Before we dive into this topic, let me state a few key points first.
- Before attempting an autoregulated gaining approach, it’s critical to have previous experience meticulously tracking energy intake and macronutrients.
- Additionally, you want experience stepping away from regular tracking and incorporating those habits you developed while tracking, with hunger and satiety.
- If you haven’t done #1 or if you are still doing #1 but have never stepped away from that approach and attempted #2, read this article and the links it contains to get a good understanding of how to set yourself up for success before attempting an autregulated nutritional approach to gaining.
With that said, now let’s get into the meat of this article.
Like any analytical bodybuilder from the “IIFYM” era, I tracked my macros and weight as a part of my nutritional approach to my sport, ensuring I was either cutting, or bulking effectively. Like most folks, I established my maintenance energy needs, set a target rate of weight gain, and then upped the calories until the appropriate rate gain was achieved, adjusting as needed to keep the gain-train rolling down the tracks.
However, time and time again, many of us (especially us drug free folks) found that this process was short lived due to fat excess fat gain requiring repeated mini cuts. From what I know now, the main issue was we had unrealistic expectations and were trying to gain weight too quickly. Evidence suggests rather than trying to gain 0.5-1lbs per week like we did (roughly 1-2% of my bodyweight per month), I should have probably been trying to gain at roughly half that rate, putting on 0.5-1% of my bodyweight per month to avoid excess fat gain.
However, my recent experiences since the end of 2015 have helped me realize that perhaps it’s not just the rate of weight gain, and the accordant energy intake that was the culprit of my repeated excess fat gain during each gaining phase, but perhaps how I consumed this energy surplus as well. To understand this personal anecdote, you’ll have to understand my journey since moving to New Zealand from the US.
I left the US in late August 2012 to pursue my post graduate education at Auckland University of Technology in New Zealand. Prior to this, from 2006 to mid 2012, I literally tracked my macros and calories every day, except for brief periods on vacation or post competition. Sure, I worked-in eating out and social activities, but it was all tracked. When I left the US, I knew the foods would be unfamiliar, I knew I wouldn’t be stepping on stage for at least 4 years and I saw it as a good opportunity to try autoregulating my food intake. I had been tracking so long I couldn’t help but be aware of rough macronutrient intakes, I had developed healthy eating habits, and I reasoned that if I paid attention to my hunger and fullness a bit more while periodically checking my bodyweight, I would be able to eat an appropriate number of calories.
Turns out I was right. From 2012 to the end of 2015 I maintained between 91-93kg (200-205lbs) while increasing my powerlifting total from 585kg (1290lbs) to 617.5kg (1361lbs) pretty much just eating what I wanted while making good decisions in terms of protein intake, protein spread, and eating micronutrient dense foods.
Then, when I finished the bulk of my data collection in the end of 2015, I finally had the time and energy to train with the volume and frequency I knew I would need to keep progressing. I had been “recomping”, eating at maintenance and getting stronger for 3 years, and I was starting to plateau. Now with more time and energy to put into training, I wanted to try gaining weight. This would be my first dedicated gaining phase since 2011, except this time, I didn’t setup caloric or macronutrient targets. Instead, I ate what I wanted, but I switched to more energy dense foods, I started eating out more regularly, and instead of being “satisfied” after meals, I tried to be “full”.
So, how did this “autoregulated” gaining phase go? Pretty damn well. I’m currently between 100-102kg (220-225lbs) depending on the day, and probably only 2-4% body fat higher than I was at 91-93kg (200-205lbs). That’s a good 4-5kg (~10lbs) of non-fat tissue I’ve put on since the start of 2016. Some might think that’s nothing amazing, as I gained about a pound a month with half of it being fat, but at this stage of the game (I’ve been lifting for 13 years), as a natural lifter, I didn’t think that was even possible.
Now, it wasn’t completely pretty, I got FAI surgery in February, and certainly my body fat percentage got worse for the few months after while I was recovering, being relegated to machine work, and no hip extension for a while. However, as my training returned to normal, my body composition subsequently improved and I’ve been reaping the training rewards of my added muscle. While squats and deadlifts took a long hiatus due to FAI and subsequent surgery, my bench went from 150kg (~331lbs), to 165kg (~364lbs) and since rehabbing my hip, I’ve hit a high bar squat personal best of 200kg (441lbs) with some room left over (I would estimate a 205kg/452lbs max) which is pretty awesome as that’s approaching my pre-surgery low bar max of 225kg (495lbs).
Point being, it seemed that the combined factors of training more and having greater recuperative abilities due to finishing my education (which is a huge part of my success), and also autoregulating my approach to nutrition, have resulted in a leaner, more effective weight gain period than I’ve had previously, even when I was younger with less training experience. Now certainly part of this is due to just doing more in the weight room and being less stressed, but at the same time it’s not like after my contest seasons in 2007, 2009, and 2011 those same conditions didn’t occur. Therefore, it makes me think the autoregulatory approach played a role in my recent success. In further support of this, my clients who have gotten to this stage of their nutritional tracking journey have also seen good progress using this approach (and again I would caution this is something to do only once you’ve been tracking and also stopped tracking for a while).
Now why would this theoretically be a good approach compared to a static intake? To answer that, I’ll use two graphs:
In the static gaining model, you can see the typical approach of establishing what you think your maintenance energy needs are, which are 2500 kcals on average, then going up 200kcals to 2700kcals to get an appropriate rate of weight gain. However, everyone has fluctuations day to day in TDEE (and believe it or not this has more to do with activities of daily living than lifting weights, which contributes only a small amount). Thus, in the static approach, as TDEE fluctuates, your surplus (or deficit) does as well. On Tuesday you’re actually at maintenance, Thursday you’re in a small deficit, and on Sunday you’re actually in too large of a surplus.
However, in the theoretical autoregulated model (and I emphasize theoretical since it’s not like I or my clients live in a metabolic ward when doing this), because you’re using hunger and satiety signals to regulate your intake, it adapts to your TDEE, and you maintain an appropriate surplus more of the time. In the short term, stuff like this probably makes very little difference, but over the course of years (in my example just over a year and a half) this could theoretically add up to a slightly more efficient gaining phase by keeping more fat accumulation at bay and ensuring an appropriate surplus to support muscle gain.
As a final note, this is purely theory, and a combination of personal and coaching anecdotes, and certainly some people will do better with a static model if they aren’t good at regulating their food intake based on hunger (or if they find their hunger is suppressed by hard training) but for some, like me, this might be a path to some late-stage progress you didn’t know you could make.
Eric,
I really enjoyed this post as I’ve recently thrown away my food scale after 6 years of obsession and constant tracking. (it’s funny because I never even competed or wanted to be a bodybuilder but it helped me lose weight)
However when it comes to gaining muscle and looking at “gain x amount per week/per month” how do we realistically apply this?
I have never seen my progress when it comes to gaining weight be linear week by week.
I could be consistently eating the same food and for two weeks and there could be no change then “whoosh” I’m up 1-2lbs and then I stay at the new weight for a few wees.
I’m sure this doesn’t happen to just me, so I was wondering how to know if you’re gaining as little fat as possible without seeing the weight gain linearly increasing?
Tyson thanks for the post and question! As far as how you track, use 3+ morning weigh ins (after using the toilet before eating or drinking nude) per week and then compare the trends of your weekly averages of those weigh ins over 2-3 week periods. Even if it comes in spurts you can still see those trends over time.
Thanks Eric.
I will start doing it.
Dear Dr. Helms,
Thank you for the post, as I have been making steady and consistent progress with tracking macros and calories.
As in the off season, my calories and macronutrients gets a surplus of +250-500 and sees a linear weight gain of 0.5-1 pounds of gain per week.
I want to kindly ask as many Registered Dieticians say that there is a body weight or fat set point: meaning that your body will stay at this weight for a prolonged prolonged period of time.
1. Is this a myth or does it exist? 2. If it exists, is there a way to meaningfully change this set point?
Thanks,
Paul.
Hey Paul! Thanks for the message and great work making steady progress!
On thing I might recommend is if you find you are gaining body fat too quickly, perhaps slow down that rate of gain to about half that rate if it becomes problematic (i.e. you have to cut frequently to maintain a physique at a decent body fat percentage, or if you are a competitor, you have to diet for a very long period to get in shape because you start too high).
Now, I’m not the RD on the team (that’s Steve Taylor), but I do have an extensive background in sports nutrition, specifically for bodybuilding and the answer isn’t 100% straightforward.
The best way to conceptualise it is that you have a body fat settling range…vs a set point. What we eat, when we eat, how much we eat is heavily influenced not just by physiology, but also psychology and environment. Thus, how high in body fat we might get and settle at, and how low, is not just a physiological set point. This is easily shown by the obesity epidemic, obviously, people’s set points aren’t just climbing 🙂 As you get leaner, you will hit a point where hunger drives more food consumption, and energy expenditure decreases enough to make it easier to gain weight. This is why contest prep is hard. But this is also modified by behavior. Someone who has learned habits that results in a lower baseline energy intake will maintain a lower body fat level, and they hang around the lower end of their “settling range” so the range for a given male might be say, 10-15%, if they are eating out a lot, hanging out with friends, and not paying any attention to modifying their habits, they might sit at 15% (these are just example numbers BTW, might be 12-17% for someone else or 8-13% etc). But if they have spent years modifying their behavior and it’s become ingrained they might be able to sit at 10%. Now, this can be taken too far, some people do try (and often fail) to maintain too lean of a physique…even when they succeed, this isn’t ideal. Hormonal suppression, sleep disturbance, food focus, hampered progress in the gym, maintaining lower muscle mass levels etc are all consequences of staying too lean. How do you know if you are trying to stay too lean? Well, easy way to tell is if even after your diet to get lean, and you’ve increased food to maintenance, and been there for a month or so, if you are still very food focused and have to be very focused to maintain that level of leanness. That’s too lean. Hope this helps!
Hello Dr. Eric Helms,
Thank you soo much for the recommendations, after following you for years for training and nutritional advice.
I have another question in mind regarding nutritional periodization, let’s say that if someone has been dieting down for a contest preparation (where the goal is to get as lean as possible). If one of the person has an eating disorder, who is a client I am currently coaching, how would I be able to help him to get lean while not focusing on food all the time? If I am making myself clear:)
Thank you, and looking forward to hear back from you Eric!
Paul.
Paul, just like if someone is injured, and you would refer them to a physical therapist or orthopaedic specialist because that is outside of the scope of practice of a coach, when someone has an eating disorder they should absolutely be referred to a therapist who specializes in eating disorders as attempting to address it is outside of your scope of practice. Not doing so, or attempting to help them on your own would be unethical and potentially harmful to your client.
Hello Dr. Helms,
Thank you so much for the comment, indeed I will refer someone to this who has a scope of practice with eating disorders.
I am looking forward to seeing you do more seminars, may I ask if you will attend any fitness conferences sooner or later?
Paul.
Absolutely happy to help, and I announce seminars on my IG so be sure to follow me @helms3dmj
Regards
Hey Dr. Helms, after seeing Garthe’s studies and reading your article, I’m very intrigued by the idea of an intuitive/autoregulated/ad libitum bulk. I’ve bulked a few times before, attempting a small static surplus, but almost always ended up gaining weight too quickly, and putting on more fat than muscle. This is probably in part due to being in a small surplus most of the time, plus large cheat meals/days along the way.
So, I’m obviously intrigued by the idea of auto regulating this bulk, and I’m curious how you would approach certain situations with this method. I’m just coming off of a LONG cut (not stage lean, but relatively vascular other than some stubborn lower belly fat).
Let’s say I’m knowingly in a 1,000 calorie surplus one day because I went out to eat and didn’t hold back as much as I could have. Assuming my goal is to gain muscle (I’m only an Intermediate strength-wise, despite 4 years of training), the following day, should I attempt to at least eat at maintenance? Or should I purposely go into a deficit to “make up” for the “cheat?” Or should I just listen to my hunger? In general, I’m the type of person that pretty easily gains weight unless I’m specifically restricting, so the idea of not “evening out” the cheats by incorporating low-cal days over the week seems like a recipe for repeating my past bulks of gaining too quickly. Please let me know if more details would help.
So a critical thing you do with this approach is monitoring your body weight. That’s the feedback mechanism. If you gain too quickly, you try to be less full after meals, and vice versa. You don’t have to worry about the predicted surplus, just the output on the scale. If you aren’t gaining too quickly, you are doing it right. This might help you have a more balanced approach, as in the offseason things shouldn’t be so restrictive or tightly tracked that “cheating” is a thing. Hopefully this helps!
That’s true, and thank you so much for taking the time to reply. I guess by “cheat” I more meant an event with friends where I undoubtably ate quite a bit more than I usually do. No actual tracking occurred and the 1,000 calorie surplus I mentioned was a very rough estimate. I realize special occasions like this aren’t really part of the whole habit- and satiety-based foundation of autoregulating smart food choices, but these events happen relatively frequently in my life, which makes it tough. I did end up feeling a bit less hungry the next two days, so I just followed those signals while hitting my protein. I’ll try using bodyweight as the main feedback mechanism and see how it goes.
Good luck!