Vegan Bodybuilding & Fitness

I'm 187 tall and weigh about 163 lbs. I eat about 4000 calories per day and train one hour/five days per week. I train my mid torso once per week. I eat 20% protein, 50% carbs, 30% fat consisting mostly of whole foods, but also some processed foods like soy sausages, soy yoghurt etc. I eat more or less six meals per day.

I've been putting on about 4-5 kg of weight in about three months. I've gained some muscle but my stomach has grown quite a bit which worries me. My stomach and waist is starting to look a bit out of proportion and I'm having a hard time fitting in my trousers. It's not all fat, I guess my stomach is bloated too due to eating a fair bit of beans, peas and soy....

This is my first time on a proper mass building program, so perhaps this is normal? Will my stomach shrink once on a fat burning program?

Thanks in advance for the info!

-Patrik

Try cutting down on your calories a bit? Any time you bulk quickly, some fat will come along for the ride. Another option is to increase your back (lat) work, which will help keep the v-shape of your body, but still allow your waist to be at a larger size....

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yah we have no say on where those excess calories you are eating will be stored. it is all dispersed throughout the body in different ways. i know that is where mine starts to show its ugly face when i put back on weight first.

Regarding the feel of having more weight in your midsection....

How well my pants fit at the waist can be VERY different from one day where I'm holding a lot of water to the next where I could be drained out. On the "bloated" day, pants might feel like they're practically cutting into me when I put them on, they're that tight, but the next day, they might feel loose, so water weight can make a big difference as one factor. This can also be greatly affected by factors such as taking creatine (which tends to increase bloat), or, by eating a lot of carbs and higher sodium foods that might add to it as well. To test bloat factor, it's pretty easy for how I've done it - when I'm compelled to "drain out", I just make sure to have 2-3 days of lower carb eating (usually about 100-120g max, all low glycemic carbs for what I do eat), tons of protein, discontinue any creatine and avoid excess sodium, and I can get rid of any excess water weight in a short time. There are faster ways to do it with things like mild diuretics like dandelion root extract, but I prefer to just get to that drained state via diet.

Another factor to consider is that, if you are currently doing more compound lifts like squats, deadlifts, overhead pressing, etc., all of those things will add a bit of mass to your core as well from the stabilizing factors. I don't train abs at all, haven't done it regularly in years, but my abs are big as hell from the years of heavy compound lifting. The more you do compound lifts, the more your body will accommodate by helping bring up some of the other muscle groups that are also used in core stability, which can increase your midsection size a bit and make it seem like you've gained fat, but some of it may well just be new muscle that's been put on that you didn't even think about.

Could be one factor, could be both, but I wouldn't worry about it too much if you've been eating a pretty clean diet overall and aren't just stuffing yourself with everything you can eat just because it's there. Chances are, with a slight change-up in diet, you'll probably be pretty much feeling normal soon enough.

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"A 'hardgainer' is merely someone who hasn't bothered to try enough different training methods to learn what is actually right for their own damned body." - anonymous