These are some of the observations I’ve made over the past week since I started bulking (my first time, actually). I’m certainly no expert, but I think there are a LOT of things about bulking that you simply cannot appreciate until you do it, especially if you are used to a restricted calorie/low carb diet.
1) You will feel like you never stop eating. I’m trying to follow Dr. John Berardi’s and Christian Thibaudeau’s recommendations regarding nutrient timing. This means carbs and fats are not present in the same meal in large quantities. They do a much better job of explaining it than I can, so I won’t go into it.
I really don’t know if their way is the best way or not, but I’m willing to give it a try because I’ll never know if it will work for me otherwise. I just don’t want to go back to eating a lot of junk food because I worked hard to break those habits and have actually lost the taste for it. But regardless of the nutrient timing, eating clean entails eating far more food than you’re used to. So be prepared to feel like you’ve got the feedbag on 24/7.
2) Don’t drink water a half hour before meals. I know this is counterintuitive to what we’re all told. We’re supposed to drink a ton of water, right? Well, if you’re just getting used to cramming large quantities of food down your throat, shelve the water a half hour before your meals. If you drink too close to a meal, you’ll feel fuller and it will be harder to cram the food down your throat. Likewise, I usually wait a half hour after eating before I pick up a glass of water so that I avoid the green feeling. This means you have to drink your fill between meals. It’s part of what makes you feel full all the time. You just have to get used to it.
3) Learn to cook. Eating large quantities of chicken and steak sounds wonderful until you’re doing it all day every day. Learning a little variety in your cooking will make meals a lot easier to tolerate. I have a cast iron grill pan that fits over two burners on my stove. Best cooking investment I’ve made in a long time (since my cast iron skillets). It’s also great for making grilled veggies and grilled meat when I can’t use my Weber. If you can avoid being married to one cooking method your meals will be more tolerable. You might even learn to like them!
And don’t underestimate the power of salt added before cooking meat. There’s no better flavor enhancer. And since you’re going to be drinking more water than a normal person and aren’t eating a lot of processed foods, the extra salt isn’t a bad thing. You can even add a pinch to your shakes. It improves the taste.
4) Plan ahead. Just like you had to plan ahead to limit your calories, you’re going to have to plan ahead to increase them. What you think is enough will not be enough. I promise you this. I highly suggest you count your calories to ensure you’re eating enough. You’ll probably be surprised by the fact that you aren’t. The carbs are the hardest part for me to eat. I constantly find myself looking at my calorie totals each day and wondering how I could possibly not have eaten enough carbs.
5) Work out hard! You’re going to be surprised by the energy that all those carbs bring. It’s a far different feeling than when you were in a caloric deficit every day. So the best thing to do is put those extra calories to use by lifting heavy. What’s the point to all the eating you’re doing if you don’t put the work in? For me, the workout has become the reward for all the food cramming I’m now doing. I know that sounds backwards, but whenever I feel like I don’t want to eat I remember that my goal is to add muscle. And I can’t do that unless I eat more and lift heavy.
6) Accept the fat. You’re giong to pick up some extra fat doing this. Like most skinny bastards, I don’t want to look like the Stay Puft Marshmallow man. But I’ve resigned myself to the fact that I will gain some fat by bulking. In fact, I took a progress pic last night and noticed a bit more pudge than I’d like. I’m certain most of it is water because I’d previously been restricting my carbs. But nonetheless it wasn’t easy for this FFB to see himself gaining around the midsection again.
But it’s just something I’m going to have to live with. I’m trying to maintain my calorie intake slightly above what is necessary so that I don’t pack on any more fat than I need to. But it’s going to take me some time to learn how much food my body needs to add serious muscle. So there’s going to be some trial and error. It’s just the way it has to be, and if I freaked out about the fat I’d probably quit bulking and go back to my starvation diets.
You can’t fear the fat, because it’s going to happen.
This isn’t meant to be a comprehensive list, and it’s nothing that you won’t find elsewhere on the site. I’m just sharing a few observations and wake-up calls that I’ve made this past week. I knew some of these beforehand, but they are the type of things that you won’t appreciate until you do them.
If you’re thinking about bulking but have never done it before, listen to the people on this site who have done this. Their advice might sound strange, but that’s because you’ve never done it before. It’s new to you, that’s all, and new things are always a bit odd. Eating big is the only way to get big in any appreciable amount of time. It feels weird if you’ve never done it, but it does work.
I just beat my PR on the squat by 10 pounds last night. I could feel a big difference in how hard it was to lift my previous PR last week. It was far easier to do it this week. I know I won’t have gains like that every week, but it was still a great feeling to blast through my best effort like that.
