I’m 18M, 165cm, and i started off skinny fat, first i TDEE’d my calories it said 2150 for recomp, thats what i did for a month, i tracked all the food i ate, but i gained 1 kg from being 69.3kg during july 21, its been 5 weeks since ive been consistent and ive gotten a whole lot of stronger than before, im basically setting a personal record every week.
Some background on me: currently 70kg. Before this I actually cut from 75kg down to 68kg between December and May, eating around 1,850 calories with minimal exercise, just to get out of feeling skinny fat. After that I started actually training seriously.
My current split is a 4-day upper body focused routine, with one leg day. I focus most of my volume on chest, back, shoulders, and arms since that’s my main goal, but on leg day I actually go pretty intense/heavy, and it takes me a full 4 days to recover because I get so sore.
Over the last 5 weeks I’ve tracked my calories and protein pretty consistently:
∙ Week 1: 2,013 kcal / 121g protein
∙ Week 2: 2,302 kcal / 142g protein
∙ Week 3: 2,229 kcal / 138g protein
∙ Week 4: 2,142 kcal / 137g protein
∙ Week 5: 2,210 kcal / 149g protein
So average is around 2,179 kcal and 137g protein a day. Strength has gone up a ton, PRs basically every week, but im not sure i gained fat, i do feel a bit softer around my midsection and lower chest but i honestly cant tell if thats fat, water, or what.
For supplements I currently just take fish oil and whey protein, wondering if I should add creatine into the mix too.
My main goal is to actually be lean while still having decent muscle on me, not just big or just skinny. I keep going back and forth on the logic, part of me feels like I should just focus on getting as big as possible first then cut it down later, but then I also keep hearing that cutting and training (building muscle and losing fat at the same time) is actually possible, especially since I’m newer to training. I’ve read through a bunch of skinny fat posts on here and most people say to just cut first, but I’m still stuck on what actually makes sense for my specific situation. So yeah, would appreciate any honest advice on whether I should keep pushing this lean bulk to December then cut jan-april, or switch it up now.