Harvey300

I've been "bulking" since September and i've put on about 9 pounds (From 141 to 150). Now it seems i have gained about a few of those pounds in muscle as i can see some added defination on my shoulders, back and quads but I reckon i've gained a bit of fat as my pack is getting a bit blurry now.

I've heard that you can only realistically put on how 0.25-0.5 pounds of muscle a week, which is about 1-2 pounds a month, and because I was naturally an endomorph as a child then that may be a bit less.

Here's what i'm doing at the moment:
-I'm doing full body workouts 3 times a week where I'm doing squats, deads, rows, chin ups and pull ups, bench presses, shoulder presses etc at least once in that week.
-I'm consuming near to 3000 calories a day, which I think is a bit excessive so I may have to cut that down to 2800 to help slow the fat gain.
-I do some moderate cardio where I run twice a week for around 20 minutes.
-I am taking whey protein atm, and I'm starting to take some glutamine and some flaxseed oil capsules.
-My diet has massively improved since i began working out as I'm getting in around 180g of protein, near to 300g of carbs and around 80g of fat a day. I'm thinking of perhaps lowering the carbs to around 250 and the fat upto 100g as i've noticed that carbs tend to help me gain some fat. Yet my diet isn't in perfect control because my parents end up doing my dinner so I can't convince them what to cook that night :S .

I know a bit of fat gain is inevitable when in a calorie surplus but are there any ways to maximise how much muscle you can put on and minimise the fat gain?
So any feedback would be great

bmx2962

Good choice doing a clean bulk.

I've been doing a clean, slow bulk since August, and I put on 4 pounds so far while keeping all of my ab definition. So I'm going at about 1 pound a month.

I thinks the keys to preventing fat gain are minimizing your calorie surplus and eating healthy foods. I eat 100 calories over maintenance every day of good clean foods.

You should calculate your BMR, and then find how many calories you are burning each day from your exercise. Then, add 100-200 calories to that number, and that is how much you should be eating in a day. Don't do this for one type of workout day and apply it to the others. Do it every day and see how much you need to eat.

Are you sure you meant to say endomorph? I think you might have your phenotypes confused. Endomorphs find it easy to gain weight. Ectomorphs have trouble gaining.

Also, I think its important to burn a lot of calories. Lets say two people eat 100 calories over maintenance every day. Person A does 200 calories worth of weightlifting every day while Person B does 500 calories worth of weightlifting every day. Who is going to be in better shape? There is an article on this here:
T-Nation.com | G-Flux Redux

Harvey300

Nah i mean endomorph - I was a pretty chubby kid up until I was about 14 where i slimmed out but i carried a lot of my fat around my midsection still. Since then it was slowly going and I finally started seeing some abs when i did regular workouts around May time. I think what I meant to say was that as an endo, I'm prone to put on weight easily and any muscle gains might not be so apparent. Sorry if I didn't make that clear!

By the way, is there an accurate way to work out my BMR. I've seen so many calculators and that which have given me answers from as low as 1300 calories to as high as 2800 :S. How did you work yours out because I'm pretty determined to get these nailed on so any fat gains can be easily rectified within weeks after March?
It's because my activity level is pretty high cause i go to college 5 times a day, i workout 3 times a week with 2 cardio sessions plus i have a job at the weekends.

bmx2962

I figure out my resting metabolic rate here:

BMR Calculator

It came to like 1800. Then I multiplied it by 1.2, which is for a sedentary person. Which puts it at about 2100, which is the number I use. I then add my exercise calories to that number.

Harvey300

Right well for me that comes up a BMR of about 1770 calories, which if i assume myself as active and add a surplus of 300 this time, that makes 2770 calories. Sure beats 3000!

Hopefully this'll lessen the damage and get some optimal mass in this time. Cheers, I appreciated the help

Malley

Just monitor your calorie intake. If your gaining to quickly cut back. If your not gaining quick enough add. Pretty simple really. One of the main things people dont watch enough is the timing of the meals. Main times to eat are upon awaking, after workout, and 1 hour before bed. Instead of doing 20 minutes of cardio do things like spints that intervals that get you done quicker.

bmx2962

Don't assume yourself as active for that calculation. If you do, then it will take into account workouts. Do the calculation for no exercise, and then add your exercise calories separately. As in look up what you burn in 45 minutes of intense weight training.