“I told you so,” Joah said. “I told you so,” she started singing, now pretending to hold a microphone while pointing at me like a lounge singer.

My wife and her inner pudgy nonna relished in the revelation that after months of telling me that I hadn't been eating enough, they'd been proven correct. I'd begun my efforts to gain weight in November, to coincide with a high-volume training block and the coming gauntlet of holiday eating. At the time I expected to reach my massing goal around the end of December, but a funny thing happened: The weight came on a lot more slowly than expected.

Following the best advice I could find, I'd added 500 calories a day to my estimated maintenance level. A pound a week is a fairly aggressive pace, but the theory is that a slower pace can be drowned out in the noise of daily fluctuations — there's a risk of wasting time at maintenance rather than actually gaining mass. Apparently my estimate of maintenance calories had been warped by a slower metabolism (i.e., reduced non-exercise-activity thermogenesis — all the extra stuff that burns energy without accomplishing much, like talking with my hands or bobbing my head to music). Although I was suffering through November with my usual grumpy-bear hibernation instincts, Joah said I was more lively; apparently I had fewer or shorter low-energy periods than I'd had on what I'd mistakenly thought were maintenance calories.

So yes, she was right. Of course, my weight bounced around enough for it to be difficult to see that immediately. One of my big weight spikes would show up on the scale, an appliance clearly possessed by the tormented soul of a Medieval inquisitor, and I'd stand there arguing with it. I couldn't possibly be up 3.8lbs in 24 hours, right? Was it time to have celery for dinner?

This was where keeping a rolling seven-day average of my daily weights was useful. The daily records showed that I’d been through similar fluctuations before, while the average helped to show that my “true” weight was probably something less than whatever totally unfair figure the scale wanted to spit out that day (insert pout emoji).

A bigger surprise was that I struggled to eat enough on some days. I'd established habits intended to keep my consumption down, and I wasn't great at adjusting them to the higher caloric intake. Small, evenly spaced meals control my hunger well, but if they’re too small I can reach the end of the day without having eaten enough. And it can be hard to avoid junk food and still eat a lot. I could plow through enough double-stuffed Oreos to hit my daily calorie target in an hour, but it takes planning and focus to get that much energy from a day of whole grains, fruit, and vegetables, especially while trying to limit fat intake and have a reasonably enjoyable experience. If the end of the day arrived and I had carbs left over, I didn't necessarily want more plain bread.

Bulking is often depicted as uninhibited fun — doughnuts, Chinese buffets, olive oil-drenched pizza, etc. — but doing it right requires as much effort as cutting. Supplementing healthier options with some empty calories would have made things easier, but for me it's a slippery slope between eating a few cookies and pouring the entire bag down my throat. (Plus, Joah, who's already at the top of her weight class, might have stabbed me for bringing them into the house, and internal bleeding is bad for hypertrophy.)

On the other hand, what would have been slipping up in any other context fit fairly well within the bulking paradigm. An indulgent Italian dinner with Joah's parents put me only slightly above my target calories for the day, although it skewed my macros heavily toward fat. Thanksgiving and Christmas with a semi-retired caterer weren't nearly the dietary stumbling blocks they would have been on a cut, but by packing Christmas, a cousin's birthday, a friend's holiday party, New Year's, and other family time all into the same few weeks, I was suddenly way ahead of my scheduled massing pace.

What started as a slow and remarkably steady weight increase grew chaotic with all that merrymaking. It was next to impossible to track everything I consumed — I had to guess at how much I was eating and what it was made of, and then remember everything when I had time to record it — and my efforts to offset some of the damage with lower-calorie days can't possibly have been perfect. Watching the gradual increase in my seven-day average weight helped to make some sense of it, though, and I ultimately managed to get back to gaining about a quarter of a pound a week.

That got screwed up all over again at the beginning of February, when a cousin’s wedding resulted in a ridiculous weight spike. At my previous pace I would have had a couple more weeks of massing, but now it was time to turn off the carb spigot and try to sort out its effects on my body.

It was never in doubt that I would gain weight. For the most part, I managed to gain it in a fairly slow, steady fashion, thought to be the best way to maximize muscle growth rather than fat accumulation. Whether I actually gained muscle, though, is slightly murky. I think I did, but there are a lot of factors to consider.

Hypertrophy is a slow process that’s hard to measure directly and can't be expected to yield visible results over brief time spans. Facebook recently reminded me of some pictures from one of the rare times, years ago, when I was shirtless with a camera around, and it's obvious that my upper body has grown. (I may also be leaner.) Without a more recent reference point it's hard to be certain what difference the last three months made, but Joah says I look stronger, and I've had a few moments when I've wondered. I'm still not inclined to start taking selfies, but this is an argument for becoming more of a bro — at least for long enough to take a before and after shot.

I don’t feel a difference in how my clothes fit, and my weight belt didn't need to be adjusted, although skinfold measurements (and the body fat estimates based on them) showed some increase in fat. I feel as if I look softer, too. My sleep quality didn't improve and I’m not sure I recovered any better from training. My resting heart rate increased slightly.

All of that is slightly beside the point, of course; I wanted to get bigger in order to get stronger. My squat continued to make slow progress through the massing phase, but my bench didn't show much improvement — possibly it just needed more time — and my deadlift actually declined a little during a disappointing development block.

Because raw strength correlates with the cross-sectional area of muscles, a good way to gauge growth is by evaluating “dumb” lifts. The bench press, for example, might improve because of better hand placement or bracing, but if I'm moving more weight in a cable pushdown, I can be confident that my triceps have grown. The same principle applies to the deadlift or squat compared with the leg curl or leg extension. Apart from rehabilitation and abdominal work, my training involves few “dumb” exercises – almost everything is a compound lift with a technical component.

Out of curiosity, I tested my dumbbell lateral raise (a “dumb” lift that I use to keep my shoulders healthy) and easily hit a new personal record. That was cool — getting stronger is always fun, and I was glad for some evidence that my shoulders didn't just look bigger — but it doesn't tell me much about the rest of my body. It had also been a long time since I'd tested that lift, so attributing the improvement to this specific massing phase is tough.

In a few weeks I'll again step onto the platform, which will provide a better opportunity to see what difference the added weight makes. I'll have to lose a few pounds to get there, of course, but afterward I'll probably repeat this experiment, using what I've learned to fine-tune my goals. Because I don’t expect to compete again until October, next time I’ll have more leeway to gain weight and won’t have to drop it as quickly.

I'm sure Joah's inner pudgy nonna will be delighted.