Skinny fat 2 month bulk (any difference?)

[v8hemi]

Well I'm skinny fat. My starting weight was 155lbs at 5'10 back in September. I decided to bulk up to at least 170-180 then cut down as per the advice that was given to me by members on the forum. I've been steadily gaining 1 pound per week and my lifts have been getting SIGNIFICANTLY stronger every week however I just don't see the difference in the mirror. Please take a look and tell me if you see anything.

Before weight (left side) - 155 lbs
Now (right side) - 163 lbs

Thanks!

edit: SORRY! TWO months not three

[joegengsta]

404, change not found

[chrisboudreaux]

404, change not found

Yea sorry bro, you don't look different. Go on a cut now.

[v8hemi]

Yea sorry bro, you don't look different. Go on a cut now.

Don't you suggest I at least bulk to 170 before cutting to avoid looking like a twig?

[WestOz]

If I were you I would eat at maintenance or just under and lift heavy and do some cardio.

Can you post your workout?

[dburgz]

Don't you suggest I at least hit 170 before cutting to avoid looking like a twig?

You have to lift hard and eat clean. It doesn't look like you did that.

[relic12]

got a little bigger in the arms, but that's about it. if you're getting stronger, staying in the 8-12 rep range, and gaining weight, you can bet that you are gaining muscle. id say if your motivation is still good, keep at it. otherwise i'd switch it up and cut down ten or fifteen pounds so i could actually see the changes. just my advice.

[v8hemi]

If I were you I would eat at maintenance or just under and lift heavy and do some cardio.

Can you post your workout?

For the majority I was using a push/pull split... Heavy reps 10-8-6 and using the staples from GST

Chest/Tri
Back/Bi
Shoulders
Legs

Now I'll be starting:

Legs
Chest/Shoulders
Back
Arms

[v8hemi]

You have to lift hard and eat clean. It doesn't look like you did that.

That's discouraging to hear because I DO lift hard. My rep ranges are 10-8-6, first set is warmup and last two are to failure. My lifts have been going up every week. My DB bench press has went up 15 pounds within the two month period. I'd like to mention I'm also far beyond noobie gains since I've been lifting for months prior but that was before I found this website so I was clueless.

[Dexter3000]

If I were you I would eat at maintenance or just under and lift heavy and do some cardio.

Can you post your workout?

This.

You can get stronger and shed some fat if you want and it'll make you look better.

[v8hemi]

So am I not on the right track regardless of my strength and steady weight gain? Could 2 months be too early to tell?

I would prefer to stick to one method at a time, bulk or cut. I can deal with the body fat during the winter. If someone could just advise where or if my bulk is going wrong.

[JoshuaNeff]

Why are you worried about bulking and cutting? If you're skinny fat, then just eat clean and lift heavy. You have some time to recomp. Probably close to a year before you plateau out and need to worry about bulk/cut.

Cutting is going to be much harder without muscle on you, you'll cut and end up skinny fat. But smaller... or anorexic looking. Bulking is silly, because if you really lack muscle mass, you're going to achieve the same thing as a recomp but add more fat on top.

Two months is still pretty early to tell.... but adding that much weight and only going up 15lbs in your bench doesn't seem like as fast of progress as you could be making.

Do cardio at separate times from your lifts, make an effort to do things like stairs instead of elevator, bike instead of car, etc.

I think 10-8-6, or 12 reps, or 10-12 or any other rep counting like that is bogus. I think it's a false way to say "Hey I did good!" I do a warmup set of 10-14 with enough that somewhere in there starts to feel a bit harder, but not nearly failure. I do heavy for 2nd set, then if I fail at 7+ so be it, if I hit 14 and haven't failed then I increase weight. The second set is more of a judge for the third, where I'm going to fail. If I don't fail at 7-8, then I grab more weight, if I fail at 4-5, grab less weight...

So what I'm saying, is the above is a cluster-f of numbers. Ignore them. I have a warm up, a moderate set, then a set where I fail and do 2-3 more.

Skinny-fat is a real bad situation to be in, but also a really good one. Most of the time we can recomp and have a year of great gains and not worry about calories quite as much. I would wager that if you ate maintenance, you could see the same strength gains--- and lose weight or at the very least stay the same on the scale.

[iNegUthenLol]

Stop worrying about bulking or cutting.

Go lift heavy, drink a **** load of water, and eat clean.