Ok guys, I thought it was about time to give a brief update on my progress. I think in my last post about my journey to bulk up and then cut, I made a comment near the end that it was difficult to eat so much food. And in reality, it should’nt be. When trying to put on size it should be done with the same approach as when trying to lose fat… modestly. So normally you just bump up your daily calorie intake by about 500 kcals. Thats equivalent to about 5 1/2 tablespoons of peanut butter or about 4 tablespoons of olive oil (any oil really, but I prefer olive). That’s not that much over the course of 24 hours.
And in theory this should put on 1 lb per week of weight. But sometimes its not that simple. There is a term that is thrown around a bit that is known as someone being a “hard gainer”. This refers to someone who struggles to either put on or maintain weight. And you know what? I dont know the mechanism or reasoning behind it. I suspect it has to do with individual metabolisms, underestimating energy expenditure (usually it’s the opposite) and our body’s tendency to find it’s set weight point. But who knows, I could be way off. Wouldnt be the first time.
Anyways, this applies here because it seems I need more than 500 kcals on top of my normal eating habits to attain this 1 lb per week gain. Not a big deal or issue really, but like with my vegetarian 30 day trial thing, I’m learning more and more about this stuff from a 1st person standpoint, not just from reading the literature. Makes a difference.

Oh, I’m kinda stuck around 175 lbs right now. Trying to get to 180 by January 15th. We’ll see how things shake out. Thanksgiving sure was fun though!