Right, Iâ??ve been lifting weights for about a year now and I keep running into the same problem. I have had a bit of a struggle with weight all my life, I arenâ??t hugely overweight by any means, id say Iâ??m around 18-22% body fat (this is a rough estimate based on a calculation found on Google), but this figure used to be a lot higher.
Anyway the problem I have Iâ??m guessing is a fairly common one. When I choose to bulk I gain muscle but I also gain a considerable amount of fat. Iâ??d say Iâ??ve gone from 18% BF to around 22% in the past month. Every time I do this although I am happy with the muscle gains I am always very self conscious of the fat I am gaining. I decided about 2 months ago that I am going to bulk until March, and then cut over the following two months. My question is, is this the right approach or should I simply cut until I am at a happy BF level and then aim to stay at that whilst gaining muscle slowly?
Sorry if this has been posted a million times before, any help would be hugely appreciated.
It seems as though you’ve made the decision yourself. You come across as not being happy with your %, so a little drop now might be better (confidence wise).
But, if you keep gaining, then when you do go to drop the extra %, it should come off a little easier with the extra LBM. Try to eat as best you can, find out what works and keeps the gains coming without the extra unwanted fat, and push through would be my choice.
[quote]Maximum wrote:
Id say I’ve gone from 18% BF to around 22% in the past month. [/quote]
Wha?
How much do you weigh?
A 4% increase in body weight seems reasonable but 4% in just fat?
For instance, if you weight 200 pounds and gain 4% that is 8 pounds of just fat.
Plus Muscle, plus glycogen, plus water.
That % can’t be right… OR you are not working out hard enough OR you are eating one of the dirties bulks I have ever heard about.