New Year Goal: Gaining Muscle

[Guest guest]

With the new year looming just around the corner, I was wondering if

anyone else here was already at or near maintenance weight and setting

a goal of JUST gaining muscle instead of the usual " I'd like to lose

(*NOT* -loose-) fat and gain muscle at the same time " that we all

start out declaring when we begin BFL.

I've been doing maintenance level calories since November 29 in order

to feed my muscles enough to encourage growth. I feel as if I only

had noticeable muscle growth in the first month or two of BFL (the

usual newbie muscle gain that comes from starting a weight training

program for the first time, or, in my case, coming back after a long

hiatus), and after that, it was more of a fat loss process that

*revealed* my muscles and firmed them up as the fluff marbled through

my muscles and padded under my skin melted away. The weight training

was preserving my muscle mass, not increasing it while I was

functioning at a caloric deficit. The general consensus seems to be

that after the initial newbie gains, the only way to really increase

skeletal muscle mass is to eat at maintenance or above.

I realize it goes against the grain to say I want to get bigger, but I

would love to have some seriously jacked arms, and sticking with the

low BFL calories would only give me lean, stringy arms that were

totally out of proportion with my Quadzilla thighs. There are women

who can use just BFL to cut down to goal weight and find themselves

with buff shoulders and arms and lean, slender legs, but I'm not one

of them. Even when lean, my legs are WAY more muscular than my

arms, making my proportions seem off.

I'd love to hear from more experienced ladies about their experience

with maintenance/bulking. Have you been able to gain muscle while

sticking with the BFL cutting diet, or did you have to increase your

calories/portion sizes? If you go by palm-fist, your portion sizes

will never change, which means that you'll ALWAYS be eating 1300-1700

calories a day, six days a week, with just one higher calorie free day

a week. Assuming that most women working out 6 days a week have a

total daily energy expenditure of 2000-2400 calories, this is a

permanent deficit, right? Have you changed your work outs to

something besides BFL pyramids to improve muscle gains? What has

worked for you? If you haven't changed your routine at all from core

BFL, are you still satisfied with your gains, or are you thinking

about modifying things?

Maggie