Bench stuck at 200

[dyinglight]

Finding what your TDEE is to begin with is next to impossible.

Not really, if you don't mind looking at averages. IF you track all calories (most people underestimate caloric intake because they forget to log food, even when they want to and are trained to log all their food intake. For example, several studies showed trained nurses instructed to daily record their total intake failed to do so properly and almost always under-evaluated their intake, simply by being distracted at some point or other and failing to record something).

Anyway, if you do record your caloric intake, and your daily weight, you can get rather precise values. For example, take the 7-day average weight at the end of a month, and substract the 7 day average from the previous end of month, and divide the difference by the number of days in that month. Then multiply that number by 3500, and that's a very accurate description of your daily deficit or surplus. If you then substract this number from your average caloric intake (the whole calories eaten in the month divided by the number of days in the month), then remove the surplus or add the deficit, and this number is your average TDEE over the month. You can therefore calculate your homeostasis baseline. Although you don't want to be in homeostasis, so just keep your daily intake above the baseline.

[RMiller1991]

Not really, if you don't mind looking at averages. IF you track all calories (most people underestimate caloric intake because they forget to log food, even when they want to and are trained to log all their food intake. For example, several studies showed trained nurses instructed to daily record their total intake failed to do so properly and almost always under-evaluated their intake, simply by being distracted at some point or other and failing to record something).

Anyway, if you do record your caloric intake, and your daily weight, you can get rather precise values. For example, take the 7-day average weight at the end of a month, and substract the 7 day average from the previous end of month, and divide the difference by the number of days in that month. Then multiply that number by 3500, and that's a very accurate description of your daily deficit or surplus. If you then substract this number from your average caloric intake (the whole calories eaten in the month divided by the number of days in the month), then remove the surplus or add the deficit, and this number is your average TDEE over the month. You can therefore calculate your homeostasis baseline. Although you don't want to be in homeostasis, so just keep your daily intake above the baseline.

Sounds like way more work than adding an extra glass of milk at every meal for an easy 800+ calories and 45ish g protein.

[SouthernLifter]

Sleep is good, diet is solid for the most part, a little inconsistent but still hitting ~200g protein on average, gaining weight each week. Technique is inconsistent, and I think that’s my hurdle. Struggling to keep everything tight and shoulders back.

You need more protein. Over 250 g.

[eriwin]

…Last Monday, I hit 3 sets of 5 on my Bench at 199.
…
On Friday, I increased to 200 and ended up having to do 3*3*3*2*2 to get my 15 reps.

Just out of curiosity - do you think you would have cleared 5,5,5 @ 199 on friday? I seriously doubt that.

Perhaps you could take a look at p.152 in the grey book (4-day TM) and apply that for a while if you can not/will not do what you need to recover from NLP? That ought to be less stressful, thus easier to recover from?