Bulk progress

I'm 5'7.

I actually did not count calories at all, haha. I ate until I was full at each meal, and if I got hungry between meal I ate until I was no longer hungry. I stuck to 100% strict paleo, only recently switching to IIFYM.

I did mainly oly lifting, with some crossfit metcons. I have really good coaches- I wasn't doing my own programming. I only did lifting outside of the oly lifts as accessory work a few times a week, although I was lifting heavy almost every day (2 rest days per week). I was super tired after each workout- I always felt like I had done all that I could do. I also used kettlebells and have competed in kettlebell sport doing the long cycle, which is again, more cleans and jerks.

I'm currently trying to get a more shredded look, purely for aesthetics, so I'm calorie counting because I don't think I could intuitively go from 19% to about 17% body fat without losing serious muscle without keeping close track of my macros and calories.

To gain the weight though, I ate intuitively, sticking to whole foods (no grains, sugar, dairy or legumes). I never gained a whole bunch of fat. I also had newby gains on my side- I went from 0 to 60 in terms of exercise. Also genetically I'm probably predisposed to putting on muscle.

One more thing- I never had the attitute of "I want to gain weight". I just wanted to be as strong as possible. As long as my lifts were improving I didn't worry about whether I was gaining or losing weight (although I was steadily gaining). And was probably eating between 2500 and 3000 calories a day.