is bulking overrated?

[10001110101]

I always try to "bulk" and i get maybe 3-4 weeks in and i just get fuckin sick of eating any more than 2000 cals a day. then i fuckin end up getting so sick of all food that I lose my appetite for like 2-3 weeks and lose 3-4 pounds, usually mostly fat i think though, my strength doesn't suffer in the gym. So i end up Yo-yoing back and forth and never make any real progress as far as LBM. I play soccer and tennis, I like being aerobically fit, and eating high cals just does not work with that, plus I get headaches and a shitload of bloating from high cals.

help me.

fuck.

btw stats are

male
23
5'8
148 lbs. (was actually 155 a year ago before i started lifting consistently)
been lifting since beginning 07.

I've actually tried keto instead of bulking, really liked the change in my appearance and the way i felt (felt light, fast, and my abs started to show) but strength was temporarily down, working out lost its flavor, and its not a good long term diet imo.

i eat clean cals 90% of the time (oats, cottage, nat pb, whey, 1-2%, good fats (flax oil, evoo), you know the usual stuff. i am also a decent cook and prepare most of my own food to save money.

but man I just have a weak appetite, I also have zero interest in getting fat to build muscle. i have a lot of buddies who have "bulked" more or less, got pretty big, but also got pretty fat, and never really lost the fat again, not that they couldn't, but it just seems like this is kind of overdone, being fat is gay even if you can bench 475 pounds (at least not part of my goals)

i dunno, just feelin burned out on diet part of training, need advice.

 

[ukkared]

Well bulking is more than a month at a time deal, bulking is more like months at a time thing. But why would you even be trying to bulk up; it doesn't seem like your goals are to be big and muscular. If you are trying to put on weight and build muscle you have to eat massive amounts of food. 4-5000 which if you eat low fat you won't put on a lot of fat and it should go to muscle. But you would have to limit the cardio. What are your desired results maybe we can point you in a good direction.

 

[10001110101]

160 lbs. 7-8%bf.

those are my long term goals.

I am currently

148 lbs. 10-12% bf

... i guess i've just heard the same things all the time, you gotta eat eat eat to grow... and it's just hard for me, i mean if i wanted to get to 135 it wouldn't be any sweat off my back, I have a lot more trouble gaining weight than losing it, and when i do gain weight all it feels like it is is bloat and water and maybe a little fat. i dunno, the only time i remember really gaining weight was eating 4000-5000 cals a day and the only way I could do that was to eat mcdonalds and triple decker PBJ sandwiches with huge glasses of whole milk. and really all i gained was fat mass, i mean at the time it was good because i wasn't so skinny, but i like being skinny, i'd just like to be a little more muscular y'know.

also i feel like I have a lot of water weight, because my BF is low but i still have a rounded smooth look, i guess not much long term I can do about that, just genetics.

 

[MadMetal]

160 lbs. 7-8%bf.

those are my long term goals.

I am currently

148 lbs. 10-12% bf

Glad to see I'm not alone here, however I'm at 9% bf at about the same weight, 147, except my goal is to drop down to 5% body fat and build up to about 160 pounds in muscle.

I use to weight 10 pounds more a couple months ago but recently finished my Lean Body Challenge and I lost 10 pounds which I feel is VERY effective after seeing the results on myself afterwards.

But like said alot, if you really want to bulk, you need to shove food in your mouth as if you're a hungry 300 pound kid, but of the proper foods. I use to do that but it required me to eat a bit too much so I quit doing that completely and am more focussed on having some muscle to keep strong and lack of body fat for more of a "martial arts" look.

 

[10001110101]

am more focussed on having some muscle to keep strong and lack of body fat for more of a "martial arts" look.

yeah i'd just like to be 160 pounds with that look. y'know!

 

[Hybridtheory2o]

Well I can tell you one thing. There are two types of calories. "Clean" and "Dirty" Basically the good bodybuilding basic foods and your junk foods of all sorts. If you want to bulk up and you eat mostly dirty calories then you will most likely gain fat and water weight. Even if you carelessly throw the good foods down the hatch you can gain more fat than muscle. The key is to eat every 2-3 hrs of small/decent sized meals. Dont all the time eat huge meals where you feel bloated afterwords but if you wanna bulk up a lot then once in awhile occasionally toughing it out and making yourself over eat can help. Its really hard to put on all muscle and not much fat. BUT u dont have to get all fattened up and sloppy looking to bulk either.

And like someone stated earlier bulking up doesnt consist of a month long. It takes months if you want to put on lean muscle mass. But in order to bulk you will need to obviously consume more calories than you are burning. For you I would say you wont need to do cardio much. Just stick to the good bodybuilding foods and train heavy. Your muscles will grow and you will gain weight. If you put on a little fat so what? You said it was easy for you to burn it off

You are gunna have a hard time bulking up if you arent eating more cals than you are burning. It just doesnt happen and if it does it will take a lot longer. It soudns like to me your buddies went on the see food diet and just binge ate. because ive gone on bulking cycles for a few months and my stomach stayed flat but i got considerably bigger. But it is possible to bulk up at a decent rate without getting a big ol fat nasty gut and making your entire body looking sloppy and disgusting.

You gotta do it one thing at a time or take the harder approach IMO and do a zig zag type of diet.

Bulk then cut bulk then cut.

Edit: Oh yeh one last thing ppl seem to forget when eating clean foods to bulk. TIMING of your foods is also crucial and same for supplimentation.

 

[vipergq]

holy crap.....tired of eating after 2000 calores a day....

When I bulk, I seriously get two 2000+ calorie meals a day along with 3 other meals.

 

[Sim882]

As someone who also doesn't desire the fat look, I'm interested in your comment cautioning against the zig zag method.

I was considering a variation of the method - 6 weeks bulk, 1 week cut. The point here is not too lose fat, I'm just assume I will gain about 100 grams a fat per week, and then will lose it each 7th week. What about this kind of zig zagging, which is mainly bulking.

I'm 70kg, 5'6 and 9-10% bf; long term goal is just 75kg and 6%bf.

Well I can tell you one thing. There are two types of calories. "Clean" and "Dirty" Basically the good bodybuilding basic foods and your junk foods of all sorts. If you want to bulk up and you eat mostly dirty calories then you will most likely gain fat and water weight. Even if you carelessly throw the good foods down the hatch you can gain more fat than muscle. The key is to eat every 2-3 hrs of small/decent sized meals. Dont all the time eat huge meals where you feel bloated afterwords but if you wanna bulk up a lot then once in awhile occasionally toughing it out and making yourself over eat can help. Its really hard to put on all muscle and not much fat. BUT u dont have to get all fattened up and sloppy looking to bulk either.

And like someone stated earlier bulking up doesnt consist of a month long. It takes months if you want to put on lean muscle mass. But in order to bulk you will need to obviously consume more calories than you are burning. For you I would say you wont need to do cardio much. Just stick to the good bodybuilding foods and train heavy. Your muscles will grow and you will gain weight. If you put on a little fat so what? You said it was easy for you to burn it off

You are gunna have a hard time bulking up if you arent eating more cals than you are burning. It just doesnt happen and if it does it will take a lot longer. It soudns like to me your buddies went on the see food diet and just binge ate. because ive gone on bulking cycles for a few months and my stomach stayed flat but i got considerably bigger. But it is possible to bulk up at a decent rate without getting a big ol fat nasty gut and making your entire body looking sloppy and disgusting.

You gotta do it one thing at a time or take the harder approach IMO and do a zig zag type of diet.

Bulk then cut bulk then cut.

Edit: Oh yeh one last thing ppl seem to forget when eating clean foods to bulk. TIMING of your foods is also crucial and same for supplimentation.

 

[10001110101]

holy crap.....tired of eating after 2000 calores a day....

When I bulk, I seriously get two 2000+ calorie meals a day along with 3 other meals.

yeah eating is my achilles heal w/regards to training. i just fuckin can't stomach the food. i can only force myself for a few weeks before i just can't take it anymore, usually not long enough to put on any weight.

like i said though, if i eat shit food like mcdonalds (which let me tell you is the most calorie dense food on the planet) i can do it, it's just the shear volume of the food my body can't handle, which sucks too because that means i cna't eat big and clean, if i go big i have to eat dirty cals which really gets stored as fat anyways.

 

[Hybridtheory2o]

Well a zig zag type of diet is ok but imo it seems like it would just take a little longer. I dont have a ripped 6 pack showing yet but when I bulk up and im standing up my stomach is quite flat and im not really that bloated looking. I just prefer eating big and clean cals to bulk up and train pretty heavy and then throwing in 1-2 weeks of training really really really heavy.

Well if eating is your achilles heals then you better learn how to eat. Not trying to sound like a prick but I cant bullshit either. You aint gunna gain much if you cant learn to like some of the clean foods and actually enjoy them. You can flavor them a little, shit I do and all my shit tastes awesome. Bulking seems to be a lot easier than cutting because you can afford to have some extra snacks because the whole goal is to consume more cals than burning.

You have to get over the junk food addiction. After a few weeks of slowly going into the clean foods its really easy to do. Sometiems I look at fast food and im like ew nasty fat drippin shit and other tiems im like hm im in a rush damn out of chicken shit i need more cals and then ill eat it for that reason but i wont eat like 7 cheeseburgers or anythign ill have a double quarter pounder with cheese meal with water to drink and thats it.

Im tellin ya if I can go from HATING salad and never eating it all my life to actually enjoying it as of a few months ago im pretty sure you can learn how to eat lol.

Think of the food as fuel man and think of your body as a real expensive sportscar. Would you tune a sportscar to run hella fast 1/4 times and then give it cheap ass meh oil and let it go over 3k miles everytime u have the oil and fluid changed and not change the tires or anything like that and expect it to run fast 1/4 times consistantly and safely if that? My guess is no you wouldnt you would put the best fuel in it and make sure all the air to fuelr atios were correct and all the fluids were changed and maintained. Well your body is the same and you cant expect it to undergo a beatin in the gym and then feed it junk all the time becaue what will happen is you will hit a wall and get nowhere and then u will be pissed off and flustered.