Clean bulk or cut more? Need advice!

BryansBride

I need some advice!!!! I'm at a major crossroad!

I'm female. 28yr. 5'7'' 131lbs. I've been lifting heavy (10-12) rep range and occasional cardio for about a year. I've been eating in a caloric deficit at around 1,610 and being very meticulous with calorie counting. I follow iifym.com. I eat every 2-3 hours and drink a gallon water a day. I try to get 8 hrs of sleep. Well, we went on vacation last week and I weighed 127 and was pretty happy about that. I decided to give my mind and body a break on vacation and I ate what I wanted and didn't exercise. I came back weighing 131. I know most is water weight.

I had always been excited to come back from vacation bc that's when I decided to start my lean bulking process. Well, now I'm not quite sure that's what I need to do. I don't feel lean enough. I definitely fall into the skinny fat category. I can see outline of only my top 2 abs if I flex hard enough. I have a slight muffin top (enough to piss you off) and of course I have extra fat on the sides of my hips. Judging from the pics I've googled, I think I'm somewhere between 20-25% bf. I'm actually going to have a BodPod test done this weekend to make sure. I thought I hit a plateau earlier so I started taking Cellucore SuperHd and L2 Extreme, but no change in the scale. I'm just so sick and tired of being skinny with little muscle definition, but also having fat in places that are very visible to me and I'm self conscious about. I'm scared to lean bulk. Will building lean mass at this point be beneficial, or should I cut back and try to get a little leaner? I decided 3 days ago to just try a lean bulk for a while and I'm eating 2,200 a day and upped my water intake. I swear my scrub pants are tighter feeling in the hips. :-(.

Anyway, any help would be very beneficial. I feel like just giving up bc I just don't want to chose a path and it just set me up for failure.

Thank yall :-)

emmanuelochoa91

hello Msbryansbride
well i personally (if i were in your situation) would probably do a mini cut. Nothing long term that takes months because you are already lean. id buy a waist trimmer to help slim the waist alittle. once you get rid of the unwanted fat then its time to lean bulk. now lets say you did not want to cut and you just wanted to lean bulk, i BELIEVE a very well structured lean bulk would add NO unwanted fat to your frame.
When i started Competitive Powerlifting and Stronman 2 years ago i wanted to add some size to meet a certain weight class. I went on a year long clean bulk that add little to no fat whatsoever.
So overall it all depends on how you feel. I feel that you want to cut because you say you dont feel right bulking just now. just remember a clean lean bulk done right should add no unwanted fat

ana3067

PBI 10-12 range is most likely not heavy lifting. This is considered to be more of a hypertrophy range, ideal while maintaining or bulking if your goal is more on having that rounded muscular look (compared to more compact muscular look). Heavy lifting is usually 3-6 rep range.

Since you've been at a deficit, you should really consider switching to strength training rep range and lifting heavier for fewer reps. This will be easier in terms of energy, but will require that you keep the volume low so as to not fry your CNS. Good rest periods are also essential.

There's no reason to eat every 6 hours unless you just feel better eating small meals. On 1600 calories, 6 meals would make me hate the world. I NET 1900 (before exercise - I'm guessing that you might not be eating enough if you are grossing 1600 as a deficit) and eat only 3 large meals a day. I also follow flexible dieting. The purpose of flexible dieting is that you focus on protein intake if you have body compositional goals, and then eat whatever you want as long as you are within your calories and ideally reaching a good macro balance.

At this point I would say try to find your calorie maintenance or estimate it from a proper website like health-calc.com or exrx.net. IIFYM calculator tends to estimate by up to a few hundred calories too low for many people. It estimates like 200-300 too low for me.

Then eat maintenance for a few months. I'd also recommend incorporating some type of reverse pyramid training so that you can start doing some strength training, and if you decide to cut for a bit after this maintenance period then switch to strength training. Also, waht is your routine? Exercises, frequency, volume, etc. This affects body composition.

If you decide to bulk now (slow bulk, not clean bulk) then understand that you will put muscle on underneath the existing fat. This is why I am still working on dieting down at least 15lbs or more until I reach ~16-18% body fat. Although as mentioned, the slower you bulk the less fat you put on.. whereas my friend said that he just stuffs his face to bulk, and he also mentioned that he has about 30lbs to lose. And that he aims for a loss of 10+lbs a month. He really does not know how to properly cut/bulk lol.

aprilricks86

I am basically in the same boat as you, even similar stats--I'm 5'7", 28, and weigh around 126 or so now. The lowest I got was 122 and I still didn't feel lean enough. I decided I was tired of dieting so I slowly moved up to maintenance / very slow bulking (around 2100-2200 most days) and have been focusing more on increasing my weights. I've also got a bit of fat to lose still, but I'm very lean up top. To avoid looking like skeletor, I've decided to try a recomp for a while and see how that goes until January or February, at which point I'll probably either decide to bulk or cut more depending on where I end up.

I've been reading up on this a lot, and really it just comes down to your own personal choice. I've been feeling like I'll probably move into a bulk first and then cut because for me, it's seeming very difficult for me to add any muscle to my upper half!! So frustrating! lol Anyway, good luck!! Maybe you need to try a few different things for a while to see what you're comfortable with. I am just now getting comfortable with eating maintenance calories myself, so I realize how hard it can be to purposefully start putting on weight when you've tried hard to get it off in the first place.

one more thing--there is a "women who bulk" group in case you're interested I lurk there all the time!

BryansBride

ana3067 wrote: »

PBI 10-12 range is most likely not heavy lifting. This is considered to be more of a hypertrophy range, ideal while maintaining or bulking if your goal is more on having that rounded muscular look (compared to more compact muscular look). Heavy lifting is usually 3-6 rep range.

Since you've been at a deficit, you should really consider switching to strength training rep range and lifting heavier for fewer reps. This will be easier in terms of energy, but will require that you keep the volume low so as to not fry your CNS. Good rest periods are also essential.

There's no reason to eat every 6 hours unless you just feel better eating small meals. On 1600 calories, 6 meals would make me hate the world. I NET 1900 (before exercise - I'm guessing that you might not be eating enough if you are grossing 1600 as a deficit) and eat only 3 large meals a day. I also follow flexible dieting. The purpose of flexible dieting is that you focus on protein intake if you have body compositional goals, and then eat whatever you want as long as you are within your calories and ideally reaching a good macro balance.

At this point I would say try to find your calorie maintenance or estimate it from a proper website like health-calc.com or exrx.net. IIFYM calculator tends to estimate by up to a few hundred calories too low for many people. It estimates like 200-300 too low for me.

Then eat maintenance for a few months. I'd also recommend incorporating some type of reverse pyramid training so that you can start doing some strength training, and if you decide to cut for a bit after this maintenance period then switch to strength training. Also, waht is your routine? Exercises, frequency, volume, etc. This affects body composition.

If you decide to bulk now (slow bulk, not clean bulk) then understand that you will put muscle on underneath the existing fat. This is why I am still working on dieting down at least 15lbs or more until I reach ~16-18% body fat. Although as mentioned, the slower you bulk the less fat you put on.. whereas my friend said that he just stuffs his face to bulk, and he also mentioned that he has about 30lbs to lose. And that he aims for a loss of 10+lbs a month. He really does not know how to properly cut/bulk lol.

Lol there is no difference between slow bulk vs clean bulk. They are used interchangeably. You either bulk with a small surplus (clean/slow) or you eat at a large surplus (traditional/dirty.)

I was eating 1,600 on a cut diet. Every 2-3 hrs. Biggest meal was breakfast. I'm very meticulous with my diet. I get at least 131g protein, 52g fat and the rest with complex carbs (simple carbs following lifting.) Cheat meal once a week.

My routine is pull/push/legs split - 5 days a week. Pull/legs/push/pull/legs. Rest weekends. Start back on Monday with push/legs/pull/push/legs. Repeat. Through research, I've read that between 8-10 or 10-12 is the rep range to be in (reaching muscle failure) so I typically go for 8-12. I focus most on compound movements, with a few isolation exercises thrown in.

BryansBride

aprilricks86 wrote: »

I am basically in the same boat as you, even similar stats--I'm 5'7", 28, and weigh around 126 or so now. The lowest I got was 122 and I still didn't feel lean enough. I decided I was tired of dieting so I slowly moved up to maintenance / very slow bulking (around 2100-2200 most days) and have been focusing more on increasing my weights. I've also got a bit of fat to lose still, but I'm very lean up top. To avoid looking like skeletor, I've decided to try a recomp for a while and see how that goes until January or February, at which point I'll probably either decide to bulk or cut more depending on where I end up.

I've been reading up on this a lot, and really it just comes down to your own personal choice. I've been feeling like I'll probably move into a bulk first and then cut because for me, it's seeming very difficult for me to add any muscle to my upper half!! So frustrating! lol Anyway, good luck!! Maybe you need to try a few different things for a while to see what you're comfortable with. I am just now getting comfortable with eating maintenance calories myself, so I realize how hard it can be to purposefully start putting on weight when you've tried hard to get it off in the first place.

one more thing--there is a "women who bulk" group in case you're interested I lurk there all the time!

Thanks ma'am :-) yeah, being a woman sucks sometimes with where the fat wants to hang out. I just got done with a BodPod test to measure body fat and I'm 26.9 at 131lbs. I think I'll do a clean bulk and get to about 140 then re-evaluate. Good luck on your journey!!! Thanks for letting me about that "women who bulk" group, I'll definitely be a stalker there

BryansBride

So yeah, update. I went to have a BodPod bodyfat test done and right now I'm 131 (5'7'') at 26.9% bodyfat. That's considered moderately lean, which I'm ok with, I was hoping for another percentage, but it is was it is. According to BodPod, my TDEE is 1,195 and for an active person, I should be eating 2,079 a day.