Eating Through the Sticking Points

[Subsistence]

Thanks for clearing that up for me Matt. I was having this internal struggle inside and now I can rest assured that I am not ruining myself (haha).

however I have been playing around with my calories and whatnot and for me even when i eat ~ 3,000-3,250 calories my gains don't really feel substantially greater. Is this because I am not a "novice"? honestly i've only been lifting for about 3.5 months or so and i'm not all that strong on my lifts. Just to give a little background I've been living off a ~ 1,800 calories a day and although my strength isn't skyrocketing I am gradually and steadily progressing. However even when I do add those extra 1000-1,500 calories the rate of progress does not increase at all. even my recovery doesn't quicken much. Being a poor college student and all I usually subside on Milk, chicken, peanut butter, occasionally rice, and all the vegetables i can scrounge up from time to time. The increase in calories usually come from something like milk. Maybe there isn't much of a difference between 1800 and 3000-3,500 for me? or am i just eating the wrong foods? Thoughts?

Eat like that until you stop progressing and see if extra food gets the lifts going up again.

[Matt Reynolds]

Follow-up question?



Is this after a 24-hour weigh-in? If not, how far below weight are you 24 hours before a competition? I thought I read in your log at one point that you were well below weight for next week's meet, so you could just gain up to the meet. Is that still the case? That would be cool. Of course, I would have to be competitive in the next weight class, but I do pretty well at 181 for now.

Yes, I compete in federations with a 24 hour weigh-in, though I am competing at Rip's this weekend with a 2 hour weigh-in. I woke up this morning at 283.4, well over the 275 I'm supposed to be at the meet. Unfortunately for me it seems that the more wholesome food I eat and mil I drink and when I take supplements, like creatine on a very regular basis, like when approaching a meet, my body gets bigger and bigger (and visibly leaner) and I really struggle to hold my weight down. I pretty much have to drop carbs at this point to lose bodyweight.

And its certainly outside of the scope of this article or discussion, but I have cut from 264 to 242 in 24 hours and put it all back on for a powerlifting competition. I've also dropped from 259 to 231 for a professional strongman contest in 24 hours (and put it back on) - but I couldn't hold onto the hydration when I put it back on, and ended up cramping the entire second half of the contest and pretty much tanking the show.

[Squat1]

So for the average lifter the drugs make little difference. Hence, the key to becoming big and strong is to get close to about 4 pounds / inch height.

[Squat1]

Rip said in an earlier post that Food is cheaper than drugs, and works about 30x better for novice/intermediate lifters',
Can anyone please explain why this is?
I am asking this because I am thinking of upping my bodyweight over 110kg and the last thing I want is to get too fat.

[Matt Reynolds]

Rip said in an earlier post that Food is cheaper than drugs, and works about 30x better for novice/intermediate lifters',
Can anyone please explain why this is?
I am asking this because I am thinking of upping my bodyweight over 110kg and the last thing I want is to get too fat.

If the "last thing you want is to get too fat" then it should be relatively apparent that the first thing you want isn't to get too strong. The point of the article is that getting strong requires a special mindset and the reality is, that the vast vast majority of people do not, and will not ever have that mindset.

When all I wanted to do is get strong, I didn't care if I got too fat or too unhealthy or if I turned purple or got hemmorhoids or erectile disfunction or sleep apnea or couldn't fit into my clothes or ate dog food or dog crap or whatever. That's the point. You can't live your life like that forever, but when you are young and skinny and want to get strong, then living like this for a year or so won't hurt anything and my PRs DOUBLED during this time.

[Squat1]

Questions for experienced lifters
How does an individual go about determining their maximum bodyweight when bulking?
Do you look at the rates of the increase in the lifts in comparison to bodyweight increases?
Do you increase bodyweight until the deadlift stalls?

[Alberto Velazquez]

Questions for experienced lifters
How does an individual go about determining their maximum bodyweight when bulking?
Do you look at the rates of the increase in the lifts in comparison to bodyweight increases?
Do you increase bodyweight until the deadlift stalls?

You are having a hard time comprehending what Matt is saying.

[stejor]

Virtually every guy from the beginning of this article who told stories about the ridiculous amount of food he ate to gain weight, had, after accomplishing that goal, cut back down to 10% bodyfat or lower, and usually in less than 3 months. Only now, the lifters are 240 pounds with single digit bodyfat instead of 160 pounds with single digit bodyfat. Cutting the bodyfat is easy with the metabolic increase gained from 60 additional pounds of muscle.

Can someone explain how exactly these lifters are cutting down to single digit bodyfat so easily after being on what amounts to an insane bulking diet? I've had some success with 'eating through sticking points', but that fat doesn't seem to come off that easily after that. Fairly strict paleo seems to work for losing weight, but my strength numbers take a huge hit whenever I attempt it. In my limited experience, the standard bulking/cutting process seems to require that clean lifters not get too far off their desired BF percentage during the bulking phase, or they end up in an endless cycle of gain muscle (with lots of fat) and then lose fat (with lots of muscle). It does seem to produce decent results over the long term, but I'm not sure it's any better than a more moderate approach.

Also, are those numbers that Reynolds cites hyperbolic, or is it actually possible for a clean lifter to go from 160lbs at sub-10% BF to 240lbs at sub-10% BF in less than a year? I'm looking at the numbers that Rip cites for Zach in 'The Novice Effect', and it would take him 28 weeks to gain 80lbs of LBM, even if he was able to maintain his novice gaining rate for that long (which doesn't seem likely). He would also have gained 60lbs of fat during that time. To get back down to sub-10% BF, he would have to lose more than 2lbs/week for the rest of the year, without losing any LBM at all (which also doesn't seem likely). If anyone has actually done anything remotely like this, I would be very interested in hearing how they accomplished it.

[Draugfromthehills]

I'm really no expert on this, but I would have done it using a low carb diet, or a no carb diet. Low/no carbs = low/no insuline spikes = no fat storage. The good thing is that you don't have to starve. You can eat around 4.500 calories a day and still lose weight on a diet like that. My own experience say that you don't lose a lot of muscle either. My father is nearly as strong on low carb as he is on a normal diet. He is 6'4" and 300 pounds.

[mariawolters]

Can someone explain how exactly these lifters are cutting down to single digit bodyfat so easily after being on what amounts to an insane bulking diet?

Judging from Matt's earlier answers, mileage varies a lot between people, depending on age, metabolism, training, and lots of other factors.