Recently I was asked by a client what to do to gain weight. The truth is, no one wants to “gain weight”, what we all want is to gain MUSCLE, and to do that efficiently and faster you need more calories and with more calories comes more fat. By following this bulk with me you will see that we can keep the fat at reasonable levels while building lean muscle.
Being close to September I am getting ready to do some bulking with the goal of adding 5-10 pounds more of muscle by March while keeping my body fat under 16%.
Now, this might not be your goal at this time, but there are lots of people out there who are interested in an emphasis on muscle gain as opposed to fat loss. Most of what I write about encompasses how to do both at the same time, but for those of us who are trying to pack on some weight quickly, I will do my best to explain my strategy and how it works in line with a lot of the knowledge and data we already have. If you don’t know what I am talking about, please go over Phase 1 and Phase 2 in my recovery and training e-book.
I do not “dirty bulk” (eating whatever calories you want, with a priority on protein, with a fast and loose calorie intake), but boy did I used to 😀. I acknowledge that you will gain weight, and you will gain muscle. Dare I say, that you might even gain MORE muscle than if you did a more structured and regimented bulk. However, dirty bulking leaves a large potential for me to have more fat than I want to have to lose in March (when I will start to cut back on calories). I also find that at 47 it is a bit harder to lose the fat, and so much easier to put it on. I am not against a dirty bulk but I think it is more of a young man’s game.
When I first talked about how to lose fat it was with the goal of keeping and hopefully, adding muscle. Without making any drastic changes to our diet. In a perfect world, the goal will be to make small adjustments (depending on personal goals) and avoid drastic changes. Drastic calorie deficits or surpluses are hard to adjust to and maintain. Taking a more acute approach to our diets makes the adjustment easier and more sustainable over the long term.
As with everything, consistency is key, and if you make dramatic changes it will be hard to keep consistent!
One advantage of any bulk is that we can play with the macros and calories a little bit to find out what is ideal for us without worrying too much about our body fat percentage. However, it is important to keep checking our numbers (every 2 weeks or so) to make sure we are on the right track.
We will still be starting with that formula of BMR x 1.3. (We discuss this in more detail in Phase 2)
Let’s get back on our scale to find out what our basal metabolic rate (BMR) is!
Today, mine is 1948. In order to maintain my weight of 189.3 and body fat percentage of 14.9%, I would need to eat 1948 x 1.3 or 2532 calories a day. At 2532 calories a day and with the same amount of exercise and activity, I should be able to come back at any time and still be at 189.3 with 14.9% body fat. BUT we are bulking now so I am going to eat 500 more calories a day with a slightly different macro split than before 2532 + 500 or 3032 calories a day.
**Studies show that you can successfully bulk at anywhere from a 200-500 calorie surplus.**
While cutting I used the following macro split:
35% protein
35% carbohydrates
30% fat
While bulking I am using…
30% protein
45% carbohydrates
25% fat
I change this up slightly to get more calories in carbs while still shooting for a significant amount of protein. I may find that the carbs are a little high and if that is the case I will drop it to 40% and add the other 5% to fats. 229 grams of protein is still good for a man under 200. (While 30% of my diet is protein and it calculates to 229g of protein, I still shoot for 250 a day regardless of whether I am bulking or cutting)
This is something that I would fine-tune individually based on your goals, so it isn’t something you need to completely understand now, I am just showing you my real-life example so you can get the gist of what I am doing here and how I chose this path.
If you are interested in bulking this season contact me here and I will get you set up with a diet, workouts, and follow-up/accountability to make sure you are on the right track.
I will write about my bulking workouts separately as the rep ranges and amount of cardio is changing slightly. If you do not want to change how you work out, you do not have to but you might have to adjust how many extra calories you should add, but I will be happy to help you with that as well.
