Massing for Muscles - How Did It Go?

In Part I of this article, I talked about what a mass is and my reasons for doing one. Today, we’ll look at how it went and what my plans are for the future.

I started my mass in November for a reason: I wanted to use holiday eating to my advantage. I knew that is a time of year where I have more social obligations that have me eating out, with less control over the quality and quantity of food that I eat, I love holiday food, and I adore holiday desserts! Given that the goal of a mass is to gain weight purposefully, why not use the excess calories that I likely would be consuming anyway to my benefit?

Now, this doesn’t mean I ate all of the junk, all of the time. To the contrary, I continued to eat whole, unprocessed foods for the vast majority of my meals, and I continued to monitor my protein, carb, and fat consumption, including portion sizes of each, as well. I did not, however, worry about what I was eating or drinking on Thanksgiving, Christmas, or New Year’s Eve, and enjoyed every party and festive occasion during the holiday season.

I ended up gaining a total of eight pounds in a period of eleven weeks, which was just about what I hoped to gain. I’ll be honest – I hated the feeling of being stuffed, sluggish, and bloated for the last four weeks, during which I was eating obscene amounts of food in order to gain weight in the appropriate amounts. It also meant that I had to figure out how to get into the gym even during the holiday week, as missing more than a session or two meant the odds of my adding fat rather than muscle increased with each missed workout.

​Currently, I am playing a waiting game before I can mass again, then try to stay at the same weight for a period of time before dieting to lose the fat and see just how much muscle I have added. Psychologically, it is challenging to know it will be nearly six months before I can tell whether what I am doing is working in the way I hope it is, but I am excited to see the results!