Scared to bulk

I felt this too. I'm only 5'2, so I stopped at 8 lbs gain (in 5 months) bc I just wasn't feeling great anymore. I've only lost a couple lbs, as I just started cutting again, and look much leaner now than when I was this weight a year ago. It's worth it.

tiffanyyro wrote: »

I know to build muscle you need to eat at a calorie surplus, but I'm worried that I will just end up getting fat. I know this is mostly a mental thing, but has anyone else felt the same way? Ill change my goals to gain .5 per week or something and then chicken out and change it back before the day starts. How do I get out of this mentality?

Create a small calorie surplus and focus on building muscle at a gradual pace. 15-20% above your maintenance level is a good guideline. Aimlessly stuffing more food down your throat is not going to help you build muscle faster, since your body can only synthesize a limited amount of lean tissue in a given day. Any excess is simply stored as fat, so focus on achieving lean muscle growth at no more than half a pound per week.

Make sure you're training intensely in the gym and focusing on progressive overload from week to week. If you eat at a calorie surplus but don't provide the proper stimulus to your muscles, those excess calories will simply end up as stored body fat. If you want to focus on gaining muscle without fat, you need to make sure that your weight training plan is properly structured.

Implement a few cardio sessions throughout the week. You don't have to go overboard here, but 2-3 sessions is a good way to ensure that you achieve a good lean bulk with minimal gains in fat.

Following these steps is not going to allow you to gain muscle WITHOUT fat, but it will keep those fat gains at an absolute minimum. Again, always focus on lean bulking by putting on size at a slow and steady pace.