TDEE and Gaining

[CJ Gotcher]

So is one pound a week recommended though? It seems like Rip and others here recommend gaining at an even faster rate to fuel your gains.

This depends on your age, current body fat percentage, athletic background, and training advancement.

Novices can gain muscle at a faster rate than advanced lifters.
Young athletes can gain at a faster rate than geezers.
The lean will do better on a bulk than the already-fat.
My personal experience is that prior athletes (new to strength but 'generally athletic' and aerobically fit) gain muscle quicker than the skinny-fat/totally sedentary.

If you're a athletic, lean, underweight, novice 20-year old, you can productively process a lot of food towards gaining muscle mass and should do so. If you're a 40 year old, sedentary, skinny-fat guy, you should keep weight gain to a slow, steady increase since excessive weight gain will lead to disproportionate fat gain in this population. If you play it conservative and don't eat enough to sustain your novice progression effectively, you'll have to shift to intermediate programming earlier than optimal. In the long term, this is annoying, but not a terribly big deal.

[CJ Gotcher]

Yes. You're missing the fact that many people will not be in a 500kcal surplus if they eat 3,000 calories. Some people require 4-5000kcal to gain one pound a week. Some rare people will require even more than that.

^this.

People also forget that basal metabolic rate and other processes will upregulate when you increase your intake (your body does not like change, 1 way or the other). Those formulas are estimates at best. TDEE shifts aren't just likely over the course of a diet: they're inevitable.

[Tom Narvaez]

OP,

I don't think anyone is still recommending gaining more than 1lbs/wk to anyone but rank novices. More than 1lbs/wk for a true, rank novice is appropriate because they accruing more than just muscle tissue initially. However, past the novice phase, and perhaps early intermediate stage, I don't think anyone is really recommending gaining even one pound per week.

Feels like we're deconstructing a straw man here.

[Murelli]

The best couse is not to estimate your TDEE and work from there. The best one is to track you weight and everything you eat and drink over two weeks. Then you will have found an average kcal and its effect on your weight, so you can adjust from there, first by using the appropriate macro ratio and then by in/decreasing carb/fat intake.

As already said, TDEE are rough calculations that don't work for everyone.

[dhalli]

This depends on your age, current body fat percentage, athletic background, and training advancement.

Novices can gain muscle at a faster rate than advanced lifters.
Young athletes can gain at a faster rate than geezers.
The lean will do better on a bulk than the already-fat.
My personal experience is that prior athletes (new to strength but 'generally athletic' and aerobically fit) gain muscle quicker than the skinny-fat/totally sedentary.

If you're a athletic, lean, underweight, novice 20-year old, you can productively process a lot of food towards gaining muscle mass and should do so. If you're a 40 year old, sedentary, skinny-fat guy, you should keep weight gain to a slow, steady increase since excessive weight gain will lead to disproportionate fat gain in this population. If you play it conservative and don't eat enough to sustain your novice progression effectively, you'll have to shift to intermediate programming earlier than optimal. In the long term, this is annoying, but not a terribly big deal.

The bold part- this was me, though not very sedentary when I began SS. I went from under 180 to 215ish by the time I switched to TM, up to 225 for a bit. I also went from being pretty paleo/low-carb, to eating a lot more carbs, and eating a lot more in general, 'specially through my sticking points (which were often). I was not conservative withe the calories, I slept like shit, and I put on some serious belly. But at least that fat, sweaty me was squatting 430 for a double.

Near the end, even at 225lb @ 5'11, I was really only averaging 3200 cals/day unless I was eating my way through a sticking point, or ice cream was on sale.

Now I'm down to 205lb, still above 15%bf, have had shitty training for the past few months, trying to keep my diet on point, and holding on to squatting 405 for a double.

[brkriete]

I agree more with what Jordan stated in his "to be a beast" article:

"Instead of jumping the gun and adjusting calories by 500kCal+ increments I prefer a much more gradual approach along the lines of 10-30g of carbohydrates and 4-10g of fat."

I also think 0.5lb of muscle per week is a gross over estimation. 26lb of muscle in one year, every year? Considering muscle is ~75% water imagine what 10 litres of water look likes volume-wise & then imagine that volume spread across your physique after just one year, on top of the fat/ additional lbm you've acquired that year.

Crazy.

Where did anyone say "every year"?

Crazy indeed.

[Satch12879]

OP,

I don't think anyone is still recommending gaining more than 1lbs/wk to anyone but rank novices. More than 1lbs/wk for a true, rank novice is appropriate because they accruing more than just muscle tissue initially. However, past the novice phase, and perhaps early intermediate stage, I don't think anyone is really recommending gaining even one pound per week.

Feels like we're deconstructing a straw man here.

Actually, Renaissance Periodization's book and diet templates do. For trainees over 200 lbs, the pace they recommend is between 1 to 2 lbs per week of weight gain per stage of the dieting to put on weight. For under 200 lbs it's between 0.5 and 1.5 lbs per week.

They also recommend that you don't do this for more than 3 months at a clip and that you incorporate periods of stabilization to re-establish your set point once you're done.

Is by you don't think anyone is recommending this, do you mean in general or just around here?

[Tom Narvaez]

I meant just around here. I haven't read true material you're talking about but are those recommendations couched by "supplement" use? Gaining ~0.5% of BW per two weeks of bulking isn't a crazy recommendation based on the literature if you're looking to maximize LBM acquisition during that time period. 1-2lbs per week seems too fast based on my understanding of the literature but things may be different if that three month period is occurring during a period of higher doses.

[Satch12879]

I meant just around here. I haven't read true material you're talking about but are those recommendations couched by "supplement" use? Gaining ~0.5% of BW per two weeks of bulking isn't a crazy recommendation based on the literature if you're looking to maximize LBM acquisition during that time period. 1-2lbs per week seems too fast based on my understanding of the literature but things may be different if that three month period is occurring during a period of higher doses.

No, no "supplements." High protein, moderately high carbohydrates, fat quantity manipulated to affect the caloric balance. Total calories per day vary pending your workout load. Nutrient timing is a thing.

[DieselBro]

Any recomendations for a somewhat fat, 46 year old with Type 2 diabetes?

6'4" 260 lbs. I am being cautious with my weight jumps, and trying to neither lose nor gain weight, unless I stall out. Just started the novice progression with my son, after fucking around and not knowing what I was doing in the gym for a year on a bro split.