My Skinny Fat plan

I'd like to know what research showed you that eating 1300 calories a day would help you build muscle. I'm currently bulking - 5'8; 138 lbs and I'm eating 2200 calories a day. So...yeah.

Total Daily Energy Expenditure - the total amount of energy, in calories, your body uses to meet all physiological energy needs. Thus, it includes your BMR, Thermic Effect of Food, exercise activity expenditure and non-exercise activity expenditure. In other words, it's the maximum amount of calories required to relatively maintain your weight.

I'm guessing your body composition suffered from chronically eating too little. If you want to recover lost lean mass, you're going to have to remove that mental block whereby you don't want to gain any more fat. Recomps are slow and really should be done by those who are already satisfied with their body composition but want to tweak it by another 1% or so. If you want to increase lean mass by an appreciable margin, doing a bulk is far more rewarding and less time consuming in the long run.

For someone of your weight, you shouldn't even be eating below your BMR but perhaps 300 calories below your actual TDEE. The reason you likely lost a significant amount of muscle mass was by chronically undereating.

If you want to bulk, your going to gain some weight no matter what.
Lift heavy and often make sure your meeting your Macros and you should be fine.

Hi everyone, so I would like to run my researched ideas past you who have experience!
Getting right to the chase, I am skinny and I have less muscle than I'd like. I have fat, and look fatter than I did 20lbs ago.
My history out of the way, I want to bulk up but not gain fat. I don't care how long it takes. This is my goal.
My plan I'd like some opinion on:
1. Eat mostly protein (my diet is split three ways equally between all three macros now)! Eat 1300 cals a day. Which is my BMR.
2. Do heavy weights low reps on Monday Wednesday Friday.
3. Optional aerobics ONLY AFTER weights not before.
4. Anaerobic training such as HIIT on Tues, Thurs.


My main questions are, should my macro proportions be different? And would doing more aerobics, not anaerobics, hinder muscle gain?
Thanks!

you are not going to gain muscle on 1300 calories a day ….

You may get some newbie gains but those will droop off about about a month to month and a half ..

I would recommend eating at about 100 cals a day over your maintenance…or you could eat like +200 on work out days and at about maintenance on non-work out days…

Sorry, you will gain some fat when you are bulking..its pretty much impossible to get your body to contribute 100% of excess energy to muscle growth and not have some go to fat...

aqreed

Unless you are a noob, have muscle memory or are on steroids you cannot gain muscle without gaining some fat.

However, on the plus side, it's easier to lose fat than it is to gain muscle.

also, eating only protein is a really bad idea.

^^^ Great advice above!

Also do you have a specific strength training plan in mind for M, W, F? What type of HIIT program do you have in mind for T, R?

More food for thought:

http://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/2011/07/21/meet-staci-your-new-powerlifting-super-hero/

you are not going to gain muscle on 1300 calories a day ….

You may get some newbie gains but those will droop off about about a month to month and a half ..

I would recommend eating at about 100 cals a day over your maintenance…or you could eat like +200 on work out days and at about maintenance on non-work out days…

Sorry, you will gain some fat when you are bulking..its pretty much impossible to get your body to contribute 100% of excess energy to muscle growth and not have some go to fat...

aqreed

Unless you are a noob, have muscle memory or are on steroids you cannot gain muscle without gaining some fat.

However, on the plus side, it's easier to lose fat than it is to gain muscle.

also, eating only protein is a really bad idea.

^^^ Great advice above!

Also do you have a specific strength training plan in mind for M, W, F? What type of HIIT program do you have in mind for T, R?

Thank you everyone soooo much! Because I am sedentary, my TDEE is 1400 cals. Therefore, am I fine eating 300 cals below, which is 1100...? I ate 1300 today and I feel sooooo stuffed. But I also burned 238. I don't know if that counts now

I use Hasfit's HIIT workouts. I aim to build up to half an hour for T/Th. For MWF I don't split train. I train everything. Then, after weights, I also do cardio. I understand now that I will gain some fat. But if I allow myself to go slowly and bulk over a year or so, gradually, would that minimize the fat gain as well?

You are not sedentary. You lift 3 times a week and do HIIT twice. IMO you are not someone I would recommend bulking to bc of your mindset and such fear of calories and fat. It's inevitable. I've been bulking, 4th time, since November and I just increased to 2600 calories. Have I gained fat? Yes. Did I expect to? Absolutely! IMO until you're ok with slowly adding in more calories you would benefit working your way up to maintenance then going from there.

Looking to meet and talk with people trying to gain! I'm looking to get into bodybuilding but I keep losing no matter how much I eat. I'm trying to keep it clean, I don't want to eat junk. Any tips would be appreciated! New here add me!

I believe your TDEE is incorrect. I m 66 years old, barely five feet tall, walk 45 minutes a day and my TDEE is 1890.....your's possibly cannot be 1400 with the exercise you do, unless you are shorter and older than I.

Looking to meet and talk with people trying to gain! I'm looking to get into bodybuilding but I keep losing no matter how much I eat. I'm trying to keep it clean, I don't want to eat junk. Any tips would be appreciated! New here add me!

eat more

OP: If you have a regular exercise schedule it is a lot easier to set a calorie target and don't worry about logging exercise cals. (or input as 0) Set your cal target at TDEE (which is not 1400) and assess via measurements, scale and pics in 2 weeks to see if you are gaining too quickly, slowly or just right.

Yes slow weight gain is advantageous to minimize fat gain. 2lb max per month I'd say for a small female.