But You Don't Want to Add Fat? (part 2)

THE DESTRUCTIVE PSYCHOLOGY OF FAT-PHOBIA,

AND ITS IMPLICATIONS FOR PUTTING ON WEIGHT.

I've spent much time now, several years, surveying the online population of underweight people who desire to gain meaningful mass. Daily have I read of the constant struggle for some people to put on pounds. Please believe me when I share this assessment: Your inability to gain weight is less likely to be due to physiological reasons, and more likely to be due to psychological reasons!

I'm writing part two as a follow-up to part one, simply because I wanted to clarify some of the finer points, as necessitated by some of the responses to the first piece. The point was not to bash the "leangain" approach, and I'm certainly not encouraging you to try to gain fat. I'm also not advocating dirty bulks, for the average gaining practitioner. Of course we want to gain as little fat as possible; of course an aesthetic physique is one of our stated goals. Okay? So bear with me.

Yet still, the point remains, being too conservative with your approach is not an efficient use of your time. Here's the thing: I feel like people are trying to be needlessly clever here, "How can I put on muscle, but not fat?", or, "What if I bulk & cut every-other-day, can I burn fat while I gain muscle?" You are looking for a shortcut. You are trying to "out-smart" fat gain. You're looking for that infamous "one-weird-trick", but...

FAT IS SMARTER THAN YOU.

FAT and fat-storage is a mechanism that has evolved over hundreds of millions of years, to keep you alive. Fat has kept your ancestors alive through times of famine; fat has fueled their bodies in the absence of grain. Fat serves a purpose. (It's an insult to FAT that you hate it so, and that you find the slightest fat gain shameful. YOU MUST LET GO OF YOUR FEAR OF FAT! Fat is our ally & friend).

Fat is darn-near sentient, with a mind of its own. I'm not saying that as a figure of speech; it's more accurate than you think. So it's no surprise your feeble attempts to block fat gain at all costs will be met with resistance. It is silly to imagine it would be simple to suppress what evolution has carefully worked out over many millennia to be best for you. But yes, there are work-arounds. We can successfully modulate our body composition.

Now, what has Nature worked out for us? Has Nature dictated that foods be perpetually plentiful, and always in a state of artificial abundance? Certainly not. The food supply is tied to the seasons, and ebbs & flows with the harvests. With this in mind, do you think bodybuilders "invented" bulking & cutting? Or did they just discover it? Societies have been "bulking & cutting" long before the advent of physique manipulation: They ate plenty in times of plenty, and ate less during the lean times. However, mass-production of foods has altered this process.

But rather than follow the cyclical rhythms of abundance & restriction, people imagine they can devise a strategy wherein they gain only muscle; and if they do it correctly, they will "avoid" fat deposition, and never need to cut. They worry they'll burn their hard-earned muscle while in deficit, negating some of their effort. "If you slow-bulk slowly enough, you may never need to cut!" This sounds wonderful on paper, but not only is this slower, it runs counter to what Nature desires.

You can't have it both ways: You can't claim Hardgainership in one breath, and then in the same sentence, place multiple conditions on how you want to gain what kind of weight. Does that make sense? If you're coming from a point of the (perceived) inability to add weight, you don't get to say, "I'll only add muscle if there's no fat". You should be so lucky! But you don't get that option. If you want strength & size, accept the fact a pound of fat hitches a ride with each three or four pounds of muscle you pick up. Because you're going to trim it at a later date.

Will anyone notice if this guy gains 5 pounds of fat?

What about TEN pounds, distributed evenly?

HOW does our psychology sabotage us? Fat-Fear makes you squeamish. It makes you reluctant to devour a meal with reckless abandon. A little voice sits in the back of your mind that constantly warns you, "Don't eat TOO much, I might get . . . FAT!". You're terrified of it, admit it. Well, STOP IT. I realize anyone can say, "Oh, you can't gain weight? Just eat 6 Big-Macs each day, you'll gain". Of course the solution is to eat more, everyone knows this. If only it were this easy. You've got to learn to shut down that voice.

There's two phenomenon going on: Your stomach is quite literally atrophied from under-use; it's folded up to the point that a small amount of food activates the stretch-receptors, triggering a false sense of fullness. The solution here is to stretch it out. Eat a full meal, then chase it with a pint of milk, or even just water. Send a message to your stomach to stretch out, to prepare for the larger meals you'll be stuffing in there. You "feel like you might vomit"? Well, do you actually vomit, or just feel that way? Push through; in time, that feeling will go away.

But the other phenomenon which hinders your growth is that voice, the "Don't-Fat" voice. It's the same voice that makes you avoid dietary fat, for fear of becoming what you eat. It's related to the voice that makes you not try, because you "don't have good genetics, anyway". It's the voice that makes you wonder if you can even make gains, with your small-diameter wrist bones. It's a voice that makes you give up. But you WILL put on weight, and it really will be mostly muscle, if you're making the appropriate effort in the gym. 

This picture only serves to break up a wall of text.

It's a visual representation of "effort in the gym".

You've got to trust in the process, and pursue the goals you really want, rather than second-guessing yourself. Most of the time people think they're getting fat too fast, it's due to stomach-bloating, from perpetually having food in their stomach & intestines. They slack in front of the mirror, with garbage posture, and decide they're putting on fat too quickly, which then results in doubts about bulking. Maybe it's not fat at all, just poor posture? (Side-note: But they don't want to work abs & core when bulking, because they "can't see them", but also don't hit abs & core when cutting, because "you can't build muscle in a deficit"!) 

This isn't to say some people aren't getting fat. They'll try to rush the process, and see how much they can "gain" in 2 months. Muscle-protein-synthesis is a slow process, okay? Like paying money into a savings account, the results stack up over time. But because you weren't patient, now, instead of a "hardgainer," you classify yourself as "skinny fat". You say you "ARE" skinnyfat, rather than say you "became" skinny fat. It's like a new identity for you. Yet all through the massing phase, you avoided cardio and you avoided training abs. Are you starting to see a pattern here?

But, all good bulks must come to an end. No one ever obtained the physique they desired in a single bulk, or even in a single bulk & a single cut. Like the perpetual sowing & reaping of the fields, you will make cyclical progress if you are patient. Will you grow tomatoes in one month instead of three, if you provide extra water, sun, and fertilizer? NO, you can't. It simply doesn't work that way. You control all the variables you can, and wait for things to grow. Then you harvest your gains, and the process begins anew.

It's a meditation in patience. A 3-steps-forward, 1-step-back approach is always better than 1-small-step-forward-at-a-time. Sure, you may have the illusion of always "moving forward" in the single-step way, but the 3/1-step-path is demonstratably faster. If you show the same care and discipline in cutting as you should be in bulking, you can eliminate 100% of the fat you accumulate. It's always easier to burn fat than build muscle. It can be a controlled, methodical opportunity to reveal the definition that's hiding just out of sight. Believe it or not, many people enjoy cutting as much as the massing phase; it has an energy of its own! You will look forward to cutting, rather than dreading it.

"Genetics" isn't keeping you small, Fear is. If you come to this realization, you can finally move forward and cultivate some serious mass. You can eat with purpose, and develop a map you can follow to your destination. It's a prolonged but worthy endeavor. No one enrolls in college hoping to be "done" in 6 months. They settle in and devote years of their life to what they have decided is a noble pursuit. In a similar way, the investment in your physical strength & stamina will reward you with manifold dividends that will surely enrich various facets of your Life.

Gain at a reasonable rate. Not too fast, but not too slowly, either.

Because in case you haven't heard it recently,

You're too damn skinny!

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