Diet on and off AS

[USMC96]

Ok here is my question to all you guys out that that eat healthy or maybe dont. I am around 245 durning the summer and 255-260 durning the winter. This is mainly because I eat what ever I want durning the winter IE fast food, pizza, cheese steaks and what ever else comes to mind. This winter I plan on doing a cycle first one besides a little dbal here and there. I was woundering would it be better for me to eat correct and healthy and try to consume the calorie intake that i need to maintain and gain weight for lean body mass or eat what ever I want and really blow up? If your arguement is to eat healthy and correct what should my daily calorie intake be per pound and should I split that up between mean replacements and protien shakes throughout the day. For example eat 6 meals a day 3 of them being full corse meals and the other 3 being protien shakes/meal replacements. I have done alot of research on this subject but each person is different on how there body reacts to calorie intake. I am just woundering what people have done on this board to get where they wanted to go ie bulking up for the winter(off season).

[BigGreen]

Well, to blow up, the type of food is not nearly as important as the total calories. I don't mean to sound condescending, but if you're 1000 calories a day over maintenance, to a degree it doesn't matter if it's done with whoppers or chicken breasts if you want to grow. But, you'll grow a hell of a lot cleaner if you get a ton of calories cleanly. THe reason, imo, that people don't do it that way, is that it is considerably more difficult to take in, say, 6,000 calories with veggies, whole wheat pasta chicken and turkey than it is with pizza, cheese steaks, etc, etc.

I also think that, psychologically, many of us fall prey to the numbers game...we like to see a big number on that scale while bulking. Fast food and pizza will help us see that, but often we lose sight of how that weight is coming on and are just much happier to see that number climbing. While still a relative newbie, I'm of the FIRM belief that retaining gains is easier the lower the raw number of your weight gain. While not getting into it here, if you at least entertain my notion, then what would be more ideal, going from 250 to 265 with only 5 pounds of that being fat, or going from 250 to 270 but with 11 pounds of that being fat?

I think that the only people who need to eat like that for weight gain are hard gaining athletes who desperately need some extra size for their sport and can do so without sacrificing speed, or bodybuilders with insane genetics and/or metabolisms. My philosophy (after getting caught up in the bulking as an excuse to cheat more often than I should) from here on is to eat big but eat clean, it will make preservation easier not to mention giving you a much easier time when you do cut down.

[slobberknocker]

I've done the eat-everything-in-sight bulking cycles. Never again. Only clean bulking for me from now on. Most pros can see at least part of their abs year round. You don't have to get fat to gain gobs of muscle, IMO.