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Caloric surplus: absolute vs relative

IronLion2

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Nov 10, 2017
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This is a concept i've wondered/studied for a few years now in the context of bodybuilding. If you've ever taken a nutrition class or been in the game long enough you know you're body composition changes in both absolute and relative terms. Meaning the total amount of macro's you take in during a period but also the relative change during a set amount of time.

When I started to become serious and do more research I noticed elite level body builders don't eat that much and are very methodical about their macros and total caloric intake, that's surprising to most as the media would lead you to believe all mass monsters eat MASSIVE amounts of food to gain and hold that size but this is simply not true for everyone (there are exceptions of course.) We know that when dieting down it's best to do it slow and use relative changes to hold size, this is hardly debated. But when we're talking about gaining size and being in a surplus there's debate.

Some of the larger and more upcoming athletes in the sport like Regan Grimes, Nick Walker, and Derek Lunsford are very precise in their caloric intake measuring everything out in exact grams. In my mind that allows for slow accumulation of calories over time. All of them are much larger than you would expect for how much they eat.

Others like Dusty, Phil Viz, the late Matt Porter (RIP) were believers that when growing you need big jumps, they all stated the jumps should be done in stages but were much less gradual.

What's your experience and belief? I've never really done well calculated and gradual increases, i've never wanted to be that OCD about my food but if it's going to work i'm all for it.
 
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The only little thing I can add it that while you are what you eat, and you are also what you absorb

The pros have the absorption part dialed in pretty well; look at bboy, he knows exactly what foods do what to him, and he adds and subtracts what he needs to

You need more food to put on the initial size, but holding onto it after some time requires less calories...that's just been my experience and the experience of some others that I've followed over the years
 
John Meadows is another good example. I'm amazed he maintains that size and condition on how little he eats.
 
John Meadows is another good example. I'm amazed he maintains that size and condition on how little he eats.

I almost brought him up, there's no doubt training age and muscle fiber development play a vital role in how you diet up or down.

I also realize the guys I mentioned who diet up slower seem to be younger and more of the freak factor than those who do more pulsitle surplus.
 
Based on my experience, I believe that even your bigger guys who track everything down to the gram - Grimes, Lunsford, etc. - are probably also having cheat meals they don't track in their offseason.

I believe that to be a true 220lbs. at single digit body fat, most guys are going to need cheat meals to get there. The amount of purely clean food it takes to get there for most is very high, and eating the same purely clean bodybuilding staples all the time - rice, chicken, etc. - deprives you of fats and whatnot that help you grow. Particularly for guys with fast metabolisms, you need those cheat meal calorie bombs to keep your surplus moving along.

Regarding growing in a moderate surplus or making a big jump, both work. I've done the slow, controlled surplus that slowly moves up by the week, and I'm currently doing the big jump method. I will say that my weight is already at my previous offseason high just 5 weeks into breaking my diet so I do think this will work better over the course of a few months. I don't plan to make more massive calorie jumps unless needed, but it's put me in the perfect position to jump 10-20lbs. over my previous offseason high. But if you're not chasing a big size gain and want to look good, the slow, controlled method will definitely keep you shredded for longer.

I know Dante is a believer in the big jump method for guys who really want to push size and reading his thoughts on it is partially why I went for it this time - https://www.professionalmuscle.com/...ve-stuff-like-absolutely-love.html#post823975
 
Been thinking about this lately myself

For me personally, I just don't grow any muscle unless I take in a bigger calorie surplus. Maybe it works for the ones with good genetics (a smaller surplus) but for me it just doesn't seem to. I'm talking 500 or more above maintenance. Ofcourse and unfortunately fat gain is also part of the territory but I'll manage it by doing regular mini-diets from now on. I've been spinning my wheels for too long trying to stay as lean as possible.

Also, like danieltx already said, I'm pretty sure all of those guys who appear to be eating (too) little for the size they are, are adding in regular cheat meals that they're maybe just not counting or mentioning. Even with good BB'ing genetics, you can't just build muscle out of thin air.
 
I think there might be a lot of assumptions being made here that just aren't true. Just because you see the size of someone's meals doesn't mean you know anything about their total daily calories. Some people eat 4-5 bigger meals, some eat 7-8 smaller meals.

Cheat meals necessary for growth? Absolutely not, you can just increase the size of your meals. Pretty much everyone is weighing every gram if they are trying to maintain a bodyfat level. In the offseason I do several cheat meals per week (2-3 usually) but this is purely for the mental benefit, not for extra calories. If I needed extra calories to grow I would adjust the macros in my meals. If I wanted to gain fat while bulking I would increase macros more.

One of the problems with cheat meals is that they often have too many calories and they displace your next meal timing and reduce your total meals per day, this can slow the metabolism and can lead to undereating.

I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who competes once per year, the last thing I want is to get too fat between diets (I don't want to stay too lean either), coming off a show and reducing my dose to TRT (10mg/day for me), hanging onto my metabolism, muscle size, and staying relatively lean takes almost as precise dieting and macro control as precontest. A few months later, I may start some kind of mass gaining mode, during this time calories will increase but at this point, the hardest part will be eating enough calories to maximize growth, every meal will feel like too much food. Not because I'm eating so much at once necessarily but because the frequency of meals is high.

Even if I take time off the gym (I don't really), I would keep pushing 6 meals per day, that is the KEY to hanging onto muscle for me.
 
Oh out
I think there might be a lot of assumptions being made here that just aren't true. Just because you see the size of someone's meals doesn't mean you know anything about their total daily calories. Some people eat 4-5 bigger meals, some eat 7-8 smaller meals.

Cheat meals necessary for growth? Absolutely not, you can just increase the size of your meals. Pretty much everyone is weighing every gram if they are trying to maintain a bodyfat level. In the offseason I do several cheat meals per week (2-3 usually) but this is purely for the mental benefit, not for extra calories. If I needed extra calories to grow I would adjust the macros in my meals. If I wanted to gain fat while bulking I would increase macros more.

One of the problems with cheat meals is that they often have too many calories and they displace your next meal timing and reduce your total meals per day, this can slow the metabolism and can lead to undereating.

I'm speaking from the point of view of someone who competes once per year, the last thing I want is to get too fat between diets (I don't want to stay too lean either), coming off a show and reducing my dose to TRT (10mg/day for me), hanging onto my metabolism, muscle size, and staying relatively lean takes almost as precise dieting and macro control as precontest. A few months later, I may start some kind of mass gaining mode, during this time calories will increase but at this point, the hardest part will be eating enough calories to maximize growth, every meal will feel like too much food. Not because I'm eating so much at once necessarily but because the frequency of meals is high.

Even if I take time off the gym (I don't really), I would keep pushing 6 meals per day, that is the KEY to hanging onto muscle for me.
I'm on board with everything you said except the part where you claim missing meals will slow your metabolism, can we please kill that bro science. Only thing that multiple meals per day will help with is protein synthesis to a certain degree. 1 meal or 7 meals your metabolism is hardly affected.
 
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Oh out I'm on board with everything you said except the part where you claim missing meals will slow your metabolism, can we please kill that bro science. Only thing that multiple meals per day will help with is protein synthesis to a certain degree. 1 meal or 7 meals your metabolism is hardly affected.

for sure. eating one 3000 cal meal is gonna have the same effect as breaking that up into five 600 cal.
food energy doesnt break the laws of physics.
genetically, if yr prone to gaining weight naturally, then drugs and gym are gonna blow u up alot more than someone like me.
my brother's 6'2, 240. eats twice a day. say, a bagel in the am, drives around in his cruiser all day, eats dinner...thats it.
if i did that id be back to my 5'11 175 pound self in a few months.
 
these things can vary a lot person to person, mostly by how much tren you're taking
 
Oh out I'm on board with everything you said except the part where you claim missing meals will slow your metabolism, can we please kill that bro science. Only thing that multiple meals per day will help with is protein synthesis to a certain degree. 1 meal or 7 meals your metabolism is hardly affected.

The science is totally with you, so is the AMA, they don't believe in thyroid changes from diet. But metabolism changes are HUGE for me and so are measured thyroid changes from diet. That being said, I think you may have misunderstood me. The total amount of food I'm eating has a HUGE impact on my thyroid levels and the timing of that food is what allows me to eat that much. Most energy containing food is going to be digested in 2-3 hours, after that you are working off of food stores.

So how in the world could I eat 4500 calories in one sitting? How in the world would that not crash my metabolism while I was starving the rest of the day?

Now exactly what I was talking about is this, say you are on meal 5 (out of 6) and you pig out, then skip meal 6. For me, this would definitely reduce my total calories (unless that was a very fatty cheat meal). PUSHING TOTAL CALORIES in a way that doesn't make me fat is EVERYTHING to hanging onto size between cycles.

Put it this way, if I skip one meal on leg day, I am significantly more sore the next day.

Anyhow, this moot, calories and meal frequency obviously affect metabolism, I'm 98% sure I could google this and find research that supports it, even though the AMA denies it (they are wrong about so much).
 
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for sure. eating one 3000 cal meal is gonna have the same effect as breaking that up into five 600 cal.
food energy doesnt break the laws of physics.

lol, the body doesn't account for the laws of physics, in fact, if you really want to get technical, you have to apply quantum mechanics to the laws of physics to get them to apply to anything but a single point in time (that doesn't exist btw, everything is in flux).

If you eat 3000k calories in one sitting, you are going to store and/or not digest a large portion of it and you will be starving hours later and in gluconeogenesis.

I can't believe this is even being argued, it's like a rollback in bodybuilding science, denial of facts. Is this from the intermittent fasting craze causing this?
 
lol, the body doesn't account for the laws of physics, in fact, if you really want to get technical, you have to apply quantum mechanics to the laws of physics to get them to apply to anything but a single point in time (that doesn't exist btw, everything is in flux).

If you eat 3000k calories in one sitting, you are going to store and/or not digest a large portion of it and you will be starving hours later and in gluconeogenesis.

I can't believe this is even being argued, it's like a rollback in bodybuilding science, denial of facts. Is this from the intermittent fasting craze causing this?

Yeah the meal timing doesnt matter debate literally fails to bring in to consideration you have different energy systems that fuel differently. I'm all for simplifying so that we can focus on practical take aways, but eventually you dumb things down to the point youre missing the big picture. George Lockhart does a great job breaking things down in simple terms why this simply isnt true.


PS the adhd is running rampid lately, no thread has stayed on subject this month lol. Not hating as long as it leads to good info though.
 
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lol, the body doesn't account for the laws of physics, in fact, if you really want to get technical, you have to apply quantum mechanics to the laws of physics to get them to apply to anything but a single point in time (that doesn't exist btw, everything is in flux).

If you eat 3000k calories in one sitting, you are going to store and/or not digest a large portion of it and you will be starving hours later and in gluconeogenesis.

I can't believe this is even being argued, it's like a rollback in bodybuilding science, denial of facts. Is this from the intermittent fasting craze causing this?
I will let you believe what you want, but please at least know that gluconeogenisis is DEMAND DRIVEN.
 
I think we make everything a much bigger deal then it is.years ago if you mentioned fasted I would tell you it’s stupid and you’ll shrink. Keto is absolutely retarded. And you have to eat every 2 hours: when realistically I matured and tried some of these things and really you can make progress many different way implementing different strategies especially on anabolics.

If your trying to be the best in the world then yes your gonna want to be methodical with every detail. Weighing out your meals. Eating optimal foods every 2-3 hours and keeping protein synthesis high and digestion the best it can be but for most us we don’t have the drive to even wanna attempt to be the best in the world. That means not having a cheat meal because a clean meal will be more productive. Missing meals aren’t gonna hurt you. But there not gonna make you better. And when competing at a high level. You have guys who arnt slipping up
 
I will let you believe what you want, but please at least know that gluconeogenisis is DEMAND DRIVEN.

I think this can be true but and for most of us is, but not in an absolute sense. i've seen enough to make me believe an asinine supply of protein would in fact create an environment in which GNG would be prevalent even in the presence of blood glucose.
 
I think this can be true but and for most of us is, but not in an absolute sense. i've seen enough to make me believe an asinine supply of protein would in fact create an environment in which GNG would be prevalent even in the presence of blood glucose.

and not necessarily bad either considering what would happen to the excess protein if it wasn't burned for energy. That matter goes somewhere, added to fat stores. Hopefully demands on the body are great enough that it doesn't get stored.
 
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