This is the whole problem with the SS GOMAD dogma. Anklebreaker made a nice post earlier in the thread.

I think a good rule of thumb is to simply eat to support strength gains. If your squat is stalled then eat more. Rinse repeat until you don't want to get any fatter. But don't start off literally eating as much as you possibly can.

For example, I have a late 30's trainee that is 5'10 130lbs. Does he need to eat a lot more than he is used to to get stronger and gain muscle? Of course. Does it make sense for him to start doing GOMAD and crushing 3 McDoubles for an afternoon snack? Of course not.

He needs to spend a month or two learning the lifts and making some neurological strength gains, and yes gain a little weight. But, his bench is going to go from 50lbs to 100lbs no matter what he eats. There is no need to force him to eat 3 times the food he is used to right away so those strength gains happen in 3 weeks instead of 4.

Don't know how many of you who still play poker, but those of you who do, do you notice any difference when you play, if you play while eating below maintenance and weight training?

Yeah, I feel bad for the guy.

I think Zach gets a ton of support at WFAC and the comments on Rips Q&A are overwhelmingly positive, so I don't think it's so bad.

100% agree and I liked AB's post as well. This is probably the opinion of all the regs here by now.

To be honest, there was a fad going on here some time ago (when 70sbig came up) where you could easily get the impression that "just pound mcdoubles and drink milk till you puke, then eat your puke" was the philosophy that was thought to be best here. That was obviously not true; people were just talking about how they like some fast food stuff and how they build their own and that it's not horrible to eat some fast food stuff. I still think that some people who were new to HF back then got nurtured with the idea that SS+GOMAD is a black and white thing and that it is correct not to care about BF etc. at all. FWIW, that is a common idea on the ss boards as well.

All that is obviously dumb. No one ever said that anyone should turn off their brains.

"Eat through your sticking points" is better advice if you want to shoot out a smart one-liner imo, because it implies that you don't stuff your face with food all the time but just when you get into trouble progressing.

According to 70sbig, he's aiming for 275. Should be interesting.

These guys work really hard. Are you sure you're not underestimating a few years of working out while not on a program + a year of 100% compliance to training + excellent form + eating and sleeping for recovery?

genz,

That is like reading about the Korean War in North Korea.

Why is it correct to care about BF?

Also, isn't it already too late to eat through your sticking points by the time you realize you've hit one?

Yeah, horrible decision. Rip should have blanked out his face at least to protect his privacy. Maybe I am paranoid about putting myself out there on the internet. But this kind of **** can really come around and bite you in the ass hard. Is it Zach who is the totally broke college student who Rip talked about in the interview or was it A.C.? If it was him and he applies for jobs in the future at companies whose HR people google the applicants, he might curse the day he stepped into WFAC. Or he will find his pic plastered all over the office. No offense, but just look at how sylar obviously collected pics of regular posters here and only waited for the opportunity to make a montage, mocking the people. And that montage was totally harmless. Being a shirtless, somewhat fatty fitness model is 1000 times worse.

What do I care if my pictures are distributed on the Internet? You know that sylar probably got that picture of me from... kyleboddy.com, right? Have you seen my username?

If some company doesn't want me to work for them because I documented my progress with an experimental training regimen, then **** 'em. Who cares.

Some of you guys care way too much about what random idiots think about you.

AC did King Kong as an 18 year old(?) weighing <190lbs with a best ever clean of 240 I think. He was doing crossfit at the time. You can watch the video and do some digging to figure out the exact numbers.

It's kinda like the Henry David Thoreau quote:

"“I say, beware of all enterprises that require new clothes, and not rather a new wearer of clothes.”

Yeah. You might be a special case because of your site etc. I for one am pretty old fashioned about privacy and the things I want people to know about me (even though I do nothing that requires any amount of hiding. It's just nobody's business).
And just saying "lol ****'em if they don't want me" is a pretty to simplistic imo. Also getting ridiculed by colleagues isn't fun for most people also. And having your face photoshopped into some bestiality pr0n pics isn't so awesome either.
I'm just saying that there are tons of reckless people out there who will exploit stuff like that relentlessly. And you weren't posing with your shirt off.

**** like that is sooo easy to say if you don't want or don't need the job. If you want it because you care about it, the world looks different. Some people just want to get a job at a bank, an enterprise, a law firm etc. Maybe there is a different mindset by now in the US and the HR guys don't care about drunk party pics etc., but here, you don't get the interview and you'll never know why.

I think I gave up caring about photos of me on the internet when my captain canada halloween costume was uploaded.

Yeah, that's the only thing I didn't like about AB's post - I don't think people get the advice to stuff their face as complete newbies anymore.


Why would it be? It's not like your mistakes are irreversible. Maybe you'll need to reset and work up again, then break through but it's not too late.

This times a 1000, I would never ever work for a company who cared about this. If you want to be a big-shot lawyer, fine, take care.

If you suck at your job, have no skills, and need to protect your personal life, then it's probably not a good idea to be available on the Internet. If, on the other hand, you have mad skills and plenty of self-confidence about finding a job, then it doesn't matter.

I'm not an idiot, I'm good at the jobs I end up at, and I don't work for employers who care about stupid **** like this. Getting a job is not winning the lottery. This is a hard concept to grasp for a lot of my friends - they're not getting interviews or whatever because they suck and haven't produced anything of value to show to companies. They want to know that you are capable of doing the job in advance, which often means doing work for free (ZOMG) to build a portfolio and show them what the **** is up.

So yeah, I don't care that my shirtless pics will be posted everywhere in three months, and maybe that kid doesn't either. But what I know is that if my HR manager judges me because I worked my ass off to lift heavy weights and drink two gallons of milk per week - whether or not this was a good idea is irrelevant - then I sure as **** don't want to work for that company.

Dude, Germans. Nuff said.

dude, why are you letting everyone know my sources?

I guess if I lived in a country with unemployment over 25% or whatever, I'd probably care more about getting a job. Then again it's not much better here. But whatever.

sylar,

Shameless self-promotion.

I interpret the phrase "beware of" in the quote to mean "cautiously approach and critically evaluate" rather than "entirely avoid."
But you're wasting time.

People make mistakes man. E.g. if you care about your BF it's hard to know exactly how much to eat, then your body tells you to stop sucking once your recovery goes in the toilet.

Rather than trying to do a somewhat lean bulk by using a small caloric excess, would it be better to do what Lyle recommends to those concerned with looking good: alternate between cutting down to 10% BF and bulking up to 15% BF?