Fat burner, Protein qty(professor x)

I just started using a HIT method split this past week(one body part every 7 days, couple of stretching sets and one workset to failure),(using squats, deadlifts, stiff leg deadlifts,Incline bench as example of a few big movements) which Im really pumped up about. Question is Im 6’00/200 lbs, aprox 10 percent bodyfat.Im using a fat burner, no cardio or little slow cardio once or twice a week,eating 5 times a day with about 180 g of protein a day, about 2500-2800 calories all together.One free day a week, pizza and the like. Enough to put on any lean mass?
Thanks!

Are you trying to get leaner or add muscle? It sounds like you want to get lean, but at the end you ask if it’s enough “to put on any lean mass?” At your height/weight, you should get leaner on that program. I would make one recommendation: Increase your protein intake. It is far too low especially if you want to keep muscle and get leaner. Is there a reason you are doing HIT? If you are coming off a high-volume program then you should get good results. But a HIT program won’t work for more than a few weeks because the volume is too low. Other than that, it looks pretty good. Keep us posted on your progress.

To answer you question directly, no, it is not enough to put on lean mass. Number one, the best place to ALWAYS start is with the number of calories. While much of this based on how fast you individual metabolism is, you can NOT gain muscle at the optimal rate for your body if you are not eating more than you burn as energy daily just to keep your body running. Your maintenance calories are probably much closer to 3,000 than the measly 2,500 that you are eating. That is the first thing that needs to come up. Secondly, I am not one for this “walk the fine line between gaining and losing so I can maintain my ab muscle year round regardless of whether I am actually growing or not just so I can say I have abs” mentality. When I am working on size, I eat enough to grow. Maintaining my abs gets thrown on the back burner, because unless you are on steroids, I don’t know anyone that has been able to increase the amount of muscle that they have by more than 50lbs without bulking up to a certain extent. By bulk up, I do not mean sit around and eat twinkies while blaming the size of your humongous ass on gaining muscle. I mean that there are too many people trying to get ripped and gain muscle at the same time and we KNOW that this makes no sense to those that know anything about training. To gain you have to eat more than you use. To lose you have to eat less than. Do you see the difference? I am not even going to get into HIT except to say that I do not fall for this being the “one true light” for all of us blind folk to follow. It is just another training routine that, in my opinion nurtures the act of not training and blaming it on being the most scientific thing to do. Bullshit. You are giving yourself one free day a week, and while this would be great if you were working on definition, your goal is size. Why are you limiting your intake to begin with? When working on size, there is no such thing as a day off. You are eating more than maintenance level everyday so what do you need to take a break from? As far as protein, the less you eat, the more you have to increase your protein intake, that is almost a rule. In fact, since I just made that up, that is rule number one. As far as the supplements you are taking, let me ask you this one question…If you are trying to give your body more in the form of calories to grow from, why the hell are you taking a supplement designed to make you use more calories as energy? When you figure that one out, I have another one about one hand clapping I will throw at you.
Professor X

Nate Dog and Professor X thanks for the reply. I have been working out now for about 16 months, 36 years old. I have lost about 30 lbs of fat and have gained about 10 lbs of lean mass in the time period, working out with a pyramid type split 6 sets of 12,10,8,6,12,12 reps per bodypart, working each bodypart twice a week. IE(BFL)…A friend of mine, lives and breathes the Mentzer/Yates thing and has pleaded with me to try it, so Ive decided Id try it for 12 weeks and see what I get. I take an effervescent creatine after my workout with 4 grams of L-glutagmine. Thats it, no other supplement except Xenadrine. The reason I have been taking the fatburner is I have a 36 waist with a 45 inch chest. Aint nobody that looks worth a damn has got that waist size. Example of my daily diet would be 4 eggs(one yolk, chopped up lean ham, 2 pieces of wheat toast and a cup of fruit, 2 meals would consist of a protein bar each,another would be a 6 inch double club on wheat with bag a pretzels from subway, and the last meal would be say 2 chicken breasts grilled, cup to cup and half of brown rice, with a dinner salad with a tablespooon and half of a olive oil dressing. Thats it…So pretty clean, six days a week and pizza, big omelet, chicken wings and beer on saturday…So, what is the definition of eating to bulk up? Like 3 chicken breasts, 2 cups of rice? It was my understanding, although the fatburner did thru the caffeine component raise your metabolism, that it was the fact that it “supposedly” worked directly with “fat” opposed to accelerating your metabolism to metabolize fat and “lean muscle”, ie. the ability to gain lean mass while loose fat…Help this new T-man out,brothers!

Big A, read John Berardi’s article called “Massive Eating.” Even if you don’t use the program, at least use his calculations to figure out the correct amount of calories you need. If you are trying to gain, you are definitely eating far less than you should. If you are trying to burn more fat, then you are probably right around where you need to be to keep losing weight. So you really need to figure out what you want to accomplish.

As for HIT, give it a try, but I don't know if 12 weeks of it will be very useful. As you may adapt much quicker and find yourself spinning your wheels. The key to success is truly hard work on basic exercises. I've been reading John McCallum's book, and so much of it makes sense. There are no magic training programs, just hard work on basic exercises and specialization of certain bodyparts when necessary.

Prof, Big A: Comment and question. I actually have read (I think it was “AST” Science), that in fact, as you decrease cals, you need to up protein (within limits); anyway, I tend to do that. Prof: this question sort of got lost in the “Forum Black Hole”, but I think that it’s appropriate for A’s dillemma. IF an “acceptable” fat LOSS is generally accepted to be 1-2 pounds per week (I’ve actually compiled that data from a LOT of sources),what is an “acceptable” weekly fat GAIN when in a mass phase? (Your opinion). Regarding HITT. Wow…does THAT ever stir up passions…my feeling is that it works well (in general) for an advanced bodybuilder IF you accept the premise that with greater experience (greater than 3 solid years of pushing iron) one should decrease the volume. I certainly don’t believe in 4 hour workout marathons, but for the beginning and intermediate musclehead, I don’t think HITT works.

ok heres my take.
first of all theres this fine line walking professor x talks about it must be abolished damn it! i dont mean the fine line of sexuality pro body builders walk i mean this i wanna get cut but still gain size. if you wanna do that you better be ready to buy stock in a pharmacuetical comapny bro. if you wanna gain mass figure out your maintenance calories and add 250 for a week then add about 500 calories and up the protein no matter what you need way more than 180gs regardless. then we have HIT in my veiw hit is a one timer it works once when your coming off serious hypertrophy training for about a 6 week meso cycle a year its not too bad but thats all id give it if you like HIT just become a powerlifter. so i guess in conclusion you just need to make up your mind since its almost summer id say diet down and deal with the size your missing or go illegal and get a quick fix and do both but its still not easy just quicker and possiable for that matter. so decide what you want either bulk or cut and research it and then do it. thats my advice i hope i didnt make too big of a jackass out of myself.

Mufasa, I had actually never thought about that until now. I simply ate enough to see at least a gain of 1lb a week, sometimes more, in body weight until I decided it was time to trim some excess off. This is my take on the concept, if you are not competing, why the hell would you try to stay in competition shape? Most competing bodybuilders don’t even try to stay extremely lean(especially the likes of Lee Priest and Nasser). As a natural bodybuilder, I can’t afford to stagnate in my gains just because of an obsession with abs. I can see mine right now, however, I know that to get to where I want to be, there has to be a compromise. I don’t sit and measure fat gains, since my concentration is on whether my training weight is increasing along with my body weight. If I am 9% body fat right now, At the height of my weight increase, somewhere around October or November, I plan to be about 15%. Considering I just returned to working on size about three day ago, that gives you about six months to increase my body fat % by six percent which averages about 1% a month. I hope that answers your question.
Professor X