seems like people still have unrealistic expections on muscle growth: solution within

Originally Posted by not_a_virus.exe

Eating more doesn't help you grow muscle. While it's likely that there's a caloric requirement for muscle growth, it doesn't matter where the calories come from, whether it be from food or body fat reserves.

The logical fallacy is twofold:

1. I ate above BMR and I got bigger. Well, yes, EVERYONE will get get bigger if they increased the layer of fat above their muscle AS WELL as increasing the amount of visceral fat WITHIN and BELOW the muscle. The logical fallacy is assuming that an increase in body size must only mean an increase in muscle growth.

2. I increased my caloric intake and got stronger and bigger. Well, that doesn't mean you could have achieved the same results if you ate less too.

The science is well established that muscle growth is mostly about the quality of your workouts (given that you are also eating a rolling daily average of 70-120 grams of protein). Unless you're super shredded, you'll have more than enough body fat to supply your muscles with the necessary calories for growth.

There's a lot of confusion between the relationship between energy, strength, and growth too, but I digress. The bottom line though is that eating more won't hurt your gains, but it's not necessary, and if you eat above maintenance, you'll also grow a layer of fat. And that layer of fat gives the illusion of increased muscle growth. Also, the caveat is that a severe caloric deficit can decrease energy in the gym which is obviously not desired, so you may have to do some trial and error to see how much of a deficit you can handle.

People have asked me for examples of people who eat below BMR and can still grow muscle. I'm hesitant to provide examples because it can easily start a slippery slope of supporting arguments with anecdotal evidence, but just to humor you guys...

What these contestants achieved in a 3-month period:
http://www.adonisindex.com/adonis-tr...ers-announced/
http://www.adonisindex.com/adonis-tr...st-competitors

Nonetheless, scientific evidence > anecdotal evidence, but at least the anecdotal evidence above should be a point of interest for further investigation for doubters.

Originally Posted by not_a_virus.exe

lol this is the opposite of bb.com.

and i'm a trash collector pretending to be a nutritionist on the internet. obviously.

Originally Posted by Unbreakable

Interesting article on stronglifts.com about Arnold, but I'm sure a lot of people here have already checked it out.

http://stronglifts.com/arnold-schwar...-build-muscle/

Originally Posted by Gibonius

The media these days hypes the power and necessity of steroids way too much. Most untrained or casually trained people think everyone that's big and strong used gear, and they don't have high standards for "big" or "strong." You hear about how A-Rod must have used roids when he was 17 and went from a 150 lbs to 315 lbs bench press in a year. You hear about how 220 lbs guys "have" to be using to get so huge.

It's just stupid, people who have never trained seriously in their life just use "I'm not using steroids" as an excuse to not be in shape.


Modern guys are just abominations, the judging is so screwed up. I like the idea of bodybuilding being about making yourself an ideal masculine form, not just as freakishly huge as possible.

Originally Posted by Unbreakable

I thought A-Rod admitted to using juice? The thing with steroids, as with anything is, misinformation, which leads to misuse.

Originally Posted by Gibonius

Oh, A-Rod absolutely used steroids, but in his late 20s, not in high school. My point was that his performance as a high schooler is not unreasonable, but people were running around using it as evidence of his "obvious" roid usage. He wasn't even big when he was juicing, by standards of people who lift seriously.