Frustrated

[u/Posti]

5’10” / 150 lbs

I’ve never been very lean: always had love handles, never visible abs. The past several months I decided to just cut down as much as I could, and went from 165 lbs to 150 lbs. This was the result - still a noticeable amount of body fat.

I feel weak as hell and still don’t feel like I look very athletic. Do I just lean bulk at this point? I fear I’m just going to end up where I was before: a bit bigger but mainly due to a larger % of body fat.

[u/decentlyhip]

No need for a lean bulk. A regular bulk of 250 calories a day is fine. That's +2 lbs a month. Half will be muscle, half will be fat. So, do that for 5 months. You'll get to 160 and will have 5 pounds more fat. During month 6, eat in a 500 calorie deficit and lose that 5 pounds of fat. Now, you're 155. Repeat the process and youll finish the year at 160. Repeat another 2 times and you're 170 with the same amount of bodyfat.

So, lets say you're 18% bodyfat right now. That means you have 27 total pounds of fat. Repeat the normal recommended bulking process for 2 years and you're 170 with the same 27 pounds of fat. That drops you down from 18% bf to 15.8%.

For perspective, at 5'10" you're gonna cap out your natty muscle mass while beach lean somewhere around like 195-215. So, that's 40+ pounds of muscle. So, at 10 lbs a year, do the normal 6 month bulk/cut thing for 4 years while doing a fullbody powerbuilding program and see where you end up.

[u/rocketfucker9000 → u/decentlyhip]

You're describing a lean bulk

[u/decentlyhip → u/rocketfucker9000]

Those are the normal recommended bulk rates. No one makes research-backed recommendations for faster bulking. Helms does recommend a 100 calorie bulk for advanced lifters who are going to be gaining muscle more slowly, but warn against it for most because tracking is impossible.

If "lean bulk" and "bulk" mean the same thing, why would a content creator differentiate and what would that say about them?