Thrice said:
i have to compromise between this and building more muscle, just like you did in the last 4 years. I have to gain some weight on the building phases
Not really, the way to go is to stay lean and SLOWLY build muscle - muscle building natty is an EXTREMELY SLOW process, generally in terms of a few pounds per YEAR.
I did not really understand this at first and would put on 10 or 15 or 20 pounds in a few months and just get fat, even eating super clean AND working out religiously for two hours four days a week. This is a SUPER TYPICAL bulk, what most guys do starting out. Doing a bulk and cutting after, I'd basically just be right back where I started and be fat half the time.
I wasted a ton of time intentionally bulking and cutting and mostly spun my wheels doing it - you REALLY don't need to compromise, keeping a low bodyfat isn't going to hold you back until you're shredded and pretty close to as much muscle as your body can hold onto.
The most effective periods in my training have been mid-lockdown when I was dieting religiously and actually steadily LOSING weight overall, and more recently after I came BACK from getting fat last march, again, LOSING weight (albeit VERY slowly - to the tune of a pound or so a month).
Thrice said:
otherwise there is NO may to know if i'm building muscle or not.
That is simply not true. It's called a mirror. Or those calipers you said you bought. There's literally instructions in the box and 10,000 videos and guides online. Even if you don't get a percentage (which will be inaccurate anyway, no method is perfect and most start getting WAY less accurate below about 15%), literally just pinch some fat *somewhere* (I go right next to my bellybutton) and measure it. If that number goes down you're losing fat. If not you're not, exact percentage be damned. If you lose fat and have the SAME weight, or your fat is going down fast and your weight going down SLOW then you're gaining muscle.
Thrice said:
If sleep and nutrients are on points, effort on training is good with at least the last set to failure, what you need to be 100% that you're building muscles and not spinnng your wheels is to gain some wheight, otherwise you'll never know. So i need a balance between the two
Again, yes, you CAN be pretty sure. Are your lifts going up (either weight OR reps)? Then you're gaining muscle. Or look in a mirror once in a while. Just because you're gaining weight DEFINITELY doesn't guarantee you're putting on muscle. It is VERY easy to just get fat, and your weight is dictated by your eating - there's no way to eat and train and everything such that you'll only gain weight if you're gaining muscle but not if it would just be fat.
Besides, who gives a rats ass if you are "100% sure"? All of this, no matter HOW meticulously you track it, is a guess. You figure it out as you go - I'm pointing you in the direction of DONT BULK AND CUT, that is how you waste a bunch of your life looking fat.
I'll attach some pics (don't think I can embed on mobile), I look MORE muscular at 151 pounds than at 194!! The ones where I'm lean were all taken the same day and my body here is TINY even though I look pretty jacked - look at my body proportions relative to my head.
I'm smaller sure, but every frickin muscle fiber is visible, even with more muscle, at a higher bodyfat it's LESS APPARENT so you just look worse.
View attachment 1View attachment 2
The main thing that's often missed in this discussion is: THIS IS A SLOW PROCESS
MUSCLE BUILDS
VERY SLOWLY (unless you do a cycle, or your first couple months on trt or something). ESPECIALLY relative to body fat. In a life or death level situation, you could probably lose around a pound of body fat a DAY, not eating and working pretty hard. Muscle you'd have to be a genetic 1%-er to put on a pound in less than a few weeks (again natty, and not de-trained that's a whole other thing).
Even newbie gains are less, and come more slowly, than most would like.
If EVERYTHING isn't on point (and lets be real, who DOES have everything perfect? not 99% of us and that's FINE), the average person could REALISTICALLY put on probably put on 5 or 6 pounds of muscle in a year, maybe 8 or 10 if they've got good genetics and hard-ass it. Dropping that kind of body fat could be done in two or three MONTHS. Point being, doing everything right AND GETTING GOOD RESULTS, the scale will be going DOWN until you get close to a good body fat level. Most guys want to get big - so did/do I - problem is that fat doesn't "count" towards your overall size unless you get REALLY fat. You look bigger even if you're smaller because being lean shows off the muscle you DO have, whereas fat covers it up. You're also not going to be "big" for YEARS (especially staying natty), or might never be. Keep in mind you ALSO gain/lose fat in your face, and what you do have RIGHT NOW is a face that's already awesome and girls will get fucking hypnotized by and dream about sitting on if you can cut down close to single digits. Play to your strengths rather than sabotaging it trying to cover up a much more minor weakness.
Okay that was a
bit of a tirade but this (thinking I needed to bulk or that I was a "hardgainer" or whatever) is something that I wasted a TON of time and money and effort on and tons of other people ALSO constantly waste time and life and effort on and is TOTALLY UNNECESSARY.
So kinda more an angry message to my past self for thinking what you are and trying to get huge overnight, rather than taking the more patient and boring, but effective path.
