That is your answer. Easy Peesey.

You will have to define "fat." What BF% are you right now? What do you consider fat? You will gain muscle and strength faster if you hold a bodyfat between 18% and 20%. (at least)

You do not have to do it that way. It is just easier and faster to put on the size and cut the extra fat later.

Haha - oh man you just keep giving me more and more to place in the context thread, G.

Yeah Karky, from what I experienced carbs are needed to grow pretty much. Bulking on a pure low carb diet didn't work for me well at all.

You know what I do I think, and it has been working great for me.

Carbs at breakfast, pre workout, carbs after workout, and carbs 2 hours after workout. Then I don't have any carbs for the rest of the day.

On non training days I keep carbs at each meal very small and they come almost entirely from veggies. Except breakfast where I have a cup of oatmeal.

It has been working great for me, gained 2 pounds in the past week, so there is no problem gaining. And my waist hasn't gone up any inches.. I will tell you the bodyfat test results this Monday and take new measurements.

But the way I see it, carbs are essentially required for growth, so only USE them at optimal anabolic times... and when we need to USE them for weight training.

add some complex carbs in w/ your lean proteins and youll be fine even on non training days. as long as there the right ones and your not overeating them you wont gain any fat for them. If you keep increasing your fat and protein your body will eventually start storing them as FAT. eat your carbs!!!

yeah, I don't know about carbs for breakfast though. What's the theory there? I know the body has been fasting but protein and fat can take care of that.. maybe eat a fruit or something along with it? And then just carbs during workout post workout and post post workout. and on off days I go fat+protein and cabrs from veggies and fruit?

Dawson, no offence, but I think you need to read around some more on diet. there is no reason for the body to store dietary at as fat more than carbs.

BTW: RWS, how many g of carbs do you think you eat on off days? I was thinking eating my regular low carb meals like I've been doing now but just adding maybe a banana or something.

Just eat a normal healthy freakin diet!

Maybe I want to experiment, so what? I like trying different things, even if it is a bit of work and everyone else says not to bother, I think stuff like this is fun.

why do you always have to butt in? If you're not here to help, then get out.

Learning how to manipulate your diet, Karky, is a powerful thing to learn. You rock on with trying to learn different things, and "doing FOR YOU" what "it takes" to get the job you want done, and leaving every one else in the dust--thinking you are obssessed while you are just attempting to bring out the best within yourself.

Chillen

thanks a lot, Chillen!

I'm not suggesting you ' maintain '. I simply referenced ' maintenance ' as it pertains to being a benchmark.

Earlier you said...

" I'm eating 4000 cals "

.......so I was simply curious about putting that 4,000 number into context. And, I assume you track your calories / carbs etc. for a reason.

As you know, usually when people are looking to add weight ( or shed fat ), calorie guidelines are put in the context of ' maintenance calories ' - i.e maintenance plus 15%, maintenance plus 20%, maintenance plus 500 calories to add weight. So, if you did determine that given your maintenance was, for example, an estimate of 3,800, then 4,000 represents only a modest bump of 5%. So, it may simply be an indication that you need to consume more calories to optimize your ability to add mass - that's all.

That said, I personally don't believe in counting calories on a long term on-going basis per se. And, I agree with goergen1, " the estimations on maintenance calories are just estimations ".

well I don't mind counting calories, it is not a problem for me, I think it is fun to see what I eat each day. 4k wasn't enough when eating fat, but when eating more carbs I gained weight at about 0.5kg a week. How much above maintenance that means 4k is I don't care, as long as I gain what I want I'm ok.

Fair enough.

Whatever works for you.

Well, it's good to see carbs got you the results you wanted.

Do you try and avoid carbs at breakfast ?

I don't know about breakfast yet, that is why I asked the question.