Jordan, this may be a pipe dream, but is it possible to gain weight in such a way that the fat gain doesn’t outpace the lean body mass gain resulting in no (or very little) increase in your body fat percentage? If this is possible, how is your physique impacted from an aesthetic point of view? If your body fat percentage doesn’t increase, is it obvious that you’ve gained fat?
Thanks!
Yes, but probably not for every individual.
If your p-ratio, e.g. the partitioning ratio of food, is skewed towards muscle such that 60% of the weight gained is LBM and 40% is body fat, the person is likely to look a bit leaner. If the p-ratio is 30/70%, the opposite is likely to occur.
I wouldn’t worry about any of this with respect to management, of course. I think that most people should probably reduce body fat prior to considering weight gain, in general
Thank you Jordan, I posted in another post about how I’ve dropped from 190# to 160# and from a 36.5 to 30.5 inch waist. I’m leaner than I have been in many years and feel better without the extra fat. I’m not quite as lean as I’d like to be - my top 4 abs are solidly visible when flexed but not relaxed, but my weight loss has revealed I don’t have much muscle on my 5’ 11” frame. I’ve had comments from people I know that I’m “too skinny” for my frame with which I’m inclined to agree.
My motivation behind this post is due to the desire to gain lean mass and get stronger but I am terrified of having a 36.5 inch waist again as the result of a bulk. My plan to try and hopefully minimize fat gain is to bulk very slowly, aiming to gain about 0.5 pounds per week. I’ve been consistently training for about 9 months so I feel I’m still pretty new to it and embarrassingly weak.
Does the plan I’ve outlined sound reasonable and are there any recommendations or adjustments you would make (generalizations are fine)?
Sounds reasonable to me, along with keeping a 33" ish waist as an upper bound for any weight gain.
Thanks again Jordan. With respect to the p-ratio, is that entirely determined by genetics or does your level of leanness have any impact on it?
I’m playing the ‘what if’ game in my head and wondering if my p-ratio is skewed toward fat gain, will I even be able to gain an appreciable amount of mass and still look lean? Seems like there could be a scenario where I’m stuck in an endless bulk and cut cycle of bulking and gaining mostly fat, and then cutting and losing mostly muscle and pretty much never making any progress.
Any thoughts in regard to that?
Thanks!
There are multiple inputs into the p-ratio, but to be fair- it hasn’t been fully fleshed out yet.
I wouldn’t spend anytime playing the what if game, but rather actively manage your intake and training based on objective results.
Sounds reasonable to me, along with keeping a 33" ish waist as an upper bound for any weight gain.
Quick follow up to this question. What’s the best way to track weight gain when attempting to gain small amounts slowly? Sometimes, my daily weight measurement fluctuates up and down by more than the 0.5 pounds I’m trying to gain per week.
Taking the weekly average of your weight seems like the most practical solution to me.