How much you know about eating routine when trying to pack on muscle mass? What foods and supplements are the best addition and which ones are better to avoid? Get comfortable and read further all you need to know about bulking diet plan, what it supposes, what foods and supplements include, how long you should bulk before cutting and how to adapt it your body type. All this to help you make quality mass and strength gains.
Winter is here and it’s the best time of the year to start bulking so that within 5-6 months, close to summer, to be ready for cutting stage. During winter bulking you can eat as much as you want, and pay less attention to the amount of fat you are consuming. That’s because cutting will help you get rid off all fat surplus while revealing nice amounts of muscle mass. That’s a common belief among bodybuilders, but is it indeed so?
Must Read: The Anabolic Diet (Steroid Diet Plan Bulking Or Cutting)
There are mainly 3 types of bulking: clean bulking, regular bulking, and dirty bulking. While clean bulking means that the individual is paying big attention to food intake, carefully monitoring fat consumption, dirty bulking supposes that bodybuilder eats everything, including junk foods, without caring about fat intake.
Regular bulking is somewhere in the middle, with moderate consumption of fats, and is specifically for people with average metabolism. We’ve spotted the difference between clean bulk and dirty bulk in one of our previous article.
What type of bulking is the best? A very difficult question, as the answer mostly depends on what you want to achieve and your type of metabolism, slow or fast one. If you are lucky enough to have a fast metabolism than dirty bulking is a perfect fit for you.
Eat everything you want, at any hour of the day and let your body burn calories as Olympian. On the other hand, in the case of slow metabolism, the best is to stick to clean bulking and keep away of fats that ones gained will be very hard to burn away.
Any bulking diet should contain noticeable amounts of protein, carbohydrates, and good fats. Protein helps to build muscle and prevent the body from entering a catabolic state ( when the body eats own muscle for energy). For bulking you should consume at least 1.0g of protein for each pound of bodyweight.
Carbohydrates are your source of energy and any surplus is turned into fat, so you have to be very careful about the number of carbs you are eating daily. There are 2 types of them, simple and complex. Complex carbs, such as oatmeal, quinoa, brown rice, potatoes, peas, beans, and lentils are more beneficial than simple ones, like sugar.
Good fatty foods are olive or flaxseed oil, fish oil (Omega 3), almond or cashew butter, pecans and much more. Once we have explained what proteins, carbs, and good fats are, no we can go further and see what meals create a clean vs dirty bulking diet. Foods as white chicken or turkey breast, tuna, rice, pasta, bread, fish, low-fat yogurt, cottage cheese, low-fat or no-fat milk, eggs are the basics of a clean bulking diet.
Add to this one hamburger, pizza, chicken nuggets or strips and you have the diet specific to dirty bulking. Even so, there are some foods you have better to stay off, regardless of how fast your body burns calories. Here they are sweetened juices, potato chips, any junk food, and simple carbohydrates.
An average individual should eat around 4000 calories per day, split into 6-8 meals with 2 hours interval between them. For example, the first meal should be at 8 am and should consist of a 500 calorie meal. Next meal will be at 10 am, 12 am and so one until 10 pm when is the last meal for that day.
As a mesomorph, you should pay more attention to the quality of the food you are eating and try to stay as clean as possible. Here’s an online calorie calculator that helps you count the number of calories intake needed based on your age, sex, goals, and activity level.
Along with a rich in protein, complex carbs, and good fats diet, the use of supplements is also highly recommended to support your bulking goal. Whey protein supplements, creatine, multivitamins are all indicated when trying to pack on muscle mass and you should definitely give them a go.
Must Read: How Many Calories A Day To Eat To Build Muscle?
There are two main ways to set up the length of your bulking state:
In the case of the first scenario, you will cease bulking within 1-2 months and start cutting with muscle mass growth at a rate twice as fast. In the second case, the first concern is stretching marks that can appear as a result of increased body weight, and this can be very frustrating. This is especially possible in the case of mesomorphs - the category of individuals who gain weight pretty fast.
But it’s not all so white and black. Diet Plan For Bulking for half a year works great for those with an average metabolism, allowing after this time to build muscle 4 times faster than it happened at the beginning of the bulking. Isn’t that great? It’s is indeed, and that’s why sticking with this way of bulking is so common among bodybuilders.
Recommended reading: Winter Bulking Workout Program From An Expert Bodybuilder
Diet is one of the main factors that can make or break your success during the bulking stage. We want you to get the most from your bulking and sculpting a perfectly shaped body overcutting. All you have to do is to revise your eating habits, cut off simple carbs and bad fats and start eating healthy. And of course work out - no sweat, no gain!
And since the holiday season is approaching, here are two of our reading suggestions to help you stay in perfect form:
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