In my case should i eat excess calories.
And have you ever really seen guys gain muscle eating only at thier BMR – Or below it for that sake?
I mean..is there any prof of not eating more than your BMR can build muscle?

In general yes younger people seem to be able to eat more than older people. This seems to be a trend throughout our entire life cycle.

At your age and assuming you are weight training and are fairly active you can probably eat significantly more than us older guys.

Test it out and let us know how you’re doing at some higher calorie levels. Make sure to take your waist measurement. As long as your not getting smooth and flabby around the wait you can be sure that you’re most likely not putting on fat.

JB

But you guys give some good arguments. However much muscle I gain, eventually I want to lose (most of) the fat I gained. In the process of cutting I might actually lose some of the muscle I gained as well.

The argument that I think Rippetoe is making is that when you’re eating >>4000 calories a day, it helps the body to restore faster and build more muscle. I don’t think he backs this up with research, but he backs it up with decades of experience.
According to him, you can keep up a nice linear progression at all your lifts for longer when eating a ton, than when you’re eating less calories a day.

ken, I’m no expert at all, but I’m sure you should be eating more than 2500 calories a day at your age, especially when you’re also doing serious strength training. I’ll let the experts answer your questions in more depth though.

edit: Thanks for the responses btw guys!

I dont know if this is the right place to ask this,but do u believe that teens(16-20) are able to consume more calories than adults(22 and above)? I am 18 years old and 6ft 180 pounds and trying to get the 1.61 ratio and i am able to eat up to 2500 cal and still lose weight. Are younger people in general able to lose more weight than older ones? Thanks

I looked at that .pdf and here are my comments.

1. Almost half the bodyweight gained was fat.
2. At that caloric load, you’re looking at a big increase in water
uptake (remember, I gained 10 lbs in a weekend over Christmas just from overeating, and it wasn’t fat or muscle gains)
3. It’s easy to show the way UP… but it’s all irrelevant to us because there is no DOWN (ie, how much does he weigh when his bodyfat levels drop to where they were in the beginning)
4. If consuming massive quantities of food is anabolic… then NOT consuming massive quantities of food must be CATABOLIC… and since the net effect of going up and down(ie the same calories consumed must be cut out to reduce bodyfat levels), then it’s a moot point either way for the look we want.

I hope this makes sense.

B

I don’t know of any research that indicates eating a caloric excess can affect the rate at which muscle can be built. Until this research is done and the speed that muscle can be built is proven to change with excess calories then all of this is simply conjecture and opinion based on little more than observations made in a gym.

What is also at issue with all of this is what is being measured and how it’s being measured. For example: Lean Body Mass measurements do not mean 100% “Muscle Mass”

The age of the person and training status also matter, as well as their somatotype.

The point is that the current body of evidence doesn’t suggest there is any way to eat your way to bigger muscles.

JB

But still, there are a lot of people that get a lot of respect that advocate eating shitloads to gain as much muscle as possible.
What do you think of this link for example? http://startingstrength.com/articles/novice_effect_rippetoe.pdf

Clearly, when eating a ton you will gain fat too, but you will gain muscle faster, for longer. For me personally it’s quite easy to lose fat (I prefer eating a low calory diet, and am naturally lean), so wouldn’t eating a high number of calories be better for me? My goal is to look shirtless in the summer.

http://relativestrengthadvantage.com/gaining-muscle-by-stuffing-yourself-like-a-pig-is-a-stupid-idea/

I think smaller increments in bodyweight will LOOK bigger than they sound. So if you gained 2-3 pounds of real muscle mass but stayed just as lean, you might seem 10 pounds heavier (whatever that even means)…I guess what I am saying is people might guess that you’re heavier than you are. Make sense?

JB

You gotta keep pushing, there is still lots of growth left in you if you’re only 21. Keep pushing and you’ll keep gaining for a while yet.

JB

Also, similarly to the above Question, a really light guy say 6ft 130lbs, increasing muscle mass by training using a program like yours for example. WIHOUT eating more than his BMR what can you typically expect to achieve interms of lean weight and “look”.
Is there a definite relationship between the 2? or is it possible to see a noticeable change without a big change in recoreded body weight,

Thanks!