Pushing Food in Offseason
What up fellas!
I’d love to ask what’s the highest yall have pushed your food to in the offseason? How long did it take to hit those max intakes and how long did you hold it there for? I feel like we all love eating so it would be nice to hear some of the big eaters share their experiences & tips.
I do everything in titrations. Averages for Week 1 was 3,750 cal, week 2 was 4k cal. Stayed 245lbs throughout. I’m currently finding the threshold of enough food but not to much. I have always struggled with getting to fat in the offseason and not gonna let it get out of hand this year. Plan to add 250 cal weekly until I start to see the scale move. The goal is 1lb a week. Trying to keep things lean and clean.
I’ve been having one low carb day a week, on one of my off days to help digestion. I’ve been able to take a 10 minute walk after 3 out of my 5 or 6 meals which helps digestion too. Pineapple for digestive enzymes has been implemented on 3 meals before my workout. I also do 30 min fasted cardio at about a 120 HR daily.
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I’m currently 6’ 3” tall, weight in 243.4 this morning and would ballpark my bodyfat about 15% (abs visible when I flex my core but far from a walking around 6-pack).
I’m in a grow phase and push my calories to 4k on non-lifting days and 4,250 - 4,500 on lifting days. I’m currently lifting 4 days and doing 45 mins of low intensity, fasted cardio on non-lifting days (4.0 - 4.3 mph walk @ 3% incline on a treadmill; avg bpm ~135) and usually burn around 650 calories. I know that sounds like a lot of cardio for a grow phase but my profession is sales and I spend at least 6-8 hours a day either driving or sitting with clients. Since my profession is so sedentary I have to be intentionally aggressive with cardio on non-lifting days to achieve my macro goals without adding unwanted body fat.
I’m currently 8 weeks into 450 mg Tren-E/600 mg Mast-E/500 mg Sust and seeing phenomenal results. My scale weight hasn’t moved much but my strength is up about 15%, I’ve added solid & very lean mass and I’m noticeably leaner in the mirror. I’m comfortable saying that I’m adding lean muscle mass at roughly the same rate as I am cutting some body fat as a result of a very clean diet, 3 days of fasted cardio and most importantly the superb nutrient partitioning of Tren.
My macro breakdown is 40/40/20 carbs/protein/fat. On lifting days ~75 grams of carbs comes from sugar and the remainder are low GI and there is 45-50 g of dietary fiber in there. I don’t have a target intake quantity of fiber, it just comes with all the low GI carbs.
This is the highest I’ve ever pushed my cals. Depending on how the rest of the grow phase goes I may push to 4.5k next year if I feel like I may have cut myself short on gains.
It’s a shit load of chewing and swallowing, but at 6’ 3 and pushing 250 lbs I’ve got a lot of man to feed to make a Tren/mast/test grow phase worth running.
Final thought- I don’t compete and like the “power building” training style. I love training for strength but also want to be able to at least see the outline of my abs and have solid vascularity and definition.
This sounds a lot like myself. Except for the cycle, looks like we are playing the same game. I appreciate you sharing as it confirms I’m on the right track.
No problem brother! I accepted your FR btw. I see way too many people on here running huge amounts of gear and eating like they are running 300 mg of test only. Trying to grow without the right amounts of the right nutrients is like trying to build a house without bricks….it’s not going to happen.
I have done up to 5k calories a day but I was doing about 20 hours of cardio a week at the time. I managed to put on almost 30 lbs in 16 weeks but it was hard work eating all that food, especially when I was tired from riding the bike. I won't try to that again I’m not that to be honest. I’m not all that big (try to stay around 230 at the largest and cut down to 195 or so at my smallest) so normally I’m only doing around 4k a day but again the minimum amount of cardio I realistically do is 8-10 hours weekly.
I have your same issue. Dedicated exercise for me is a little over 20 hours per week between daily cardio and lifting. Then throw in all the random housework, cooking, laundry, playing with my kid, etc. and I’m a 20k steps a day person. Maintenance for me is 4,000-4200 cals a day. I find that whole milk helps a ton. I start swapping my water intake with whole milk until I’m up to ~1/2 gal a day of milk. My food stays the same. I’m a creature of habit and like to eat the same things at the same times every day. Just keep upping the milk until the scale moves.
Yeah I average around 20k steps a day plus cycling and lifting, I just don’t like to sit still for too long. And I thought I was the only one who did that with the milk lol. I also use peanut butter liberally which adds a ton of calories. The real gamechanger for me, although I definitely DO NOT recommend this unless you’re doing a lot of cardio, is sugar water during long bike rides. I mix it 5:1 and drink ~100g of sugar an hour, which still puts me at a 200-400 calorie deficit per hour when riding but makes it way easier to make up for later. This is really only necessary for 2+ hours sessions or high intensity workouts. Obviously don’t ever drink sugar water while you’re not exercising unless you want type 2 diabetes.
Wow! That is impressive lol
anvilGood post,
I have gone over 5k, last growth phase I went up a little over 4k and hit a high of 246 and stayed 243 until my current lean phase.
Recently this has been highly debated amongst the gear/fitness/scientific community influencers. Stating that going more than a little over maintenance is not needed to for growth and there isn't a science behind bulking for growth. As I start a growth phase this week, I am going to try and leverage changing macros/training for gear instead of titrating up in macros. I am around 231 fasted right now, not sure of BF.
Thanks. Yeah I have seen a lot of the same things on social media as of recent. It’s certainly interesting. I feel like being on the side of less calories is the better spot to be unless someone has strongman/strength goals. I like the messaging of slower longer bulks instead of the put on as much weight as you can in 4 months with a lot of it being fat.
I think the idea of dirty bulking is being retired although for some, to keep up with a high metabolic rate it can turn into a “dirtier bulk” just for the sake of getting in the necessary calories.
anvilThat's about what I get from it, it's just easier to dirty bulk. I however don't plan on doing that, and prolly stopped doing them 10 years ago lol.