Gaining mass, and decreasing BF%....?

[gigem]

Im not sure which forum to put this in, so if it's in the wrong one bare with me. I need advice on what to do. Right now I'm not sure what my exact body fat is. I'm 6'2 about 205lbs. I have a six pack and have a pretty athletic build. Im guessing probably 10-12% BF. I want to gain about 5 more pounds of lean muscle, but at the same time drop down to about 8% BF.

I never got into the whole bulking and cutting thing. I just worked my ass off in the gym and played sports for cardio. I would eat pretty healthy i think. You know avoid the ice cream and soda. eat fruit instead of chips, things like that.

Is it possible to lower my body fat% and still gain muscle without having to keep track of all the calories im eating, carbs im eating, etc?

I was planning on continuing to lift hard, just working harder to avoid eating foods with high fat content, as well as do more cardio. Should this do the trick?

[joey_tgstk]

If you can see your six pack then you probably are around 10% bf. It's pretty hard to gain 5 pounds of lean mass while maintaing a bf of <8% though. Avoiding fat shouldn't be your priority, since you need about 20% of your daily calories to be made up of fat. Avoid sugar carbs if you can.
I think at this point you should be keeping track of your foods if you are trying to be rigid with your body, it really isn't as hard as everyone says it is, just get a notebook and you're done. Good luck.

-Joey

[RobDude]

I don't like the whole idea of 'bulking' and 'cutting' myself...and I think (in my limited experience here) that a lot of people abuse the 'bulk' phase. It's just an excuse to get fat and lift 3x a week.

People will specify a 'clean' bulk - do a 'clean' bulk. Eat healty foods, but have a caloric surplus so you can gain your five pounds. Give it a month-6 weeks to gain those five pounds and slowly reduce your calories, a few hundred each week and enter a nice happy maintance phase.