Threshold for muscle

I posted a while ago asking for advice on how to slowly add muscle because I wasn’t allowed to go above 8.5% bodyfat absolute maximum. I’ve been restricting carbs to around 250g on workout days with 140g coming in work out beverages. On training days I get about 50-100g of carbs from veggies. I eat at maintainance to 300 calories above this level every day. I read about a threshold for muscle gain recently where the idea was that eating just over maintainance would make you fat. The article said that to add muscle and not fat it was necessary to eat over maintainace by at least 500 calories a day. Does anybody know about this? Any recommendations for my calorie intake would be appreciated.

I’ve never heard this one before. I guess you can learn new things every day on this forum.

This plan sounds like a methodology concocted by some fat dude who likes to justify eating a ton (can’t blame him). Although, it would be great news if it was true.

Does anyone know about this?

I would suggest finding your active BMR based on your height and weight and activity level, then adding 500 calories above your active BMR daily.

Measure waist, arms legs, and chest every 2 weeks, if your not adding weight to your waist (less than 2 inches) and your chest and arms are getting bigger, and your body weight is going up your adding most likely good weight.If your not seeing anything, increase them another 250-500 cal. If your gaining 2 inches or more on your waist, cut calories by 250-500. Its a zig zag approach works good for some.

TC had a little article posted on 07/02/99. (Should be easy to find under archives.) ABCDE Diet - The Next Generation.

It involved 5 days of cutting, followed by 5 days of bulking. I could see this as working pretty good. Build muscle, cut fat, repeat.

I am having trouble with the search engine right now, but there was a forum post about combining EDT and the cheaters diet. It also involved short bursts of overfeeding after a workout, followed by dieting.

I printed it out, but am not sure where it is stored right now.

Adam,
i remember reading something similar in the early massive eating articles. however it was only put forward as a theory and therefore be taken with a pinch of salt.

Yeah thanks very much for your ideas! I’m glad that the threshold thing is probably bull! I’m going to try the 5 day bulking, 5 day cutting strategy. It makes sense and I like EDT from limited experience. I’m changing gym too so I dont have to go to the doctors for a BF% measurement… I go every two weeks so he has decided that I have an eating disorder and should seek treatment! Is the body able to cope with big sudden change in calorie intakes? If I ate at 300-500 calories over maintainance per day, according to the LBM, activity level calculations, I should consume about 4200-4300 calories per day. I can cut and maintain LBM at 2800 calories. Could I switch from bulking to cutting like that overnight?