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Last Updated on January 7, 2021
What’s the unappealing alternative? A hyper-micromanaged diet, or traditional “clean” bulk, where you eat every 1½ hours, carry around seven different plastic containers yielding a weird mix of tuna and broccoli odors, display obsessive-compulsive behavior, have your life revolve around your diet, and likely become a social hermit.
That may work for the 5% of the population who are professional athletes and models, but it is not a sustainable approach for most of us with more common careers and lifestyles. These plans may look immaculate on paper, but they rarely work off of it. Luckily, there is an alternative plan that optimizes food choices for overall health and quality of gains and is also flexible enough in structure to be practical in the real world.
BULKING BY THE NUMBERS
Lets take a step back for a second. Make no mistake, while we can argue over optimum dietary approaches into eternity, consistently hitting the right calories and macronutrients will always be the most important step in achieving any body composition goal, including bulking. Here’s a recommended starting point, using a 175-pound male as an example:
CALORIES:
16 per pound of body weight
16 x 175 lbs = 2,800 calories
+
PROTEIN:
1g per pound of body weight
1g x 175 lbs = 700 calories (175g protein)
+
FAT:
25% of calories
2,800 calories x 0.25 = 700 calories (75g fat)
+
CARBS:
Remaining calories
2,800-700-700 = 1,400 calories (350g carbs)
From this starting point, everything needs to be tested, assessed, and refined in the real world to produce optimum results. Ectomorphs may need to push the calories up to 20 per pound of body weight. Endomorphs may need to implement a more cyclical dieting strategy by lowering calories to maintenance levels or below on rest days (12–14 per pound of body weight) in order to avoid gaining fat.
THE SCIENCE BEHIND THE SIZE
Once you get your optimum numbers dialed in, the flexibility of your diet opens up. That’s because research shows that as long as you account for calories and macronutrients, meal frequency is irrelevant in terms of changing body composition. If that’s the case, choosing the right diet structure for you is about making your plan as realistic, functional, and sustainable as possible, and not about clinging to bro-science.
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