When Bulking - Is It Muscle Or Just Fat?

If you are adding muscle, you should notice an increase in strength, as well as visual differences. If you are consistently strength training and adding weight + a caloric surplus, then its difficult to not gain muscle.

Its both if you in a calorie surplus . Its pretty much impossible to bulk staying the same BF%

I dont think my body fat % is overly high at the moment anyway (or what do you guys think judging from my profile pic? )

Do you believe this to be a good question to ask? Are you fishing for compliments? Because if you look at the photo you posted for your avatar or just glance in the mirror, you must see something pretty obvious about your body fat percentage.

you gain fat while building muscle and eating more cals then you burn.
you lose the fat while maintaining muscle and eating slightly less then your tdee.
you dont look over weight. you look great. in saying that by gaining weight you can reduce your % of fat. what exercise do you do now? what do you eat now?

Want to emphasize your words "eating slightly less then your tdee". From you previous post I see a massive cut. Going from 3500 on bulk and 2000 on cut? Well fair enough, if you want to gain weight fast with more than 500 cal surplus, otherwise I'd say your cutting is quite drastic.

At the moment, and ive only recently started, i do strength training 3 times a week - i do a mixture of squats, bench press, pull ups, chin ups, bicep curls, and core exercises (as well as a few others) and some cardio workouts (cycling, cross trainer) on non-strength days

My current macros are about 30:30:40 (carb:protein:fat)
And i dont eat at a surplus, still trying to work all that stuff out

I would change your macros to 50:30:20 for bulking.

Why do you say that ?

She can bulk how she wants aslong as she gets in adequate protein and fat .

Cuz I have freedom of speech?

At the moment, and ive only recently started, i do strength training 3 times a week - i do a mixture of squats, bench press, pull ups, chin ups, bicep curls, and core exercises (as well as a few others) and some cardio workouts (cycling, cross trainer) on non-strength days

My current macros are about 30:30:40 (carb:protein:fat)
And i dont eat at a surplus, still trying to work all that stuff out

I would change your macros to 50:30:20 for bulking.

Why do you say that ?

She can bulk how she wants aslong as she gets in adequate protein and fat .

Cuz I have freedom of speech?

Sure

But its incorrect

At the moment, and ive only recently started, i do strength training 3 times a week - i do a mixture of squats, bench press, pull ups, chin ups, bicep curls, and core exercises (as well as a few others) and some cardio workouts (cycling, cross trainer) on non-strength days

My current macros are about 30:30:40 (carb:protein:fat)
And i dont eat at a surplus, still trying to work all that stuff out

I would change your macros to 50:30:20 for bulking.

Why do you say that ?

She can bulk how she wants aslong as she gets in adequate protein and fat .

Cuz I have freedom of speech?

Sure

But its incorrect

Elaborate. 50:30:20 is good for bulking, I am doing that myself. Also, it was my suggestion to the OP, not something I insisted her on doing. So there is no right or wrong here. :P

you gain fat while building muscle and eating more cals then you burn.
you lose the fat while maintaining muscle and eating slightly less then your tdee.
you dont look over weight. you look great. in saying that by gaining weight you can reduce your % of fat. what exercise do you do now? what do you eat now?

Want to emphasize your words "eating slightly less then your tdee". From you previous post I see a massive cut. Going from 3500 on bulk and 2000 on cut? Well fair enough, if you want to gain weight fast with more than 500 cal surplus, otherwise I'd say your cutting is quite drastic.

you've got a good eye! during my last bulk i was also training for a tough mudder, i was doing more cardio then is necessary in a bulk - so i ate more! my tdee is around 2300 at the moment. if i do go for a run or do extra cardio i will eat more. 3500 is waaaay over my tdee. this was extreme eating to cope with extreme training.

you need to look in the mirror as muscle and fat don't look the same. Also pay attention to where you're gaining fat. Muscle is denser than fat, so adding a couple of pounds of muscle probably won't give you many additional inches. Ten lbs of muscle would. But the inches will be in places where your muscles are big, e.g. biceps, shoulders, lower thighs/quads (i.e. towards the knees), glues muscle, i.e. firm flesh on the butt (flabby = fat) while fat gain (in women) will tend to be on the hips (saddlebag fat) or stomach and in the boobs.

also muscle when tensed doesn't jiggle. If you tense your muscles and your flesh still jiggles, then what jiggles is fat. And you can pinch fat, but you can't pinch tensed muscles.

and I agree with the above statement about defining it by how much weight you add to your lifts.

you need to look in the mirror as muscle and fat don't look the same. Also pay attention to where you're gaining fat. Muscle is denser than fat, so adding a couple of pounds of muscle probably won't give you many additional inches. Ten lbs of muscle would. But the inches will be in places where your muscles are big, e.g. biceps, shoulders, lower thighs/quads (i.e. towards the knees), glues muscle, i.e. firm flesh on the butt (flabby = fat) while fat gain (in women) will tend to be on the hips (saddlebag fat) or stomach and in the boobs.

also muscle when tensed doesn't jiggle. If you tense your muscles and your flesh still jiggles, then what jiggles is fat. And you can pinch fat, but you can't pinch tensed muscles.

and I agree with the above statement about defining it by how much weight you add to your lifts.

While it seems like a reasonable surrogate measurement why not do one of the various bf% measurements also? They aren't especially accurate but they translate better.