I recently lost 56lbs through dieting and training and now ive decided i would like to gain some muscle. Ive been increasing calories gradually week by week to where i feel like im eating quite a lot. I gained 4lbs in the first 2 weeks but since then i havnt really gained any weight or maybe like half a pound in 5 weeks. Ive started seriously tracking how much im lifting so i can try and increase my weights or reps and im definitely getting stronger each week but do you think i should carry on as i am or should i increase calories more to see better gains. Im fairly new to lifting too i only started october last year. Current macros are c424 f78 p175 and i stick as closely as i can to them most of the time

If the weight you are gaining is muscle I would not change anything. If you are not gaining any fat, keep doing what you are doing. If you want to gain both muscle and fat then you can increase calories, but I like to only gain muscle so I would not recommend that.

Im just concerned that i might be restricting muscle growth by not eating enough. If im not really gaining any weight then surely im not gaining much muscle but i am getting stronger which is the confusing part. I do a physical job and a loy of walking so maybe my maintenance calories are just a lot higher than i thought

Yeah you might be right. Problem is you could be losing fat and gaining muscle at the same time, meaning your total weight would be unlikely to change. Muscle does not equal strenght and strenght does not equal muscle in every case. One can get stronger without gaining muscle because strenght is stimulated mostly by the central nervous system, muscle is stimulated by work load in the gym.

You could be right, your maintance can be higher than you think if you are very active.

To sum up I think you need to use the mirror and maybe even a fat calliper to see what you are actually changing about your body.

Yeah youre probably right maybe ill stick to this for a while and see what happens and maybe take some pictures too so i can see if my body composition is changing

I agree with William, you should check out your BF% and see what that is doing to get a better idea of whether or not you are gaining muscle while losing fat, or if you are just staying stagnant.

The more you weigh, the more food you need, so it's possible that after that first period where you gained 4 pounds, that your body quickly adjusted to those excess calories and now needs a bit more to keep growing.

Generally it's the same as cutting.. if you hit a plateau in weight loss, you would reduce your calorie intake. Whereas here, while bulking, when you hit a plateau you need to increase the intake.