Saturday, January 16, 2021

ON “GETTING FAT”

 


 

This has been a pet peeve of mine for quite a while, and I think I’ve finally built up a headful of enough steam to really just pour out about it.  I genuinely cannot stand it whenever someone brings up the concern of “getting fat”, and it may be because I’ve actually DONE it a few times to the point that I find worrying about “getting fat” to be akin to worrying about accidentally becoming a bodybuilder.  Size, irrespective of if it’s fat or muscle, does not “just happen”: it takes work.  And it may not SEEM like work when people eat themselves into obesity every year, but trust me: they’re putting in the hours to get there.  No one accidentally gets fat: it’s through a dedicated campaign of poor decisions repeated over and over with minimal breaks in routine or deviations from the plan.  Yes, just like getting jacked, you gotta employ some effort, consistency and time in order to “get fat”.  So let’s go even further down the rabbit hole to find out why people worrying about “getting fat” are being silly.



Some even manage to fat AND jacked


 

Two of the most notorious programs for generating the “getting fat” comments are Super Squats and 5/3/1 Building the Monolith, primarily because both come with some intense nutritional advice attached: a gallon of milk a day (on top of a diet heavy in food) for the former, and 1.5lbs of ground beef and a dozen eggs a day for the latter.  “If you eat like that, you’re just going to get fat”.  Alright, so here’s the thing: if you can “get fat” in 6 weeks you were already fat.  No one goes from not fat to fat in 6 weeks: you instead go from fat to fatter in 6 weeks.  If you start out “not fat” on one of these programs and actually FOLLOW them (which means doing the conditioning work in Building the Monolith and actually taking the 3+ deep breaths between EVERY rep in Super Squats) you will not get fat.  In fact, while running Building the Monolith, I had to go ABOVE the recommended minimums for meat intake, to around 2-2.5lbs a day, just to recover from the intense training, and managed to put on about 4.5lbs in 6 weeks.  No one that is training hard is going to get fat in 6 weeks and, in most cases, they’re actually going to be STRUGGLING to put away enough calories to recover from that sort of training.  I know when I ran Deep Water my life revolved around eating for 12 weeks, because I NEEDED calories to recover from my training demand.

 

Going even further though, “getting fat” also shows up ALL the time when people talk about longer timelines of training outside of those two aforementioned programs, to which I am forced to cop to the idea that, yes, on a long enough timeline, getting fat IS possible.  But so what?  For one: if you end up “getting fat” in the pursuit of muscular gain, it’s assumed that, while you were “getting fat”, you WERE engaging in some manner of regular, intense physical training.  You weren’t like the dudes riding around on scooters at your local Walmart: you were overeating while you were also pounding away at the training.  You got fat but you ALSO got muscle.  Congrats: muscle is HARD to build.  Far harder than all that fat was.   And, in turn, fat is easy to lose.  Far easier than muscle is.  All you need to do is eat LESS than you were eating.  And if you were doing things RIGHT, this is going to be a blessing.  FINALLY, a break from all this goddamn eating.



Homer, seen here, hard at work

 


Which is the other thing that I find goofy: people always refute the idea of losing fat (aka: cutting, as much as I loathe that term) because it’s time spent NOT building muscle.  It’s seen as some sort of failure if you ever divert away from building muscle and spend time losing fat instead.  To this I say: you aren’t training hard enough if you feel that way.  If you think spending ALL of your training time building muscle is in any way sustainable, viable or desirable, you’re screwing around in the weightroom and not actually training effectively in the first place, so your opinion on the matter is totally moot.  Anyone that has spent any dedicated time to REALLY seeking to build muscle KNOWS that breaks NEED to happen.  This is why you see this concept expressed by any individual and program of worth.  Super Squats is 6 weeks followed by 6 weeks of a low rep 5x5 style program before you start it up again, DoggCrapp employs “Blast and Cruise” protocols in training, 5/3/1 is heavily built around rotating programs, John McCallum wrote about the value of “softening up” before heavy training phases, Stuart McRobert wrote about starting light on your next training phase after maxing out the value in your current one, periodization is a thing that’s been realized by EVERY country that fields successful athletes, etc etc.  The only people who DON’T suggest a break from gaining are youtube charlatans trying to sell you a product because it sounds sexy to ALWAYS be gaining muscle.  Don’t be gullible.

 

Which goes to show the fundamental misunderstanding when someone asks “how do I eat to make sure I don’t get fat while I’m gaining muscle”.  Your lean bulk fantasies are cute, but they’re telling as well.  You’ve already admitted that you have NO intention of actually training hard enough to put on any muscle at all during this muscle building phase, because your concern is on riding some sort of razor’s edge of nutrition so that you eat JUST enough to put on muscle without accumulating fat, rather than asking the question of “how the hell am I going to eat enough to be able to recover from this insane training demand I’ve placed upon myself?”  If you followed Elitefts in the mid 2000s, you know that this was what a LOT of Dave’s writing was dedicated to: how to actually get in enough calories, because those dudes were trying to overcome a ridiculous demand in order to grow.  It’s why there are articles dedicated to how to eat a package of Oreos in 10 minutes, the most effective way to eat Reeces’ peanut butter cups, the first telling of J M Blakely’s “extra large pizza with half a bottle of oil” diet, etc etc.  The people that are planning on succeeding aren’t asking how to eat to not get fat: they’re asking how to eat so that they can get enough calories in their gut before it explodes.



There is a reason Elitefts created this mascot in the first place

 


Don’t worry about getting fat: worry about why you’re worrying about it.      

5 comments:

  1. You're articles are just punching so many people right in the stomach - me included. I love how you call "us" all out and very simply explain how it actually is.

    This article felt initially like a real low blow to me. But man, it's really my issue and it's not like you are aiming at anyone in particular. But after the initial 10 second rise of blood pressure, all I can say is that you are right. And your last line sums it up perfectly.

    This road of strength and size is very new to me, I've never been around people that followed that path. This kind of training is simply not so common on continental Europe as it is in the US. And that's a shame and a big loss.
    I am finding my way around it, but it's definitely not an easy task, as nowadays you drown in information.

    While I think I've been training hard, I came to realize lately that I just arrive at a strength level and technical proficiency to get an honest idea what training hard means and feels like.

    Also, as I've never build much size nor strength and only started it when I hit my 30s. Meaning I've got a lot of ground to cover, many beginner mistakes to make and go through. I slowly reach a point that I am not skinny anymore and combined with the growth curve I had on the compound lifts, look forward to getting fat, for the first time ever. Mainly because now I know to a certain extend how hard I need to push, both nutrition and training.

    Speaking of training, this year will be a little tight on time, as I have plenty of stuff filling up my agenda. So, I figured I do something that is straightforward and can be done from my living room gym. Step in your reference to 531 BtM above. It is so easy that I can make this fit into my day and week schedule, for a couple of cycles even. That it's "only" days of lifting suits me, that I need to get out of the house to move is great too, as I sit on my ass in front of my notebook all day long. The moment it's not snowing anymore I can do at least one longer bike right a week. I've got a weight vest too.
    While I cannot do any dips at home, I figure I just do decline pushups on pushup handles. That's not going to be easy for 100+ reps either.
    I looked online and one of the first things I found was your reddit summary of your run-through of 531 BtM. I liked your ways of giant sets. I have to see how much I can do with my equipment to get it done in as little time as possible.

    Man, not sure if you can read this between the lines, but you lit up a fire in me :)

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    1. It really means a lot you took the time to write all that dude, and I'm glad to hear that it's had an impact. Good on you to go forward with BtM. For the dips, I had a buddy that rigged up 2 saw horses to get it done, but your plan moving forward will certainly work. It's all just upper body pressing at one point. Excited to hear how it turns out for you!

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  2. I do have one question on this subject, and trying hard to not venture into the "don't overthink it" category (which has been a number one problem for me), but before you take on a serious mass program (like the one mentioned in the post and Mass Made Simple by Dan John) do you see ANY benefit in cutting down some of the bodyfat before starting? We're not talking obese here just some Festive Season lumber hanging about.

    As an aside your articles and writing over on reddit has changed my view on strength for the better. Thank you

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    Replies
    1. Appreciate the kind words dude.

      The issue with discussing "benefit" is that it doesn't exist in a vacuum. What could be a benefit to one could be a detriment to another. If one's goal is to get as big as possible, losing fat works against that goal, so in such a case, that would not have any benefit. If one wants to be leaner as they gain, starting off lean will give them more wiggle room. One has to start off knowing their goals first.

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    2. Thank you I really appreciate the reply! And putting it like that makes a whole lot of sense. I am overthinking it and at the same time I need to think about it differently, as you say "what is my goal"?

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