# Should I lower my calories or stuck with it?



## Markyboy81 (Jan 27, 2012)

I'm 6ft 2 and around 80kg. Been training for around 10 years off and on but never really made that much progress. At the start of this year I decided that to grow I had to eat more, so with the help of my fitness pal, over the past 4 weeks I've been consistently consuming around 3-3500 net calories per day.

This has definitely been working and I've seen some good gains already. My weight has steadily been increasing and I've put on around 2-3 kg in that time. Now I know I won't have packed on that amount in muscle so some will be fat - in fact I'm pretty sure some is on my gut!

So the question is, should I stick to the number of calories, or should I cut down a bit, and if so will I still gain as much muscle?

Any help would be much appreciated!


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## jed (Nov 30, 2011)

depends with how happy you are to have a higher bodyfat. nothing wrong with adding a little bit around the gut so long as you cut properly after and you hold your stomach in whilst your out :thumbup1: the b!tches will never know


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## Markyboy81 (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks for the reply. I'm not too bothered about the extra fat at the moment - I suppose if I wasn't gaining any fat I'd wonder if I was consuming enough to gain muscle! It's such a fine line!


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## jed (Nov 30, 2011)

it is which is why most people do a bulk and cut rather than trying to lean gain. Done properly you will gain far more muscle mass on your bulk than you're going to lose whilst cutting. Personally I'd stick with it and only cut down for summer or if you get to the point where you can't wear a fitted shirt even whilst sucking your abs in


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## JimboSlice1436114820 (Jan 24, 2012)

If your overall goal is to add on big muscle then you have to be consuming more calories (a lot more than 3500 for some people) and gaining some body fat has to be expected when on a bulk.

Just make sure that these 3-3500 calories a day are clean and that should limit the amount of body fat you gain.


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## 2004mark (Oct 26, 2013)

JimboSlice said:


> Just make sure that these 3-3500 calories a day are clean and that should limit the amount of body fat you gain.


Not always the case. I was in pretty much the exact same position as the OP 14 months or so ago. Ate as clean as I could while bulking for 6 months consistently, I added 36 lbs. Although I thought I was staying relevantly lean it wasn't until I cut that I realised that 2/3rd's of it was fat (still, happy with 12lbs of lean weight though I suppose). This time I'm bulking again but on less calories (3k), and although my diet is relevantly clean I don't deny myself anything at all like I did last time, and so far it's going better.

OP I take a calliper reading on my stomach as well pictures to monitor progress which works well to keeping the bf in check. I was far to obsessed with seeing the scales go up every week and only now realise my calories were too high. Wasn't the end of the world mind... If you're like me (which sounds like you are) most of it should come off pretty quick. I just feel uncomfortable with my bf is in the high teens.


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## dtlv (Jul 24, 2009)

Well to keep growing you need to keep adding calories... but since you have gained possibly a little more fat so far than you needed to, simply keep kcals static for a while as you grow, and from the point at which you find you need to increase them again do so more gradually in smaller increments.


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## Superhorse (May 29, 2011)

Assuming you aren't on AAS and since you have been training for 10 years you are probably looking at 1lb of muscle a month so any raise above that (post initial water/glycogen movement) is fat. Tweak calories to get relatively close to that and you are in the right ballpark.


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## Markyboy81 (Jan 27, 2012)

Thanks for all the good advice guys. Superhorse you're totally right, any more than a pound gained in a month is most likely not muscle. The problem with weighing myself is that my weight seems to fluctuate on a daily basis. I agree that measuring body fat another way would be good but I'm not totally clear on how to do this properly so I'll do a bit of research. I'll carry on with what I'm doing at the moment but if I get too lardy I'll think about tweaking the diet. However I'm reluctant to do anything to it at the moment as I've seen better gains in the last few months than I ever have in the 10 years of training before!


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