Looks like a shit ton of water if anything
I’m assuming you mean the pic of me bulked( slide 4) looks like a lot of water right ? I felt the same because you can see abs and when I’m actually in the gym, I looked way different because I still had striations in my delts and chest. But I’m not kidding myself, I was fat too.
So going forward you plan on gaining roughly the same amount of fluff every bulk?
Sorry for the long answer. But long story short it depends. I have a few things I use to guide me on when to continue on and when to pull back.
Shorter answer: I will get fluffy again like this if it seems to suit me and I keep gaining size and strength in a way that seems to be worth it and maintain the fast rate of progress I’ve had
But I’ve also noticed I grow much much much faster after a cut when I’m lean. Which is the whole reason I cut- to get big.
i have a systemic way that I go about it, so if the feedback I get from my data shows and seems to indicate that I’m still growing efficiently, then I will push a bulk to some degree.
However with this recent mass phase I just finished ( this was the 3rd I just finished in 2 years 7 months of starting) I noticed that keeping it shorter worked best because there becomes a point where I need to increase calories through carbohydrates every 3-4 weeks. The closer to the end I get, starting around 3 months in, I find I need to make more frequent calorie increases so that my weight gain doesn’t stall.
It’s the weirdest thing because month 1-3 of massing, I’ll be gaining 2.2lb per week on the scale week after week on 4700 calories. Then there comes a point very suddenly when actually no weight gain will happen.
When I compare my second mass phase to my third and most recent one, the approach I took and yield I got from my third worked much better.
In my second mass phase when I was newer (170-202lb January 2023-August 1st 2023) I held on to
This same level of calories and over the course of like 4 more months gained essentially 1-5lb maximum. this second mass phase seemed by every metric to be less productive than the most recent mass phase which my my third.
During the third, whenever rate of weight gain stalled( defined by 10 days going by without a record high weigh in of 1.5lb or greater ), I’d add another 150g carbs per day for an additional 600 calories. I had to make about 5 of these adjustments total and by the final 3 weeks- it required that I had to use rapid insulin with each meal 1iu per 20g carbs to maintain a normal blood sugar and avtually assimilate the carbs to continue gaining weight. Water rentention came along with this of course.
*I allowed myself before hand a 3 week window, just long enough to see if this sketchy protocol was effective (using replacement doses of insulin with every single meal with my already high dose of Lantus ) I hit up to 111-130iu combined of rapid/basal insulin every day. *
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