For those of you who think eat big, get big, Listen up!
It’s not so simple.
There is a well-known saying in fitness that to bulk up and get big, you need to eat big. Applying this saying to all situations is WRONG. If you do that, the saying is a myth.
Always, as in most prevailing myths, there is some truth to it.
Yet, we can do better! We want precision and not just advice that works for a niche group.
The saying is a myth because only certain people in certain situations can eat big and get big.
When I say eat big, get big, I refer to the practice of eating 500 or more calories above maintenance everyday. If you ate at that caloric surplus for a time, you will gain weight. The question – would it be muscle or fat?
You see, when you eat at such a surplus, you are forcing weight gain. And if you are not able to build muscle that quick, the weight gain has to very likely be fat.
Hence, the people who can benefit from eating big and getting big would be people who can put on muscle quickly.
Below, I’m going to list some groups of people that may be able to eat big and get big. Even then, no guarantees. Most people are not able to just pack on muscle quickly. You need good genes too.
- The Beginner / The Sedentary Mesomorph / The Severely Underweight
For this group of people , they are very low on their muscle-building potential curve.
They are very low because they either 1) are newbies, 2) have great muscle-building potential but never actually do any muscle-building activity, or 3) are severely underweight.
For these people, they are at the beginning of their muscle-building runway. They have a long road of muscle-building potential ahead of them.
The more muscle-building potential you have ahead of you, the faster you can put on muscle.
Thus, for these people, a calorie surplus of 500 or more a day might not be too much.
The body might be able to keep up and actually put on a reasonable amount of muscle with that caloric surplus. The weight gain from the caloric surplus could be largely muscle.
2. The Just Recovered From Injury / The Former Muscle Man Or Woman
For those who have been away from bodybuilding and were once heavily muscular and for those who were once fitter and had a previous injury set them back (which they have now recovered from), building muscle quickly is possible.
For people of this group, they have muscle memory on their side!
Not sure what is muscle memory? Check out this article: Staying Fit Is Not As Difficult – Lean. Fit. You.
When you have built the muscle before, building muscle the second time is slightly easier. Hence, it is possible that individuals from this group benefit from eat big get big.
3. Those on Performance Enhancing Drugs (PEDs)
They can be on Steroids, Clen, or Sarms. These people can pack on muscle extremely fast. Enough said.
I do not recommend the use of PEDs. I just put this group here for information purposes.
For The Rest Of Us
For those outside the above groups, I do not recommend eating a big calorie surplus to gain muscle quickly. I believe that most people outside of those categories do not gain muscle as fast.
I recommend eating at a 100-200 calorie surplus. I recommend a lean bulk. Eating at a smaller calorie surplus means slower weight gain. As the weight is gained slower, more of it should be muscle as the body usually cannot build muscle that quickly.
In fact, even if you were in the above groups, I would not recommend doing such a big surplus. Notice that I used the words “Possible”, “Might”, “Could be” in the paragraphs above when talking about those who might benefit from eat big get big.
This means that even if you were in those categories, there will be a good chance that you cannot build muscle so fast! Instead, I would recommend a 200-300 calorie surplus.
Conclusion
I hope that you now understand this saying better. It is not a one size fits all truth. If you do fall in those categories and you are desperate to get big, you could try the eat big get big saying and see if it works for you.
However, I think only very few people actually have the potential for it.
Hence, this is more of a try at your own risk scenario. More likely than not, a lot of the weight gain will be fat.
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Lean. Fit. You. 