minimum % surplus needed for lean bulk

shmerek · May 2014

Hey just wondering what peoples' thoughts on this might be. I just spent the last 4 months bringing my bf% down in order to do a lean bulk and I am wondering what do you think the minima, % of caloric surplus would be needed? I am in my 40s so I obviously don't have the metabolism of all the young dudes or the same testosterone levels etc so my muscle building will be slower. I know that I will have to gain some fat along the way but I don't want to get fatter than I need. I calculated my TDEE at 2164 incorporating my exercise sessions: 6 days a week; 3 heavy lifting sessions and three cross fit type sessions. Would a 10% above my TDEE be too little? Would you maybe add more calories on the lifting days or maybe the days in between? Any suggestions would be appreciated.
Thanks

JonnyQwest · May 2014

been wondering this myself...in the process of doing the same thing.....finally decided to go with about a 500 calorie surplus and figured I could cut it down from there periodically as needed. seems easier to lose weight than it is to gain muscle so why not just gain a bit of muscle then cut as needed? I have never understood the need for going so long on a bulk (months at a time) and then cutting....seems more efficient to go about 6 weeks or so followed by a week or two of cutting. thats what I am going to do anyway....sending you a FR and maybe we can compare notes. I am 40 so sounds like we are in the same boat.

shmerek · May 2014

Awesome dude cheers. I was going to go with 8 weeks and see what happens but I was wondering if that would be enough time for someone of our age group? Oh and to complicate things I am a vegetarian.. lol I do supplement my protein and am going with the scientifically based .84 grams per pound, sometimes I go over which is ok but never under. I will be curious to see how it goes for you. Are you doing any cardio type stuff during the bulk? I don't know if it helps or hinders. I do a cross fit type training for my non lifting workouts but I can't see how doing extra deadlifts and snatchs would hurt any.

waldo56 · May 2014

You (and most people) are looking at it wrong.

At any given moment you can be losing fat and (hopefully very little) muscle, maintaining, or gaining fat and muscle.

As you get away from maintenance +/-, the local effect of meals fades and you are either losing 24/7 or gaining 24/7.

Inside of that 24/7 point you are gaining sometimes and maintaining others, or if you get really close to maintenance, also losing at times (recomping). The thing is, you really don't gain any cleaner from the 24/7 point on down to where the recomp effect starts to occur, you just gain slower as an increasingly greater % of your day is spent not in a surplus, most of it being at maintenance where nothing occurs.

Beyond the 24/7 point the gains get increasingly dirty as muscle building efficiency drops significantly.

Where is the 24/7 point? Its hard to pin down, it really depends on your overall food throughput, meal timing, exercise and whatnot, but my educated guess has it right around +400 cals. Maybe a little more for young guys or beginners (who can gain at an accelerated rate). For women its probably a little lower (but not much) simply because they are using less of the calories to build muscle.

Anything less than around +400 cals and you really aren't gaining cleaner, just slower, until you approach +100 or even less, where the recomp effect will clean up the (very slow) gains.

shmerek · May 2014

Cool thanks. That is a new perspective it will give me a bit more to chew on mentally. Cheers

chrisdavey · May 2014

There is no magic % or cal surplus that will be the "cleanest" bulk.

Firstly, where did you calculate your TDEE? Seems quite low. I would be adding in 200 or so cals per week if you have been dieting for a bit until you start to gain at an acceptable rate. If it goes a bit quickly, then cut it back a tad. Rinse and repeat until at desired weight.

shmerek · May 2014

Thanks for the reply. I'm a pretty small dude. I am only 5'5 and currently 135 pounds, a buck and change as it were and 42 years old. I grabbed the TDEE from as many online calculators I could find and just sort of averaged them out, a bit on the lower side. I am sort of in a quasi maintenance surplus mode for a couple weeks I think. So are you saying only a 28 calories over TDEE per day? That is a Mike Mentzer type surplus.

astronomicals · May 2014

You (and most people) are looking at it wrong.

At any given moment you can be losing fat and (hopefully very little) muscle, maintaining, or gaining fat and muscle.

As you get away from maintenance +/-, the local effect of meals fades and you are either losing 24/7 or gaining 24/7.

Inside of that 24/7 point you are gaining sometimes and maintaining others, or if you get really close to maintenance, also losing at times (recomping). The thing is, you really don't gain any cleaner from the 24/7 point on down to where the recomp effect starts to occur, you just gain slower as an increasingly greater % of your day is spent not in a surplus, most of it being at maintenance where nothing occurs.

Beyond the 24/7 point the gains get increasingly dirty as muscle building efficiency drops significantly.

Where is the 24/7 point? Its hard to pin down, it really depends on your overall food throughput, meal timing, exercise and whatnot, but my educated guess has it right around +400 cals. Maybe a little more for young guys or beginners (who can gain at an accelerated rate). For women its probably a little lower (but not much) simply because they are using less of the calories to build muscle.

Anything less than around +400 cals and you really aren't gaining cleaner, just slower, until you approach +100 or even less, where the recomp effect will clean up the (very slow) gains.

good stuff...

my approach is to log all my exercise daily rather than stick to a TDEE. My bicycling varies greatly. I eat between 2400-4400 a day. Id imaging this approach keeps me in a surplus more often.

OP... too many variables... just start low as suggested... I eat like 250 grams of protein a day and the TEF of protein is ~30%... that alone is going to impact things... NEAT goes up when I bulk too. Its no exact science. There is no correct answer to your question.

shmerek · May 2014

good stuff...

my approach is to log all my exercise daily rather than stick to a TDEE. My bicycling varies greatly. I eat between 2400-4400 a day. Id imaging this approach keeps me in a surplus more often.

OP... too many variables... just start low as suggested... I eat like 250 grams of protein a day and the TEF of protein is ~30%... that alone is going to impact things... NEAT goes up when I bulk too. Its no exact science. There is no correct answer to your question.

So forgive me if this is a stupid question what is your baseline intake? Say for example you are trying to gain do you set your calories to your maintenance level add on whatever exercise you do and then add a surplus on top of that? Once again forgive me if the question is dumb I am just trying to get a better understanding here.

_Terrapin_ · May 2014

This may help:

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/1205442-bulk-recomp-instead-of-bulk-cut?hl=bulking+versus+cutting#posts-18851019

Best of luck.

shmerek · May 2014

Thanks for that, Read through it multiple times and if I understand it correctly the gist of it is that too small of a surplus (200 calories above) is just spinning your wheels to some extent.

43mmmgoody21 · May 2014

My take/opinion:

I'd say the amount of surplus depends.

How much lifting experience do you have? Have you put on your first 20 pounds of raw muscle yet? If not (regardless of the number of years you have been training you are going to get some decent newbie gains).

When clean bulking (and what i mean by clean bulking is gaining muscle while minimizing fat gains) you should be looking to gain about 2 pounds on the scale per month.

So...
Your idea of 10% is smart. I'd stick with a surplus of + 10% over your maintenance calories. If after a few weeks you don't see movement on the scale bump it up again. Eventually you will hit the sweet spot (but as your body weight increases over time so too will your need for more calories).
BTW. Recomping also works well (with newbie gains).

shmerek · May 2014

Thanks for that, appreciated. I started in September so 6-7 months, but from December until recently went into deficit to lower my body fat to an acceptable level before any bulk and started lifting properly. I was the half repping king. I am 42 years old so I wouldn't expect big gains no matter how hard I work, I would be thrilled if I could get 10 pounds of lean muscle by this time next year.

astronomicals · May 2014

good stuff...

my approach is to log all my exercise daily rather than stick to a TDEE. My bicycling varies greatly. I eat between 2400-4400 a day. Id imaging this approach keeps me in a surplus more often.

OP... too many variables... just start low as suggested... I eat like 250 grams of protein a day and the TEF of protein is ~30%... that alone is going to impact things... NEAT goes up when I bulk too. Its no exact science. There is no correct answer to your question.

So forgive me if this is a stupid question what is your baseline intake? Say for example you are trying to gain do you set your calories to your maintenance level add on whatever exercise you do and then add a surplus on top of that? Once again forgive me if the question is dumb I am just trying to get a better understanding here.

spot on with your assumptions.

The reason why i take this approach is because I sometimes spend two hours commuting via bicycle in a day. Other days I sit at a desk all day. My activity level is very inconsistent outside the gym. Some days I bike 30+ miles, other days I walk less than 5000 steps. I'm not suggesting this approach, but, it works for me.

Basically what I'm saying is if you go do something irregular that burns a lot of calories than you should eat a lot bigger that day. Common sense, right?

shmerek · May 2014

Yep it does make sense

chrisdavey · May 2014

Remember TDEE calcs are just an estimate. I MUCH prefer to go off real data. I track weight movements with rolling averages and measurements of key changing areas and work out TDEE from that.

heds49 · May 2014

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A3gTGLulLnI........

All questions answered

MrGonzo05 · May 2014

My suggestion is to aim for a 10% surplus, run it several weeks, and see how you like your results on that. That's actually not much of a surplus. In my opinion, 500 calories, will result in more fat gain than necessary.

You may also find you need to adjust your calories above what you initially thought would be needed, because some people tend to fidget more and generally be more active when they switch from a deficit to a surplus. This can add up to a significant amount of calories, and you're aiming for a small surplus as is.

shmerek · May 2014

Thanks to all for the input I think I have a base starting point now. Cheers

sjbcarlsson · May 2014

I just wanted to thow this out there as I just completed my third bulk cycle. I am 35 and a woman. My first bulk I ate at a 15% surplus. Over about 6 months I gained 16 pounds I gained about 4-5 pounds of muscle and the rest was fat. On my second and third bulks I ate at about an 11% surplus (second bulk) and a 5% surplus (third bulk) for about 6 months and gained only 2-3 pound of muscle over 5-6 months. I don't know if the extra gains on the first bulk were because of "newbie" gains or because I ate at a larger surplus but I found this interesting.

heybales · May 2014

http://www.myfitnesspal.com/topics/show/778012-potential-muscle-gain-lifting-and-metabolism-improvement

Sadly they only measured increase in LBM, not the specific muscle aspect of LBM. And eating at maintenance with no weight change.

3.5 lbs increase in LBM in 16 weeks.

If you were to attempt that with an actual increase in weight, it would be about 110 calories extra over real TDEE.

While it's true they are dealing with total LBM not just muscle, it would appear it took burning 3500 cal per lb of fat to allow that same increase in a lb of LBM.

I know there's still an unknown in there dependent on the person, genetics, workout type, ect, that determines at what point is too many calories to turn in to LBM of whatever it was, and some is going to be fat mass also.

As to getting your better TDEE, you can go on your last 3-4 weeks of your weight loss time, if you are going to be doing a similar workout to what you did then anyway. Still may be good to see what it was at least for comparison in case you increase the workout.

Total weight lost x 3500 calories / 21 or 28 (3 or 4 wk period) = deficit calories from TDEE you must have had.

Total gross eaten (not net) on average daily + deficit calories = average TDEE for that time and that workout.

minimum % surplus needed for lean bulk

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