Picture isn't working for me.

But anyways, I think you need to up your calories. Add in some more carbs. Unless you are cutting, 1900 calories is very little.

Matthew,

I know I have responded to a similar post you had in the past in this regard. The only advice and info I can give you are:

1) Avoid IIFYM. It should stand for "It Is Fucking Your Metabolism". IIFYM assumes all calories are the same. From an energy level (calorie) standpoint they are but METABOLICALLY (how your body processes and uses them) they are not. The easiest way to describe IIFYM is Garbage-in-Garbage-out. Most of the people who practice this and parade it online are using drugs - regardless of their claims. The bottom line is the quality of your appearance on the outside is 100% dependent on the food you put inside. Period.

2) Hack squats are not bad for you if done properly. Too many people use too much weight and bounce at the bottom of the exercise. This can potentially destroy your knees and hips. If you do them in a controlled and full range of motion manner, they are perfectly safe. I had a friend who after a serious car accident could not barbell squat anymore. He built tree trunk thighs doing hack squats and lunges. There are alternatives to squatting and the only way to stimulate growth for all muscles is doing the big compound lifts - squatting, pressing, deadlifting. The resulting surge in hormones as well as the coordinated use of multiple muscle groups stimulate growth in the whole body. Like they say, "If you want big arms, squat."

3) What vegetable oil are you eating? Outside of olive oil, coconut oil, walnut oil, or avocado oil, vegetable oils are trash. They are too high in Omega 6 fatty acids. Corn, soybeans, safflower, sunflower, and canola oils are all un-natural and require extensive processing to create the oils. Avoid these and use only olive, coconut, or avocado oils.

4) How long have you been doing this same routine? It looks exactly the same as one of your previous posts. The key to muscle growth and fat burn is variety and intensity. Intensity can be achieved with either high volume and low rest periods or heavy weights. Which one you use depends on your muscle fiber make-up. I would assume you are probably more red muscle/slow twitch dominant like me and Scott which means you need more volume and intensity to make significant changes to your physique. Super sets, drop sets, giant sets, etc along with inter-set rest intervals of 30-45 seconds will be required. I would consider changing your routine either to antagonistic muscle groups like chest/back, biceps/triceps, quads/hams or go to full body workouts via Push/Pull or Push/Pull/Legs.

5) You need to remember that training for strength is different than training for size. You need to determine which goal you are after and train accordingly. If you want to have a strong bench, squat, overhead press, etc and aren't really concerned with size and leaness, you need to bump up your calories dramatically and train with low reps and heavy weights. Things like 5x5's and 5,3,3,1's etc. Also, 2000 calories is no way near enough to support strength training. You would need to be in the 2700- 3000 calorie range minimum and adjust accordingly based on your strength and recovery levels.

6) Carb cycling is best reserved for when your goal is getting as lean as possible while maintaining the muscle mass you have already built. Intermittent Fasting as well is an excellent eating protocol in this regard. You can't have both - be big and strong with low body fat - when you are natural. Only drugs give you both but there is a price to pay which apparently you are wisely not willing to bear :-)

John

I'm not an expert on nutrition but I will say this: IIFYM has been a really abused term for people who simply wanna gorge on cheesburgers. (An example)

It's like someone said, "IIFYM should actually be banned and people should look towards Flexible dieting."
Why?
Because like @jmboiardi said, most practitioners of IIFYM use the flexible protocols of Calories In vs Calories out and translate it into Garbage-in-Garbage-out. Flexible dieting on the other hand allows you to be flexible with your food choices when you WANT to. When you concentrate on hitting your daily Calorie Goals AND your daily MACROS, you'll find that you'll end up choosing food items which are a part of a "clean" diet. That being said, flexible dieting protocols actually allow you enjoy a moderated night out with your family or friends and eat that ocassional cheeseburger if you WANT to, provided you account them in your daily intake.

When you set up your diet, do it not just for results but also for sustainability. You'll end up with enjoying your food (yes... even "Clean" foods) without having to go in for "cheat meals" (read: binge eating on a weekend and "feeling bad" about it on Monday). You'll have guidelines for "carb refeeding" to refuel yourself. Why stick to a diet which doesn't allow you room to enjoy time out with your pals? Training is a part of your life, don't make it your life :)

It'll give you slow result but a slow & steady progress is sustainable. Quick fixes and fad diets are not!

All what i can say that IIFYM only work with steroid abuser because such a diet will leave your energy lvl like shit and will deprive your body from high valuable nutrients in wholesome food and trust me i have tried both(garbage food and clean food ) there is no alternative for proper nutrition .Try to eliminate all processed food just for month and monitor how u feel ...iam sure u will not back again to that unhealthy garbage ......are u sure that 8 oz of chicken only contain 50 gm protein😅😅😅?

Everyone has given you some awesome in-depth answers which should help you on your way.

The one thing I wanted to say in regards to your meal plan is to increase your carbs first and foremost. When you are looking to gain weight, carbs are going to be your main source of energy and fuel.

Now you don't need to go crazy with them, but 120g, in my opinion, isn't enough. Some people are carb sensitive, but you can probably afford to eat more than you are currently eating without worrying about putting on fat.

Remember, excess calories makes you fat, not one macronutrient by itself, and if you are eating the right carbs (wholegrain, fruits and vegetables), then you should be fine.

Jordan

The others already gave great answers but let me go into some of your issues and give you my opinion on this.

I am completely agreeing here with John (@jmboiardi), since there are some flaws in your program / and thinking that you might not be aware of, due to wrong knowledge or being new to it :)

i did a quick calculation for you based on the measurements found in your profile and in this post here:

(it's converted into metric measures)

Now let me explain to you what this means:

1. For your height and age you are quite "lightweight"
2. The 1968,50 calories you are eating at the moment are way too low and a cutting plan. With working out 3-5 times a week your "maintain" level of calories would already be 2677 calories, just to hold your weight.
3. When you look at the "Steady Cut" this would be a good cut for a Bodybuilder or Athlete and even that one is still 300 calories above what you eat right now. And again this would be what you'd need to eat for "cutting" not for maintaining nor gaining.
4. I took a goal for you and went with the smallest goal of gaining on 0,25 Kilo per week (0,5 lbs), which leads to the final intake of 3177,56 calories.
5. Just so you understand this would be the numbers for the "clean bulk" you wanted to go on.

To be honest the only reason why you even "maintain" your current weight with these little calories is only to contribute to your metabolism, which will slow down extremely, and shut off other things in order to maintain, and will store as much as it can in little reserves in the body. Meaning fat and water retension etc.

Which is also mainly the reason that you simply don't change at all for over 8 month already.

To quote you here: "I want to reach 225 eventually but my bench just wont go up." - As John already said, it won't if your body doesn't get the energy nor has the own bodyweight to support such a higher weight, there will be no strength gains.

Think of it that way.. your body has an inbuild sensor and figures that a 72 kilo person can not bench 400 kilo without falling apart, when not having build enough own weight to counter what weight you are trying to move there, plus not having enough musclemass actually executing the movement of such weight.

"...I current struggle to figure out if I want to "bulk" or if I should cut..." - defenitally not cut when you want to become stronger. When you are cutting your Rep range and weight lifting capacities will go down accordingly. And normally you rather lift weights while cutting to 'maintain' your current muscles.

There are several different types of training and you will need to decide what you want to do. There are times where you'll rather be training for strength (lower rep range with higher weights - like for instance a 5repsx5sets) to train specifically your nervous system to get used to higher weights. And then you will have times where you do hypertrophy (for instance 8-12 rep range with 4-5 sets) to build more visual muscles, and you will also need "deload" phases where you only operate with 60-75% of what you normally use, to allow your body to recover, whilst keeping the muscles still activated.

A good workout plan cycles though all these 3 criteria. And so it might be time for you to take a complete turn, up your calories and train for strength for a while. And also might want to lower your cardio for that time.

I did the homework for you, the numbers are all up there ;)

@Italianlifter- I know a lot of people are throwing a lot around and that's great, it's the exact type of information you need. At the same time, what does it all mean? I'm actually in the exact same boat as you, I noticed a lot of fluctuation in my appearance and "fat" levels, I stayed stagnate with my lifts, my size. I was eating well but I kept going between "bulk" and "cut" unsure of what I wanted because neither seemed to work. From that, here's what I learned.

1.) I needed to consume more food. I started out getting in shape by loosing a lot of weight that creeped on over the years and after a back injury (L5S1 herniated disc) that prevented me from lifting, because of this I had been used to consuming less food, so when I would "increase" my overall calories, it was still too low. Like you, I wasn't going over 2000 calories a day which I thought fine since I was likely maintaining on less than 1600. This was wrong, I needed to really create a calorie surplus and get my body above what my maintenance levels should be. I did this slowly though, I didn't want to just pack on a lot of fat so I brought it up slowly and tried reverse dieting. This seems to have worked.

2.) I needed to change my plan. The "Kill a muscle once a week" routine just didn't work for me. Now I just critically wound it twice a week. Upping my frequency allowed me to maintain or increase volume and also cause two good periods for growth. I've even done short bursts of overreaching by doing a 6 day split where each body part gets hit 3 times. But those are only for 1-2 week periods and are accompanied by increased food consumption.

3.) Do you have a lifting partner? It’s a lot easier to break pleataus with a partner there to help you get forced rep in and partials and negatives.

4.) To prevent the fluctuations in appearing fat and then lean, similar to what you described in body fat analysis, I have made sure I consume copious amounts of water. Now, this is a slight over exaggeration, but I did markedly increase my water consumption and not only does it make my back feel better, but I don't have the swing in appearance that I used to.

5.) I was also with you in regards to back problems and squatting, but I have focused on proper form and keeping the weight manageable. With that said, split squats, sissy squats, lunge squats, box step-ups and of course leg presses offer enough variety that I don't have to do anything else.

6.) IIFYM is not what people make it out to be on either side of the spectrum. It's not go and eat junk food every day and you're cool if you keep your macros in check. It's, if you're out with your family and you go to ChickFilA, find an option that fits your macros and don't be the jerk who can't eat. Enjoy life from time to time and just make sure you're hitting your daily macros and don't sweat the small stuff. It's really impossible to hit your daily fiber numbers if all your'e doing is going to McDonalds and eating ice cream, so those people aren't actually fitting their macros anyway. If this way of eating is interesting to you, check out what Layne Norton has to say on "flexible dieting" and IIFYM. It's not my style personally but I think if done right it can work like any other thing.

Good luck!

Hey again there :) no problem, anytime.

About your new questions: nobody says you need to amp up right into the 3 thousand. Thea beauty of it is: it's your body. And you completely control what goes into it. (unless you eat all the preprocessed foods :P) you can just go step by step . Advised is normally steps of 250 calories. Do this about 2-4 weeks. and then go higher or stay at it.

To say (or rather repeat) what we all said above, often people don#t even know they eat too little. The metabolism is really really good at storing things when it thinks it is in "starvation" mode. This can be already when you "thinK" you eat enough but actually you don't and your body is short of certain nutritions etc.

To gain lean mass you have to find and hit just this sweet spot where your body basically is loaded with all calories and macro-nutrients it needs, and then get a tiny bit over that (usually 250 more than the just described full maintain level) only then your body normally sees an incentive to even put on muscles.

You must understand, that your body's interest in building muscle mass is almost zero. It's high maintenance tissue, that requires your body to fuel and maintain it, and it tries to only put on what it needs (continous usage / training of the muscle) and also only if there is a surplus available, to heal and build even new structure on top of the existing one. Because the usage of nutrition for your inner orangs always comes first in your body's metabolism!

If needed (not enough food, not enough macro nutrients and vitamins / minerals etc) it will slow down your metabolsim and shut off functions that would use that energy. And also grab everything that is inserted (food) and make sure to mostly store it (fat layer / water retension etc) to have it available for the bad times. so you often will not obviously notice this process.

yes your grade of activity counts - i took as a base a normal desk job and 3-5 working out per week. which leads to the multiplication of your absolute motionless calories (BMR) by 1,55. if you'd have a hard physical job "and" would work out this could become a multiplicator up to 1,9 x your BMR:)

lowest multiplicator would be 1,25 x your BMR which would mean about 2300 calories, and only working out like very lightly.

just increase slowly and keep going until you see signifficant results and changes in strength and musclemass =)

and use good food. trying to get those calories from junk will not be enough for the body to see an inscentive to build =)

hope this helps!

Matthew,

No worries. I know it is not your intent. Don't make this any more complicated for yourself. Bodybuilder.com and shredded.com has a larger community that run the gambit from naturals to semi-naturals to anabolically assisted. This is why I like and use and post on only MS.com as it is all natural and has limited "bro-science".

On vegetable oils, you need to remember vegetables don't have oil naturally. Olives, coconuts, and avocados are fruits not vegetables - not all fruit is sweet and loaded with fructose. Corn and soy oils are used en-masse because they are the most subsidized crops in the U.S. so they can sell all their by-products (oils, sugars, emulsifiers, fillers, etc) to big food companies at much lower prices than natural oils. This is why they are in all processed foods and their very presence defines a processed food. The whole anti-fat, no cholesterol nonsense that I have written about here many times fuels the sale of these oils because they have no cholesterol. Just like proteins, there are essential fats. The 2 essential fats are Omega 3 and Omega 6. The proper ratio of these for optimal health is 1:1 O3 to O6 or no more than 1:4 O3 to O6. The U.S diet has a ratio of 1:40 O3 to O6. Omega 6 is pro-inflammatory and necessary for your immune response. Too much Omega 6 causes constant inflammation which leads to chronic disease. Omega 3 is anti-inflammatory. The biggest source of all this Omega 6 are these heavily processed, un-natural vegetable oils.

As for point #6, I meant you can't be huge and lean at the same time. Huge is a relative term but Scott is big but not huge. He has a natural, well-balanced physique that can only be obtained naturally. If you want to look large and lean like a pro-bodybuilder, you need anabolic assistance. The easiest way to detect users of anabolics and other PED's is simple. The largest concentration of androgen receptors in males is in the shoulders, traps, and upper chest. I call it the "Androgen Ring". Physiques with huge, round, cannon ball shoulders, huge thick upper chests, and large traps sticking up behind their head are using anabolics. The body grows evenly when it produces its own testosterone. When you start giving it exogenous sources 100s of times higher than what your body produces naturally, your physique becomes unbalanced and the "Androgen Ring" is very pronounced. Another tell-tale sign is extreme leaness and vascularity COMBINED with large muscular size and body weight. These do not happen together in natural physiques. Semi-naturals use anabolics to get lean, vascular, and maintain their size or put on a small amount of size. Since they don't use anabolics regularly, they are referred to as "semi-natural." They will purport themselves as being 100% natural but they are not.

The bottom line is the majority of the people you see in the media, in Hollywood, online, etc have or are using drugs in some way/shape/form to get their physiques. It is a sad reality. There are still 100% natural people out their like Scott and the other people he associates with like Hybrid Physiques, Anabolic Aliens, etc that have made a life choice not to use these substances. I recommend that if you as well believe in this lifestyle to get your lifting and nutritional advice from this site only.

John