Weight Control

[brudman]

I am training to participate in a meet in October. It's my first training program for powerlifting (Ed Coan 4-day split) and I love it. I am gaining weight retarded fast though. I have always been a little ecto (small bone structure, relatively lightweight) and weight gain has been hard in the past...but I've gained 12-13 lbs in 3 weeks.

I want to compete at 181...originally I thought 165 but that ain't going to happen at this rate. I am eating to grow and get stronger...relatively clean but just a lot of food. What is a good strategy to keep my weight from skyrocketing but keep my strength going up?

[Kiknskreem]

If you're putting on 4 pounds a week you're just flat out eating too much.

That's not sustainable and you will soon just be fat.

[sam6]

I would eat a clean 2700-3000 cals a day. Broken down into 6 meals a day. Save the carbs for pre and post work out meals. That's what I do at least and it works well. You can go on fitday.com to help plan your meals out and see what you're actually getting. Made a big difference when I could actually look at a breakdown of my consumption.

Edit: I also like to keep carbs low on days I'm not training.

[brudman]

If you're putting on 4 pounds a week you're just flat out eating too much.

That's not sustainable and you will soon just be fat.

I gotcha. It's so weird to me because I'm not used to putting on pounds so easily..In my past I haven't even been close. I suppose it is just that simple.

Would I benefit from cardio? Or do you think I should just quit bein such a fat kid and eat less.

[brudman]

I would eat a clean 2700-3000 cals a day. Broken down into 6 meals a day. Save the carbs for pre and post work out meals. That's what I do at least and it works well. You can go on fitday.com to help plan your meals out and see what you're actually getting. Made a big difference when I could actually look at a breakdown of my consumption.

Edit: I also like to keep carbs low on days I'm not training.

Ahh i see...good post. Thanks buddy. Yeah my problem must be that I eat literally 4000 calories stacked with complex carbs all throughout the day. Thanks for the link too brah.

[bosox1362]

I gotcha. It's so weird to me because I'm not used to putting on pounds so easily..In my past I haven't even been close. I suppose it is just that simple.

Would I benefit from cardio? Or do you think I should just quit bein such a fat kid and eat less.

It depends what your goals are to be honest. If you only care about strength then keep on eating a lot and lift hard! You won't gain 4lbs a week for much longer, 1-2lbs is more maintainable.

If you would like to remain lean, focus on strength second, then you definitely want to ease back the calories or add in some light cardio.

[brudman]

It depends what your goals are to be honest. If you only care about strength then keep on eating a lot and lift hard! You won't gain 4lbs a week for much longer, 1-2lbs is more maintainable.

If you would like to remain lean, focus on strength second, then you definitely want to ease back the calories or add in some light cardio.

Good point. I am so inexperienced in this area. My goal is to get to 1250, right now I'm at about 1000. I could give a sh*t about anything else. I just don't want to get so heavy that I'm in a weight class where I can't compete. You know what I'm sayin?