I have been working on strength with aesthetics secondary for a while, but figure this goes here.
I just bought 36" dress/work pants for the second time in my life.
The first time was a sad, dark day where I kind of accepted I was becoming a cube dwelling overworked peice of shit and was putting on bad weight.
This time, I am way stronger and have hit the gym with extreme regularity for the past 18 months. I loosened up my diet a little in the past 2 months or so but nothing too extreme. It felt right with the amount of work I was doing and I liked the strength going up. I just took a deload week completely off and ate ravenously + a ton of fish oil and all the calories felt like they were getting put to good use, if you know what I am talking about.
So basically, could my discomfort in my usual 34" pants be due to putting on good weight, or am I just in denial that Im getting significantly less lean? I think it could be possible my larger pecs/shoulders/lats makes it seem more acceptable/proportionate to have a fatter stomach, so i dont feel or look fat. And these are dress pants that are worn at the waist, so i don’t think my increase in ass size should be too much of a factor.
Thoughts? Comments? Cheap shots?
Pics would help you objectively gauge your level of leanness over time, but ‘eating ravenously’ would make your waist measurement go up simply because you have more food in your gut.
As a buddy/gf/sibling/parent if they’ve noticed you putting on the wrong kind of weight.
thats the thing, I have asked but no comments that Ive gotten noticeably fatter.
good point about the full stomach - Im dialing back the food starting tomorrow and getting back in the gym soon as well. Might try a low carb/high fat and fiber day to clean the system out and see where the waist is at after.
either way, I think Im going to throw in some post workout cardio and maybe a low carb day every week or two for good measure.
However, hypothetically, in the leanest of lean bulks, would one expect the waist to go up?
I’m gonna ask the obvious question here… have you weighed yourself?
And remember, new pants are all cut differently, but the jeans you’ve had for a couple years are going to tell you pretty quick whether you’re gaining fat in your stomach. If they’re getting tight and you’re not comfortable with it, then cut your diet down.
And yes, pics would help you a lot, because they don’t lie.
And post workout cardio is a good thing.
Well, we might need pics. I can wear 36 dress pants comfortably on the waist but they don’t fit my legs so I get 40’s.
I also am a pretty big dude, height and weight so if I can fit 36, I hope you are tall and big to need that size also or you may need to re-evaluate.
I have gained about 15-20 lbs in the past year, but i have worn 34 for the past decade, including at my most badass when I got up to 225. I have no before/after pics, unfortunately. There is no way Im as big as waylander haha. Today I got new batteries for my scale with the crappy bf estimator and my last reading from sometime in 2009 was 185 at 21%/7.5%, today just now I am 204 at 23.6%/8.4%, depending on whether or not the scale considers me an athlete or not (probably somewhere closer to the higher figure, since im definitely not under 10%). 6’ tall, 28 years old, capricorn, walk left.
I mean, I did the math above and I know Im bigger and fatter to a degree, but not a huge degree. I just didnt think gaining proportional fat to lbm would increase my waist that much. It was kind of a shocking flash back to my first encounter with 36" pants, but this time around I dont feel like a fat piece of shit (in fact have never been stronger) so I wanted to know if this is normal and Im not in fat denial lol.
Thicker back and larger glutes might do it.
Big ass, spinal erectors, obliques and abs from heavy compounds from a little fat gain has made my waist go up to around 36 inches from 32-33 about 18-19 months starved at 172 lbs at the end of basic training.
[quote]milktruck wrote:
I have gained about 15-20 lbs in the past year, but i have worn 34 for the past decade, including at my most badass when I got up to 225. I have no before/after pics, unfortunately. There is no way Im as big as waylander haha. Today I got new batteries for my scale with the crappy bf estimator and my last reading from sometime in 2009 was 185 at 21%/7.5%, today just now I am 204 at 23.6%/8.4%, depending on whether or not the scale considers me an athlete or not (probably somewhere closer to the higher figure, since im definitely not under 10%). 6’ tall, 28 years old, capricorn, walk left.
I mean, I did the math above and I know Im bigger and fatter to a degree, but not a huge degree. I just didnt think gaining proportional fat to lbm would increase my waist that much. It was kind of a shocking flash back to my first encounter with 36" pants, but this time around I dont feel like a fat piece of shit (in fact have never been stronger) so I wanted to know if this is normal and Im not in fat denial lol.
[/quote]
I get the same thing every time when bulking; my waist will increase by a few inches. It’s just genetics. Some people put on more fat around their waist than others.
Generally, I’ve noticed from myself and others on here, that it’s not unusual to gain around 3 inches around the waist when gaining around 20lbs bodyweight. Most of the weight gain is muscle (assuming you weren’t “obese” before gaining more weight lol), and it only takes around 2 months of dieting to cut the extra 8 or so pounds of fat.
Considering you can lose 1/4 - 1/2 an inch off your stomach per week when dieting (and maintaining strength), it’s not something I would worry about.
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Well, we might need pics. I can wear 36 dress pants comfortably on the waist but they don’t fit my legs so I get 40’s.
I also am a pretty big dude, height and weight so if I can fit 36, I hope you are tall and big to need that size also or you may need to re-evaluate.[/quote]
This but my glutes instead of quads, my waist is a 34, but my ass is a 38.
I would blow out a 36 bending down to pick up a pencil
I have a 10-12 inch spread between my jacket and pants now, depending on the cut and brand. I have to buy separates if the spread gets any bigger. My tailor said she can’t take the pants in anymore without the pockets becoming one.
Also of note is any jacket that fits my shoulders and lats now, makes me look like the fattest shit on earth, so you will need to have the gut of the jacket taken in too.
Look for Athletic cut, but not every manufacture makes them, and not many places carry a huge variety. The demand for cloths that fit someone that isn’t a fat shit is pretty low these days.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Well, we might need pics. I can wear 36 dress pants comfortably on the waist but they don’t fit my legs so I get 40’s.
I also am a pretty big dude, height and weight so if I can fit 36, I hope you are tall and big to need that size also or you may need to re-evaluate.[/quote]
This but my glutes instead of quads, my waist is a 34, but my ass is a 38.
I would blow out a 36 bending down to pick up a pencil
I have a 10-12 inch spread between my jacket and pants now, depending on the cut and brand. I have to buy separates if the spread gets any bigger. My tailor said she can’t take the pants in anymore without the pockets becoming one.
Also of note is any jacket that fits my shoulders and lats now, makes me look like the fattest shit on earth, so you will need to have the gut of the jacket taken in too.
Look for Athletic cut, but not every manufacture makes them, and not many places carry a huge variety. The demand for cloths that fit someone that isn’t a fat shit is pretty low these days.[/quote]
I’m glad to see someone else has BAS (Big Ass Syndrome). I may have the biggest ass in the world. I usually have to wear either dress pants or anything with pleats to ensure my ass fits in it. Does anyone else have trouble fitting into jeans?
One way of looking at it is, if your chest measurement went up by quite significantly more than your waist measurement – maybe not by 1.5x as much but still significantly more than just the same – then the bulk cannot be criticized as involving too much added fat.
On the other hand, if it’s the other way around then yes, the bulk was largely fat gain and wasn’t efficient. Now, time that could be devoted to further bulking, had the eating not been excessive thus far, now has to be devoted to cutting or at least to only maintaining.
[quote]countingbeans wrote:
[quote]waylanderxx wrote:
Well, we might need pics. I can wear 36 dress pants comfortably on the waist but they don’t fit my legs so I get 40’s.
I also am a pretty big dude, height and weight so if I can fit 36, I hope you are tall and big to need that size also or you may need to re-evaluate.[/quote]
This but my glutes instead of quads, my waist is a 34, but my ass is a 38.
I would blow out a 36 bending down to pick up a pencil
I have a 10-12 inch spread between my jacket and pants now, depending on the cut and brand. I have to buy separates if the spread gets any bigger. My tailor said she can’t take the pants in anymore without the pockets becoming one.
Also of note is any jacket that fits my shoulders and lats now, makes me look like the fattest shit on earth, so you will need to have the gut of the jacket taken in too.
Look for Athletic cut, but not every manufacture makes them, and not many places carry a huge variety. The demand for cloths that fit someone that isn’t a fat shit is pretty low these days.[/quote]
LOL, I did this with my work pants - looked like I had a vagina! Was quite a good party trick. I’ve stopped squatting now to de-train my glutes, although I loved doing them.
As regards jackets not fitting right, same problem here; went out to get a suit the other month and the cheap un-tailored ones just don’t look right (the ones where the shoulders fitted had a massive waist and made me look fat/frumpy).