Lean bulk?

Your maintenance calories are essentially BMR + NEAT + PAL + TEF where that number is such that you neither gain weight nor loose weight. You remain the same weight (minus the daily fluctuations our body experiences).....

I know, I know....alphabet soup. Basal Metaboic Rate + Non-Exercise Activity Thermogenisis + Physical Activity Level + Thermal Effect of Food.

So, what all that means:

BMR = the amount of energy (read: calories) that your body needs to do all of the things that it soes just to exist (very loose definition here).

NEAT = all of the walking around that you do during the day, all of the errands that you run, all of the house work that you do....essentially, any 'activity' that is not 'training'. Walking around the block or walking the dog counts as NEAT.

PAL is a multiplier based on how active you are in the gym. This is your TRANING.

TEF = Pretty much the amount of energy used by your body to digest food.

So, there is a start.

trey52424 wrote: »

OK so the calories that I'm eating when on a cut, do I just add 250 until I reach around my maintenance then increase from there? Ex. If my maintenance is 1600 and "cut"calories are 1200 then do I add 250 to the 1200 and then keep increasing till I reach maintenance, and then go on from there? Or do I go from my "cut" calories back up to maintenance and then keep increasing from 250? Ex. 1200 to 1600 then add 250?like one day being at 1200 then the next eating 1600

250 calories is your 'surplus' to gain .5 pounds a week on top of your maintenance.

You can slow reverse to maintenance or move right into maintenance. How you add the surplus for me is dependent on how long I have been cutting. If cutting for an extended period of time, I may wish to sit at maintenance before introducing a surplus. There many benefits to doing this, again this depends on your particular situation.

There will be initial scale weight creep and just know these increases are due to more food/carbs/sodium and also from lifting/exercise, bulking requires a great deal of mental adjustments on how we gain weight and see scale weight increases. If you go slower these will be minimal and you can work through these better imho your first bulk experience.

trey52424 wrote: »

I'm probably gonna go up to maintenance then go up from there

Good idea. Figuring out your maintenance with real world experience (as opposed to estimates) is an important piece of knowledge to have.

Lean59man wrote: »

You'd be very special to gain more than 5 lbs of muscle in a year unless you are on steroids.

If you bulked up by 20 lbs. you've most likely put on a minimum of 15 lbs of fat.

a ten year pro? Yeah. first ever bulk? easily