Can You Build Muscle Without Gaining Fat? Lean Bulking is The Answer!
Build Muscle, Not Fat
Written by Jonathan Fletcher
If you want to be stronger, you need to build muscle.
If you want to look like you work out, you need to build muscle.
If you’re skinny-fat, you need to build muscle.
The problem is that most workout programs and group classes aren’t focused on building muscle.
Combine that with the fact that most people don’t naturally eat the right nutrients and amount of food that making building muscle work best and the results are not good.
You waste time, effort, and money not building muscle, and gaining unnecessary fat instead.
A well-designed “Bulk”, is the answer
WHAT IS BULKING?
Bulking is the slang / gym lingo / bro-science term for the deliberate process of gaining weight and building muscle.
Bulking accomplishes two main things:
Bulking increases muscle size (lean body mass) - Fill out those shirt sleeves, grow your abs, make those shoulders and quads pop when you’re at the beach or flexing in the bathroom mirror.
Bulking increases strength - Certainly a noble goal. Without muscle there is no strength. Without strength there is weakness, sickness, and dependence on others. Thumbs down to that!
Notice that above I said “increases muscle size”. The goal of a proper bulk is to gain weight by increasing muscle mass and not just total body weight.
If you don’t know what you’re doing you might end up just getting fat while bulking. Double thumbs down. Keep reading this article and you’ll know how to do it right.
Now that we know what bulking is, how do you know if you should do it?
HOW TO KNOW IF YOU SHOULD BULK
In general, there are two types of people who might want or need to spend some time bulking and building muscle
First: The Untrained Skinny Person
Sometimes called “hard gainers”, these are often ectomorph body types that are naturally thin and have trouble putting on size. These folks might have low body fat levels around 10% for men and 20% for women. but have no noticeable muscle on their frame. These men and women aren’t fat by any means, they are just under-muscled.
HARD GAINERS
But have no fears hard gainers and untrained ectomorphs, there is hope!
By the end of this article you’ll be well prepared to start packing on some muscle!
Second: The Lean, Trained Person
This type of person who wants to bulk is the trained man or woman who has already successfully built muscle and has now “cut” down to low body fat levels.
A “cut” is gym-speak for a period of fat loss, or the opposite of a “bulk”. Most people that achieve admiral physiques didn’t get there quickly, and they didn’t get there all in one step.
It’s more common for people to go through cycles of “cutting” and “bulking” that allow them periods of focused muscle growth, followed by periods of intense fat loss.
As a general guide, men get the most out of a bulk when starting out quite lean (around 10-12% body fat) and most women get the most out of a bulk when starting around 20% body fat.
Why these numbers you ask? I’m glad you asked.
For starters, building muscle is a marathon, not a sprint. During a bulk, gaining some body fat is inevitable (more on that later). If you start your bulk at low body fat levels you can pack on more muscle over a longer period of time without gaining too much fat.
Another reason to start your bulk when you're already lean is that lean people are more insulin sensitive. When you’re more insulin sensitive your body is more likely to use the extra calories from food to build muscle and store glycogen (reserve energy) than store them as fat. I like the sound of that!
Lastly, hormones like testosterone play a large role in effectively being able to pack on muscle during a bulk. Being at lean, healthy body fat levels gives you the best chance to have the testosterone you need on hand. #nosteroids
Maybe you’re wondering? How the heck am I supposed to know what my body fat is? If you google “how to test body fat” it’s pretty overwhelming. The methods range from fat-pinching skin fold calipers to Dual-Energy X Ray Absorptiometry, to Bio Electrical Impedance scales and devices to good ol fashion body measurements.
Look, unless you’ve got a really good reason to know your exact body fat percentage (I can’t think of one) we are big fans of basing body fat percentage estimates off of photos.
Each of the fancy and sometimes pricey options listed above all come with their own set of problems and inaccuracies, so consider using these photos as a place to see where you’re at instead of shelling our your cash on a costly test.
Ok, so now you know IF you’re ready to bulk up and focus on building muscle. Let’s get down into the weeds a little.
WHAT MAKES MUSCLES GROW?
I don’t think you’d be too surprised to know that you can’t just close your eyes, eat a pizza. and expect to get bigger biceps.
If you want to bulk, and get bigger it’s going to take some physical effort. Otherwise known as lifting weights.
We talk a lot about the STRESS > RECOVERY > ADAPTATION cycle.
This is the process that causes muscle growth and pretty much every improvement in our body.
Here’s how it works:
You apply a stress to your body (lifting weights).
You allow your body to recover (sleep/food/time off of the gym)
Your body adapts by increasing muscular size and strength to prepare for future stresses.
That’s the cycle, but what’s really going on?
When we apply a stress to a muscle by lifting a weight we’re causing little micro-tears in the muscle fibers. Don’t be scared, this is what we want.
The damage to these fibers triggers the release of hormones and hormone-like factors such as HGF, FGF, IGF, HGH, and testosterone. Growth hormone in particular is released from the pituitary gland after resistance training (lifting weights) which triggers both fat oxidation for use as energy, as well as telling our muscles to start using the amino acids present in protein to build and repair muscle.
When we recover through adequate rest, sleep, and nutrition (more on that later) our body repairs those micro-tears, increases the size of the muscle fibers, and even creates new fibers entirely. How cool is that?
The result is bigger, stronger muscles.
If you’re not really putting any effort and intensity into your workouts you’re probably not causing these micro-tears and you shouldn’t expect your muscles to grow.
If you’re doing too much, you can cause too much muscle damage and it’ll be hard to recover from.
There’s a sweet spot and it takes a well designed program, and some experience to get it right. You could also hire a professional coach. Wink Wink.
We went in depth on this topic in THIS article about muscle growth.
SIDEBAR: If you want a FREE program designed to help you see more size and definition in your arms, shoulders, glutes, and abs, we have you covered.
Download our free “Arms, Abs, and You Know The Rest” program below.
Back to growing muscle…Depending on your training age you should be hitting a muscle with between 10 and 20 “Hard Sets” per week for maximum growth potential.
A Hard Set is one that brings your muscles to around 2 reps before technical failure. That’s the sweet spot.
DO YOU NEED TO GET A PUMP FOR MUSCLES TO GROW?
Maybe you’ve done a bunch of reps of an exercise and felt your muscle get super hard, and actually get visibly bigger.
We call this THE PUMP!
Essentially what’s going on when you’re all pumped up like a superhero is that your muscles have been flushed with blood in an effort to help shuttle out all of the byproducts of muscular contraction like lactate.
Take your flexing pictures while you’re all pumped up because as that extra blood does its job you’ll quickly deflate. Womp Womp.
The pump is great, but it isn’t the main contributor to muscle growth. For that, you should be focused on doing mostly heavy compound lifts that use the most muscle mass over the longest range of motion.
Exercises like the squat, deadlift, overhead press, and bench press.
So while the pump is great, focus on those compound lifts and focus on adding weight to the bar on a regular basis to force those muscles to grow.
And work hard, it matters.
HOW SHOULD YOU EAT WHEN YOU BULK?
You better be convinced by now that it’s going to take some serious work with the weights to put on real mass.
But that’s only half of the story.
Remember the second step in that cycle we just talked about (Stress > Recovery > Adaptation)?
We’re after the result that comes in the third step (bigger, stronger muscles), but we won't get there if we neglect step 2.
Recovery
I’m not talking about using your foam roller or falling asleep in an ice bath.
I’m talking about food, sleep, and muscular rest.
Sleep
Let’s get real. Most people are not getting enough sleep.
The CDC recommends that healthy adults should get between 7-9 hours of sleep per night on average.
That means that if you need to wake up at 6:00 AM, you have to be asleep (not getting ready for bed) at 10:00 PM. No Jimmy Fallon for you!
So what’s the big deal with sleep when it comes to bulking?
A whole freaking lot! If you neglect your sleep you will not get the most out of the opportunity to grow muscle during a bulk.
In fact, some of the restorative processes for muscle repair and growth happen primarily or ONLY during sleep!
More specifically, during the N3 stage of Non-Rem sleep blood flow to muscles increases, the majority of our growth hormone is secreted and the magic of tissue repair and formation happens.
Not only that, but a 2015 study in males showed testosterone reductions between 10 and 15% after just 1 week of sub-par sleep. As one of our anabolic, muscle-building hormones in both males and females, you don’t want suppressed natural testosterone levels.
Other studies have shown significant reductions in insulin sensitivity in subjects after just a few nights of poor sleep.
Sleep is a natural and free performance enhancer. If you’re not sleeping and you’re worried about what kind of BCAA’s you should be taking or the perfect form for bicep curls, your priorities are out of order.
Just as important as sleep for recovery is FOOD.
Food
That’s right baby, good ol’ calories.
If you want to get the most out of your bulk ya gotta eat. We’ll talk more in the next section about how much exactly, but without food, there is no growth.
If your sleep is dialed in, you’re putting in the right amount of work (stress) in the gym and you’re not making progress in strength and muscle size during your bulk, it’s because you’re not eating enough and not eating the right things.
If you haven’t worked with a nutrition coach before or haven’t done much research on nutrition it’s easy to miss the mark on the right way to eat to make the best progress during bulk.
Here’s the deal:
All food contains calories and calories are what our bodies use for energy and to build new muscle tissue (and store fat).
All calories can be broken down into 3 macronutrient categories.
Protein
Carbs
Fat
Most foods aren’t purely made up of one macronutrient but rather a combination of the 3.
Each of the 3 macronutrients has a role in healthy bodily function including the roles we care about for this article on bulking and growing our muscles.
Protein is probably the one that you’d be least surprised to hear how important it is. Protein comes primarily from animal sources like meat, dairy, eggs, and fish. But since most foods are a combination of protein, carbs, and fat you’ll see small amounts of protein in most foods, even things you wouldn’t expect like fruits and vegetables.
But not all protein is created equally. Those animal sources of protein have a distinct advantage over others. They contain what we call “complete proteins”.
Complete proteins contain all 9 of the “essential amino acids” that our bodies don’t make on their own. Ya gotta get ‘em from food.
What’s the big deal with that? Well, 3 of those amino acids called the “Branch Chain Amino Acids” are the ones that we really need and care about for muscle growth.
When we eat enough of these amino acids (and one called Leucine in particular) our body begins Muscle Protein Synthesis (MPS).
It takes about 3 grams of leucine to trigger MPS. In terms of food, that’s about 25g of protein.
MPS is necessary if we want muscle growth and repair. There’s just no way around it.
Don’t eat protein, don’t grow.
You don’t have to eat meat and dairy if you don’t want to though. There are still ways to get complete proteins on a vegetarian or vegan diet, but it’s going to take a little bit of effort on your part. We wrote an article HERE telling you exactly how to do it.
No matter where you get your protein from, you have the opportunity to trigger MPS every 4 hours or so. That means eating 3 high-protein meals per day + a snack or two will help you get the most out of your bulk. If you’re not tired of reading articles by this point, HERE is an article we wrote about protein timing.
So how much protein should you get? Keep reading :)
Timing of protein ingestion is less important than the daily total, but if you’re really dialed in, try to have ~25g of protein before an AM workout that’s done in a fasted state, and try to eat a protein-rich meal or protein shake within 1-2 hours of training to put your body into a muscle building state.
DO CARBS HELP YOU BUILD MUSCLE?
There’s probably no more hotly debated topic in diet and nutrition currently than carbohydrates.
Should we avoid them? Will they just make us fat? Diets like the Carnivore Diet and the Ketogenic Diet have poured plenty of gasoline on the subject. You’d think carbs are a religious topic!
Let’s stay on topic and see how carbohydrates affect our mission to pack on slabs of muscle during our bulk.
Carbs come from lots of different foods. Everything from fruits and veggies to pop-tarts.
When we eat carbohydrate containing foods our bodies convert them to glucose (sugar) in our blood.
Glucose circulates in the blood and is the primary energy source for everything from muscle contraction to brain function.
Pretty big deal right?
The messenger hormone Insulin tells nutrients like glucose where to go and what to do when they’re in the blood. More on that in THIS article on insulin and insulin sensitivity.
Amazingly, we have the ability to store carbohydrates in our muscles and liver as reserve energy called glycogen.
Since we’re not always eating and our energy demands vary throughout the day, glycogen is at the ready when glucose from food isn’t available in the blood.
Glycogen is also the primary source for short, intense exercise like lifting weights.
DING DING DING
Remember that whole thing about how you have to induce muscle damage through weight lifting to get the most out of your bulk? Well you’re going to need plenty of carbohydrates on board if you’re going push some weights with intensity.
No carbs, no glycogen = poor performance.
Maybe you think I’m poo-poo’ing on low carb diets like the ketogenic or carnivore diet. I’m not, I’m just giving you physiological facts.
Are you a long distance runner? You don’t need much glycogen because long distance efforts are powered mostly by oxygen and fat.
But if you’re looking to put on muscle, you’re going to want carbs.
Anabolic vs. Catabolic
Think about it this way…. There’s two forces at work when it comes to muscle growth and bulking. There’s the BUILDING of muscle which requires an Anabolic state and there’s the breaking down of muscle which is a Catabolic state.
The catabolic state comes from breaking down of muscle through exercise, poor sleep and under eating.
The anabolic state comes from eating enough total calories, enough protein and carbs and by resting.
To end up with muscular growth, we need more of the Anabolic and less of the Catabolic on average over time.
So how does this relate to carbs?
Studies show that eating carbs and protein together before and after exercise helps our bodies minimize the effects of catabolism and promotes an anabolic state.
In other words, eating carbs and protein together are anabolic and they help you build more muscle than protein alone.
Does it matter what kind of carbs you eat? The truth is that our bodies are really good at using pretty much any fuel we put in them.
But your health matters too and we wouldn’t be doing a good job if we promoted what we believe to be bad habits and choices that can lead to poor health outcomes.
We recommend getting 80+ % of your calories (including carbs) from real foods that grew out of the ground or walked the earth.
You’ll feel better and anecdotally we find that body composition is improved on a mostly unprocessed food diet.
Try to get most of your carbs from fruits, vegetables, grains, legumes and beans and then have an occasional piece of cake to keep it fun.
How about Dietary Fat?
If you want to be healthy, have good hormone function, recover well, have normal menstruation and healthy skin, hair, and nails there is a minimum amount of fat that you need to eat on average per day.
The thing is, the western diet would have us eating 2-4x that amount easily in an average day. Although total calories are important for building muscle, getting too many of those calories from fat can not only rob from the calories available for protein and carbs but can lead to poor health outcomes. Not to mention, fat is a sub optimal fuel source for building muscle.
Saturated fat in particular (mainly from meat sources) should be limited to less than 10% of your total daily calorie intake to keep your risk for heart disease and high cholesterol in check.
More on fat later.
HOW TO BULK THE RIGHT WAY WITHOUT GAINING FAT
You’re armed with some great info already that will help you get the most out of your muscle building bulk.
Let’s get more specific so you nail it!
We can break this down into two main sections; Training & Nutrition
WHAT ARE THE BEST WORKOUTS FOR BULKING?
Allow me to get specific. When you bulk, you don’t want to “work out”, you want to “train”.
I used the word training on purpose. Training is different than exercise.
Training is designed specifically to get more and more challenging over time. Exercise is more random and while it can improve your fitness it’s not guaranteed to cause muscle growth.
If you want to maximize your muscle growth during your bulk you need to be training. Even on days when you’re not at 100%, you need to be training. Even when it’s inconvenient and you don’t want to, you need to be training. When you’re training you need to keep a log of what you’re doing in a journal, log, or app so you can make sure you’re making progress.
Not sure what to do in your training? Focus 75% of your efforts on 4 main exercises and their variants.
Squats, Deadlifts, Overhead Presses, and Horizontal Presses like the Bench Press.
Why those? It’s simple. They use the most muscle mass, over the longest range of motion, and can be loaded the heaviest.
Fill in the other 25% of your training with supplemental single-joint and compound exercises that can also be loaded heavily.
Things like barbell curls, Romanian deadlifts, lunges, and dumbbell exercises like Arnold presses, rows, and the dumbbell bench press.
Never forget, muscles need to be challenged in order to grow. So many people have wasted so many years in the gym hoping for visual progress when all along they weren’t pushing hard enough on the right exercises.
If you’re relatively new to lifting weights you should expect to make rapid progress, adding weight to the bar and reps to your sets very frequently. If you’ve been at this for a few years, you might increase your weights and reps more slowly.
But if you aren’t putting in the effort don’t expect progress and growth!
By the way… We just dropped the only resource you’ll ever need for nailing the perfect, safe deadlift every single time.
We covered everything from the right shoes to wear, to selecting the right weight, and even threw in a sample training program too.
We call it “The Ultimate Deadlift Guide”. - Grab it today before it’s too late by clicking the Yellow Button below.
SHOULD YOU DO CARDIO WHEN YOU’RE BULKING
How about cardio you ask?
Quite frankly, cardio is not necessary or productive when bulking. Your weight lifting efforts should be intense enough and frequent enough that you need all of your bodi’s recovery efforts to go toward muscle growth and repair.
Long bouts of cardio would fall under the catabolic category and would take away from the goal of your bulk. Cardio also is working against your total balance of calories. You need those calories to recover and build muscle.
If you absolutely can’t live without cardio from a stress relief or lifestyle perspective, try to keep bouts short and intense and no more than once or twice per week.
Cardiovascular endurance returns quickly once you start doing it again on a regular basis so don’t get too caught up on any lost progress in that regard.
SHOULD YOU TAKE REST DAYS WHEN YOU’RE BULKING?
As we talked about previously, recovery and rest are mandatory parts of the Stress > Recovery > Adaptation cycle. Don’t work against yourself by working out 7 days per week. Plan on taking 2-3 days off completely with only light daily activity to give your body and muscles a chance to grow.
HOW IMPORTANT IS NUTRITION FOR BULKING?
The hard part! The part that trips 99% of people up when it comes to making changes with their bodies.
I think deep down we all know how important nutrition is, but learning about food and sticking with a plan is so darned hard.
The payoff from proper nutrition, no matter what your goal is isn’t an immediate thing. It takes time and patience and we typically just aren’t good at that.
But here’s what you need to know and put into practice on the nutrition front to get the most out of your muscle-building bulk.
Calories! You need calories! Maybe that sounds like common sense but you would be surprised how many people with the goal of gaining muscle and strength simply aren’t eating enough.
To build muscle you need a surplus of calories over and above the amount that it takes you to just survive.
Everyone’s calorie needs are different. It’s dependent on factors like sex, height, weight, age, body fat / muscle mass percentage, activity level, previous diet experience, and genetics.
The simplest way to know how many calories your body needs to maintain its current size is to track what you eat in an app like MyFitnessPal for about a week while monitoring your weight. Average out your calories over the course of the week and assuming your weight stayed about the same, you’ve found your “maintenance calories” or your Total Daily Energy Expenditure (TDEE). If you’re intimidated by tracking your food, we wrote an article about how to do it HERE.
There are also online TDEE calculators that will get you in the ballpark of your maintenance calories, but since there are so many individualized factors, I would just consider them a starting place.
So you know you need calories, and you know you need more of them than you’re burning if you’re going to build muscle.
How many calories do you need?
There are two schools of thought when it comes to how much to eat when bulking.
WHAT IS DIRTY BULKING AND SHOULD YOU DO IT?
The first is the “Dirty Bulk”. This is the GOMAD (gallon of milk a day) or the eat an entire pizza daily approach. Will you gain weight and muscle rapidly with a dirty bulk? For sure, but you know what else you’ll gain a lot of in the process? Body fat!
There are a few problems with this approach.
First, how you break your calories down across the 3 macronutrients (protein, carbs, and fat) matters. It matters a lot. Simply throwing a bunch of calories haphazardly into your diet is a bad idea unless your goal is to just get fluffy.
The second problem with dirty bulking is that you’re setting yourself up for headaches and frustration down the road because of the result of all that extra fat you accumulated. Losing all of that extra fat is going to mean you’re going to have to spend more time in the future in a calorie deficit to lose it. If you’ve ever dieted for fat loss you know that means the unfortunate side effect of hunger and restriction among other things.
Lastly, going crazy on high-calorie, processed foods for an extended period can possibly lead to an unhealthy relationship with food or at a minimum some bad habits that you wouldn’t want to carry on long term.
We prefer a more measured, smarter approach to bulking. An approach that takes a little more science and more effort than simply polishing off 2,300 extra calories of milk each day.
WHAT IS LEAN BULKING?
You could call this method “Lean Bulking”. Kind of a silly name, but the goal is to take a measured approach to food intake that helps you build as much muscle and gain the least amount of fat during your bulk.
To lean bulk right, you should track your total calorie intake as well as your individual protein, carbohydrate, and fat.
Here’s how to do it.
You already know that you need to be in a caloric surplus to grow those muscles and get stronger. That’s priority 1. If you haven’t already figured out your maintenance calories (TDEE) do that first. We told you how earlier.
Now here’s how to find out how many calories you need to eat to bulk up without gaining a bunch of fat.
Start with an extra 10%. Yep, it really is that simple. But that’s not the end of it.
Our bodies have a bunch of awesome ways to deal with extra calories besides building muscle and storing fat and the fact is that your lean bulking calories will change over time and might not be as many as you had hoped.
If you fall under the ectomorph/hard-gainer category, don’t be surprised if you end up having to go FAR past an extra 10% of calories to start building substantial muscle. This is one of the reasons that having a coach is helpful since there are so many individualized variables.
The sweet spot for weight gain while lean bulking is between .5 and 1% body weight gain per month. Building new muscle takes extra calories, but to do this right you need to add those calories in gradually at a rate that doesn’t make you gain too quickly. And you might have guessed that this isn’t an overnight process either.
Start with that 10% calorie surplus and if you aren’t gaining weight within that .5 - 1% range after 3-4 weeks, add about 5% more to total calories and continue to monitor.
Speaking of monitoring, take photos of yourself and your body measurements weekly also. Sometimes the scale doesn’t tell the entire story.
So your calories are set, how should you set your protein, carbohydrates, and fat for lean bulking?
HOW MUCH PROTEIN SHOULD YOU EAT WHEN LEAN BULKING?
Protein is really important for muscle growth so we’re going to want enough of it on hand.
When we give general guidelines for protein consumption we recommend that you eat between .8 and 1.2g of protein per day per pound that you weigh.
The sweet spot for lean bulking protein intake is right near the middle to high end of that range depending on your body weight.
Aiming for 1g of protein per day per pound of body weight on average will put you right where you need to be. If you’ve been eating substantially lower than that I would recommend bringing your intake up over the course of a couple weeks (25g per week) until you reach your target to minimize any digestive distress.
Remember, not all protein is the same so try to make sure that most of your protein comes from animal sources or complete veggie proteins like soy and pea.
HOW MUCH FAT SHOULD YOU EAT WHEN LEAN BULKING?
We talked earlier about how fat is necessary for good hormonal function among other things. But since it’s not terribly useful for recovery and muscle building like protein and carbohydrates are, we recommend keeping dietary fat relatively low and saving those calories for the anabolic macronutrients.
Females typically need more dietary fat than men to maintain healthy hormone function so we recommend that they set their fat intake at about .43g per day per lb that they weigh for lean bulking and .36g per day per lb for men.
If you’ve been eating intuitively or haven’t ever tracked how much fat you’re eating, don’t be surprised if you’re eating quite a bit more than these numbers.
For example, a 130lb female may only need about 55g of fat per day when lean bulking. A Chick-Fil-A sandwich and large waffle fry have 43g of fat 😮.
We’re not demonizing fat, but the fact is that fat adds up quickly and most of us eat way more than we need.
HOW MANY CARBS SHOULD YOU EAT WHEN LEAN BULKING?
I saved this one for last because I knew you’d really want to know how many carbs to eat while bulking / lean bulking.
Well, get excited but you’re going to get plenty!
Remember, carbs are literally energy for our bodies. They’re converted into glucose in our bodies and are ready for immediate use. They are also stored in our muscles and liver as reserve energy (glycogen) for hard efforts like weight lifting.
If you’ve ever had a few low-carb days or weeks and then suddenly re-introduce them into your diet you know that you feel almost super human with all of that extra energy.
Carbohydrates are great both pre and post workout. 30-50g of carbohydrates an hour or so before your workout ensures you have plenty of circulating glucose for energy. And post workout carbohydrates + protein can speed the recovery process and get muscle protein synthesis started.
I like to think of carbohydrates as the gas pedal of nutrition. When we want to increase performance and growth we push on the throttle and increase carbs. When we don’t need as much energy or don’t want to grow we pull back.
They are also an easy variable to adjust without much disruption to regular life.
Want to add 25g of carbs to your diet? Have some oatmeal with breakfast or add about 100 grams of rice to dinner.
So how many carbohydrates should you eat when bulking / lean bulking?
Get out your calculator.
You already calculated your total calories for bulking earlier. You also already calculated how many grams of protein and fat you’ll be eating during your bulk.
Take your grams of protein and multiply by 4 (4 calories in 1g of protein). Now take your grams of fat and multiply by 9 (9 calories per 1g of fat).
Add those numbers together and subtract them from your bulking calorie total.
Now take that number and divide by 4 (4 calories per 1g of carbohydrates). That number is how many grams of carbohydrates you should start with for your lean bulk.
Example 180lb man with a TDEE of 2000 calories
TDEE = 2000 Calories
2000 x 1.1 = 2200 (Lean Bulking Calories)
Protein - 180lb x 1.1 = 198g of Protein Per Day
Fat - 180lb x .36 = 65g of Fat Per Day
198 x 4 = 792 Calories from Protein
65 x 9 = 585 Calories from Fat
792 + 585 = 1,377 Calories from Protein and Fat Combined
2,200 - 1,377 = 823 Calories left for Carbohydrates
823 / 4 = 206g of Carbs
I know that this can be confusing. The truth is that this is just a starting point anyway.
Try these numbers for 3-4 weeks consistently. If you’re not gaining size and weight slowly and steadily, it’s time to step on the gas pedal.
Add 20-30g of carbohydrates to your targets and monitor for about 2 weeks. If nothing happens, do it again.
Nutrition and nutrition coaching is equal parts science, experimentation, and art. Everyone responds differently so try and enjoy the process instead of letting it stress you out.
Before we wrap up on carbohydrates I want to mention that if your new carbohydrate target is substantially higher than what you’ve been eating currently, you’ll likely see a pretty substantial weight gain right off the bat.
When our body stores carbohydrates as glycogen in our muscles and liver it brings along with it plenty of water. That extra water weight can cause you to question your life’s decisions if you aren’t prepared for it and you think you’re rapidly gaining fat.
You’re not, so you can relax. Remember, it takes an overabundance of calories, not carbs to gain fat.
WHAT SUPPLEMENTS ARE GOOD FOR BULKING?
You don’t need supplements to build muscle, but there are two that can help.
Creatine - Here’s one you can take that’s low risk, cheap, and has enough research to say that it absolutely works. Creatine monohydrate. Creatine is a natural compound made up of the amino acids L-arginine, glycine, and methionine. Your body already makes creatine, but not as much is optimal for what we want it for. Creatine allows our body to shorten the cycle of energy turnover in our cells. More creatine in the muscles = the ability to do more reps with more weight. No need to get fancy or spend a bunch of money on designer creatine. Just get creatine monohydrate and take 5g of it every day. You can learn much more about Creatine in THIS video on our YouTube channel.
Protein Powder - This is more of a convenience than anything. There’s nothing magical in protein powder that you can’t get from food. But it sure is nice sometimes to drink a refreshing shake after a workout rather than chewing on a chicken wing. Want to know what to look for in a protein powder? You know we have you covered HERE.
REVIEW
Whew, we covered a lot of ground today. Let’s hit the high notes one more time.
Bulking = gaining weight on purpose with the intent of building muscle size and strength.
Males should aim to be around 10% body fat before bulking and ladies around 20%.
Our muscles grow as a result of breaking down the fibers through lifting weights and recovery via sleep, food and time away from the gym.
It takes a surplus of calories over and above our normal intake to cause muscle growth.
Bulking by haphazardly eating many more calories than you need is a quick path to excess fat and poor habits.
A small caloric surplus of ~10% held continuously with adjustments to carbohydrates (lean bulking) is the smarter approach but takes more work.
Supplements can help but aren’t mandatory. Creatine and Protein Powder are the safest and simplest options.
Thank you so much for reading. I hope this was helpful to you.
If you have any questions please feel free to reach out HERE. This is what we do all day every day.
We also have a calculator that you can use to help get you in the ballpark of the goals we discussed in this article. You can download it HERE. It has calculators calculating your calories and macronutrients for fat loss.
Have a great day!
Digital Barbell
