Growing more belly fat than strength

Hello Doctor,

Doing SS for past 2 weeks(Deloaded by 20% in 2nd week to correct form issues)
My lifts are as follows
Sq - 35kg
Bp - 30kg
DL - 45kg
OHP - 25kg

Age - 31 Weight - 73kg Height - 5’11’’

In the 1st week ate around 2700Cal and found my belly fat to be accumulating faster than my strength. This over accumulation of fat I believe is because of

  1. My age
  2. I have been eating less and skinny all along my life and sudden increase in food is resulting in faster fat gain.
    Please correct me if my assumptions are wrong.

After reading TBAB and fiddling through some online calculators have been eating 2400Cal.
My waist size is 36 inch around navel and according to US navy calculators BF is 21%

Please help me with the following

  1. I know my waist size is not very high, but if I continue eating at surplus I am worried that I will soon hit 40" before I have even crossed half of my LP. This demotivates me a lot.
  2. Am I eating the right amount of calories. As per TBAB, i am planning to increase by 100 cals (carb and fat) when lifts slow down.

I have attached my pics for your reference. Thanks

Hey Hanu,

Thanks for this and I hope you’re doing well. As for your questions:

  1. I don’t think you’re training enough to warrant a calorie surplus especially in the context of your current body composition.

  2. I’m not sure how much weight you’re gaining per unit time- so hard to say. I would recommend maintaining weight for the next 6 weeks while you keep training. Putting in 1 day of cardio would be a good idea as well.

Thanks Doc for the quick response.

My DL is increasing 10lb every workout, Sq and Bp - 5lb and OHP - 2.5lb each workout. And I find this increase difficult to perform(especially OHP). I gain around 0.7kg/ week.

If I keep my weight constant(eat around maintenance) will it help me in adding weight to the bar every session given every session is grinding for me.

Yea I don’t think you should be gaining weight right now. Further, I don’t think that gaining weight or maintaining weight is going to have a significant effect on your training outcomes so overall I’d maintain weight until your current programming stops working. Then I’d move on.