Not to bring up the discussion that I know you've all heard a million times, but for the sake of this contest I'm not sure if I should be bulking or cutting. I know the contest is about strength, but looking at my opening pictures, you see the big gut I've got (I've always kinda considered myself to be "skinny fat.") I could do with putting on some more muscle as well, and that's been my primary goal since I started getting serious with working out. Going into Month 2, should I focus on cutting for the purposes of making a more noticeable transformation, or should I bulk?
hey @wolfboy,
well and here is the answer that prolly has been given a thousand times to the exact same question again :)
it all depends. You personally will have to decide wether to bulk, maintain or cut - and it all depends on your "current" as well as "future goals".
Whilst you can make strength and musclemass gains as a novice and absolute beginner for a little while .
Mostly in the first 1-2 month. After that the reserves in your body that can sustain being on a cut and still putting energy into building muscle mass run out of power and things slow down. The so called "novice gains" are in that case mostly just filling them up with orderly nutrition and waterstorage - now that they are being 'used' - and making them appear more clearly, visually. And a little bit of new muscle fibers.
Then there are the general Novice Gains, which last mostly for about half a year where you can add more weight in your exercises for almost every week of your workouts. But those also will slow down, and require you to have an orderly input of food. So eating at least 100-250 calories in a plus on workout days. You can easily eat just on mainteain level on the other days. Until you stop making progress and see you need to eat more.
You really need to decide wether you want to lean out or gain strength and muscle mass.
I think the biggest problem for people is that they don't know where they want to be in a year or two or more down the road.
They want to have it all at once and right now =)
See if you don't overeat in masses your body will lean out the more you train and even more so the more muscles you build. Every pound of lean muscles will require an additional 50 calories per day. So the stronger and more muscular your body becomes the more food it will require in order to pack on more mass, and the more it will use up when you feed it just in the right surplus. (see above)
But this requires consistancy in a) training and b) the food you eat. If you keep those 2 things steady and right, you'll lean out and your physique will change.
You can decide to first lean out (cut ) and then start a slow clean bulk (the mentioned 100-250 calories plus on workout days). Or you decide to do it right away and give your physique the time to simply change and lean out over time due to the new muscle mass.
But one important thing to mention.. neither of both (cut nor bulk) will help you in any way if you don't train the right way. A bulk is devastating when someone doesn't put enough intensity or volume into their workout and it all just goes as unused fuel into the fat storage, nor does a cut do any good if you workout too much - because you'll miss the energy to build up any strength beyond the initial few weeks of someone being new to exercises, or if you don't exercise enough on a cut you'll also mostly just end up looking "skinny fat" as the skin will become loose and flappy but the physique underneath doesn't change much (depending on how much overweight you have been befrore) and your body still doesn't really utilize the food you are putting in.
Basically you can eat on maintain-level for a longer time. Especially wheny ou just started out, and give your body the chance to change on it's own by using up more calories of what you eat for maintaining due to training and increase in musclemass. And then decide at the tipping point (when things slow down) if you still need to cut or actually want to build up with some lean bulk.
last but not least, every bulk, even a clean one can still bring a tiny bit fat. But it should be a minimal amount and can be held at bay by having little episodes of fasting, intermitted fasting, or cutting every now and then.
And let's face reality: The extreme bulking by eating a few thousand calories in plus.. only a thing for people on juice, only their bodies can burn through all that shit and still be lean. And this is nothing that we'd suggest anyone to even think about.
So find out what your goal is right now, and where you want to be in 1-2 years and where in 10 (a full body transformation of a 'natty' actually goes down the road of about 10 years.. beyond the first inital changes)
And hey as a little help: if you can lift and move heavier weights, your muscles will have more intention to grow and if you eat in the right surplus / maintain / cutting periods, you'll lean out along the way ! So in my opinion strength is always the first to consider to bring up, and then the rest will fall in place too. And you learn a lot about your body in that time as well.
And i think that belly of yours might either be just too much food, or most likely the wrong kind of foods :P just change that and exercise and you'll be fine =)
Cheers !
