 grams would be approximately 200-300grams of meat. cook that put it on your plate. See how big it is? Now put something that gives you carbs that takes around the same space as the meat. This for me keeps carbs in check and keeps protein intake pretty high. And its simple. Eat peanutbutter every now and then but be careful cause if you let go you can easily get too many calories from it.

Weigh yourself every week. Look at your lifts and see if they are increasing. If both are a yes and at the expected rate then you are fine.

Don’t worry yet about having a superawesomeclean diet that will gain you exactly 0.7 lbs of muscle and 0.3 lbs of fat per week and ~2.5% increases on your lifts exactly every week.

Honestly though my even simpler advice is if your lifts are increasing at a reasonable rate theres no need to bulk up or lose weight where you are at right now. When they stall then try bulking up adding 500 more calories per day, see if that will make you break through the plateau. If not, try 1000, if that doesn’t work then you are probably doing something else wrong.

#13

[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
I have NO problem with this OP’s thread. It started out of a lack of understand of what to do. I’m just surprised that people don’t search around the site or the internet or the newsstand or library more… MUCH MORE! And yup, I said newsstand! Despite what all these “strength coaches” say, “Muscle & Fiction” is a bullshit name used to smear popular bodybuilding and fitness mags, despite the FACT that some of the articles in those mags are pretty damn good and even some of the writers on here have contributed to them! [/quote]

In fact in the new issue of Muscle & Fiction Shelby Starnes, Jim Wendler, and John Berardi are all featured - but those guys obvisouly don’t know what they are talking about.

#14

[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
OP, you have a few options. You can use a few of them.

  1. Come on here and MAYBE find someone qualified and competent in nutrition and/or fitness to accurately critique your diet and program for FREE.

  2. Come on here and get more subjective, VAGUE feedback:

    “Eat more.”
    “Train harder.”
    “You’re 150; you can’t be fat.”
    “You should be eating everything!”
    “You probably got an Asian frame.”

  3. Develop the competence and literacy to design your own damn diet instead of simply “eating everything” or “eating more”. Yup, that’s right: read articles and books and whip out your nutrition almanac and food labels or nutrition software and calculator

  4. Go to a nutritionist and dietitian to PROPERLY design a diet that’s appropriate for you and give you nutrition education for a fee! Yeah, that’s right: shell out 75 to 300 bucks for an RD or nutritionist or personal trainer and get it right!

You know, I admit I’m totally incompetent and a schmuck in some areas. For example, EVERY time I try to understand financial instruments or ask a financier about their profession, I have no idea what they fuck anyone’s talking about! I still don’t know the what the the Dow Jones, shares, funds, and bonds are! I still can’t define what the GDP is!

However, I’m very good at math (went up to calculus in high school) and understanding science and health information. So I was able to design my own damn diets before I even went to school for dietetics. All I did was read some basic exercise and nutrition books and articles and applied the information I got.

I still can’t believe, with the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of articles and books out there showing how to design a fucking diet for ONESELF, that people still can’t do it if they’re interested and determined to do so. I say this knowing that others might think I myself am a jerkoff for not understanding finance (and I might be one). However, ff you have half a brain and really want to do it, you can figure this shit out, just like if I was hell-bent on understanding financial instruments and concepts and institutions, I’d do it. If one day I want to invest or need more financial literacy and I can’t figure the shit out for myself, I’m going to a finance professional and paying him for services.

It seems like 75% of the information provided by Biotest-TMuscle is now on perti-workout nutrition, yet we still have people starting threads in which they ask, “What’s good to drink while lifting?” You can go to a site like allrecipe.com and find THOUSANDS of recipes for snacks, meals, soups, desserts (whatever the heck you want) and people still come on and ask, “Anyone know some good eats?” Now, there’s nothing wrong with these questions and despite these posters being PESTY, they’re definitely NOT intentionally trying to be so. I doubt there are any malicious or truly stupid people on here. They just ACT stupid and pesty and are clearly uninformed and inexperienced.

I have NO problem with this OP’s thread. It started out of a lack of understand of what to do. I’m just surprised that people don’t search around the site or the internet or the newsstand or library more… MUCH MORE! And yup, I said newsstand! Despite what all these “strength coaches” say, “Muscle & Fiction” is a bullshit name used to smear popular bodybuilding and fitness mags, despite the FACT that some of the articles in those mags are pretty damn good and even some of the writers on here have contributed to them! [/quote]

Yeah, that’s all fine and well, but, how the Hell do I ramp up my weights when I’m lifting?

#15

Well you have to, you know, add plates.

  1. Figure out using extensive math formulas how much weight you want to add
  2. Divide by two
  3. Pick up plate with the weight you want to add, using your fingers, hand, forearm, arm, back and legs.
  4. Slide the plate into the barbell, make sure to not get your fingers inbetween the two plates or they might get crashed.
  5. Repeat for the other plate.

[quote]I still can’t believe, with the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of articles and books out there showing how to design a fucking diet for ONESELF, that people still can’t do it if they’re interested and determined to do so. I say this knowing that others might think I myself am a jerkoff for not understanding finance (and I might be one). However, ff you have half a brain and really want to do it, you can figure this shit out, just like if I was hell-bent on understanding financial instruments and concepts and institutions, I’d do it. If one day I want to invest or need more financial literacy and I can’t figure the shit out for myself, I’m going to a finance professional and paying him for services.

It seems like 75% of the information provided by Biotest-TMuscle is now on perti-workout nutrition, yet we still have people starting threads in which they ask, “What’s good to drink while lifting?” You can go to a site like allrecipe.com and find THOUSANDS of recipes for snacks, meals, soups, desserts (whatever the heck you want) and people still come on and ask, “Anyone know some good eats?” Now, there’s nothing wrong with these questions and despite these posters being PESTY, they’re definitely NOT intentionally trying to be so. I doubt there are any malicious or truly stupid people on here. They just ACT stupid and pesty and are clearly uninformed and inexperienced.

I have NO problem with this OP’s thread. It started out of a lack of understand of what to do. I’m just surprised that people don’t search around the site or the internet or the newsstand or library more… MUCH MORE! And yup, I said newsstand! Despite what all these “strength coaches” say, “Muscle & Fiction” is a bullshit name used to smear popular bodybuilding and fitness mags, despite the FACT that some of the articles in those mags are pretty damn good and even some of the writers on here have contributed to them![/quote]

I get what you are saying and this is probably heck of a lot more frustrating for some a lot more advanced than me like you but I remember being new. There is so much information if you start not even knowing what a squat is and what protein carbs and fats are. It’s really overwhelming, you have no idea where to start, its hard to remember everything and well, its just like anything else. You want to learn something, you’ll learn it better with a teacher than just by yourself. It helps to ask people on here to clarify things.

#16

Steely, I’ll tell ya! I’ll keep it to a second-grade reading level.

Set 1: 100 pounds
Set 2: 115 pounds
Set 3: 130 pounds
Set 4 (top set): 145 pounds

From writing this, I might surprise myself and everyone else; we might have a 100-page thread dedicated to this right here.

Steely, just to be fair, can you tell me what the best carb is for post-workout: sucrose, fructose, or dextrose? I’m not going to the gym before you tell me. So I’m holding YOU accountable for my lack of progress and getting into the gym! I need to know, because the best carb source might yield 0.00000000000001 gram of muscle and a PR increase of two 1/12-pound plates on my squat.

#17

[quote]lordstorm88 wrote:

Well you have to, you know, add plates.

  1. Figure out using extensive math formulas how much weight you want to add
  2. Divide by two
  3. Pick up plate with the weight you want to add, using your fingers, hand, forearm, arm, back and legs.
  4. Slide the plate into the barbell, make sure to not get your fingers inbetween the two plates or they might get crashed.
  5. Repeat for the other plate.

[quote]I still can’t believe, with the THOUSANDS AND THOUSANDS of articles and books out there showing how to design a fucking diet for ONESELF, that people still can’t do it if they’re interested and determined to do so. I say this knowing that others might think I myself am a jerkoff for not understanding finance (and I might be one). However, ff you have half a brain and really want to do it, you can figure this shit out, just like if I was hell-bent on understanding financial instruments and concepts and institutions, I’d do it. If one day I want to invest or need more financial literacy and I can’t figure the shit out for myself, I’m going to a finance professional and paying him for services.

It seems like 75% of the information provided by Biotest-TMuscle is now on perti-workout nutrition, yet we still have people starting threads in which they ask, “What’s good to drink while lifting?” You can go to a site like allrecipe.com and find THOUSANDS of recipes for snacks, meals, soups, desserts (whatever the heck you want) and people still come on and ask, “Anyone know some good eats?” Now, there’s nothing wrong with these questions and despite these posters being PESTY, they’re definitely NOT intentionally trying to be so. I doubt there are any malicious or truly stupid people on here. They just ACT stupid and pesty and are clearly uninformed and inexperienced.

I have NO problem with this OP’s thread. It started out of a lack of understand of what to do. I’m just surprised that people don’t search around the site or the internet or the newsstand or library more… MUCH MORE! And yup, I said newsstand! Despite what all these “strength coaches” say, “Muscle & Fiction” is a bullshit name used to smear popular bodybuilding and fitness mags, despite the FACT that some of the articles in those mags are pretty damn good and even some of the writers on here have contributed to them![/quote]

I get what you are saying and this is probably heck of a lot more frustrating for some a lot more advanced than me like you but I remember being new. There is so much information if you start not even knowing what a squat is and what protein carbs and fats are. It’s really overwhelming, you have no idea where to start, its hard to remember everything and well, its just like anything else. You want to learn something, you’ll learn it better with a teacher than just by yourself. It helps to ask people on here to clarify things.[/quote]

You’re right, it is overwhelming. Which is why no one will say that an absolute beginner should be able to understand the ins and outs of making long term progress after reading a few articles.

Asking for direction on where to accquire the necessary information is a good idea. Asking for the actual information is crazy. People don’t learn by being told what to do. Learning comes from trial and error after basic concepts are absorbed and put into practice.

Some people start out with more common sense than others. Some people walk into a gym on day one and just figure things out. These people will at least be executing movements properly simply by feeling what the movements are working. These people will obviously make more progress when they learn more (by reading articles, talking to others, making mistakes) because they are naturally better at this. The people who struggle from day one will always struggle (hopefully to less and less of an extent as time passes). They have to work even harder to figure out what works for them and what doesnt. That kind of thing cant be taught.

#18

[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
Steely, I’ll tell ya! I’ll keep it to a second-grade reading level.

Set 1: 100 pounds
Set 2: 115 pounds
Set 3: 130 pounds
Set 4 (top set): 145 pounds

From writing this, I might surprise myself and everyone else; we might have a 100-page thread dedicated to this right here.

Steely, just to be fair, can you tell me what the best carb is for post-workout: sucrose, fructose, or dextrose? I’m not going to the gym before you tell me. So I’m holding YOU accountable for my lack of progress and getting into the gym! I need to know, because the best carb source might yield 0.00000000000001 gram of muscle and a PR increase of two 1/12-pound plates on my squat. [/quote]

Oh, shit. You gave me an example starting at 100 pounds for top set of 145, but my top set is ** 142 ** pounds. NOW what am I supposed to do?

This sucks, I feel like I can’t make any progress because it’s so hard to get started. I thought about going and just lifting the actual weights, but I might not get it right-- then, I’m FUCKED.

Even though I can’t bring myself to actually lift a weight, because no one will tell me where to start, I’m going to give YOU the secret to POST WORKOUT CARBS-- because some guy I talked to who is much, much bigger than me, like he weighs AT LEAST 170 pounds, told me that MALTODEXTRIN and and GLUCOSE mixed 1.2332-to-2.3235 ratio is optimal for muscle gain.

BUT, only if you time yourself after you put the LAST WEIGHT DOWN and use a stop watch. You MUST consume 50.5654 grams EXACTLY 30.7732 minutes after your last weight of your last set.

Look, if you’re not going to use a stop watch and a lab-grade scale, don’t even bother, OK?

#19

[quote]SteelyD wrote:

[quote]Bricknyce wrote:
Steely, I’ll tell ya! I’ll keep it to a second-grade reading level.

Set 1: 100 pounds
Set 2: 115 pounds
Set 3: 130 pounds
Set 4 (top set): 145 pounds

From writing this, I might surprise myself and everyone else; we might have a 100-page thread dedicated to this right here.

Steely, just to be fair, can you tell me what the best carb is for post-workout: sucrose, fructose, or dextrose? I’m not going to the gym before you tell me. So I’m holding YOU accountable for my lack of progress and getting into the gym! I need to know, because the best carb source might yield 0.00000000000001 gram of muscle and a PR increase of two 1/12-pound plates on my squat. [/quote]

Oh, shit. You gave me an example starting at 100 pounds for top set of 145, but my top set is ** 142 ** pounds. NOW what am I supposed to do?

This sucks, I feel like I can’t make any progress because it’s so hard to get started. I thought about going and just lifting the actual weights, but I might not get it right-- then, I’m FUCKED.

Even though I can’t bring myself to actually lift a weight, because no one will tell me where to start, I’m going to give YOU the secret to POST WORKOUT CARBS-- because some guy I talked to who is much, much bigger than me, like he weighs AT LEAST 170 pounds, told me that MALTODEXTRIN and and GLUCOSE mixed 1.2332-to-2.3235 ratio is optimal for muscle gain.

BUT, only if you time yourself after you put the LAST WEIGHT DOWN and use a stop watch. You MUST consume 50.5654 grams EXACTLY 30.7732 minutes after your last weight of your last set.

Look, if you’re not going to use a stop watch and a lab-grade scale, don’t even bother, OK?[/quote]

For chrissake can you at least use proper significant figures. Not everyone is as lackadaisical with shit as you are. What a t-tard

#20

[quote]BONEZ217 wrote:
For chrissake can you at least use proper significant figures. Not everyone is as lackadaisical with shit as you are. What a t-tard[/quote]

Damn. I’m just no good at this ‘bodybuilding’ science stuff. I mean, you have to be a genius or something to lift weights and get stronger.

I’ll never get that 145 lb 1RM. Besides, you gotta be on ROIDZ to put up that kind of weight. I’m gonna start a ‘cut’ thread.