Brolympus Member

ATG! I see so many curlbros in my gym that half and quarter rep their squats with a heavy weight. Meanwhile, I'm next to them with 75% of that weight leaving butt marks on the lifting platform. And they still think they are stronger. Delusion is a grand thing, ain't it?

Former toothpick (and still mostly skinny) dude here. Ran marathons and half-marathons, did distance running competitively in school. I'm 6'4" and weighed 160lbs at my thinnest. That is ridiculously light for somebody my size. I look at pictures of me from high school and cringe at how thin I was. I got teased pretty…

^^^pretty much the golden rule of training. Patience is the biggest part of getting in shape. Once you learn to enjoy the process, the journey is a lot easier. Happy lifting, OP!

OP, the bulking sticky is a great place to start:community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10049766/bulking-a-complete-guide-for-beginners/p1 Also, this guide is very helpful too: acaloriecounter.com/building-muscle.php In general, for a newbie, there isn't a whole lot you can do that won't help you get stronger. Your first…

While we wait for those claims to be backed up (I'm especially excited to hear about how we used to live longer, since you know, this: en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Life_expectancy) I went ahead and found some stuff for everybody to read about why organic has no additional benefit over foods produced with modern-day farming…

Sounds like your bodyfat is getting to the lean levels on the female scale if you truly think it is 18-20% (how did you measure this? Calipers?). Trying to plan your current phase around your body's p-ratio is what I tell people if they don't know what to do. I agree with the other posters that 3 months isn't a whole lot…

You are either underlogging your food calories or overlogging your exercise calories. Not saying you are doing this on purpose either, its very easy to fudge the numbers by 20% over the course of an entire day, especially exercise cals, those are highly subjective. Your best bet is to keep dropping your calorie goal by…

Not sure if troll or haven't done any of your own research yet. Read the sticky and come back. You can't gain muscle and lose fat at the same time.

No offense, but why? You realize the word organic means something contains carbon chains, correct? I could grab a piece of PVC pipe and slap an "organic" label on it and it would be technically correct. There are zero additional benefits to eating foods toted as "organic"; it is a marketing gimmick. Don't fall for the…

No such thing as fast results bro. Gains have a max speed of about 2lbs a month. Any extra is just fat you are packing on. Supps are more or less useless if you aren't eating right. You just need to keep pressing on with your fitness routine and realize this is a lifestyle change we are talking about and not something that…

Nothing wrong with wanting to gain bro. But 16lbs in 6 months for a beginner seems like the start of the dreamer bulk and packing on way too much bodyfat. The first 2-3 months you really shouldn't gain any weight (should actually be able to lose some weight) since all the strength gains come from neural adaption and not…

^^ wisdom. Nothing worst than being stuck in maintenance land and not knowing it. Time is indeed precious, especially for the ladies since they gain muscle at half the speed we do.

Agree with everybody here, you should drop bf before trying to bulk. For dudes, your P-ratio is tilted toward fat storage over muscle production at anything 20% or over. If you don't have much muscle on your frame, even 20% can look skinny (hence your family's comments). You will actually look more muscular as you drop…

Couldn't agree more. Your body is your most important asset, might was well splurge on a gym that has good equipment and you can get the most out of your time there. I really like my gym because there are a lot of other serious lifters there, which helps motivate me to go. I've also found that I spend less money on dumb…

When I said clean bulk, that was in reference to a moderate calorie surplus OP; 300-500 calories over maintenance. Sorry, should have clarified. The source of the calories, like sjohnson__1 has stated, doesn't matter.

Yup, exactly. Bulking is a self-esteem game. Try to keep your brain on the long-term prize. It can definitely be a detriment to motivation when it looks like you aren't working out at all, but keep focusing on trying to push up the lifting numbers a little more each week and those numbers creeping up should keep your…

Yup, totally agree with the other posters OP. You need to get your expectations back to reality levels. Get that body fat % down before you try doing any true bulking, you want to be 10-12% bf range. Lift while losing the weight, work on your form/lifting techinque/stabilzing muscles. By the time you hit that low bf%, you…

Also, see the bulking 101 sticky: community.myfitnesspal.com/en/discussion/10049766/bulking-a-complete-guide-for-beginners#latest

If you haven't really trained before, the first month or two of "newbie gains" come mostly from neural adaptation, meaning your body gets better at using the muscle it already has. So not surprising that you feel like you don't see a difference, I felt the same way when I started (but I was increasing my weights like crazy…

OP, I would encourage you not set a weight target by "X" date. You really should just be focusing on making sure your lifting stats are slowly creeping up. The weight gain is just to check that you are getting the proper amount of calories. Plenty of info out there to tell you what you should be gaining based on your…

Personal preference really. Just make sure the powder you buy is not one of the companies that got busted in the protein spiking scam (essentially using the cheapest AA's as filler and hardly any others). Easy way to tell is turn the tub over and look at the amino acid profile. If it even has one (each AA will be listed,…

This is a pretty amazing mix if anybody is a fan of DnB: https://youtube.com/watch?v=UQJlx0ffLYo

The timing doesn't matter. It's important to maintain endurance, so do cardio of some kind for sure. I see tons of broscience out there telling people to avoid cardio while bulking at all costs. I was doing a 6-8 minute warmup at a moderate intensity, stretching, and then lifting. Nothing taxing, for sure. Just enough to…

I cut creamer down, but I could never cut it out. When I am at home, I don't need it, I fresh grind beans and the coffee is good enough that it doesn't need anything. But the swill they serve at work....definitely need it for that lol. To answer your question, just make sure you log it. Nothing wrong with coffee.

OP, does your training staff look like this?:

Pretty much agree with this. If you are dropping weight and don't care about losing muscle, the only thing you care about is setting a calorie deficit amount that won't make you miserable. If you are cutting fat only, while trying to maintain muscle mass, there is a lot more to consider. The speed of your weight loss…

If you are truly addicted to food, it might help to talk with a therapist to work out your issues. People can be addicted to food just like anything else, it's a real thing. You are technically abusing a substance. It's good that you recognized the problem, you need to change your attitude to how you view food. Once you…

Why are you trying to cut carbs drastically? If you are just aiming to lose weight, macro ratios are kind of irrelevant. If you are cutting, eating adequate protein in a calorie deficit is your main focus to spare muscle as you lose weight. In either situation, you need some carbs to lift, or your performance in the gym is…