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This is the very humbling and annoying story of how I gained close to no muscle in 11 months.

 

Now this wasn’t because I was lazy or was not working hard in the gym – I was working my socks off.

 

What on earth happened?

 

First, let me explain to you what my target was: I wanted to cut to below 10% bodyfat then lean bulk for as long as I could – sounds ideal right?

 

When I started in January I weighed about 73kg at 13% body fat, and I began to cut – woo!
I managed to successfully cut and drop quite a bit of weight until the end of February where I got down to 69kg at 11% bodyfat.

Now at this point I thought I was lean enough; I had abs, and I figured that now was a good time to make some lean muscle gains.
I calculated my the calories and protein I was meant to eat, and trained hard – here are where the problems began.

 

 

My obsession with staying lean whilst bulking got the better of me.

 

I was constantly obsessed with keeping my six-pack whilst bulking, so whenever I saw the littlest bit of fat, I overthought it and reduced my calories. After a few days I would be like ‘Oh my calories are too low!’ and would increase them again to try and gain muscle faster.

 

Even the slightest bit of belly, even from being bloated after dinner, resulted in me becoming so self-conscious and thinking that I was putting on too much fat.
This resulted in me going through many little cutting and bulking phases which gave me no progresss.

 

If you look at the ‘lifts’ section of my the spreadsheet I made here you will see my variation in weight.

 

You can see my dodgy phase from the end of February until the end of March where I kept bulking and cutting – this resulted in me gaining very little muscle mass as I was not in a consistent state for my body to thrive in.

 

Instead, I just kept on shocking my body and giving it no time to really settle down and be efficient in either losing fat or building muscle, which led to me building very little.

 

At the end of April I was a bit more decisive and stuck to my bulk a bit better, putting on about 3kg (6lbs) of weight over 6 months – this is around the time I benched 100kg!

 

However, I was still obsessed with getting abs and being lean so I decided to cut again – this is the worst mistake I have made in my fitness journey.

 

I should have continued bulking; I was really getting into my stride, and could have really made some amazing strength and size gains.
Instead, I decided to go on a long-ass cut all the way back to 68kg – because I wanted to be ripped… and I wasn’t even happy with the result.

 

Why wasn’t I happy? Because there is no point looking lean if you do not have the muscle to back it up; you just end up looking skinny – the exact opposite of what I wanted.

 

So yeah, that basically sums up my interesting 11-month journey.
I finally sorted myself over the past two months and have gone on a serious bulk; I intend to go on it until I say goodbye to my abs and to a point where I am satsified with my gains.

 

Any plus sides to my adventure?

 

HELL YES!

Somehow my lifts were going up wonderfully!
My bench went from 90kg to 105kg
My squat went from 104kg to 145kg
My Deadlift went from 160kg to 200kg

 

I would consider these pretty impressive strength gains considering the circumstances, and I believe that these increased strength gains will help me put on more mass during the bulk (I have no science to back this up – just a feeling)

 

Also, I have learnt that overthinking often does more harm than good.
It led to me developing an unhealthy relationship with fitness where I got obsessed with all the tiny details surrounding it – I would have actually done better and felt happier if I just focused on the wider picture and sticking to the fundamentals.

 

This is exactly why I created UNIGAINS, to help keep fitness simple and straightforward for you, to help you enjoy it and stop you from making the same mistakes I did.

Hope this helps!

-Mike

Want to ask me more questions? Email me at mike@unigains.com or @unigains on Twitter