My mini bulk

Springfield1970

Hi All!

After having been cutting on and off all year for athletic reasons (I wanted to run faster for sprint triathlon and generally get a better strength to weight ratio), I decided to try out a bulk. It was a bit unplanned, but I was eating over TDEE and I thought I'd make use of it. I think winter setting in and generally being fed up of depriving myself kicked in.

I read that women can only gain .25lb muscle a week, and so I planned a .5lb gain of weight a week and that turned out to be 200 cals over my TDEE per day. I cut the cardio right down in case I catabolised the muscle (I train HARD and needed a rest anyway) and lifted HEAVY 3x per week all body. I had a week or two when the scales went flying up and have reined things in (alcohol, bmr possibly dropping from cutting cardio and stepping over my calorie goals-but it wasn't by much!) and decided to do two more heavy sessions and start cutting again on dec2nd-18th.
So I've stuck to it and ended with a 3lb gain half of which I reckon is muscle.

Now I want to cut that fat so I'm going to lift, do aerobic cardio and go 10% under TDEE and lose that 1lb of fat I reckon I've gained.

Then bulk again over Xmas and NY maybe do another few weeks.

If I get it right I will recompose my body by adding 1% of muscle and dropping 1% fat each 9 week cycle. Couldn't have done that without MFP.

What I'd like to ask you lovely people is this, is my plan for dropping that 1lb of fat the best way I can do it and preserve that hard won muscle?

I am female, 43, 127lb up from 124lb, approx 20% bf, 5'7" and with a TDEE Without/before exercise of 1750cals. I eat exercise cals back. I am preparing for triathlon and training starts 2nd week of Jan. Bulking won't be possible during training due to the cardio demands.

Thanks in advance!

kornaco

Sounds reasonable to me. If you want to track more closely, consider adding extra tools for measuring your gains/loses; simple tape measure, BF%, lifting log possibly. Just ideas to help judge your progress--since you've got your calories in check it sounds.

Good luck!

RachelRuns9

bump!

AverageUkDude

Personally I would eat at maintenance and attempt a recomp or eat at a very small defecit <5% as you stated you wanted to run faster and for athletic reasons, this way you have more chance of building a little extra muscle and reducing body-fat without loosing any performance in the gym. It might take a little longer,but you will perform and feel better overall without risking over reaching in the gym.

I'm guessing you still have some noob gains left to make, what are your lifts like? are you still progressing? or have you stalled?

BenjaminMFP88

Personally I would eat at maintenance and attempt a recomp or eat at a very small defecit <5% as you stated you wanted to run faster and for athletic reasons, this way you have more chance of building a little extra muscle and reducing body-fat without loosing any performance in the gym. It might take a little longer,but you will perform and feel better overall without risking over reaching in the gym.

I'm guessing you still have some noob gains left to make, what are your lifts like? are you still progressing? or have you stalled?

I second this recomendation. Eat at or exceptionally close to your TDEE. It is possible to gain muscle and lose body fat at this caloric intake, it just won't be as quickly as doing them individually.

Granted, both ways will work, it ultimately depends on you and what works best for you. I always prefer a slighly slower approach as I feel it's less of a caloric back and forth for me vs Cutting/Bulking.

Springfield1970

Personally I would eat at maintenance and attempt a recomp or eat at a very small defecit <5% as you stated you wanted to run faster and for athletic reasons, this way you have more chance of building a little extra muscle and reducing body-fat without loosing any performance in the gym. It might take a little longer,but you will perform and feel better overall without risking over reaching in the gym.

I'm guessing you still have some noob gains left to make, what are your lifts like? are you still progressing? or have you stalled?

I second this recomendation. Eat at or exceptionally close to your TDEE. It is possible to gain muscle and lose body fat at this caloric intake, it just won't be as quickly as doing them individually.

Granted, both ways will work, it ultimately depends on you and what works best for you. I always prefer a slighly slower approach as I feel it's less of a caloric back and forth for me vs Cutting/Bulking.

I am really in agreement here actually. I am day two of -10% under tdee cut and boy did I notice the difference in performance in the gym tonight. Plus the ghost of past injuries are knocking again! It's very obvious, and I was out of breathe lifting and that never happens!
Mmm I'm going to reassess and maybe slow that cut right down.

I just find maintaining THE hardest thing to do!

Springfield1970

As far as gaining muscle, I am way past the point of newbie gains. I would definitely need to eat at excess to build. I could play around with nutrition partitioning, like ultimate diet 2, but I also have to watch as I don't think my body makes good choices, ie it breaks muscle down instead of fat, particularly during intense over threshold. This may change of course, I'm keeping a close eye on things. I think this is referred to as a P Ratio.

Dropping too much water for my liking right now. I may have been over ambitious in my 1.5lb muscle gain!

Live4theLift

Your body does nutrient partitioning on its own, when you get to a low enough BF % for males its usually around 10-12% not sure on females. If you are going to bulk and are unable to make newb gains then .5lb of muscle a week is at most is what is achievable.

Springfield1970

I thought I'd update on my mini bulk.

I didn't get round to cutting yet. I stopped logging over Xmas and kept heavy lifting without too fast cardio, and really tried not to seriously overeat like usual but ate and drank and partied a fair bit. There's no doubt I was over maintenance every day there!

I guess it's been about 2 months now. I really like the results of the bulk, and didn't seem to gain much body fat at all surprisingly, but I was planning to gain as little fat as possible as I didn't want to cut during tri training season. Particularly when it starts getting more intense from February to August as I am 43 and tend to get injuries at deficit.

I started logging again a few days ago and I'm still maintaining at 1750. That maintenance number should have gone up a little so I guess I was underestimating my exercise calories and/or was doing a lot of buzzing around in December (NEAT).

I went from 123lb to 129lb.

Wearing the same clothes, a tiny bit tighter but I've noticed that I've changed shape more. Like my lines on my hips and butt are more regular and maybe there's more lift. So possible .5/1" on hips, tummy but really not much different. Shoulders and arms are a little bigger, back less emaciated, butt a bit rounder, calves are tight on jeans, instead of thighs tight. Happily, the fat has gone to the right places rather than just on my upper thighs and bum.

Last time I was at this weight I know I was in bigger clothes, particularly jeans. I was also more pear shaped.

I ate at 2/300 over maintenance for 2 months. Haven't eaten under tdee in that time.

I conclude that my mini bulk was successful.

Springfield1970

Personally I would eat at maintenance and attempt a recomp or eat at a very small defecit <5% as you stated you wanted to run faster and for athletic reasons, this way you have more chance of building a little extra muscle and reducing body-fat without loosing any performance in the gym. It might take a little longer,but you will perform and feel better overall without risking over reaching in the gym.

I'm guessing you still have some noob gains left to make, what are your lifts like? are you still progressing? or have you stalled?

I second this recomendation. Eat at or exceptionally close to your TDEE. It is possible to gain muscle and lose body fat at this caloric intake, it just won't be as quickly as doing them individually.

Granted, both ways will work, it ultimately depends on you and what works best for you. I always prefer a slighly slower approach as I feel it's less of a caloric back and forth for me vs Cutting/Bulking.

I am really in agreement here actually. I am day two of -10% under tdee cut and boy did I notice the difference in performance in the gym tonight. Plus the ghost of past injuries are knocking again! It's very obvious, and I was out of breathe lifting and that never happens!
Mmm I'm going to reassess and maybe slow that cut right down.

I just find maintaining THE hardest thing to do!

I did attempt a cut in early December for a few days but it got abandoned! It's good to look back and see how things were then. Cutting, even a small cut, does not go well with any kind of sports for me.

I am maintaining now though it's not easy for me yet. I have to learn how to do it without the crutch of the exercise calories.

At some point I'm going to go into a very slow fat burn to knock a pound off for my summer races.