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A week ago Thursday I transitioned from TSPA and jumped right into MANS.

My TSPA calculated maintenance calories are 2600, this was updated weekly. The first 3 days I 200 calories above maintenance. I then found an article on Musclehack where Mark said to go 300 above maintenance. I have now been eating at least 300 calories above maintenance and I had my first real cheat on Saturday 4 slices of pizza and I had a portion of junk snacks including (cheese popcorn, hot potato chips, pop chips and pretzels on Friday night. I have been doing THT 3.1 for the past week.

After taking in more than 1000 more calories per day and adding in a couple of junk meals I was expecting some weight gain. Didn't happen - I haven't gained any weight. How much do I need to eat to bulk on MANS? I am 144 pounds with about 8-9% bodyfat. I guess I just keep slowly increasing the calories until i see some weight gain?

Oh and during my carb up I loosely counted my carbs. I start carbing up at around 6PM Friday and all day Saturday. BAck to low carb on Sunday. On Saturday I ate a bit over 400g of carbs and am sure I consumed at least 2900 calories.

Thanks...

Mark has actually gone back and forth on this, depending on what article you read. It's a bit irksome.

Using just Katch-McArdle as explained in TSPA neglects the caloric expenditure for the workout itself. Allow about 170 calories for that, and somewhere between 100 and 300 to actually add mass to your person. So, if your maintenance calculates as 2600, figure 2770 including your workout, so 3070 on days training plus 2900 on days off on a 5-day split should put you at 3020-ish as your target.

This figure may actually be too high depending on your personal metabolism - 300 calories extra a day works out to roughly 3.5lbs of muscle, or .6lbs of fat, each week. Obviously you want that muscle, but you're not going to get 3.5lbs (unless you're some genetic freak). If the fat starts accumulating too quickly, just cut back incrementally til you find the right level for you. If you already know you're prone to fat accumulation, just drop that 3020 figure back to closer to 2900 and you should be OK.