My Lean Mass Gaining (“Bulking”) Diet and Plan.

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Photo by Oliver Sjöström from Pexels

Way back in some of my first posts/articles you will note I detailed my cutting/weight loss plan and diet. I have maintained that diet (besides some awesome cheat days and a long break after the birth of my child) until I hit my goal of 180 lbs. You can take a look at the results of my cut on my progress page. As I noted in those earlier posts, I tend to cut until I reach about 10-12% body fat and then go on a maintenance or mass building cycle until I start to feel a little too chubby (usually between 16-18% body fat). I do this because I feel that once you approach that 10-12% body fat range your body wants to start eating away at your hard earned muscle to fuel itself. Even professional body builders will not stay this lean between shows or after show season has ended for this very reason. Going on a bulk not only offers me some dietary reprieve, but it also helps me gain muscle by placing my body in a caloric surplus (eating more calories than needed). By going through these cycles I end up with a few more pounds of muscle on my frame per year, even after my cuts.

My goal is to gain 1-2 pounds per month. This is why I call this a “lean bulk” because most people aim for a pound a week or more during a “traditional bulk” and eat WHATEVER they want during a “dirty bulk”. I have personally done the traditional and dirty bulk and I am not a fan. You add mass (mostly fat) so fast that you spend WAY to long cutting to get it back off. If you do a lean bulk you can expect LESS fat gain and be able to strip it off 2-4 times faster than doing a traditional or dirty bulk. Thus shortening your cutting period, which is nice because you can get those abs popping a lot faster. The longer you spend in a caloric deficit, the higher the chance of losing muscle, plus you have to wait longer until your next bulk, which is where you will gain most of your muscle mass throughout the year. If you read my post on Gaining Muscle Mass, you will note that MOST of us can only gain a few pounds of lean muscle a year. Given this fact, there is no point in adding 20 pounds over 5 months and hoping there is a lot of muscle…because a vast majority of it is fat.

I would ultimately like to spend the majority of my year in a bulk and cut during the winter months to get the oh-so-sought-after beach body, but you have to account for the time spent getting there. 8 months in a bulk cycle (from October through May) should net me around 8-16 pounds, 4 months of cutting should cut down that 16 pounds (but some of that “fat” should be muscle so I won’t lose all the weight). However, that puts me not getting into beach body shape until the END of summer or last least half way through. So what I do is start my bulk in September (after this year) through April. This still gives me 8 months of maximum muscle gains and the same amount of proposed weight gain. I would cut for 2 months (May-June) and that should drop the excess fat I’d have gained (only two months to work off 8 months of excess calories sounds awesome doesn’t it?). So what about the remaining two months? These are maintenance months. I will stay in my maintenance calorie range and stay at my “cut” weight. for the remaining two months before I start my bulk again. This also theoretically primes the body’s “set point” and your body will not bounce back and forth in weight as much if you do a maintenance cycle (again, this is theoretical). This way I am not cutting for too long or starting my bulk during beach season, but getting “cut” and staying at that point for the warmest months.

OK, now on to the actual diet. My diet during my bulk doesn’t change much from my cutting diet except I am basically adding some things back in (i.e. switching from Egg Beaters to whole eggs and adding more carbs to keep my glycogen stores up and increase strength/endurance in the gym).

My Bomb A$$ Breakfast Burrito (made fresh every morning, no prep involved) 

• 6 whole eggs, 4 pieces of American cheese and a whole wheat tortilla. 
  • Actually ends up being 3.5 pieces of cheese after I share a half a slice with my dog each morning (it’s our morning routine because he helps me cook breakfast)
  • There are some small studies that show your body tends to use your first macro of the day as the preferred fuel source (in this case healthy fats in the eggs). This would theoretically prime my body for better fat burning for fuel instead of using up my carbs, which I want to be used for glycogen.
• I use La Banderita 100% whole wheat soft taco shells (tortilla) because they have no partially hydrogenated oils, trans fat, bleached flour, sugar or lard. 

My Post-workout Protein Shake

• Half a cup of 2% milk (I eyeball this now after measuring a hundred times you kinda get the gist of it), 2 scoops WHEY protein (I use vanilla creme flavor) and fill with water. 
  • I use Fairlife milk because it has less sugar, but I would recommend Unsweetened Almond Milk as it has no sugar and only like 30 calories per serving (for this of you who didn’t find out your deathly allergic to almonds like me), the vanilla flavor and thickness make for a good protein shake. 

My Powerhouse Taco Meal (x2)

• 6 ounces of cooked taco meat per meal (equates to almost exactly 8oz (half a pound) of uncooked meat), 2 tortillas (same tortilla as the egg meal) and around 2 TBSP (maybe? I calculated it out before but didn’t write it down) of full fat sour cream. 
  • I use a blend of 50% lean beef (85%-15%) and 50% ground turkey (AKA turkey burger). 
    • I used to do separate tacos (one beef, one turkey burger) but then I was having to cook two separate times and it doesn’t matter as long as the amount of calories and macros at the end of the day are equivalent.
    • I also find that the beef offsets the dryness of the turkey burger and this is a good way to go for those who don’t particularly care for turkey burger (I happen to love it). 
• I also make my own taco seasoning because when I had tried the ketogenic diet I realized how much sugar and additives are in the prepackaged taco seasoning. I actually like the seasoning I make a lot better and can pep it up by adding more cayenne pepper. Plus I can make it in bulk, which is super important and significantly cheaper when I am cooking over 8 pounds of meat each week or so. Here is a link to my Taco Seasoning Recipe
• I measure out 6 oz at a time and place them into meal prep containers, I keep 4 meals (2 days worth) in the fridge at a time and freeze the rest. As I pull two meals out and take them to work, I will put two meals from the freezer in the fridge and they will be appropriately thawed by the day I use them. 

Sleepy Time Protein Shake

• Very similar to my post workout shake, but I use Casein protein, which is a very slow digesting protein. 
• Half a cup of 2% milk, 2 scoops CASEIN protein (I use cookies and cream flavor) and fill with water 
• This gives me a steady drip of protein overnight, which is when we need protein because humans tend to build/repair muscle while we sleep. Having a steady stream of protein and NO helps with that and keeps us from going catabolic. 

This is my daily routine during my workout days (Monday through Friday). On the weekend I don’t generally workout (unless I had to skip a day during the week and make it up on the weekend). On the weekend I am not making either of my protein shakes and my protein demand goes down when I’m not working out (as does my caloric demand) so I tend to have a Halo Top Ice Cream while relaxing in front of the TV on the weekends at night. This is a treat for me and also gives me some casein protein in it (casein is naturally occurring in milk) but also still leaves me in a slight caloric deficit compared to my workout days because you should try to have less calories on your rest days for obvious reasons (you aren’t generally burning as many calories). This particular type of ice cream is high in protein, lower in fat and sugar than other ice creams and still delicious.

My total macros for the workout days are as follows:

• 2765 calories
• 248g protein
• 127g fat
• 135g carbohydrates

As I pointed out above, this diet isn’t significantly different from my cutting diet. I have substituted Egg Beaters for whole eggs, which add a significant amount of healthy calories (I truly believe that eggs are natures perfect food). The ONLY other difference is I have added two more tortillas to my taco meals throughout the day. I now use 2 tortillas with each taco meal, but divide the same amount of sour cream I was using between the two tortillas.

This caloric intake (~ 2700) is close to my “calculated” TDEE (my maintenance intake) so if I find that I am not gaining enough (or any) I will likely add a few servings of oatmeal to bump up my carbs (this takes place of my whey protein shake because I can just add the 2 scoops of protein to the oatmeal and the vanilla protein tastes great with it). I would ultimately like to cut out some of the fats and aim for more carbs to fuel my workouts better, but I find myself to truly enjoy my diet with more healthy fats in it. If I find that I am gaining too fast I will likely cut out my morning tortilla to start or possibly do half Egg Beaters and half whole egg breakfast (this cuts out fats, not carbs). Lots of wiggle room here! If I change the diet up, I will update this article to reflect the diet.