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      10-07-2019, 10:30 AM   #1282
King Rudi
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Quote:
Originally Posted by Rmtt View Post
It's a little more complex than they are making it out to be. Sure...carrying more muscle means that you burn more calories, but if you bulk at a high BF percentage, you aren't setting yourself up properly. At that point your body is used to excess calories...and it will store them as fat as that is far easier than creating new muscle tissue.

When you go to cut, you want your body to be as sensitive to insulin as possible. This is what controls the partitioning effect. When sensitivity is high, you tend to partition extra calories into the muscle and glycogen. But this only goes on for so long. But that's the process for both cutting and bulking.

When you cut for so long...you will eventually hit a wall. Your thyroid output is low, leptin levels drop, and ghrelin levels raise. At that point, you will start losing muscle almost as fast as you can lose body-fat cause your body needs fuel.

Now in the past when I have hit that point...but still wanted to continue cutting, that is where I would start adding strategic re-feeds. It only takes 3-4 days of a small surplus to bring those hormones back into range. In fact...it's a theory you can test for yourself.

I have told people in the past who wanted to get really lean...monitor your body temperature. Take it in the morning at the same time to establish a base temp. As you diet, you will eventually hit that wall...and you will see a drop in your average body temp. That is your metabolism slowing down. Once you see you aren't making progress, add food back in and you will see your base body temp come back up over the course of a few days. Continue eating like that for another 2-3 days, then go back to your cut. 98% of the time...that would be all that was needed for progress to resume.

Or that is where you stop and do what you are planning. You go back to bulking and take advantage of the "rebound" which just means your body is primed for growth. You ride that out until your body goes back to more of a fat storing protocol as it finally sees it's getting an excess of calories...then you go back to cutting and start all over again.

Doing it like that allows you to slowly build muscle, and over time...each phase you go through returns better and better results as the added muscle you put on allows you to diet on less of a calorie deficit...thus delaying the diminished hormone processes I described above.

Eventually you will see both sides of the spectrum expanding. You will find yourself able to bulk longer without what I call "spill-over", but you also find that you don't have to cut as long as you did in the past as your body is carrying more muscle and helps speed this up. This is what they are talking about.

Than you can set a certain goal for yourself. Like with me, I may bulk until I see 12%-13%...then cut until I am at 8%-9%. And I just go back and forth. You may think you aren't making fast enough progress, but I can promise you that even 5lbs-7lbs gained over the course of a year if it is lean muscle will make a huge impact in how you look!

I think you are doing great. The most important thing is that you are learning how your body works....most people never get that far.
Again, much appreciation to the insight! I continue to train as if I am bulking and continue to add weight, even though I'm not in caloric surplus. I tend to do really well eating-wise, throughout the week, but on the weekends the girlfriend tends to want to feed me more than I normally eat. I still keep it relatively low but I can only attribute that the muscle gains are due to this. i suppose this has been an unintentional means of accomplishing what you have described above, albeit completely inadvertent. Ether way, it's working. I've also noticed that after the couple of small meals that I eat on the weekends that I typically do not eat throughout the week, then going back to watching every single calorie and my macros, that I'll drop 2-3 pounds by Wednesday - Thursday. When I started all this, I just wanted to not be fat anymore. I had no idea the process would consist of cycles, gaining/losing, etc. It's been a crazy little self experiment.
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