Bloating

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I was eating max 1200 cals (really bad I know) for the past couple of months. A) I have lost some weight (but not where I wanted too) and b) this resulted in me losing my period which is such a bad sign. I’ve now made the conscious decision to eat around 1850 cals on trainingng days and around 1500 on test days. Does this sound okay? I’m 158cm and 49kg (18 years old) The one thing I absolutely hate is bloating. I bloat a lot. I look about 20 weeks pregnant this evening after eating around 1800 cals and it’s so discouraging but I know in the end it’ll be worth it. I I do have abs but I need to lose a bit of fat to reveal them, eating on a 1200 cal diet diet didnt that much, it helped but I still wasn’t seeing that much definition. Therefore I’m going to bulk and grow some more muscle, then going to follow with a cut iust before the summer. Will eating more actually make me be able to lose the belly fat in the end? It’s all so confusing. Hopefully someone can clarify this and help me out a little :) i want to build muscle, then I’ll do a cut later on but it’s such a horrible feeling being bloated all the time. I just want to have a nice flat stomach and I feel like losing a lot of weight wasn’t going to work, so I’ve resulted in doing a lean bulkthen shredding the excess fat. Any advice? Want to make sure I can build as much muscle as possible with as little fat.

Replies

  • jdog022
    jdog022 Posts: 693 Member
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    Bloating is part of bulking. All the carbs and extra food will have you retaining a lot of extra water. The only advice I can give is to trust the process and let it go and don’t worry about it. Expect to lose Abs and some definition. But expect to look great after your next cut

    And to be transparent I am bulking to and have to remind myself of this advice often. It’s really a mind *kitten*
  • Gallowmere1984
    Gallowmere1984 Posts: 6,626 Member
    edited December 2018
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    jdog022 wrote: »
    Bloating is part of bulking. All the carbs and extra food will have you retaining a lot of extra water. The only advice I can give is to trust the process and let it go and don’t worry about it. Expect to lose Abs and some definition. But expect to look great after your next cut

    And to be transparent I am bulking to and have to remind myself of this advice often. It’s really a mind *kitten*

    This is not necessarily true. I had to abandon the whole IIFYM approach to bulking, and cut out a lot of foods that screwed with me (whey, breads, oats, cruciferous vegetables, canned meat, etc.), but I’m now managing to put down 3900-4000 kcals per day with precisely zero bloat issues.

    Granted, this has resulted in me being extremely specific with my food intake while bulking (which is the opposite of what most people want to do), but it’s working quite well. Unfortunately it does mean that fully 75% of my carbs per day come from white rice (the rest from potatoes/sweet potatoes, fruits, carrots and spinach), 60% of my protein from steak (the rest from eggs, salmon, liver and greek yogurt), and the fat from the protein sources and some almonds.
  • ritzvin
    ritzvin Posts: 2,860 Member
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    only 1850 calories-> so probably not so much a food quantity/calories/bulking issue. Possibly the specific foods you added in have much more salt/are foods you have intolerances to (if you added extra dairy/wheat/etc).
  • govtelectromagnetsprobably
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    Dude I had exactly the same issue, even at my lowest weight (which was not good!) I had a potbelly. Turned out to be a dairy sensitivity, which I discovered by accident when I cut dairy to help get over a severe sinus infection. I felt very silly, because people had been telling me it might be a food thing for years, but I never believed them. It was "how I always was"...bc I was eating dairy at every meal. Duh.

    Now I am eating more and lifting heavy, and my stomach is nowhere near the size it used to be! I have a little bit of basic fat, but it's shrinking every day as I increase muscle mass. I cannot stress how happy this has made me.

    So I absolutely advise googling common food sensitivities and going down the list. Try a week of cutting each one. If it doesn't work, next.

    GOOD LUCK. I hope you find something that works!