Calculating excess calories above maintenance as a novice

[Stiltskinner]

Hi,

back story

I was a fat kid/teen but lost it all in my twenties via long-distance running (along with all my muscle mass ). I'm 6ft and at my lowest weight was around 138lbs --- only at this weight did I look skinny-skinny and not skinny-fat, owing to the shear lack of muscle I suppose. I finally realized that whilst I felt better about myself than if I was fat, I would never achieve my ideal body by simple cardio and then experimented with things like CrossFit and now eventually SS. Currently, I'm 165lbs at 32 years old and visually I'd say my bf % is ~18%.

I know I'll be flamed for saying it, but my long-term goals (I know it will take a couple of years) are aesthetic with a low bf %. Strength for me seems like the natural starting place nevertheless, instead of a hypertrophy regime with more reps, since if I get strong first then I'll be able to be doing 10 reps at serious weights (with good form I learnt at low reps) instead of 10 reps on the pink dumbells , and only then will I see significant hypertrophy anyway. So my plan is to follow SS for 4-6 months (maybe a bit longer), then switch out to a hypertrophy thing, still based on compounds but with high reps, accessories and some isolation thrown in.

Now, I know I need to eat excess if I'm going to linearly progress and not stall. I accept that in order to put on muscle, I'll also have to put on fat in some ratio to that muscle too. This is fine, I accept it's the short-term only, however I obviously want skew that muscle:fat ratio in favour as muscle as much as possible. I know because of being fat when I was younger and battling for so many years to no longer be fat, I'm going to be the guy who screams when he sees a fat blob in the mirror, even if the squat number has gone through the roof. Moreover cutting and weight loss don't come that easily to me, nor do I want to have to do such a long cut that I just lose most of the muscle mass gained along the way when the time comes.

Question

I know GOMAD was aimed just at super skinny teens as a convenient way to ensure growth, so I'm not going to get into that controversial topic too much, but nevertheless I still see numbers like 4-6k calories per day.

I read that about 0.5lbs of lean mass per week is average for a novice. Assuming a 50:50 ratio of fat to muscle, that would imply a total mass gain of 1lb per week on the scales. I read that to gain/lose a pound 3.5k calories excess/deficit is required, so +/-500kcals per day. My BMR is just 1800kcal per day (according to online calculators), and my lifestyle outside of the gym is fairly sedentary. I'd estimate maintenance of 2k cals per day. So why can't I just eat 2.5ks per day, to give my body the extra 500 kcals per day, +3.5kcals per week? Isn't this excess enough for it to form the 0.5lb of muscle and 0.5lb of fat? Isn't more mass gain just going to be fat and skew the ratio of muscle:fat toward fat?

I got the 0.5lbs of lean muscle mass from various online sources, but lets say I go crazy and double it and say I can gain 1lb of lean mass per week, along with 1lb of fat. For this I need an excess of 7k calories per week, so an excess of 1000 calories per day. If my maintence is really 2k per day, then it implies I eat 3k a day.

Is this logic correct? Where do the higher numbers come from?

[Jordan Feigenbaum]

Have you started training yet?

[crookedfinger]

Jordan will probably give you a very nuanced and appropriate response. Me, well, I am a member of the peanut gallery and so will give you the not-so-nuanced response.

You're underweight and under-muscled. You need to train, consistently for years--not months. You need to eat 200 grams of protein, You need to get your squat up to 405 and your deadlift to 500 and your press to 200 while weighing at least 200 pounds. You need to be able to do 15 chins and bench 300. You don't need to worry about the rate at which you can gain muscle compared to fat (which by the way, I am pretty sure for a rank novice is greater than 50/50 to muscle--Jordan will correct me if I am wrong here). You need to try to gain .5-1 pound a week while adding weight to the bar. Once you hit these numbers, you can diet a bit to lean up--but you will probably change your mind by then and realize that you like being big and strong better than looking like you aren't. You will also probably realize by then that you like yourself better, you are more confident, your mind is stronger, you're more confident and women will gravitate more to you because of all of these changes.

"There are no 8 week plans, rather year long goals and decade long achievements." --Jim Wendler