[Samuel Carter]

there is no true clarification to be honest as there are really no studies done on allowing males to massively abuse steroids to see how much muscle they can gain and what protein amount works best.

There are to arguments here –

1 – your taking steroids so your ability to sythesise more is increases so eat more
2 – your ability to partition nutrients, recover and synthesise protein is increased so you need less.

We dont really know but what we do really seem to know is 98-99% of massive guys all eat huge amounts of protein.

So id say common sense wise natural or enhanced you should always be eating the higher protein amount

Understood! I’d rather consume too much & my body just excrete it as waste than potentially sell myself short.

Thanks for the response 👍

[Samuel Carter]

How are you feeling right now? Imo you could transition now into a steady gaining phase, especially as you’ve been dieting all year.

Having said that though, if you feel good and adherence isn’t an issue, you could equally push for another 2-3 weeks if you wanted too to get that little bit leaner, so it really depends on how you feel.

Whatever you decide, there’s no need to hang around at maintenance once the cut has finished. Increase calories and reduce output to see you into a small surplus, then take things slowly. Take pictures, track your scale weight and training performance, then make adjustments as and when necessary.

Hi Clare, thanks so much for the response. I feel pretty good tbh, adherence is fine. I am feeling quite lethargic though in my daily life & training performance has dipped a fair bit in the last few weeks but I reckon I have it in me to see out another month.

I’m also thinking too about Xmas, I’d love to have a few more kcals to play with over the festive period & maybe a longer period before then to push them up as high as I can take them?

Just so I’m clear, when the diet is done I can immediately move into a small surplus? I definitely like the sound of that! I’ve read that I should aim for 0.5% of current bodyweight gain/week. Is this something you’d advise?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond. Sam

[/quote]

See it to the end of the month, then transition into a surplus. After the initial weight gain, aim for around 1lb on average per week. You can also use training performance and the visual look as your feedback too, so be smart with decisions as to when to add more food, but this is a reasonable rate.[/quote]

Super, thanks I’ll do that.

One more question, and I appreciate it might be an impossible one to answer, the initial weight gain you mentioned, what’s typically an acceptable amount? Just want to be able to recognise it as that & to panic I’m undoing all of this year’s effort straight away.

[Samuel Carter]

How are you feeling right now? Imo you could transition now into a steady gaining phase, especially as you’ve been dieting all year.

Having said that though, if you feel good and adherence isn’t an issue, you could equally push for another 2-3 weeks if you wanted too to get that little bit leaner, so it really depends on how you feel.

Whatever you decide, there’s no need to hang around at maintenance once the cut has finished. Increase calories and reduce output to see you into a small surplus, then take things slowly. Take pictures, track your scale weight and training performance, then make adjustments as and when necessary.

Hi Clare, thanks so much for the response. I feel pretty good tbh, adherence is fine. I am feeling quite lethargic though in my daily life & training performance has dipped a fair bit in the last few weeks but I reckon I have it in me to see out another month.

I’m also thinking too about Xmas, I’d love to have a few more kcals to play with over the festive period & maybe a longer period before then to push them up as high as I can take them?

Just so I’m clear, when the diet is done I can immediately move into a small surplus? I definitely like the sound of that! I’ve read that I should aim for 0.5% of current bodyweight gain/week. Is this something you’d advise?

Thanks again for taking the time to respond.

Sam