Should I start bulking?

Welcome to the club! I was dragged kicking and screaming through my bulk! Turns out the muscle gain made the inevitable fat gain just 'sit better', it was really amazing.

Why don't you try it, measure your progress and see how it looks?

It's best to have your lifting in a good place form wise before you start, if you know what you're doing choose a good progressive 3 x all body per week, add the 400/500 per day extra and go for it.

Do you know your maintenance level or have you just finished your cut? It's probably best to sit at maintenance for a couple of weeks to stabilise the water and glucose gain when you go back to maintenance.

One more thing....how do you know you're 15% body fat at that weight, I'm a little doubtful...want to post some piccies so our panel can advise you further?

Get shredded brah

ndj1979 wrote: »

at 5-7 162 I would think that you might be a tad over 16% ….you might want to get to say 13-14% before bulking…just my two cents..

oh and do everything that spring said...

Pretty much to confirm this info: http://www.bodyrecomposition.com/muscle-gain/initial-body-fat-and-body-composition-changes.html/

If you are looking to maximize the results in a given time period, P-ratio suggests that being sub 15% bodyfat will cause your surplus calorie allotment to lean more towards lean body mass production and less to fat production.

You will have diminishing returns on muscle gain bulking over 15% (you will still gain muscle, just not as fast as you would at sub 15%, and you will get fatter faster).

Actually getting an accurate measurement of bodyfat within 3% without an expensive body scan is hard though. I don't know what you are using to measure, but you kind of need to use both caliper measurements and one of those professional quality body compostion scanners to get a decent estimate.

Some gyms might have one of these scanners (its $10 to have a body comp test done at mine, includes scan and caliper measurements). I wouldn't use one of those home body comp scanner/weight scales as your BF measurement tool, they are pretty bad on accuracy from personal experience, at least any of them under $50. If you are truly hardcore, you could always call around to get measured in a BodPod, which will get your BF reading down to 1%. I think those cost $50+ per scan, but don't qoute me on it.

So I would say if you are fearful of the fat gain, cut down first until you are confidently at 12-13% bodyfat and well under the P-ratio "ceiling". If you are noobish to lifting you will actually gain a little bit of muscle the first month or two also as you cut, even in a calorie deficit. Your body will catch on pretty quick and eventually you will have to be in a surplus to pack on any more muscle though.

Advice here is solid and bulking will be a head game for you. Do you have a lifting program yet?