Help me with calorie increase

jbmackey5

Hey everyone

I've posted before about upping my calories and the consensus was to up them 100-200 a day and see what happens. I'm 5' 10.5 and 158 and use to be 220. I got down to a scary 144 and now I'm up to 158 since last summer trying to lean bulk

My BF has gone from 7.5 to 9.3% since August and I've stayed around 3k per day

Here's my question and I'm hoping y'all can help shed some light

I've been scared to raise the calories to 3100 or 3200 like suggested last month for fear of getting too fat

I've kept them at 3k and my strength gains have stalled but I've noticed my pants don't fit anymore and that has me scared that I shouldn't raise them because I thought you only build muscle in a surplus. So if my pants can't button and my legs are super tight then I'm thinking I'm already in a surplus and therefore don't need to raise my calories anymore. But I'm torn because my strength has stalled and my upper body mass has as well

Any ideas? Could it be because I've been doing many more glute bridges and that's why my pants don't fit?

Mentally it's hard to increase calories when you can no longer button your 30 inch jeans

Any help is appreciated. I love to eat btw and would love nothing more than to add more calories, in just scared. I hope y'all understand

jemhh

If you've upped your glute bridges, you likely have some water retention going on in that area. That's completely normal.

Have you gained any weight in the past month? You never mentioned that. Bulking requires you to gain weight. Period. End of story.

jbmackey5

I need to weight myself and see

I've tried avoiding the scale and going off how my clothes fit for fear of it skyrocketing

jbmackey5

Update

Just had my analysis done. Since 11/30 I've gained 3 lbs, however my BF has gone from 9.3% to 8.6%. Not sure how that's possible

I upped my calories to 3050 per week since so not sure what to do.

Since all of this has begun in August I was 7.6% BF so I haven't gone up too much. I would like to get bigger as my gains have stalled

Any feedback? Up the calories from 3050?

AverageJoeFit

What about macro's? You are talking a lot about calories, but I havn't seen anything about macro's.

You seem to be going through recomp successfully I might add. Also what about sodium and stuff?

There are a lot of factors it could be.

jbmackey5

I'm 159 lbs and doing 200 grams of protein a day

I eat very well so sodium has never been an issue

I probably do around 300-350 carbs per day


My goal is to get to 175 this summer. I think I need to up my calories more