Question about weightlifting:

[SirenOfAcreLane]

I lift weights six days a week, and i /try/ to follow a high protein diet. However, i've noticed recently, that i have starting getting a little excess weight around the stomach. Nothing that doesn't disappear if i sit up straight, but it's there nonetheless.

My question is, would now be a good time to start cutting and toning, or should i just ignore the weight and gain more mass?

[Arhat of Fury]

How much actual weight have you gained. Do you do any cardio. If your trying to gain weight, eat like you wanna weigh. Put a little cardio into the mix to keep yourself from getting sloppy

AOF

[SirenOfAcreLane]

I've gained about 8 kilo's in 6 months. Though most of that went on within the first 3. I try to eat alot, but unfortunately, i don't do the shopping, so i don't often get to eat the right foods unless i buy them(which i rarely get the time to do)
The only cardio i get is from training.

Is it a good idea to jog, or will i burn to many calories?

[Mr. Bao]

If you're getting fat, then you aint doing enough work to burn what you are comsuming Or eatting too much and aint exercising intensely enough? Meaning, eat less and do more work Or keep your present diet and train wiser or better.

I might add that you might want to modified your diet and try to do something different in terms of exercise. Do anything new will yield some physcial changes.

Remember to do training that addresses cardiovascular, strength, and flexibility. Use common sense and you know what aint working and what will. Trust your instinct and you know inside what you have to do.

[SirenOfAcreLane]

Thats great advice, man, thanks alot.

[IronFist]

A little fat is to be expected. The body is either anabolic or catabolic. You can't add significant muscle without adding fat, and you can't lose significant fat without losing at least some muscle.

Ok, you can add muscle and stay lean year round, but it will be like 5lbs of muscle added in a year, if that.

This is the reason why bodybuilders bulk up in the off season. They don't look lean and ripped year round, because they would never gain any more muscle.

I'm not saying that you should be a bodybuilder, but they're at the top of the game when it comes to adding muscle. If it was possible to add muscle and stay lean, don't you think they'd prefer to do it that way rather than look like bloated fatasses for 6 months a year?

If you're already lean, and serious about putting on some muscle, don't worry about gaining a little fat. If you decide it's too much you can just diet it off when you're done.

IronFist

[Mr. Bao]

SirenOfAcreLane:

Greetings. No problem, I try to keep it simple and offer advice not found in your local books or muscle fitness mags. Just common sense and experience. I wish you the best of luck and best cheers.

[CD Lee]

I lift weights six days a week, and i /try/ to follow a high protein diet.
However, i've noticed recently, that i have starting getting a little excess
weight around the stomach. Nothing that doesn't disappear if i sit up
straight, but it's there nonetheless.

I used to be into the bodybuilding scene many many years ago, and mainly around competitive bodybuilders (two in the family). I find your observation funny in a way, because I had the same questions long ago. I noticed these guys that looked incredible, looked FAT most of the time. Hey, these guys had big fat stomachs, with muscle of course. But as Iron said, there is a balance that is difficult to escape between muscle and fat. And I go one step further, to say it is hard to get huge on top, and keep a very small tummy. I said hard, not impossible.

My thing was, to do bodybuilding to look good ALL THE TIME. So I never got into that bulking up stuff. I knew plenty of guys that looked fantastic all year, that were not competitive and did not do the erratic unhealthy diet cycles associated with a lot of these pros.

I say, workout good to stimulate growth, eat healthy, maintain balance in your resistance and aerobic, flexibility training, and do all these things with the common goal of being a healthier person. You will look better, feel better, and certainly be better.

Hey, and this is just my opinion, I do not consider a pro bodybuilder lifestyle a healthy way to treat a body. Granted, I am talking about the steriods, the diuretics, the wildly erratic weight changes, etc. I understand part of what they do is healthy. But you have to consider all elements for life. An example is a boxer. They train very healthy mostly, and other than weight shifts, they are pretty healthy before a fight. It is what they do in the ring that hurts them, the end result. Consider what a competitive bodybuilder does versus a non-competitive. That is all I am saying.

[wall]

SirenOfAcreLane,

what Iron said is spot on. If you want to keep bodyfat % under 12 or so you can but will be gaining muscle mass at a rate of 5-10lbs per year (depending on genetics, training, diet). To gain considerably more muscle mass at a much faster rate (if that's your objective) you will be putting on a little fat. The important thing is to limit the fat gain, and to then lose it once you get to the desired size.
When I started lifting (10 years ago) I was 145lbs, very lean. In the following 2 years I gained 50lbs, mostly muscle but partly fat. At 195lbs I then decided that my strenght/size were sufficient for my needs, so I proceded to maintain similar training but reduce some of the force feeding , dropping 15lbs of only fat (as far as I can tell) in the following 6 months. Since then (6-7 years ago) I've simply maintained at 175-180, which is my desired weight with a bodyfat % of 8-12.
So just keep building until you feel you have achieved sufficient muscle size and strenght, then cut to the desired bodyfat %, and then simply maintain (give and take small periodical variations).

W

[harry_the_monk]

well, I used to be a stripper, (yes, the monk used to strip for a living amongsat other things long before taking my vows.) and you have to look pretty ripped all the time, there just isn't the chance to look like a slob if you're getting paid to dance for the ladies

The way to stay ripped is cardio exercise my friend. Lots of it. You may well lose muscle from it, but you will also burn off the fat pretty good. If you work out clever (so take a carbo drink with you while you do your cardio) there is no reason to lose too much muscle. I think I have spoken about the effects of gluconeogenisis on this site before, but might have been a long while ago now. Basically once you burn off about 200 cals or so of glycogen if you are not replenishing your reserves with more your body tries to make it by breaking down the protein in your body(namely your muscles). Doing a good +40min cardio session either daily or every other day, looking at your diet being filled with enough CARBOHYDRATES (sorry to shout but everyone tends to think of these as evil.) will mean the fat will fall from your body. This is guaranteed. I have trained loads of people over the years and they have all responded well to this system. You do need to keep up with the weights as well though.

Amitofu.

[SevenStar]

Originally posted by SirenOfAcreLane
I've gained about 8 kilo's in 6 months. Though most of that went on within the first 3. I try to eat alot, but unfortunately, i don't do the shopping, so i don't often get to eat the right foods unless i buy them(which i rarely get the time to do)
The only cardio i get is from training.

Is there any way you can work anything out where you can give a list to whomever buys the groceries and also give them the money to buy the groceries for you?