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I am 22 years old, male, I weigh about 185 pound. I go to the gym 6 times a week. I lift fairly intense. I go for about 2 and half hours. I have been eating about 2500/2600 calories. This was a good thing for me as I have been recovering from A ED. However I wanna get bigger but stay lean. I am about 9-10% body fat right now I think. How many calories should I eat to build muscle but also stay lean? I track everything I eat and I know I eat enough protein (over 200gs).

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  • ciaoder
    ciaoder Posts: 119 Member
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    If you're not gaining at 2600 calories maybe bump up to 3000 and see what happens. You don't have to get fat to bulk, but less than 10% is definitely sub-optimal.

    I also expect you'll do better to increase the intensity in the gym and cut back the amount of time you're spending there by half. Spend the extra hour napping.

  • Retroguy2000
    Retroguy2000 Posts: 1,519 Member
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    2500 cals for that amount of training maybe isn't enough?

    That sounds like a lot of volume. Are you sure you need that much?

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mja2fDwYA5s
  • michaelsmithpa
    michaelsmithpa Posts: 22 Member
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    I would tend to agree that 2 1/2 hours 6 days may be a bit excessive. Also it is going to be very hard to gain muscle mass at 9-10% body fat. Would definitely bump up the calories. I train for 90 minutes 6 days a week. 3 day split with a cardio day in between, no off days. This works well for me. Increase or decrease my calories depending on what I see in the mirror. Lots of great videos regarding this topic on you tube