You don't eat enough !

[anthrax]

If you want to get bigger still can't acheive this goal chances are you just don't eat enough
Yep, not ENOUGH

Most of the times the protein intake is OK
But the overall calories are just too low

Most people are just afraid to get fat so they just eat a bit more
But if you want to be be big you need to be big

and if your training is intensive enough you'll mostly gain LBM

Eating lots of protein is obliously necessary but not enough
Plenty of protein + around maintenance calories = no/little growth
average protein + lots of calories = growth

 

[Slyder190]

I hear ya, but I'd say lots of protein and calories over maintinance, but not oo much over. You're gain some BF while bulking, and it's all good, but too much is bad. If you can't flex that new growth, it aint really worth havin.

 

[etherX]

On the other hand, when trying to drop fat I often hear it said "you're eating too little, your body thinks it's starving and will hold on to fat". Simply not true, for the most part.

 

[notoriousjatt]

Unfortunatly for a newbie as my myself, your post really isnt very clear or specific. How do you know when your eating enough calories? Your just suppose to eat 500 over maintaince right?

 

[anthrax]

Unfortunatly for a newbie as my myself, your post really isnt very clear or specific. How do you know when your eating enough calories? Your just suppose to eat 500 over maintaince right?

As a newbie, you can start with 15 to 20 times your bodyweight (in lbs)

ie you weigh 150lbs
you need 2250 to 3000 calories a day

and adjust accordingly every 2 weeks

 

[ghettostudmuffin]

Ya, and I start at 20x and adjust accordingly.

 

[Silvertide]

My maintenance alone is around 19xbodyweight. I suggest starting at 20xBW and working your way up. Use fitday.com to track your cals and macronutrient ratios.

 

[etherX]

The standard formulas may not apply to you, if you're overfat, older, less active, or just different. You can pick a calorie number almost out of a hat, depending on if you need to gain or cut and then +/- by a few hundred calories every few days to get the effect you need. What you find by counting calories and watching the scale and waistline can't be predicted accurately by formula on an individual basis.

 

[velvett]

On the other hand, when trying to drop fat I often hear it said "you're eating too little, your body thinks it's starving and will hold on to fat". Simply not true, for the most part.

What do you mean "for the most part".

I'll bite my tongue until you answer.

 

[jstrick2]

What do you mean "for the most part".

I'll bite my tongue until you answer.

Yes, I would also like to hear where they pull that info from

 

[anthrax]

After a prolonged starving period, when you go back to regular diet with much more calories, your body stock those calories as fat in order to have enough reserve for the next starving period

 

[JoBu]

The problem isn't so much with total calorie intake but how it is distributed over the day. People think that by skipping breakfast and not eating anything till the afternoon when they just can't stand it anymore (and probably tend to eat more than they can process at one time) they are doing something useful for loosing weight. But they are really conditioning their body to conserve as much energy as possible when there is food available because it "expects" to be starved. They would be much better off by spreading total food intake over the entire day but still keeping below daily requirements to maintain current weight.

After a prolonged starving period, when you go back to regular diet with much more calories, your body stock those calories as fat in order to have enough reserve for the next starving period