Hulk.... Smash!

I'm coming off a caloric deficit weekend. That has fueled me to make a decision about my gym life. For a period, I had decided that I was going to muscle up. Pile some bulk on. Get swole... Let me just say, that shit is hard. This is coming from someone who - might I add 10 years ago, lost 60 pounds and have kept it off this whole time. The hard part about this whole thing isn't the weights bit, not the training, not the cardio, not the pain and sweat and exhaustion, the hardest part is eating. I have had an epiphany because of all this - I'm a little dude. I have a small frame and that's just the way it's going to be. I have decent enough genes that I could pack on some muscle, but damn, I increased my caloric intake to around 1900-2100 calories a day, which i thought was a LOT, apparently it wasn't. I got a noticeably larger, noticeably stronger, was able to lift more - in fact, I slid comfortably in to the "225 club" where I was working out with on a regular basis, 225 on the flat bench - 4 45 plates and the bar. I even maxed out, my personal record, 250, I could possibly have completed a 1 rep max of 275. The 250 was my 6th set of 8+reps, and all over 225 pounds, so I'm sure I was a bit gassed by that point. BUT, I can't keep up that kind of eating. So again, going back to the thing I said about identifying with things and allowing those things to help define you as a person, I'm taking myself out of the 225 club.... I'm just not meant to be moving heavy weights like that.... because I can't keep eating that much food, and I need like 320+ grams - that's like ... well one of my protein shakes is 84 grams. And everyone knows the best protein is from actual food... so. Point is, I'm 42. I'll be 43 this year. Unfortunately, I got in to this game too late in life. I'm rapidly (I assume) running out of hormones to build muscle. I should be more concerned now with sculpting the muscle I have and trying to keep it, and keeping the fat off. My mom's only living brother had a stroke the other day. It runs in the family... so far I've had two uncles who had strokes and heart attacks, an uncle to die of cancer, grandmother to die of cancer, grand father to die of cancer, I have two aunts who had alzheimers and .... point is, my future is going to be a damn disease land mind. I will say this though, I will not go through life slowly losing my mind. I will go out in a glorious ball of flame before that happens. :)