Hey everyone.
As I mentioned in another thread, I’ve been doing John Berardi’s “Scrawny to Brawny” plan for about 8 months now. I’ve also been following the accompanying massive eating plan as much as possible. Since starting I have gained muscle and fat at a ratio of about 3:2. I weighed 165 lbs then, and about 215 now. Currently, my lean mass is almost 180…at least up to my ability to measure this stuff accurately. This puts my body fat %somewhere in the neighborhood of 16-18% Pretty high, for what I’ve seen people post on this site.
Lately I’ve been thinking “I probably eat too much, but I am afraid to eat less. I’ll stick with the 3:2 ratio.” This may seem stupid; I could try eating less. But since this is the first thing that has ever worked for me, I’m a little afraid to “mess with success”.
Recently, I’ve found that I am hungry all the time. About 3 weeks ago I started falling asleep in classes. I wasn’t sure if it was a lack of carbs or if it was just how boring the classes were. So I ate pretty monsterously for about 2 weeks, and gained about 8 lbs, of which more than half was lean mass. I was extremely happy with the results, probably the best period since I started the program. I felt like my long overdue “newbie gains” were finally showing up. Obviously I can’t continue to gain like this, yet the hunger continues. I’m not sure if that is because my body needs it or because I am now just used to overeating.
I am starting to have doubts, namely that there is simply too much fat gain and that if I continue to bulk this way (for another year, probably) I will become dangerously overweight. I was under the impression that the only way to really put on mass was to accept that you’d become a fat, fat bastard. Yet I see a lot of people saying they have 10-12% on what I thought was an “elite” powerlifting site. Which leads me to believe I was mistaken, and that I might just be doing it wrong. I’m fine with how gross it looks (temporarily) as long as I have some assurance that its the only way to really pack on mass. If that’s not true however, man, what a waste.
Like I said, I am happy with the 30 lbs of lean mass I’ve gained so far. I was a really scrawny guy when I started: my chest was 36.5" at a height of 5’11". Seriously, I looked like a cancer patient and my older pictures are actually somewhat visually distrubing. Even at 215, my upper body is still extrodinarily weak; the vast majority of the gains have been in my lower body (it has been trained before while the rest never has). So I am anxious to not lose even a single week of training time to potential undereating.
So what do you guys think? Is this how its really supposed to work or I am way overdoing it? I’d like to stick with what works, so long as it’s not totally bogus.