As I posted a few months ago, I am into weight training now. In this post, I wanted to document my experiences with different diets to support my goals.

Nutrition tracked using Cal AI.
Workout tracked using Hevy.

I had tried weight training before, without any focus on diet. Consequently, I never did see much gains, probably because of not meeting calorific and protein requirements. So this time, I decided to track my diet closely and do it right. Soon, I realised that lifting is the easiest part when trying to gain muscle mass.

Phase 1: Dirty Bulk (Months 1-4)

I used some online Calorie Calculators to estimate my calorie intake for lean muscle gain and most of them gave me around 3250 Kcal a day. However, the mistake I made was, I used AI calorie tracking apps like Cal AI to track my meals. Although such apps are excellent for identifying the food I am eating, they are extremely poor in estimating portion size.

Calories : 3150-3350 Kcal
Protein : 135g
Starting Composition: 68.5kg (14.6% body fat)
Ending Composition: 76.8kg (20.4% body fat)

No wonder, my weight quickly shot up. I gained almost 5kg in 5 weeks. Even when I realised I was probably eating way too much, it took me very long to slowly cut out all the extra food and by the 4 month mark, was almost 9kg heavier. I guess out of that, 2kg was water & glycogen retention, 2-3kg was lean muscle mass, and the remaining 5-6kg was body fat.

The first few weeks were hell, it seemed like I was eating all the time, force feeding myself. I lost all interest in food and eating became a chore. Still, I (erroneously) chose to believe in an app rather on what my body was trying to tell me.

My T-shirts started feeling tighter around the waist especially when sitting. Eventually, I realised I had been eating much more than I needed to and aborted this diet. I was extremely depressed and disappointed by what happened.

Luckily, at least my exercise volume went up steadily during this time.

Phase 2: Cut (Month 5)

I had 2 ways forward after realising my error:

1. Correct my diet and start a lean bulk going forward (Keeping existing fat)
2. Do a cut and lose some of the excess fat I gained (Losing some muscle mass in the process, too)

I chose Option 2, just because I felt so disgusted with my new paunch. I got rid of the shitty AI apps and started eating by feel, tracking only protein intake roughly in my head.

Calories : 2150-2350Kcal
Protein : 145g
Starting Composition: 76.8kg (20.4% body fat)
Ending Composition: 73.3kg (16% body fat)

It was such a relief to go back to eating normally and skipping breakfast again (what a chore it was). It took me 2 full weeks before I started seeing weight loss.

In the gym, I didn’t feel anything different for the first few weeks, in fact without the heavy breakfast, I felt much more energetic. However, my lifting volume stalled and even started going down a bit in the last week.

I also suffered a lower back injury on the leg press at this time, which made me re-think many of my exercises and completely stalled leg progress.

The last couple of weeks, I was hungry all the time, sometimes not able to sleep at night. I also started dreaming about food.

Phase 3: Lean bulk (Month 6 onwards)

Having realised what a mistake I had made, I decided to be more mindful of what I eat going forward, depending purely on eating by feel. Eating enough to not be hungry, but never force feeding. Hope my strength rises again, at the gym.

Let’s see how it works in a few months!