Excess calories = no weight gain??

kev1

I have been trying to bulk since the start of the year. For the month of January I was consuming ~4400 calories. 4weeks in and weight/bf% remained the same.

So at the start of February I increased my calorie intake by 600-800 calories.

My training/ level of activity has remained the same but after 5 weeks on this new excess calorie diet my stats are exactly the same.

My Stats before and after: 6'4, 220pounds. Approx 12% bf.

How could this be?

I'm literally eating more than I was before with the same activity and no increase in weight or bf%. I stick to the diet and training religiously. TBH its sickening to see that after five weeks I have not increased a pound.

Details of my diet and training will be posted in the post below.

Looking forward to what people think.

kev1

New Diet:

Moring Hurricane XS/w milk 450
Porridge 300

Lunch Protein Shake 117+130
150g Pasta, 2 Big Als Chicken Fillet 1000

GYM Hurricane XS/water 220

6.00pm Smoothie 375

8.00pm Dinner: Chicken Stir fry,
150g Rice, 2 chicken Breasts 1250

10.00pm Tuna Bagels 680

11.00pm Smoothie 375

12.00Am Protein Shake 247

~5150 calories
~250g protein.



Training (same as before increase in calories)

Monday; 2hours Boxing training (mainly HIIT)
Tuesday; Chest/shoulders/triceps
Wednesday; 2hours Boxing training (mainly HIIT)
Thursday; Back/Biceps
Friday; Rest
Saturday; Legs
Sunday; Rest

amazingemmet

I find growth tends to come in spurts of 2-3kg at a time rather then being an on going process

corkcomp

the thing is, you are taking in a lot of calories yeah, but your not taking in excess, if you were you would gain.

kev1

corkcomp wrote: »

the thing is, you are taking in a lot of calories yeah, but your not taking in excess, if you were you would gain.

If that were the case shouldn't I have being losing weight on my 4400cal diet?

corkcomp

kev1 wrote: »

If that were the case shouldn't I have being losing weight on my 4400cal diet?

its not as simple as that though unfortunately! I could eat 3500 cals per day for the next week, or i could eat 4000 and i reckon id be the exact same weight at the end of the week. when you are lifting heavy and doing a lot of cardio your metabolism will speed up so you really need to eat a LOT to have a true excess

FTA69

8.00pm Dinner: Chicken Stir fry,
150g Rice, 2 chicken Breasts 1250

Are you sure you're counting the calories in your food correctly? I just googled the above and was told that 150g of brown rice is 165cals while two chicken breasts is about 700cals; which would give a total of approx 865cals, a significantly lesser amount than what you gave. Now perhaps you're using a sauce or something, I don't know.

Still, eating 5000 calories a day and lifting heavy and not putting on a pound in 5 weeks is pretty odd in my opinion.

myfatherrsson

I'v been having the same strange issue....I've been the same weight for 3 years (65-68Kgs) and the last few weeks I've eaten truck loads of (good) food and I've stayed the same....

I thought it might have been because my excercising wasn't vigorous enough or I was just STILL not eating enough!

amazingemmet

I was reminded of this

Dave Tate wrote:

There was a time at the Old Westside gym where I couldn't gain weight to save my ****ing life.

There was this dude who trained there who could just put on weight like ****ing magic. He'd go from 198 to 308 and then to 275 and back down to 198. And he was never fat. It was amazing.

I finally asked him one day how he did it.

"You mean I never told you the secret to gaining weight? Come outside and I'll fill you in."

Now remember, we're at Westside Barbell. And this guy wants to go outside to talk so no one else can hear. Think about that for a minute. What the hell is he going to tell me? This must be some serious **** if we have to go outside, I thought.

So we get outside and he starts talking.

"For breakfast you need to eat four of those breakfast sandwiches from McDonalds. I don't care which ones you get, but make sure to get four. Order four hash browns, too. Now grab two packs of mayonnaise and put them on the hash browns and then slip them into the sandwiches. Squish that **** down and eat. That's your breakfast."

At this point I'm thinking this guy is nuts. But he's completely serious.

"For lunch you're gonna eat Chinese food. Now I don't want you eating that crappy stuff. You wanna get the stuff with MSG. None of that non-MSG bull****. I don't care what you eat but you have to sit down and eat for at least 45 minutes straight. You can't let go of the fork. Eat until your eyes swell up and become slits and you start to look like the woman behind the counter."

"For dinner you're gonna order an extra-large pizza with everything on it. Literally everything. If you don't like sardines, don't put 'em on, but anything else that you like you have to load it on there. After you pay the delivery guy, I want you to take the pie to your coffee table, open that ****er up, and grab a bottle of oil. It can be olive oil, canola oil, whatever. Anything but motor oil. And I want you to pour that **** over the pie until half of the bottle is gone. Just soak the **** out of it."

"Now before you lay into it, I want you to sit on your couch and just stare at that ****er. I want you to understand that that pizza right there is keeping you from your goals."

This guy is in a zen-like state when he's talking about this.

"Now you're on the clock," he continues. "After 20 minutes your brain is going to tell you you're full. Don't listen to that ****. You have to try and eat as much of the pizza as you can before that 20-minute mark. Double up pieces if you have to. I'm telling you now, you're going to get three or four pieces in and you're gonna want to quit. You ****ing can't quit. You have to sit on that couch until every piece is done.

And if you can't finish it, don't you ever come back to me and tell me you can't gain weight. 'Cause I'm gonna tell you that you don't give a **** about getting bigger and you don't care how much you lift!"

kev1

FTA69 wrote: »

Are you sure you're counting the calories in your food correctly? I just googled the above and was told that 150g of brown rice is 165cals while two chicken breasts is about 700cals; which would give a total of approx 865cals, a significantly lesser amount than what you gave. Now perhaps you're using a sauce or something, I don't know.

Ya, the 1250 calories includes sauce and veg.

FTA69 wrote: »

Still, eating 5000 calories a day and lifting heavy and not putting on a pound in 5 weeks is pretty odd in my opinion.

My thoughts exactly, anyone else have an idea of why this might be?

PeakOutput

im 6'2 200lbs and according to john berardis formula i have to eat around 4,800 calories on non training days and 5,500 on training days to gain mass

i imagine with your extra height and muscle you should be eating close to 6K on training days

kev1

PeakOutput wrote: »

im 6'2 200lbs and according to john berardis formula i have to eat around 4,800 calories on non training days and 5,500 on training days to gain mass

i imagine with your extra height and muscle you should be eating close to 6K on training days

Using the formula that was posted in the stickies, my maintenance calories were calculated as ~4100, so with an extra 20% would be ~4900.
So with ~5150 calories, I would have thought I would be well in excess.

corkcomp

i cant really see what the problem is here.. letting aside calculations / formulas for a minute, if you are not gaining weight you need to eat more, whether a calculation says you should or not... try adding 500 calories for two weeks and see how you get on

PeakOutput

kev1 wrote: »

Using the formula that was posted in the stickies, my maintenance calories were calculated as ~4100, so with an extra 20% would be ~4900.
So with ~5150 calories, I would have thought I would be well in excess.

berardi uses a more in depth formula but he is certainly aiming for serious excess's

i would have thought that is an excess for you aswell but the evidence of you not gaining any weight suggests otherwise

pm me your email address and ill send you the pdf with the formula

shootermacg

amazingemmet wrote: »

I was reminded of this

I loled!!! that's funny as ****!! keep it up!

shootermacg

TBH at 220 you're hardly an ectomorph, so I'm gonna guess it's either over training or under training or training with weights you're comfortable with or not enough cals or a mixture of those.

Try some of the different workout plans available, there are plans to shock you into growth, if you are tearing/shredding the muscle properly and eating a surplus, you have to gain muscle it's hard not to. We aren't talking about fat here we are talking building muscle.

Oh and eat more like amazingemmet inferred, if you aint even gaining fat then follow this latin motto: 'si vos can't veho is eat is' -if you can't screw it eat it!

d'Oracle

OP give more details of what specific weight training exercises you are doing.

Also, are you specifically training for boxing?
There are a few coaches who post here with specific fight sport experience, they may be able to help if you give them the lowdown.

FTA69

One calorie-tastic food is peanut butter, nearly 600cals per 100g. If you blend maybe 75g of that with two bananas and a litre of whole milk and some whey protein that's quite a calorie injection, and it's down in 10 seconds and not too filling in my opinion.