How do I stop being afraid?

[Rumik]

Hey there. Been quite a while since I posted on these forums, which I really regret as I've always found this community to be so supportive and helpful. I'm going to spend more time reading and posting, beginning right now with a request.

 

Could you share with me how you stop being afraid of putting on fat while building muscle?

 

It took me years to realise I was overweight, and years to get to a place where I'm relatively happy with myself. I'm now at somewhere between 10 and 15% body fat, 122lb, 5'4, 35 years old, and I can finally look in the mirror and say to myself "I don't need to do this anymore". And it's true, I really don't... but I want more. I want to put on muscle, I want to feel confident and sexy when I take my shirt off, and I know exactly what I have to do to do it, but I keep failing through fear of putting on too much fat. Again and again I have started bulking and freaked out when my waist measurements go up by a cm or two, so I stop and immediately start cutting. I do it too aggressively and for too long, I work out too much and I burn out and I accomplish nothing.

 

I have been eating around maintenance for the last couple of months, and I have just started a cut to try to get down to 10% before reverse dieting and beginning a bulking phase, during which I will maintain a 10% calorie surplus and see how I go. I desperately want to be confident enough in the process to do it, to bulk until I'm at 15% bf and cut down to 10 again, but the idea of deliberately putting on weight, some of which will definitely be fat, to be frankly terrifying, because it took so long to lose before. it has taken me years to finally stop being ashamed of myself and I guess that has resulted in a body image issue. I am trying to find the confidence to beat it.

 

Has anyone else been through something similar?

 

Thank you for reading.

 

Stats:

 

Male, 35 years old, 5'4", 122lb, around 13% BF.

BMR 1450 ish

TDEE without exercise, just everyday stuff, between 1550 and 1600

When I cut I do it at a 30% deficit in order to lose 1lb a week (-3500 calories) - that's a daily calorie target of 1100. I realise that is very low, but any higher and my fat loss is just unbearably slow, and I want the cuts to be over with ASAP.

I work out 5 days a week (Bigger Leaner Stronger), and eat back the calories I burn, which is around 300

[Geran]

A couple of recommendations here. I feel that Steve has covered this topic from several angles, so I encourage you to read these articles by him:

 

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/six-months-ago-i-recommited-to-fitness-heres-what-happened/

 

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/a-beginners-guide-to-intermittent-fasting/

 

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/intermittent-fasting/

 

I don't claim to be an expert by ANY stretch of the imagination, but here is a TL;DR of the information from these as I understand it:

 

1. Don't worry about "bulking" or "cutting."

From everything I have read and experienced personally, the best method is to simply build muscle and lose fat at the same time, not bulk up and then cut back down. The best method for this seems to be eating as close to "Full Paleo" as possible, while also engaging in intermittent fasting as you are able to. If you do this, you generally don't have to worry about how much you eat, as long you only eat when you're hungry and stop when you're full, and eat within your window. This eliminates the need for you to count calories and/or worry about percentages. 

 

Example: I skip breakfast every day (see the articles for the benefits of this practice, big thanks to Steve for this habit!), and wait until lunch to eat. Between Lunch at 12 and Dinner at 8, I eat pretty much whatever I want as long as it's paleo and I'm actually hungry, not just eating because I am bored/stressed/like the flavor. 

 

2. Lift Heavy

It's a constant theme of nearly all the fat loss/muscle building material here, and I've seen it work for myself as well. If at all possible, get access to some free weights, a barbell and bench press/squat rack seeming to be ideal. I'm not bashing body weight routines by any means, but I have seen the most drastic positive changes in myself and someone else from switching to this. There's all kind of material on how to lift heavy, what lifts to do, how many sets/reps, etc. No one program works for everyone. But I personally support the NF attitude of "pick up heavy things."

 

3. Appearance is a Result of Strength

I can't recall what article this statement was originally made in, but I see it all over the material here. For a real world example, see Saint's story:

https://www.nerdfitness.com/blog/60-pounds-overweight-to-6-pack-abs/ 

That guy tried everything in the book to cut down his body fat percentage before he finally dove into Paleo Eating and strength training. I don't know about you, but looking like that would be just fine with me. He stopped worrying about his numerical weight and just ate Paleo and trained for strength. And his body adapted to it by making him what he is now. If you want to build muscle and lose fat, get strong. Your body will follow suit, both in strength and appearance.

 

Feel free to PM me if you any questions/comments/incendiary remarks/etc.

[Elastigirl]

Hi, I'm a 50 year old female,  and am just starting to experiment with bulking and cutting, so I don't have great advice. I can say I struggle too. The first time I bulked, I just didn't measure. I knew I would freak out if I did, and be like you and start cutting. After the bulk, when I went to cut, I was surprised by how easy it was to cut, so that helped build my confidence for next time. Even so, I stayed at maintenance for about 6 months. I did my bulk Nov- Jan, which made it easier, because I was wearing sweatshirts anyway, and all the wonderful holiday sweets. I measured this time. Waldo (not sure if he's on here anymore) advised me to just go for .5 pound a week gain. That is such a small amount , no one even notices. During this time, I kept track of my workouts in my log. Seeing how fast my kettlebell presses were increasing , helped me keep going with the bulk, even when my waist started increasing.  I did gain about an inch around my waist with about a 7 pound gain. Right now I'm in maintenance, and then I will do a cut. I'm trying to decide how much I'll lose for the cut, I'd like to maintain the muscle, but I do want to cut the inches on my waist.

 

Some people have had luck with carb timing. You could look into that.

 

Lastly, the other thing I decided, was that right now I am at a healthy weight. I wanted to build some muscle. But I also don't want it to stress me. I decided that to look at it like an experiment. Try bulking and cutting out to see if it worked, if not I could just go back to maintenance.