Bulking: Clean Diet?

[Thremp]

Basically overrated. Get your nutrients. But don't shirk a large fatty ribeye, a 6pack of beers and a large pizza. In fact if bulking I'll step out on a limb and say that the aforementioned 3 items together would be far superior to a large dry leafy green salad, a baked chicken breast, and water.

If you have declared jihad on skinniness, and are eating 8 times a day feeling like you're going to throw up or actually do after eating. FFS stop eating "clean".

I will use myself as an example. When I was solely bulking, as a skinny dude, it is fairly hard to gain mass, I drank soda each day and ate fried food. Sure this would kill me in the long term, but 3 months of it makes it a heck of a lot easier to gain weight. If you eliminate juice/milk/soda etc each day I'm likely pulling ~600+ calories less, something almost anyone is going to have trouble making up in a clean diet (400 grams of black beans maybe?).

Now don't take this as a carte blanche for just gorging yourself year round. But if you have trouble gaining weight, at some point it becomes more important to just get the calories in than it does to eat a 5th serving of steamed broccoli that day.

[cbloom]

Yeah, I'm having trouble with this. I'm trying to gain muscle but I've always been pretty skinny and ripped and it's just really bugging me to eat a lot, and I can feel a little bit of flab on me, it makes me really want to cut and get the flab off.

[Thremp]

cbloom,

Buy only larger clothes, you'll either look stoopid or grow into them.

[Colt McCoy]

Good thread, Thremp. This should be in a sticky. People need to get it through their heads that if they want to gain weight or even just add muscle, you NEED FAT!

[Doug Funnie II]

Yeah people who avoid fat when bulking just aren't going to be happy with their results. But I can't say I disagree with avoiding foods like cheese and beer, as long as you replace them with something else calorie dense.

[jah7_fsu1]

With all due respect I'm going to have to completely disagree.

A: You can't force your body to grow more MUSCLE by simply consuming more calories. This is a myth. While you need to be eating enough to promote anabolism, you can't EAT EAT EAT and expect to gain more muscle. You will put on bodyfat. More food (more calories) does not equal more muscle growth. In my exercise science classes we called it a protein synthesis limit. I have heard it called others. Very basically the amount of muscle you can build is dependent on your body's capacity to synthesize new muscle tissue from the ingested protein. Assuming you aren't using steroids I don't believe (definitely not aware of any science) that allows you to change this limit.

B: Knowing what I said in A, I will attempt to make an argument for a clean bulk. Let's assume I have 12 months to add "as much muscle" as possible. Let's also assume at the end of those 12 months I want to "look ripped." So a general bulk then cut right? Put on a bunch of fat (and muscle) and then cut that bodyfat out. Something like 9 months of bulking and 3 months of cutting perhaps? Well, most people know it is damn near impossible to cut fat and GAIN muscle. Calorie restriction (needed for fat loss) just isn't very anabolic. So during that cutting phase you aren't adding muscle and might lose some.

C: Your right you need to get the calories in, but the idea that beer and pizza are going to be huge tools in your muscle building garage is just ludicrous. Obviously, I think you can "relax" your diet somewhat when trying to add muscle (I hate calling it bulking), but the implications of going all out crap food need to be known. It's just generally a crappy way to go about any goal unless your goal is obesity or diabetes.

[skunkworks]

jah7_fsu1, plz post more.

FWIW, my own experiences with doing a dirty bulk diet were negative. I didn't add much more strength than I had on a clean diet, I gained more padding, and the only real positive was that I had no dietary restrictions. It's a lot easier rolling to McD's than preparing some food or eating chicken breasts and veggies every day.

However, I'm now a believer that a dirty bulk is only good for poor high school/college students who don't have the money or facilities to get healthy meals, or people who really have problems putting on weight (and I mean really, really have problems). What I've learned is that it's always good to practice self-control in all aspects of life, including diet. It pays off when you enter the maintenance phase of your diet and can only indulge sporatically.

[jah7_fsu1]

Skunk: Yeah, just realized we had a gym forum, I'll post much more here now.

It's not that I don't think "traditional" bulking won't help you put on muscle...your obviously getting enough calories to promote anabolism...it's just the whole all calories are good, eat everything approach largely sucks. In my prior clients I'd much prefer macro manipulations of healthy food choices than just say "go out and get much more calories" if adding muscle mass was the goal.

I also have definite thoughts on how people want to look. In general the guys you see in movies look ripped have a bodyweight of much lower than you'd expect. Without a lot of bodyfat it's very easy to create an illusion of size. I even have a bunch of pictures of people who are about 15-30 pounds lighter, but appear much more muscular based on bodyfat. Helps for when I'm trying to let clients see what adding lean mass/decreasing bodyfat can do.

[Thremp]

jah7,

Work on reading comp.

[jah7_fsu1]

The difference might be that you are talking about gaining weight. What you reccommend is a great way to gain weight. I assume you meant bulk as in gain muscle.

[ QUOTE ]
Basically overrated. Get your nutrients. But don't shirk a large fatty ribeye, a 6pack of beers and a large pizza. In fact if bulking I'll step out on a limb and say that the aforementioned 3 items together would be far superior to a large dry leafy green salad, a baked chicken breast, and water.

[/ QUOTE ]

This is what I responded to. The idea that a six pack of beer is better for putting on muscle than a chicken breast is just plain wrong.