How fast do you guys put on (bad) weight?

[theophus]

I'm referring to those of you who go through bulking phases straight out of being cut.

I run about 148-150 pounds most of the time. I'm not overly muscular (don't have the time to put in right now), but I'm mostly muscle. I tend to be fairly low in the body fat percentage, although I've never gotten it checked. I figure if I can see all 6 abdominals even a little bit, it's fairly low.

Every so often, I just get a junk food craving. Most of the time, I eat quite healthily - chicken, vegetables, fruit. When I do the junk food thing, I pretty much go with sugar, ice cream and pizza. I know, I know, crap - not what you guys really use for bulking, but to me it's just junk food, not for bulking.

If I do this for approximately three days in a row, or if I just overeat for about the same amount of time, I tend to build up a layer of fat (or what seems like a layer of fat) under my skin, usually obvious on my stomach by the loss of definition. Is this a normal rate at which to put on such weight, or is this some sort of fluid retention from the excess carbohydrate consumption, or some combination of the two?

Am I making any sense?

[defcon]

If you eat junk, your get fat and a lil muscle..if you eat clean, you get muscle and a lil fat.

[Newby81]

what you are seein after three days of extreme junk eating is alot of water retention ,ya , u might notice you went up 10 pounds on the scale but dont worry, that happens to me as well but i never take it to 3 days ,,, although 3 days is along time of junk food eating so there will be a minor amount of fat storage,, nothing great ..... but this all comes down to calories in calories out,,
a general rule is every 3500 calories over maintenence will lead to a pound of fat storage
what i usually do after a binge is disicpline my self the next 2 days in the carb department ( never around w/o's though ),, meaning all id eat is lean protein and enough fat to slow digestion down,, maybe 5-10 carbs the whole day,, after this youll notice your abs again

[defcon]

:withstupi

[Shao-LiN]

Water retention...junk foods tend to have heaps of sodium and what not, so that happens. You probably will gain some fat though if you want to binge for that long, nothing too major. Just make sure you're still lifting and exercising and any fat gain should be minimized in my opinion.

[Scott S]

It's usually recommended to gain less than a pound a week to keep fat gains down. What I do is to have my own scale and keep track of my morning (after using the toilet) weight daily. That way, you can get a good idea of trends, and about what your weight is.