Will I look bigger when I cut? [pics]

[komapOB]

Just had my first bulk that didnt completely fail and put on quite a bit of fat(6 months). Went from 155 ~9-10% to 182 17-18% bf.
3 weeks into cut now and im about 16% now, after water weight Im now 173. I do look bigger but idk how much of it is real gains vs just fat making me look larger.

My fear is that once Im done cutting, I will look the same as before. What do you guys think? Did I put on enough mass to see a net gain of muscle when I reach 9% again?

[Tommy W.]

Almost 10 lbs lost in 3 weeks is excessive at your size

[komapOB]

Almost 10 lbs lost in 3 weeks is excessive at your size

It was the water weight I lost that in the first 1.5 weeks. Ive lost about 1.5 lbs since last week

Eating 2500 cals with no cardio

[grubman]

My fear is that once Im done cutting, I will look the same as before. What do you guys think? Did I put on enough mass to see a net gain of muscle when I reach 9% again?

Well...first off, that first picture looks more like about 12% to me, the second, yeah, maybe 16-17%. You know best, as it's hard to tell from pictures...good lighting makes abs pop, bad lighting makes you look flat. I could go snap two pictures of myself right now where I look 18%BF in one, go to a different room under good lighting, flex, and look like 12%.

In any case, this isn't rocket science. If you have an accurate BF and weight, all you have to do is plug the numbers into a LBM calculator: https://www.bodybuilding.com/fun/lbm_calculator.htm

155 at 10%=139.5 LBM
173 at 16%=145.3 LBM

Which would mean you put on about 6 pounds of muscle. So if you retain that on a sensible deficit, yeah...you'll be 6 pounds bigger, which is a LOT of dry muscle.

But like I said, the weight and BF% have to be ACCURATE, as a percentage or couple pound this way or that can mean the difference between several pounds of muscle.