I started lifting 5 months ago. I’ve gone from 170 lbs. to 190 lbs on a 5’11 frame. I haven’t measured but I would say my bf was a fairly constant 13-14 throughout. Having been a skinny guy all my life I would have thought that a 20 pound gain would be this miraculous change and that it would now be time to start cutting. I now see that size-wise I’m still a long way off of what I want. In the meantime, I imagine I’m going to look average i.e. though I may be larger every day I’m not really going to look like a bodybuilder until I do cut of the flab. I’m worried I’ll get stuck in this must-gain-a-few-more-pounds mentality and never get to show off what I have gained without cutting. So my question is what is a reasonable goal weight at which I could ‘reward’ myself with a cut?
Or on second thought, should I just gradually add some cardio in to lower bf but still keep my nutrition bulk-minded?
I would say the latter. If your bodyfat does not climb too high, there’s no reason not to add significantly more mass before you lean out. Check out Caveman’s thread-he had an interesting approach and amazing results. He used plateaus as natural cutting and bulking points. He would bulk until he stopped gaining. Then he would drop calories and lose fat until he stopped losing. At which point he would bulk again with slightly more calories than the first time until he plateaued again. Cut, bulk, cut, bulk ad nauseum. Each time adjusting calories. He said this method kept him reasonably lean all the time.
[quote]jsbrook wrote:
I would say the latter. If your bodyfat does not climb too high, there’s no reason not to add significantly more mass before you lean out. Check out Caveman’s thread-he had an interesting approach and amazing results. He used plateaus as natural cutting and bulking points. He would bulk until he stopped gaining. Then he would drop calories and lose fat until he stopped losing. At which point he would bulk again with slightly more calories than the first time until he plateaued again. Cut, bulk, cut, bulk ad nauseum. Each time adjusting calories. He said this method kept him reasonably lean all the time.[/quote]
An interesting thought for you to consider is you may potentially lose more weight as you grow in size. I know there has been a lot of “cannot cut and bulk” which is true for 99% of people. But I’m saying for an increase in LBM will in turn burn more calories and thus use more fuel.
So perhaps bulking up will cause you to lose in turn.
I had a friend like this. Used to be a tub of fat while growing up then started to lift a lot. Granted, you still can’t wash clothes on his abs, but he slimmed down a lot since he muscled up. He has an enormous upper body (and lower too but most focus on the upper) and that causes your waist to look even smaller. People don’t stare at 13% bf if you’re carrying around 20" guns.