Hello, cutting all the chit-chat and everything, I need some help from anone experienced. I need someone to help me out with a clean, bulking diet. I want to gain the most lean body mass/muscle with the least fat gain. You will probably suggest some diets out of this place, but you all must remember one thing. I am but a simple student, so could someone help me figure something out, like what foods are good and what not, and if I should post one of those “progress logs”. Thanks, any help is appreciated!
Look for pretty much any diet article on here (i.e. Massive Eating 1&2, Carb Cycling, Massive Eating Reloaded, etc.) All of them give really good info which should help you figure out what kind of diet you need.
Simplest bulking diet I can think of:
- Don’t eat anything with sugar or white flour in it.
- Make sure to get enough protein.
- Eat more calories than you burn.
What does white flour do?
insulin spike. believe it or not, white bread (wonder bread for example) is worse for you than pure white sugar.
Jeeze, so like, for sandwhiches or whatever, I should try and use wheat?
Even whole wheat sometimes has white flour in it. Read the labels carefully. It’s better to avoid bread altogether if you can. Also avoid white rice and corn for the same reason, insulin spike. If you can, eat salads and meat for lunches rather than sandwiches. Green veg and meat or eggs should be in every meal.
Insulin is not the bad guy. It’s easily the most powerful hormone we have pretty good control over and should be used(but not abused) when you are trying to gain size. Carbs all day everday will make you fat most likely, carbs cycled or targeted around certain periods of time will not.
I personally don’t think white bread is the enemy, especially if you are trying to put on size. I’ve gone from 160 to 220 and I can’t imagine doing that while avoiding white flour completely. I mean, on Sundays after squat day my buddy and I would go to Wendy’s and split 15 Jr. Bacon Cheeseburgers! Okay that was a once-a-week thing and my diet was pretty clean for the most part but think about it logically: what foods do people recommend for fat loss? Oatmeal and veggies and lean meats. So why would you eat the same exact foods for gaining? I mean, yes you could eat more but the bottom line is that those foods are very satiating, it’s difficult to get enough calories.
I’ve put on a pretty decent amount of size and am actually leaner than when I started. I’ve pretty much stayed between 10-14% body fat the entire time, always with some decent ab visiblity. I am also a college student like you. Here’s what worked for me:
1.) Start the morning off with a good meal with lots of calories. I either go with oatmeal or a bunch of slices of wheat toast along with some eggs or some peanut butter. Try to knock out about 1000 calories in the morning.
2.) Eat a couple of decent sized meals throughout the day. The way my schedule works it is harder to get meals in during the day (with class, training, practice, etc.) so I just try to have a few go-to meals ready. For me this is some combination of whole milk, canned chicken and mixed nuts. Chicken from the can is very easy to eat, tastes like nothing and has 350 calories in can. Wash it down with a glass of whole milk and you’ve got a 600 calorie lunch you can eat in 5 minutes between class.
3.) Get a decent MRP shake. I like Muscle Milk. It’s probably not great for cutting but throw two scoops in with 32oz of whole milk and you’ve got over 1000 calories that again, takes about 5 minutes to down. This is not an every day thing for me but sometimes you just gotta get the calories in.
4.) Get food in immediately after training. This is when I have my pastas or sandwiches or fast food or whatever. I find that I have better training sessions when I know I’m pigging out afterwards. Maybe I’m a freak but it is easier to finish out my sled dragging finishers when I know I’m about to show some seriously delicious cheat food down my throat.
5.) Don’t force the weight gain. You can only gain so much muscle per day/week/month/whatever. Eating too much is just gonna make you fat. Don’t obsess over the scale weight, just check a couple times per week. It doesn’t matter if you weigh more than the last measurement (because sometimes it will fluctuate), but if you are lighter than you were say, two weeks ago, then you need to eat a little more.
Squats and milk baby.
I’m one of those people that could never gain weight to save my life. You could sit me in front of mc donalds feed me all the nasty ass food they make I wouldn’t even get fat.
I took a different approach one day I was watchign MTV truelife i’m a competative food eater. They had on it that asian guy that won the nathans hot dog competition. He was actually built to my suprise. He said one thing that registered to me the best way to expand your stomach to consume more food is with complex carbs on an empty stomach.
That being said I didnt’ care if I got fat I figured i’ll just burn it off since convential ways didn’t work for me. I eat a decent breakfast workout then comes lunch at this point my stomach is empty I had spagetti I got to the point I was downing one box a day soemtimes more. It expanded my stomach and since I had it after working out it seems to have burned the carbs fast is my guess. During this time I didnt’ get cut up but much to my suprise I didn’t get increased bodyfat either.
I would recommend this only for people that can’t put on weight for nothing. The majority of people in this world seem to not beable to take off weight and this diet would be a nightmare for them.
I gained 35lbs it should be noted however other then lunch time spagetti I avoided insulin spikes especially food with high flutose corn syrup. Seems like they put that shit in everything these days if your living in America. Yet you go to Canada use the same exact food from the same company and it doesn’t have high flutose corn syrup in it. Just another reason I should move to Canada.
HFCS is called Fructose/Glucose in Canada.
You want to move up there be my guest. They have very low standards.
Don’t get sick or try to make money or have any semblance of a life though.
Insulin spikes with HFCS are just as bad as the insulin spikes found with sucrose
Eat big Lift heavy sleep repeat
Here was my basic diet that I went from 180 to 200 on
Breakfest
super shake
1 cup dry oatmeal
2 cups whole RAW milk
1 cup frozen blueberries
some extra virgin olive oil
snack 1
2 cups Almonds or walnuts 1 large apple
Lunch BIG bowl of Homemade Chili 16 oz of RAW whole milk
Snack 2 same as snack 1
snack 4 400 grams of cottage cheese 200 grams of canned pineapple chunks
Train
Surge
Dinner same as Lunch
Before bed 1 serving Metabolic Drive cCmplete 20 oz’s of RAW Whole Milk
5,400 calories roughly
Thanks for all the help. Finally some answers! Can someone tell me what a realistic gain in weight is in about 4 months? Roughly?
Depends on all the variables. (Diet, metabolism, workouts, current status, etc.)
I’d say 5-10 lbs. 10 if youre lucky. That is if you want to gain clean quality muscle. And if youre not already in pretty elite shape. (another variable)
just put in the hard work and the muscle gain will come!
Alright Douglas, sounds good. I just like to see some numbers to know what I’m working for. That probably sounded dumb, but I knew what I meant.
my personal fav bulk food on a budget is peanuts. in england you can get 200g for about 50p (around 25cent) thats a whopping 1200 calories (ish) for less than a newspaper. Also those calories contain ample amounts of protien and good fats. I’ve also had good results from eating my nuts with dried fruits, not too sure why but they just seem to complement each other really well, and they take ages to go off so just buy loads and take them everywhere with you and just constantly eat them.
Cheap and simple.
just like your mum 
Ha, alright. Sounds good. Thanks.