You make a great point, which some of these misguided folks, calling Dante "fat" don't quite seem to get.
Most of the same people who make that criticism are the same ones, whining about how bad their genetics are, how they can't get any size, and how anyone with 2 ounces more muscle than themselves is taking every thing but the kitchen sink (in terms of anabolics) in large quantities.
You need to eat big to get big; there ain't no two ways about it. Didn't Arnold have a saying about sculpting a slab of granite, not a pebble?
But, that's not easy to do. Sometimes you feel sluggish; your stomach hurts; you get tired of chewing; that shaker seems to be bottomless; you've downed thousands of calories, yet you still have a few hundred to go.
When you're younger, you have that faster metabolism (especially, if you're an ectomorph). That's the time to ingest the high quantities of food: beef, chicken, whole eggs and quality weight-gainers. But, realistically, you will NOT put on pure muscle all of the time (EVEN IF YOU TAKE STEROIDS).
Yet, it's all worth it, a few months down the line, when your arms are bigger. It's all worth it, when you're repping on the bench with what USED TO BE your max. It's all worth it, when your shirts are tighter around the shoulder and chest, while still loose around the waist.
Hey big dawg,
First off, I don't really think Dante gives a crap what people on Getbig say about him or what they think about him lol. As he stated, the man is doing exactly what he wanted and that is being bigger than a house and as strong as an Ox, regardless of what his bodyfat % is, he knows if he wants to diet down for a show he can do it (as he has in the past). As he stated he does not like how he looks dieted down , and thats totally normal.... Hell, I don't like how I look dieted down, but its not so bad for me that I never want to compete again. Plus he has his own strategy of training that has worked with many of the top pros - so he really has to be doing something right. I can't say much else about Dante as I am not him and don't know him personally, but his strategy has worked for many people, plain and simple.
Now, speaking from MY own personal experience, I have competed at a bodyweight as low as 159 lbs, and have bulked up to as high as 265 lbs. Neither one could actually be considered ideal for me really....
For competition, I think my best weight so far was when I weighed about 178 lbs, and for the off-season maybe 200-215 lbs.
I have been training seriously since the year 2000 and have been competing since the year 2003, thats not even THAT long of a time. But its enough time to learn about how my body responds to different training methods and different diets.
I whole heartedly believe that bulking up, to 230-250 really helped me earlier on building some much needed size and strength in my early 20s (I am turning 27 in September). I don't think I would have ever been able to train as heavy and as intense as I used to without the extra "cushioning". When I weighed in the 250 lbs range and was eating about 5000 calories, I was able to deadlift 500 lbs, squat 455, bench about 350, and curl about 95 lbs dumbells per arm. Now I don't list these weights to brag or anything, and I know there are MANY people out there that can lift waaaay more than that at a lower bodyweight, but these were goals of MINE, and numbers that I wanted to reach and I was not going to reach them without putting on some bodyfat. My best year of competition was 2004 when I had dieted down from 230 to 176 on show day, my body looked COMPLETELY different than it did the year before. As the years went by, (and not that many years either), I found my body started responding differently to the extra weight gain, in 2005 I was weighing about 265 lbs and of course I looked more like a football player and not so much like a bodybuilder - but I still felt pretty solid, in 2006 thats when things started to really change, my training took a bit of a turn, and so did my entire life, I got married and was living in a different country, and eating different types of food.... I still weighed about 260 lbs, but I didn't really look like a guy that worked out anymore, I looked just like a "FAT PERSON", I would've made Dante looks like he was about to step on stage. If you saw my honeymoon pictures you would all be on the floor laughing your asses off, I had a gut and just did not look good. When I dieted down in 2007, I went from 260 lbs to 180 lbs, and I honestly looked like shit that year and I placed dead last in my show. It was then that I realized tha bulking up is JUST not working for me. For the longest time I was confused as to what was going on, and honest to god I started calling up a bunch of the top natural pros trying to understand what was happening to me...I called people like Sean Sullivan, Doug Miller, and Layne Norton, and they all told me the same thing, in that my body was changing.... and it was amazing how much it changed from the age of 21 - 25, it was no longer able to handle the weight gain again, and my fat cells were just growing and growing and hard to keep them under control. It was then that I decided i wouldn't be bulking up like that ever again.
Since then i've been holding my weight at about 200-215 in the off-season. I feel it probably would've been better if I had been doing this earlier and not having to deal with these unwanted fat cells.... But I do honestly believe that When I was 18 - 21, bulking up was REALLY important and really in a way "revolutionized" my training and my experience in bodybuilding. I got stronger and I got bigger, and sure dieting down sucked, but when I did, the results were pretty good.......for sometime ;-)
I apologize for the very long post, but I really wanted to put it out there and hope to helps someone learn something!
Take care guys,
BIG ACH
